Heart's Inferno (Fallen Guardians 4) Read online

  As if sensing her scrutiny, he glanced back. A shallow cleft notched his chin. Piercing emerald-green eyes narrowed for a second before he made his way back to her. “You’re not working tonight?”

  Huh? Kira shook her head, trying to put a name to his face. “No, I’m off…” Dammit, of course. It had been a year, after all. “Riley?”

  “Yes. Sorry, it took me a moment to recognize you with the different hair color.”

  “And you took off all yours,” she teased.

  “Yeah.” A short laugh escaped him. “Can we talk?”

  Wow, he sounded serious. In the many years she’d worked at the Peacock Lounge, she’d had several customers who needed a shoulder to cry on. “Sure, but I can only spare a few minutes. I promised to help a friend, and I’d hate to cancel at the last second.”

  “I see.”

  Though nothing showed on his face, Kira had the distinct impression something troubled him. Maybe it had to do with the girl he’d mentioned the last time he was here. “You and your girlfriend okay?”

  “What? No-no.” Instantly, his expression softened, and a genuine smile lit his face. “We’re fine.”

  Okay. Kira glanced outside through the glass door at the bike double-parked in front of the bar. Nope, she didn’t have time to talk. “I’m really sorry, Riley, I have to go. My friend’s here. How about tomorrow night? Around 6 or 7?”

  Riley frowned. “Yeah, tomorrow’s fine. See you then.”

  She nodded and slipped out into the frigid night. Man, what a strange evening this was turning out to be. Týr watching over things, and now Riley turning up and wanting to talk.

  “Hey.” The lanky teen leaning against the Suzuki lifted a hand in greeting.

  “Right back at ya,” she called out, crossing to him.

  Liam Montgomery straightened from his bike, giving her a quick smile. He raked back disheveled brown hair, badly in need of a trim.

  Kira had met him several weeks ago at The Shelter where he worked part-time. She’d gone there, hauling a reluctant Tomas with her, and Liam had somehow managed to prevent the wily eight-year-old from bolting. He was good with Tomas.

  “No sign of him yet?” she asked.

  Liam shook his head and handed her the extra helmet, his expression troubled. “I checked around The Shelter. Nothing. He’s definitely gone.”

  “The information you got about the children disappearing from the streets. You do realize the homeless don’t stay in one place for long, right?”

  “Yes, I’m aware of that, but it’s what I overheard Darwin, you know the guy who runs The Shelter, tell someone. They’re even disappearing from inside. I wouldn’t have messaged you otherwise.”

  “Okay. Okay. I want to speak to Darwin.”

  “Kira,” Liam groaned. “It’ll only land me in trouble for snooping.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t mention your name. They don’t even know we’re friends. Darn it, what was Tomas thinking? I warned him about the dangers out here.”

  Her dread grew, knowing exactly what else trolled the backstreets. Tomas was a child. He couldn’t fight off soul-sucking demoniis.

  “Let’s hope he’s at his usual hangout.” She pivoted for the Suzuki and grimaced. “Did I mention I really hate this contraption of yours?”

  “A few times.” Liam chuckled, sliding a leg over the seat. “We could grab a cab, but this beauty”—he patted the handlebars—“is good for quick getaways.”

  Boys, men, they were all the same when it came to their wheels. But he had a point.

  “Wait, you can fight, right? Just in case. I mean, these aren’t for show?” She poked his leather-clad biceps.

  “A little. I also have this little badass”—he pulled out his slingshot from inside his jacket pocket—“And I can even sense those foul-ass dirtbags from Hell.”

  At his self-disparaging humor regarding his ability, Kira shook her head. He put away his weapon and kick-started the monster. And she wondered what his story was. Liam didn’t talk much about himself, but she sensed a sadness in him. After she found Tomas, she would try and help Liam.

  Her helmet on, she cautiously straddled the pillion. Right, three things to concentrate on tonight; brave this bike, find Tomas, and hopefully, avoid a certain pain-in-the-ass Guardian whose territory she’d soon be invading.

  Chapter 2

  For years, Kira had avoided the dangerous parts of the city at night, knowing about the demoniis hunting for human souls. But when it came to a child she cared about out there alone, and with the new threat that someone was abducting the children for whatever sick plans they had, she put aside her fear.

