Guardian's Joy #3 Read online

  He snarled, a reminder to himself that she was the killer of a Paenitentia child, and shifted his stance.

  JJ was pressed into the wall, her shoulders grinding into the brick. He’d moved so fast she didn’t have time to strike or dodge. She struggled against his hold, but it was useless. When he pulled back slightly from his full body press, she raised her knee, aiming for his groin, but the maneuver seldom worked and this time was no exception. He shifted his body so that his right knee hit the bricks between her legs and his thigh and hip pressed into her abdomen effectively repinning her lower body. Her hands were still free and she should have been able to call on her power to zap him with enough energy to stop his heart. She could feel the blue fire crackling at her fingertips, but she couldn’t send it out. When he raised his thigh into her crotch and lifted her off the ground, she gasped.

  Her pulse quickened beyond the adrenaline rush of fear and flight. She closed her eyes and silently cursed the tingle of desire that crept from the juncture of her legs where his thigh was pressed tight, up to her abdomen where muscles constricted in anticipation and fingers of heat curled through her stomach. Her breasts stood taut against the confining leather of her vest and when he spoke, inches from her lips, her body quickened with desire. Goddamn him.

  “Who the hell are you?” he asked in a whispered growl.

  Her lips parted against her will to drink in the warmth of his breath and her body trembled slightly with her sigh.

  “Why did you do it? Who are you?” he asked again without the growl. He didn’t want to do this, didn’t want to question her, didn’t want to hurt her. He bent his head to her neck and took a long, slow breath, trying to place her scent. She smelled of something spicy and sweet and delicious. Goddammit, he couldn’t do this.

  “Who are you?” he asked a third time and his lips touched her neck. Recognition came as the scent and the taste blended together in his memory and he couldn’t help it. He smiled. It was those little red candies Grace used to decorate cookies.

  “Joy,” she whispered and swallowed hard. Why had she given him that name, the one she abhorred? His lips were on her neck, over her jugular and their whisper soft movement sent another sexual shiver through her core. Was this what it was like to die from a vampire’s bite?

  Joy? Nardo pulled away from the sweet temptation of that long slender neck. He shook his head to clear it of the fantasy that was swirling through his brain and hardening his cock against the fly of his jeans. There was a job to be done.

  “No joy for the kid you killed,” he said quietly.

  Her mouth opened and closed several times before she could speak. “Killed? You think I…? She was…”

  Her fist came up and clocked him in the ear. She’d been held in some kind of vampire thrall and hadn’t even realized she was free. He only grunted with the blow that would have knocked a normal man off his feet. As he was planting his feet more firmly to steady himself, she struck again, twisted and slid beneath him.

  This time, he was ready for her and when she struck, he grabbed her wrist. She snapped it downward, trying to break his grasp and he heard the crack, saw the pained shock in her eyes and let her go. She scrambled backward, bracing herself with her good hand and kicking out with her legs.

  “You bastard!” she screamed. She yelped as shards of glass pierced her palm. “I didn’t kill that girl and you know it. I heard her cry out. I was trying to help. It was your kind that did it. Your kind. A monster. For all I know, it was you.”

  Shit. Shit. Shit! Nardo knew in her anger she’d spoken the truth. He held his hands out in a calming gesture, took a deep breath and then another to dispel the rage. He’d hurt her and she was an innocent. He could have killed her. He’d wanted to kill her. His stomach rolled at the thought.

  “It wasn’t me,” he said when he felt his fangs retract, “You had the knife, blood on your hands. I thought… oh shit, I’m sorry.” He nodded toward her broken wrist. “You’re injured. Let me help you.” He moved cautiously forward. “I won’t hurt you. I’m okay now.”

  His face and body had returned to normal. No, not normal, just more human. You couldn’t consider a vampire normal unless, of course, you were a vampire. Everything’s relative. JJ smiled and then remembered this was no joke. What was the matter with her? The adrenalin and other hormones rushing through her body must be making her giddy.

