Heart's Inferno (Fallen Guardians 4) Read online

  At her friend’s persistent stare, she groaned. “If you must know, it was Týr.”

  Echo blinked, her excitement fading. Her brow creased in confusion. “Really? Wow. I didn’t think he would do that. To you…”

  Kira slouched in her seat, pulling at a ribbon woven in her sweater. “Yeah, it’s weird, isn’t it? All we do is fight. Anyway, it happened.”

  “Mmm…” Echo eyed Kira contemplatively. “You know, I questioned Aethan once if he’d ever healed anyone else in that way, and he said no. It’s too intimate.”

  “Yeah, well, I asked, and Týr said it was faster since we were in the middle of a demon attack. Their saliva heals. But I didn’t care for it.”

  Echo started to grin again. “Yeah. Rrright.”

  The way she stressed the R reminded Kira so much of Týr and his darn sarcasm, and that just made her scowl at her friend. The girl obviously had too much time on her hands. Dammit, she had more important things to worry about than an impossible warrior.

  “Ah. So that is why you got Hedori to bring you back—”

  “You think I was going to wait around for him to chew off my headed?” As if.

  Restlessness crawling through her like ants, Kira leaped up and traipsed around the large, elegant bedroom…back and forth.

  She rubbed her achy temples. “Man, this waiting is killing me.”

  “They’ll be back from patrol in an hour or so,” Echo murmured. She’d reclaimed her seat on the couch once more, her knees drawn up, the heavy book braced on her thighs

  Exhaustion pulling her down, Kira flopped onto the bed. “Wake me if I doze off, ‘kay? I need to speak to Týr.”

  Echo smirked. “You can count on it.”

  “Gah—” She groaned, burying her face in the pillow, her voice muffled. “Knew I shouldn’t have told you anything.”

  Chapter 5

  As consciousness slammed through Týr, so did the chilly wetness seeping into his bones. His eyes slit open, his focus a little blurry, he found himself lying in a puddle of water. What the hell had happened?

  Frowning, he took in the gloomy surroundings. Two wall lamps, one casting a small pool of light over the black chest on the floor beneath it, and the other illuminating the bed opposite him. He was in the isolated bedroom under the castle basement. His gaze skittered back to the bed and the figure reclining against the headboard.

  One knee raised, Nik shuffled a deck of cards.

  “So, you finally decided to rejoin us?” the warrior murmured, tossing a card onto the bed.

  Týr pushed up and grunted, slumping against the wall. Shit. He bit back a groan. With his head feeling as it had been stuffed with cotton wool, and his body drained of energy to within an inch of his life, staying on his ass was probably a good idea.

  He rubbed his sweaty brow with a shaky hand. “Why…” Fuck, his throat hurt as if he had gravel lodged there. “…am I down here?”

  “You tell me.”

  Just what he needed, a funny man.

  “Nik,” he growled, biting back a curse, dead sure razors had joined the gravel in his craw. “What… Happened?”

  His fellow Guardian pushed off the bed, wearing only leather pants and heavy combat boots. The soft light emphasized his bare, muscled torso covered by multiple tattoos on his upper body, biceps, and neck, and glinted off his silver nipple piercings.

  Nik crossed to the huge, black wooden trunk where a jug and glass waited, poured some water and brought it over.

  Týr rubbed a palm over his bare, damp chest…and went dead still. “What the fuck happened to my clothes?

  “You really don’t remember, do you?” Nik hunkered down in front of him.

  “Don’t tell me we finally got the kink going?” he muttered, hating the pity.

  Nik didn’t rise to his baiting taunt. “You really don’t remember, do you?” he murmured, revealing a brief glimpse of his tongue piercing. “But, considering everything, I’m not surprised.” He handed Týr the glass, his expression thoughtful…well, as much as ice could express.

  Tyr chugged back the cold liquid and passed the glass back to Nik with a shaky hand. He shut his eyes and collapsed against the stone wall again. At the clinking of chains behind him, he leaped away and fell back on his hands in the puddle of water, staring in frozen terror at the fetters on the wall. His mind dragged back to his incarceration in Tartarus…

  Beaten and bloody, he lay on the dusty ground, sweltering heat surrounding him, the fight over. The fact he hadn’t yet been killed in the arena after the battle…his stomach heaved. After a century, he knew what would happen next.