  Three hours later and no sign of Tomas.

  Liam suddenly grasped her hand and hauled her behind several dumpsters lining the wall. The decaying stench of garbage and human waste slammed her straight in the nose and had bile twisting her stomach again. Christ!

  “Look,” Liam whispered, nodding toward movement farther down the alley. A dark figure dragged a kicking kid by the scruff of his neck.

  “Lemme go!” the boy screeched.

  It wasn’t Tomas. Still, anger surged at the mistreatment of a child and she leaped to her feet, ready to rip the jerk apart. Liam grabbed her arm and tugged her down again. “Are you crazy?” he hissed. “We need a plan first.”

  “The plan is to save him!” she hissed back.

  A loud slap reverberated, and the man snarled, “You don’t shut the fuck up, I’ll hurt you more.”

  The bastard. Growling, Kira sprang up and marched into the alley.

  Beneath the stink of piss and things she really didn’t want to know about, the faint whiff of sulfur drifted to her. Her footsteps faltered, fear constricting her lungs. Oh, shit. Not human. Demon. Hanging around Echo during her time as a demonii hunter, Kira had learned to recognize the odor.

  “Kira, wait—” Liam grabbed her arm. “He’s not human.”

  “I know.” Inhaling short, rapid breaths, Kira slid her hand under her fleece-lined jacket, taking comfort in the blade concealed at her back. “Hey, loser,” she yelled, hoping her bravery would finally find her and back up her voice. “Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?”

  “Get lost,” the demon snarled, shooting a glare at her while hauling the still-fighting boy deeper into the alley.

  “We could have just snuck up and taken him by surprise,” Liam groaned.

  “There are two of us and one of him,” Kira muttered, her weapon palmed. “This world is no longer ours alone. You have to be prepared for scourges like these.”

  Liam slingshot the demon, and he pitched backward, a guttural yowl echoing. They sprinted to where he crumpled on the asphalt. Liam grabbed the boy, and Kira plunged her blade into the demon. Unfortunately, he shifted last minute, and the dagger embedded in his side instead of his chest. Snarling, he blurred upright, fist lashing out and connecting with her cheek. Kira stumbled back, pain hurtling through her face.

  The demon yanked free the blade and flung it aside, then hauled her by her jacket to him. “I’m going to rip you from limb to limb, bitch—make you hurt—”

  “Try, scumbag!” She kneed him in the balls. Hard. He screeched and fell to the ground. Kira grabbed his hair, and snatching the other blade from her boot, she pressed the lethal edge against his carotid. “What do you want with the children?”

  Red-streaked eyes sparked in defiance and chilling coldness. “I’m clearing out the vermin from your pitiful world. Be grateful, human.”

  “Wrong answer.” Kira pushed the dagger tip deeper into his neck. Blood flowed. At the crimson trickle, bile rushed up her throat. Oh, hell. Her distraction cost her. The demon exploded up. A lash of his fist struck her in the chest. She flew back, landing on her backside, the wind knocked out of her.

  Liam snarled. His slingshot twanged in the dark, and the demon hit the opposite wall.

  A sudden ruckus erupted. Several more demons took form. “Get ‘em,” a guttural voice ordered.

/>   Crap! This was beyond her. “Let’s get outta here!” Kira yelled at Liam. Her blade fisted, she leaped up from the ground and took off, praying she didn’t collapse from the lack of oxygen in her sore lungs.

  Her fingers tingled with sharp pinpricks of power. Really? Now?

  Blindside the demons by changing their hair color? She would have rolled her eyes if she weren’t running for her life. Damn, but that hit to her chest hurt.

  Týr leaned against a wall in some fuck-to-nowhere backstreet and pinched the bridge of his nose. He needed a moment to get his sanity back, and Kira’s warm, hypnotic scent out of his head. Hell, he needed his head screwed on right. He was an unpinned grenade, an explosion waiting to happen, and recently, his edginess roiled too close to the surface.

  No one was safe around him.

  Voices from farther up the alley drifted to him. Týr lowered his hand and narrowed his eyes at the demon lounging on a bike, gabbing with his human pals, acting as if he owned the place.

  Maybe he was a prejudiced dick, but everything about them caused a black haze to fog his thoughts, his mind tracking with one demand. Kill. Kill them all.

