Valen (Guardians of Hades Romance Series Book 2) Read online

  Scales emerged from beneath the male’s black jumper and rippled over his hand.

  That was cheating.

  Valen spun on his heel and brought his left blade around in a deadly arc, aiming it for his throat this time. The black knife struck. Bounced off scales again. Fucker.

  The male slammed a fist into his kidney and he grunted as he staggered forwards from the blow. Fine. Maybe these two weren’t as weak as most of the daemons he fought. He wasn’t going to complain. It had been too long since he had been able to go all out and have a good brawl.

  The feel of his little assassin’s eyes on him reminded him that he couldn’t go all out now either.

  He grumbled another string of curses aimed at her and focused on his two opponents. The female was still down, leaking blood at a rate that said she wasn’t going to be getting up anytime soon. If at all.

  The pale-haired bastard landed a blow in his stomach and Valen knocked him back with a right uppercut of his own. He went to follow with a blow with his left blade to see whether this one could do the impenetrable scales trick too, and the brunet grabbed him from behind, locking his arms under Valen’s and restraining him.

  His friend grinned.

  Victoriously?

  Was he serious?

  This was little more than a brief inconvenience, a pause in the build up to what was going to be a very bloody, very beautiful fight that would end in only one way.

  With him grinning victoriously at their corpses.

  Pale-haired idiot approached, cracking knuckles like some cliché out of an action movie.

  Valen reared back as he came within striking distance, forcing his captor to bend backwards with him and allowing him to bring his legs up. He slammed his right boot hard into the pale-haired one’s skull, heard bone crack beneath the blow, and followed it with a left kick to the chest. He staggered backwards, lost his footing and landed on his arse in the small square.

  Brunet struggled. A useless endeavour.

  Valen’s boots hit the deck again and he kicked upwards once more, propelling himself over the head of his captor. He landed behind the bastard and the wretched worm tried to run, so Valen stuck a knife in the back of his left thigh.

  He screamed, somewhere between a hiss and a shriek, and limped away while fumbling with the blade.

  Valen wanted it back. It was one of his favourites.

  He kicked off again, shouldered the guy in his spine and sent him sprawling across the flagstones, landing on top of him and tearing a pained grunt from his lips. He shoved a knee hard into the daemon’s back, reached over and yanked the blade free of his thigh. Another hiss-scream tore through the night and he swore little assassin gasped from her perch in the shadows.

  A boot came out of nowhere, slamming into the side of Valen’s head and knocking him sideways, off the brunet. He growled, his head throbbing and darkness pouring through his veins in response. It coaxed his power, drew it to the surface, and by the gods he wanted to unleash it all on the fuckers.

  He wanted to make it rain lightning until only ashes remained.

  He raised his hand to do just that and both daemons flinched, tensing in preparation for the strike.

  Damn it.

  Unleashing enough voltage to blow his enemies to pieces would also put the assassin in danger, and he was damned if he was going to ruin his perfect track record of not harming mortals.

  He called his black blade to his hand, using another of his powers to rip it out of the dead female daemon. It shot into his palm and he closed his fingers around the bound leather hilt, slowly rose onto his feet and faced the two males.

  Both of whom looked somewhere between stunned and relieved.

  Their lucky day. He was going to have to kill them the old-fashioned way.

  He reached beneath his coat and palmed another two of his throwing knives. He couldn’t risk imbuing them with electricity, not with the assassin watching, but they could still do their work. They could still slow down the daemons for him. All it would take was a well-aimed blow and the Moirai being nice to him for once by not letting scales get in the way.

  Brunet staggered onto his feet. Black blood pumped down his leg, soaking into his jeans and making them shine under the street lights.

  It stank.

  Valen curled his lip at the male.

  Darkness coursed through him in response, growing stronger, rising to consume him as it often did. His father’s gift to all his sons, born of his blood in their veins. A dangerous, often undeniable, hunger to destroy.

  Valen loved it.

  He knew the second that darkness manifested, shifting like a malevolent shadow across his features and turning his eyes black, because the daemons glanced at each other and looked ready to bolt.

  No. Not on his watch.

  His teeth ached, canines sharpening, and the darkness gripped him tighter, squeezing the light out of him. Just the way he loved it.

  Brunet turned to make a break for it.

  Two throwing knives put an end to that, the first slamming to the hilt in his right calf and the second burying deep into the back of his skull, dropping him like a sack of bricks onto the ground.

  Blondie turned wide fearful eyes on his dead companion and then slowly looked back at him.

  “You’re next.” Valen grinned.

  Movement on his senses was the only warning he had before the soft fragrance of roses and sin hit him and knocked him off kilter.

  Threw him right off his game in fact.

  He pivoted on his heel and blocked the knife little assassin had aimed at him, ripping a startled gasp from her and knocking her backwards. She recovered quickly, coming at him again, her blue eyes flashing with determination. Another thrust of the blade. This one he blocked a little harder with his forearm, enough that it was probably going to leave a bruise.

  He frowned as she regrouped and came at him again, and he realised it wasn’t a knife she held.

  It was a syringe.

  What the actual fuck?