  As if he ever had a choice. Heavens, he wished for death, short-lived as it was, but he could never die. Such was his punishment. He’d accepted that he was responsible for the massacre of so many innocents at the Sumerian pantheon and its eventual fall. The reason he’d been incarcerated in this hellhole.

  “Bidding begins at a thousand portal summoning stones or hundred thousand pieces of gold,” the demon roared to the spectators. “He is, after all, a deity, the youngest son of Odin…”

  Týr’s gut went lax, knowing the horror that would be visited upon him soon. He shut off his mind, retreating to a part of himself where nothing existed—

  “We didn’t restrain you,” Nik’s quiet voice broke through the horror trapping his mind. “We brought you here, thought it safer for you. For everyone. I’m merely the watchman. You can thank me later for not chaining you.”

  Týr’s focus latched onto his unshackled wrists. Several seconds passed before he could breathe again. He looked up, unable to dredge up his usual mocking repartee.

  Nik’s pale eyes flickered as if in understanding. “C’mon. A shower should do you good. Maybe help your brain to recover that sparkling wit.”

  The bastard would joke?

  Undoubtedly, Nik seeing him felled like a useless, dried-up tree stump had brought on the sympathy Týr didn’t freakin’ want.

  “You need a boost?”

  He shook his head. Using the wall as a crutch, Týr pushed to his feet. His legs wobbled like a babe attempting to first stand. His knees buckled, and he dropped to his ass.

  Without a word, Nik hoisted him up from the grimy puddle and put a steady arm around his waist, steering him to the other side of the room.

  A little unhinged from memories of a past he could never quite lock down, he shot out, “This is just too much skin contact for me.”

  “Yeah, you fall on your ass again, I’m not helping you.” Nik shoved the bathroom door open just as Aethan and Dagan walked into the chamber.

  He couldn’t take this shit. “Would you all back the fuck off and give me a chance to get my dignity back?”

  “Norse, you probably lost that as a lad,” Aethan drawled, raking back his blue hair, revealing the glint of tiny silver hoops in his earlobes. Like fucking shadows, the warriors followed him into the godsdamn bathroom.

  Inside the blinding white space, Nik let him go. Squinting, Týr stumbled into the large shower stall, palms slapping on the tiles for purchase. Icy water splattered down on him. He lowered his head and shut his eyes, inhaling a choppy breath, trying desperately to get his mind to calm.

  “You okay?”

  Through the rustle of water, his old friend’s quiet voice reached him.

  Týr cut Dagan a sideways look. He stood in the cubicle, his hand still on the faucet, getting drenched right along with Týr, his yellow eyes bright with concern. No matter that they hadn’t spoken for millennia and had only recently buried the eons-old hatchet, Týr would never forgive himself for his part in Dagan’s sister’s disappearance, or the death of all her handmaidens under his care. It didn’t matter what Inara had done. She’d been a child.

  “What happened? You went berserker,” Dagan said, tone low. Troubled.

  Obviously, Dagan recognized that side of Týr since he’d encountered it a time or two when they both squired as lads at the Gates of the Gods. “You need…me, let me kno
w.”

  He could meditate just damn fine on his own.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. How about I have a shower? Alone? You can all rain shit on me once I’m done.”

  “Yeah, that attitude won’t work, you obstinate bastard,” Aethan retorted.

  Týr growled, his focus snapping over his shoulder to the warrior who remained on the other side of the glass stall. Aethan lips lifted in a terse smile. “Spill now, later, whenever. We’re here to stay. Like a bad damn rash, you get me?”

  Týr then glared at Nik. “You got nothing to add?”

  “Yeah. Everything they said,” he coolly countered and walked out of the bathroom.

  Aethan and Dagan followed, the door finally shutting behind them.

  Týr thumped his brow on the tiled wall in anger and frustration, grasping at the wispy memories. Snatches of images leaked into his mind…killing demons in the cemetery…asking Nik to watch over Kira…the fury riding him…pacing his bedroom, the voices in his head escalating…going to the training arena— Ah, fuck!

  He’d lost control. Týr squeezed his eyes shut. He couldn’t blame the others for worrying that he’d gone berserker in the castle when they had their mates here. At least he’d possessed enough acuity from his fast-eroding sanity to lock himself in the arena when he grasped what was happening. He would never hurt anyone. Never again.