  It had been so long since he’d been miraculously freed from Tartarus, and none of those bastard jailers from that shithole had come after him. But then he was no longer the helpless, powerless, one-handed imbecile who’d entertained them in the arena.

  Before the thought brought on the rage, the berserker side of himself that he couldn’t afford to let free, he clamped down on his shaky psychic shields and pushed off the wall, heading toward another backstreet.

  Týr rubbed his jaw, his fingers connecting with the unhealed wound there. He could have used Lila’s miracle ointment and accelerated the recovery, but he wanted the bastard to find him if this was indeed a marking.

  His thoughts backtracked to the night he’d gotten hurt. He’d just taken down three demoniis when a stray animal skulking near the dumpsters suddenly screeched and scurried off as if in fear. So, he’d checked out the disturbance, when out of nowhere, a damn blow lanced his jaw.

  Týr had no idea who the hell had caused it. All he heard was the damn chilling voice in his head. It’s not over.

  What the fuck did that even mean? Clearly, someone was hunting him.

  He never left any of his enemies alive, especially not those hell-scourges. If he could, he’d clear this realm of the damn species. But rules had to be obeyed. He couldn’t touch them as long as they abided by the Guardians’ law; hurt no human.

  “A-yo, Blondie,” a raspy voice called out from the shadows of a dingy building, pulling him out of his dark anger. “About time you showed.”

  Týr slowed down, eyes slitting. With a flash of his right hand, he had the whelp pinned against the wall, his legs dangling a few feet off the ground. “Call me that again and I’m gonna turn you into mush for our cat. And that feline eats anything, you get me?”

  Boyish laughter echoed in the dark, revealing a white smile in a young, dusky-brown face. “Whatcha bring me, homie?”

  Smart-ass little punk. Týr lowered the boy to his feet. Too thin and too full of spunk, that was Tomas. He no longer reeked of dirt and had on fresh clothes, a somewhat frayed but thick jacket, and well-worn jeans. Brand-new sneakers had replaced the ones sporting duct-taped soles.

  “You finally took my advice and went to The Shelter?” Týr nodded at the new threads as he handed the boy two bars of chocolate.

  “Hate the stinkin’ hole. My angel gimme these.” He tugged at his jacket with a happy sigh before tearing off the wrapper from one of the candy bars.

  Right. His angel. That was all Tomas could talk about recently. Týr had first come across the lad a few weeks ago, fighting with an older kid for stealing a decrepit pair of shoes. He would have walked right past had the teen not whipped out a knife.

  “And she didn’t tell you to go to The Shelter either?”

  A narrow shoulder lifted in a half-shrug as the boy wolfed down half of the sweet. “She took me there, said she’d haul me back by ma ear if she ‘eard I’ma sleepin’ on the streets again. How’ll I see her if I’ma locked up, huh?” Tomas demanded while chomping on the chocolate. “I’ma marryin’ her, ya know, when I’ma all growed up.”

  “Right…” Týr hid a smile. “That will take you about twenty years.”

  “She’ll wait for me.” Tomas nodded as if it were a done deal.

  Shaking his head, Týr took in the pitch-black alley where several homeless had settled in for the night. The mystical sword inked on his biceps suddenly stirred to life in warning. A malevolent iciness slithered down his spine at the familiar stench of sulfur coasting upwind. Dammit. These humans caged by poverty were like offerings for the soulless suckers in this dead-end backstreet.

  “Tomas—” Týr grasped the boy’s thin shoulders. “Get outta here. Now. Go back to The Shelter.” A hand on his back, he nudged the kid toward the main street, already scanning with his psychic senses for the location of the demoniis.

  “Dude, I know there’s ugly trouble.” Tomas’s dark eyes shifted down to where the demoniis were. Týr wasn’t surprised at the kid’s remark since he’d picked up on the boy’s slight psychic vibe when he first bumped into him. “But I’ma go find ma angel first and give her ma other candy.”

  A smile illuminating his young face, Tomas pushed the unopened chocolate into his jacket pocket and took off up the street, his footfalls echoing in the night.

  With preternatural speed, Týr tracked the scouring sensation. He passed the homeless, cut through a narrow thoroughfare, and sprinted into several raucous demons taking form in another dead-end alley.