  “You’re a vampire. Stay away from me.” She scooted back until she was propped against the wall, cradling her broken wrist in her left hand.

  “I’m a Guardian, not a vampire, at least not yet,” Nardo said honestly, “I’d have to be killed before I could be turned and that’s not something I plan on doing. We’re called Paenitentia and our race has been around for as long as yours.” He moved closer. He needed to touch her forehead with his thumb in order to wipe away her recent memories. Unlike Canaan and Nico, he wasn’t old enough to erase memories from a distance.

  He slowly raised his hand toward her, palm up, and an image came to mind of a horse trainer he’d once watched as a boy, approaching a half-wild filly. This woman was like that filly; fast, strong, half-wild, and beautiful.

  “If you’re not a vampire, quit looking at me like I’m lunch.” JJ held out her hand in a way that said stop and she saw him wince at the gash on her palm. Good. It was his fault she was cut.

  He changed and lunged so fast she screamed. In a flash of white light, he was on top of her, crushing her with power and muscle and just as quickly he was torn away, torn and thrown along the alley.

  The beast that ripped the Guardian from her then turned to tower over JJ. There was no sign of its human form, only monster and it was bleeding from the neck and chest and legs. It had come over the wall behind her to attack. Before she could raise her hand and expel the fire that was now searing her hand with the need to be released, the vampire, Guardian or whatever he was, leaped on the beast’s back with a strange, curved blade in his hand. He aimed for the neck, but the creature twisted and screeched in pain when the blade sliced through its shoulder.

  JJ rolled away from the fight and was on her feet, her useless right hand by her side and her left extended, fingers crackling with electric flame. The two creatures, beast and other, were locked in combat, rolling, slashing, coming together and moving apart. She should have released the flame into the two of them, yet she couldn’t. Each time she thought of it, the flames at her fingertips died. He’d saved her life, she couldn’t take his now. The back of his jacket was shredded and blood seeped from the tears. More blood covered the side of his face and neck though she couldn’t tell if it was his or the beast’s. She heard someone calling, two voices, his friends, coming to his aid. Would they want to kill her, too?

  The Guardian rolled to his back, drew his knees up to his chest and kicked out with a miraculous force to send the beast crashing into the wall. JJ threw the fire at the beast’s chest. It screamed as the blue flame, sizzling and crackling, coated its body. The other was safe. Her debt was paid. JJ turned and ran.

  Nardo stared at the demon splayed against the wall. He’d never seen anything like it. Blue flame skimmed over the demon’s skin like St. Elmo’s fire. The creature screamed until the flame petered out and it fell to the ground. Nardo carved out the still beating heart and held it aloft.

  “Holy shit! What the fuck did you do?” Dov came to a skidding halt with Col two steps behind him. They stared at the smoldering body that was already beginning to shrivel.

  “I didn’t do it. She did.” Nardo pointed to where Joy had been standing.

  The woman was gone.

  Chapter 5

  Nardo entered the House of Guardians through the concealed door in the pantry, heard Benny Goodman tootling If I Could Be With You on his clarinet and knew Grace was in the kitchen starting dinner. She turned to him with a large metal spoon in her hand.

  “You’re hurt,” she said in greeting and immediately began scrubbing her hands with soap and hot water. “How bad?” />
  This was his Liege Lord’s lady. She bullied, fussed at, cared for and cried over all of them and they, in turn, teased and tormented her and loved her dearly.

  “Bad,” he said and when he saw her concerned glance past his shoulder, he added, “The situation, not us. Everyone’s fine. Canaan and Nico were still at the scene when I left, but they were heading over to Moonlight Sanctuary to break the news. The twins’ll be along shortly. They’re finishing the clean-up. It’s the victim that makes it bad Grace. She’s a member of the Race and just reached her maturity. Her being from the Sanctuary only makes it worse.”

  Nardo winced as he peeled off his jacket and shirt, taking with them the dried blood that sealed the wounds in his back.

  “I meant you,” she said as she dried her hands on a clean towel from the drawer. She always scrubbed her hands and their wounds with soap and water even though they weren’t susceptible to human infections.