  Why the hell did she keep trying to drug him?

  He clucked his tongue and stepped, closing the short distance between them in a heartbeat, his face twisting into a sneer as he reached her.

  Wide blue eyes hit his and she blinked hard, the only outward sign that he had startled her again.

  He towered over her. Such a little thing, but so fierce and fiery. Even faced with him as he was now, consumed by the darkness, hungry for blood and violence, she stood her ground and was recovering her wits. He could see it in her eyes as they slowly narrowed, could almost hear her rapidly considering every move she could make and every consequence of that action.

  “That for me?” he murmured and jerked his chin towards the glass syringe she gripped in her right hand.

  He half expected her to shake her head, had met enough mortals and fought enough daemons to know how most of them would respond given the situation.

  She nodded.

  Her fingers twitched.

  In a lightning fast strike, he caught her hand and squeezed it.

  She cried out as the glass smashed under the pressure and staggered backwards as he released her, clutching her bleeding hand.

  Valen smiled. “We all have our little problems.”

  Panic lit her eyes.

  He turned away from her and hurled his remaining blade at Blondie, because the damned idiot was standing in the middle of the square gawping at him and the assassin and he should have been running, or taking advantage of Valen’s distraction to at least attack him as he had anticipated.

  It seemed everyone was bent on doing the opposite of what he expected tonight.

  The blade nailed him in his left pectoral and Valen frowned, anger with the assassin and the daemons condensing into anger at himself for missing his target. Six centuries of playing with knives and not once had he missed the exact spot he had intended to hit.

  Rather than watching the daemon writhe in agony as he clutched the blade protruding f
rom his heart, Valen had to go all the way across the damn square to recover it. He stomped over to the daemon, ignoring the way his little assassin went into full meltdown behind him, muttering some not very complimentary things about him in her native tongue, pulled the blade from Blondie’s chest as the daemon blankly stared at it, and ran it across his throat.

  And, yeah, he might have put a little lightning in it, because the bastard went down shaking like a leaf in a hurricane.

  He glanced back over his shoulder and found the assassin too preoccupied with her predicament to notice the way the daemon was switching back and forth between mortal and scaled monstrosity.

  He took a few steps back towards her, the black haze lifting as his body got the message that the fight was done. Over before it had really begun. Disappointing as always.

  The assassin lifted her head, skin pale as snow and eyes as round as saucers. He hazarded a guess that she wasn’t sure what had been in that syringe, but that she thought it was lethal.

  Not his problem.

  So why was he finding it hard to leave?

  Why did he want to go to her and check her hand, and see if he could figure out what the bastards had given her to use on him?

  He shut down his softer side and shoved it back into place where it belonged.

  If he felt any need to find out what poison had been in the syringe, it was because he needed to meet with his brothers later and he could report it to them, together with how persistent her client was getting.

  It had nothing to do with her.

  He edged back a step, distancing himself, and she swallowed hard. Her blue eyes turned glassy as she wavered on her feet, whatever drug had been in the vial already affecting her.

  Was it going to kill her?

  Was it wrong that he didn’t want it to?

  She was out to kill him, which should have been enough for him to want her dead, yet he couldn’t bring himself to end her.

  He couldn’t bring himself to watch her die either.

  He turned away from her, focused on his apartment and stepped.

  Something grabbed him from behind and fell away as he landed in his apartment, hitting the tiled floor with a hard thump and a muffled grunt.

  Valen looked down at the assassin where she lay at his feet, breathing hard, her skin flushed now and pupils rapidly switching between wide deep pools of alluring darkness and pinpricks.

  What the fuck had been in that syringe?

  Whatever it was, he wasn’t sure it was killing her.

  He bent over and pulled her onto her feet and she didn’t try to fight him. She melted into him, a limp little thing in his arms. Fragile. Delicate.

  “Who sent you?”

  Fear crossed her beautiful face and he had the impression it wasn’t the drug making her scared now. She was afraid of her client.

  “No one can find you here. I’ll keep you safe.” He frowned. Blinked. Had he just said those words?

  He struggled to focus as his head became heavy and a deep hunger began to burn in his gut.

  A dangerous hunger.

  What the fuck?

  He blinked again and looked down at her hand and then manoeuvred her so he could see his own. Blood stained it. His blood. He squeezed his eyes shut as the throbbing in his head grew worse and then opened them and peered down at his hand.

  Something glimmered in the overhead light.

  A splinter of glass.

  Fucked.

  Royally fucked.

  “Why?” she murmured, and gods, it was the sweetest thing he had ever heard, lit up his blood like a sultry whisper and made the burning inside him grow hotter, fiercer.

  Damn. Not a poison meant to kill. He laughed, and she frowned at him. He knew it was an inappropriate response, but she would probably find it hilarious if she knew what the fuck her client had just given to her.

  She wriggled in his arms. “I tried to kill you.”

  Her question made sense now. He wasn’t one to hold grudges. Not really.

  Well, maybe a little.

  “Who sent you?” he said again, but couldn’t get his damn voice above a whisper now, just as she couldn’t.

  It was already fucking with his head.