  “Let’s get outta here!” a familiar feminine voice yelled. The woman leaped up from the ground and took off.

  Týr stopped dead, blood thundering in his head in terror. Kira?

  What the hell was she doing in this damn alley when even the homeless knew it was a fucking dangerous place?

  Anger took hold. Cold and furious, it slid to his gut.

  She’d lied to him. She’d fuckin’ lied to him!

  Kira panted as she ran. Dammit. It freakin’ hurt to breathe but she didn’t let that stop her.

  “Oomph!” She crashed into a rock-hard body suddenly appearing in front of her, pain spearing her already bruised lungs. Crap, not again! Freakin’ demons! Adrenaline surging, she rammed her blade towards the scourge’s chest, but he was faster. He grabbed her arm, pinning it to her back, her front plastered to his. Her blade was gone. At the familiar scent of citrusy bergamot and green pine teasing her nose…

  Oh, hell. She bit back a groan. Not him.

  “You’re in so much trouble,” Týr snarled. “Are you hurt?”

  She shook her head like some robot, struggling to get her breath back.

  “Don’t fuckin’ lie. I smell blood.” He pushed her back a bit, his icy gaze skimming over her. Despite all their squabbles, Kira had never ever been afraid of Týr. But facing him here, like this…she really, really wished she could dematerialize.

  Startling her, he cupped her chin in one huge palm, his grip firm but not hurtful. His mouth thinned, his thumb wiping away…blood? Her face stung, especially with the freezing cold, but she hadn’t realized it was bleeding.

  He lowered his head, and his warm tongue glided over her left cheek, shocking her speechless. Her heart thumped so hard in her chest, Kira was sure it would crash through her ribs as he licked again over where the demon’s claw had hurt her.

  Týr looked up, and eyes about as warm as granite skimmed over her face once more. “Don’t. Move.” Then, he vanished.

  Kira inhaled a shuddering breath. What’d just happened? One minute, he was chewing her head off, and the next, he was licking her. A palm pressed to her chest over her unstable heart, she raised her other hand to her cheek.

  Instead of getting the hell outta there like any sane person would, away from Týr’s wrath, she pivoted to the ruckus. Her eyes widened at the gruesome scene before her
. Screeches grew as bodies hit the building walls with sickening thuds.

  She easily spotted Elytani’s creamy-blond hair amidst the horde of demons and picked out Aethan by his height. Týr flew into the fight like a slingshot—a huge one—taking several down. A fiery, elongated glow took form, and her heart skipped a beat.

  That was the famous, mystical Gaian sword Echo had told her about, the one that couldn’t ever be summoned unless supernatural evil was about. Kira had never seen any of the Guardians in action while on the job. They fought brutally, without mercy, and were utterly terrifying.

  Shit, she had to get moving. Kira wheeled around and ran up to where Liam stood and watched the fight—eyes gone thrice its size. She grabbed his arm and yanked him out of his stupor. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Remaining in an alley choked with demons was sooo not at the top of her list of priorities. Safety was, especially from a certain furious Guardian.

  “You okay?” Liam rasped as they dashed up the street.

  “I’m fine—” A small figure barreled toward them, hitting her hard in the chest and cutting off her words. Kira staggered back, gasping for air. Man, what was with people slamming into her?

  “You lied!” Another shove. “You said you had no boyfriend!”

  “Whoa there, Tomas.” Liam grabbed him.

  “Tomas?” Kira echoed.

  Tears glistening in his dark eyes, the boy smashed his elbow into Liam’s belly and darted free. “You just like everyone else. A liar!” Tomas whirled around and tore off into the night.

  “Tomas, wait!”

  Liam snagged her arm before she could follow. “I’ll go after him. You have bigger problems.” His anxious gaze darted down the alley to the fracas. “That guy looked angry enough to kill you. You should get out of here, I’ll call you.”

  That brought Kira right back to her current predicament. Dammit, she couldn’t go after Tomas. It would only land her in more trouble. “It’s okay. I know him. He’s all bark and no bite. I’ll be fine.” She barely stopped from snorting. Týr would undoubtedly lambast her while wringing her neck for lying. “Go. I’m leaving anyway.”