  “I got clawed,” he said and waved off her concern.

  She shooed him toward the door and followed with a basin of hot water. “Get back to the clinic and let me take care of it.”

  The clinic was actually a corner of the all-purpose room at the back of the house. In addition to the game and pool tables and state of the art entertainment system, Grace had set up two cots and a cabinet that contained everything they needed to treat the various injuries they collected while hunting demons. There was even a screen for privacy though it was only opened up when Hope was in the room.

  Nico’s shy mate still wasn’t used to living in a house where male modesty wasn’t a high priority. Much to his shame, Nardo wondered what Hope was like in private. She always flushed red when Nico kissed her in front of them.

  While Grace pulled out what she needed, Nardo sat on a low stool and hunched his back to give her better access to his wounds.

  “Tell me about Moonlight Sanctuary,” she ordered as she began to clean the claw marks on his back.

  “You make the twins go to their dances, but you don’t know anything about it?” Nardo laughed and then coughed when she scrubbed a particularly deep spot.

  “I’ll make the boys go anywhere I think they’ll meet a better class of female than they usually look for.”

  “Have you been spying?” he asked, teasing.

  “Don’t have to. I do their laundry. It reeks of cheap perfume and other things I’d rather not identify.” She rinsed her cloth and started scrubbing again. “I knew about Moonlight Sanctuary before I came here. Like everybody else, I thought it was a private community of some religious cult.”

  “Good cover, huh? They’re outside the city limits, so city officials leave them alone. Dov says it’s like a village. They’ve got shops and restaurants and little businesses. The House’s money managers live there.” A sharp pain made him jump. “Damn, Grace, are you using a fork to clean that out?”

  “There’s threads from your t-shirt in here.”

  “Yeah, I’m going to miss that shirt. Classic Santana.”

  “Maybe the twins are smarter than you think, buying their shirts by the dozen. Hang on, here comes the holy water.” She poured the liquid from a small vial and stood back to avoid the acrid smoke rising from the wounds.

  Nardo hissed as the poison from the demon’s claws was neutralized.

  “So why is this death more important than the others?”

  Nardo knew she meant more important than the humans who’d lost their lives. “Because Moonlight Sanctuary is more than an enclave of Paenitentia. It’s power and money and we can’t afford to piss them off. The Meeting of the Congregants is coming up and Canaan needs all the support he can get.”

  The Meeting of the Congregants was held every two years and while it was supposed to represent all members of the Race, only the most influential attended. During the Meeting the Ruling Council met and made the decisions that affected the future of the Paenitentia and this year, Canaan ad Simeon’s House of Guardian’s would be on the docket. Their Liege Lord was trying to bring the Guardians into the twenty-first century by eliminating some of the old, outdated traditions while keeping what was important intact. Those willing to join the ancient order of warriors were becoming scarce and Canaan was trying to change that; had changed that in his own House. Unfortunately, the majority of the Ruling Council saw it as unnecessary and an affront to their authority and now Nardo had added to the problem. He shook his head in disgust.

  “This is my fault, my responsibility. Canaan gave me a job to do and I fucked up and because I fucked up, that kid lost her life. The only question is how far my fuck up’s going to reach.”

  Grace walked around to face him, fists on hips. “Your job was to send them home, not to hold their hands while they were doing it. It’s a tragedy, but not your fault.”

  “What was she doing alone, Grace? Women from the Sanctuary are never left alone. Who brought her to that place?”

  “I’m sure Canaan is asking those very same questions out at the Sanctuary,” she said and looked toward the noise coming from the kitchen. “Boys are home. I need to get back to supper. You need to get a clean shirt.”

  Dov already had the oven door open and a fork in his hand. “Nardo said we were having pot roast, but I thought he just wanted to get us home.” He looked at Grace with adoring eyes. “When you get tired of the old man, I’ll be your mate, Gracie.”