  He set her down on his black leather couch and ripped the splinter of glass from his hand. A pointless endeavour. The drug was already in his system. It was a waiting game now. Sooner or later he would purge it.

  He glanced at the assassin as she wilted on his couch, slumping so her top half was lying on the seats and her legs dangled so her sexy little knee-high black boots hit the floor.

  Valen told himself not to do it, fought for control, but his eyes betrayed him and roamed up those kinky boots, over tight black jeans and the sinful curve of her hip, to her leather jacket. It had spilled open, revealing another wicked little number, this one a red halter-top that barely held her breasts in as she lay on his couch.

  In his apartment.

  Alone with him.

  He rubbed a hand over his mouth, groaned as he smelled her on it, but not only her.

  The sweet poison she had managed to hit him with filled his nostrils too.

  The throbbing in his head roamed lower, mingled with that intoxicating needy heat in his gut and kept going, flames licking downwards. He groaned and resisted rubbing a hand over another part of his anatomy.

  This wasn’t good.

  “Who sent you?” He tried to make it sound demanding, but he sounded out of breath, on the verge of panting.

  Valen sucked down a deep breath and held it, and almost laughed at himself again. As if that was going to make a damned difference.

  The assassin rolled onto her back, flinging her right arm above her head, and gods, she had to stop doing shit that made her look so damn tempting.

  At least until his body purged the drug.

  “There was a woman this time,” she murmured, her eyes slipping shut, and slowly lowered her right hand.

  “This time?” His eyes narrowed on her. At least she was being more talkative, giving him information he could use.

  “Was a guy before… working together.” She toyed with the black lengths of her hair, twirled a blue strand around her fingers, and sighed.

  He damn near came in his pants.

  “Up,” he snapped and when she didn’t budge, he stalked over to her, grabbed her right arm and yanked her onto her feet.

  She crumpled into a heap on his floor, shaking so hard he thought she might rattle something loose.

  He bent to pick her up again. The second he wrapped his hand around her arm, electricity bolted through him and the way she gasped said she had felt it too. Not his power though. This was something else. Something a little too dangerous for his liking.

  He pulled her up and she fell into him, her hands pressing against his chest, scalding him through his t-shirt even though she was freezing.

  “What’s happening to me?” she whispered as she looked up at his face.

  “You got a taste of your own medicine.” He gazed down at her, fighting the hazy warmth that crept up his arm from his palm and the words it whispered to him.

  Kiss her.

  Her eyes dropped to his mouth as if she had heard that same demand, but her shaking worsened and her skin paled further.

  This wasn’t good.

  “I’m going to die.” Her face twisted, pain filling her eyes and driving out the desire, fear that called to him.

  Valen cradled her closer and closed his eyes, losing his fight against the drug.

  “Don’t let me die,” she whispered against his chest.

  Gods, that tore at him.

  He wrapped his arms around her. “I won’t let you go.”

  This wasn’t good at all.

  CHAPTER 4

  Valen lifted the assassin into his arms and stumbled through the huge living room of his apartment, heading towards the bathroom. He bumped off the dark wooden wall of the corridor and she moaned, curling up in his arms. He murmured an ap
ology and held her closer, a trickle of panic running through him.

  Was she going to die?

  He shouldn’t care. He really shouldn’t.

  So why did it feel as though his heart was being torn apart all over again?

  It was the drug. It was fucking with him. He shook his head to clear the hot haze from it and walked onwards, staggered really. This wasn’t good at all. The fog in his head turned into a strange sort of lightness that made the hallway spin in front of his eyes.

  He tried to shake it off.

  That only made the room spin faster.

  Fuck.

  He shut his eyes and used his senses to guide him to the bathroom. By the time he had passed the two bedrooms to reach it, his head felt heavy again. Almost normal. He risked opening his eyes. The hallway remained mercifully still.

  Valen shoved the wooden door to the bathroom open and carried the assassin inside. He had to get her warm.

  A voice at the back of his mind said what he had to do was call his brothers. He was in deep shit and he knew it.

  “No,” he bit out and she looked up at him, blue eyes hazy but questioning him. “Wasn’t talking to you.”

  She remained staring at him, teeth chattering and lips almost as pale as her cheeks. Damn it.

  He set her down on the floor, afraid to risk putting her on the closed toilet seat in case she fell and hit her head, and went to the claw-footed tub. He twisted the taps and paused as water thundered into the empty bath.

  What the hell was he doing?

  He looked back at her where she sat by the door, clawing at her clothes as if she wanted to rip them off even though she was freezing.

  He wasn’t sure why he was helping her. Fuck, she wanted to kill him.

  He eyed her hand. Although he wasn’t sure the drug was meant to end him. The way she was squirming as he stared at her, her eyes fixed on his and imploring him, echoed everything that was boiling up inside him.

  Gods, he wanted her.

  Craved her.

  Needed her.

  “It’s the drug,” he said, more to himself than to her, needing to fill the room with the sound of something other than her soft whimpers. “It’ll wear off in a day or two.”

  At least he thought it would. He really needed to call Marek at least. As the brains of the bunch, his older brother was sure to know what had been in the syringe.