  She laughed and grabbed a spoon from the counter to swat him away from the pan. “You’re just afraid that if he threw me out, you’d have to go back to eating take-out. Good thing for both of us blood bonds are permanent.” She turned back to Nardo. “Here, give me those. I’ll throw them away.”

  She reached for the torn jacket and shirt Nardo was picking up from the counter. He snatched the jacket out of her reach.

  “No, that’s all right. I’ll take care of it.” There was a bloody handprint on the shoulder. He wasn’t sure why he wanted it. A bloody handprint was a pretty sick memento of the woman in black and a screwed up night. He didn’t know what he would do with it, but he wasn’t going to throw it away. Not yet.

  “I need a shower,” he said abruptly and headed back to the room they’d come from and the passage to the house next door.

  At Grace’s suggestion, the second building had been converted to sleeping quarters for the single men; two room suites with baths. He and Broadbent had opted for the rooms on the first floor, while the twins took over half of the second floor. There were still two suites available, but they were unlikely to be filled.

  He emptied the pockets and laid the jacket carefully on the table in his sitting area, folding it so the handprint would remain smooth and undisturbed, kicked off his shoes, unbuckled his pants and then turned back to the jacket on the table.

  Nardo stared at the print for the longest time, seeing the picture in his mind of the hand that made it. He stretched out his hand and let it hover over the mark to measure his against hers. Her fingers were long and slender like the rest of her with a palm so small it would take two of them to make one of his. He widened the space between his fingers until he could see the pattern of her imprint intermingled with them and had to stop himself from gripping the leather to entwine the phantom fingers in his. When he snatched his hand away, the jacket shifted slightly and the folds formed a mock wrist to the bloody hand.

  He groaned aloud with the thought of the pain he had caused her settling deep in his gut. He winced as he heard the bones crunch in her wrist. She was so delicate, so fragile. Why hadn’t he seen it earlier? Why was he so quick to assume she was the killer?

  While he’d been obsessed with tormenting her… “Not her. Joy, her name is Joy,” a small voice in his mind shouted… a demon had been on the loose, capable of killing others. Fortunately, the twins found it first when it returned to the body. They injured it, but lost it when they stayed behind with the victim, following orders.

  The thing was blood crazed when it came over the wall at Joy. Had it landed atop her, she would have died
. Her neck and chest would have been torn instead of his back. That he’d saved her life was irrelevant. He’d cornered her there in the first place, broken her wrist and torn open her palm. It was the smell of her blood that drew the creature to her. He may as well have sent up a spotlight. Free Food Here!

  Nardo kicked at the bathroom door in his anger, sending it slamming open and into the wall and then hissed as pain shot from his big toe to his heel. He’d forgotten his feet were bare. By the Nephilim, he was losing his mind.

  *****

  JJ fumbled with her house key, dropped it for a third time and curled her lip at the cat waiting patiently to be let into the house. It purred and rubbed its cheek against her ankle.

  “If you’re going to live here, you could at least make yourself useful and pick the damn thing up,” she said around the white paper bag clutched between her teeth. She finally got the key in its slot and opened the front door. “Don’t just sit there. Get in the house.”

  She’d spent the last seven hours in the emergency room, three of them sitting in the waiting room. What followed was a nightmare on top of a nightmare.

  When her number was finally called, the nurse looked her over, took her temperature, pulse, and blood pressure, wasted more time taking a medical history that had nothing to do with her injuries and listened skeptically as JJ lied about how she obtained her broken wrist and gashes. JJ could only think of the infection that was probably coursing through her veins while the woman took care of paperwork. When, at last, the nurse washed out the cuts on her hand and prepared the wounds for stitching, JJ thought she was home free, but no. It was another half hour before the doctor came to put in the seventeen stitches needed to close the wounds and another hour before x-rays were taken of her broken wrist. And then the highlight of her morning rumbled in.

  With grizzled grey hair framing her face, a stout body that looked physically capable in spite of its size and a lined, frowning face that had seen it all and was bored with it, the social worker looked her up and down over the rims of a pair of finger smudged reading glasses.