  But with his torturous past jabbing his mind like a malevolent murder of crows, his pyrokinesis had broken free in his pain and rage and had taken over, consuming him, wanting to destroy the images in his head…and everything around him, apparently.

  The irony didn’t escape him. As a Guardian, he’d saved millions of lives, yet he’d destroyed those he cared about. Thoughts he could never quite bolt down broke free, taking him back to his old pantheon and two of his childhood companions.

  Jora and Narfi. They’d grown up together in the Norse pantheon and had become best friends. Until that fateful day…

  If only he and Narfi hadn’t had that stupid fight, Jora would still be alive. She’d tried to separate them, but instead, she’d gotten caught in Týr’s fiery ability.

  Narfi had tried desperately to douse the flames, but none could aid her.

  Remorse staking him hard, Týr pounded his head on the wall again, pain ricocheting through his skull. Even now, Jora’s agonized screams reverberated in his mind as she caught ablaze. Týr, help me!

  He couldn’t let it happen again. He just couldn’t.

  Good thing he’d asked Nik to aid Kira. Right now, he was nothing but a landmine waiting to be stepped on. Even though everything inside him rebelled at his decision to stay away from her, his jaw ground down in absolute conviction.

  The very thought of hurting her—of her dying because of him—had his mind shutting down. It was better this way.

  A few minutes later, Týr stumbled out of the stall and leaned against a shelf as the last of his energy bade him goodbye. Damn. It took a minute or two before he could dredge up the strength to snag a towel from the pile there and make a half-assed attempt at drying his hair before giving up. He hitched the terrycloth around his hips and shuffled toward the bedroom.

  The place glowed like the damn sun was trapped in there, all the lamps blazing.

  Dagan leaned against the wall adjacent to the bed, while Nik reclined against the headboard, cards back in his hand. Aethan sat on the wooden chest next to the water jug.

  Ignoring his crypt-keepers, Týr dropped onto the mattress. Hedori entered, a tray in his hand. He set the platter on the nightstand and uncovered the meal. “It’s good to see you about again, sire.”

  Týr nodded and grabbed a thick sandwich made exactly the way he liked with layers of shredded beef, pickles, and mustard. He took a bite. Hell, he bit back a groan of utter pleasure and ate quickly. He was starving. Using his powers to their fullest extent after so long had drained him.

  “What happened?” Aethan leaned forward, forearms braced on his thighs.

  Týr demolished the rest of his sandwich, then selected the Red Bull instead of the soda. He popped the tab and swallowed some of the energy drink. “Ask Nik. He said to fight him,” he deflected.

  Tell them about the anger burning in his gut since he’d encountered those eerie amber eyes stalking him in the darkness? Or the memories of his damn imprisonment in Tartarus? Or maybe the fact that he had to break a promise he’d made to their Oracle since he was more of a threat to Kira than his shadowy nemesis was to him. Yeah, right.

  He couldn’t protect anyone, could he?

  Not his best friend’s sister, Inara, and certainly not Jora. So, how could Kira ever be safe with him?

  Hell, he didn’t want anything to happen to the little she-devil. She was the only bright light in his hollow existence ever since she’d stepped into it a year ago, and one he savored even if he could do nothing about it.

  “He fought like I was the enemy, which is great,” Nik drawled. “But I draw the line at being killed while training. He went off like a detonating geyser. Scary for sure, but an astounding sight regardless.”

  “We sensed an anomaly down in the arena,” Dagan explained. “And then found you burning like a firestorm.”

  His hunger evaporating, Týr set his can down on the tray.

  “No one else could touch you without doing damage to themselves,” Nik added. “I iced you over and moved you here before the females got wind of what was about and investigated. I’m sure you didn’t want the attention, considering you were buck-ass naked by then. Why did you lose control of your powers anyway?”

  Týr ignored him, his gaze fixed on the large pool of water where he’d been detained with Nik’s icy fetters. His edginess back in spades, Týr shot to his feet and paced to the door, tunneling his fingers through his damp hair. With guilt eating at him, knowing they only wanted to help, he snapped, “I don’t fucking know, ‘kay?”

  “No matter…” Nik flicked another card onto the bed, piling it on the others. “You did give us quite the show, worthy of a YouTube encore, watching your clothes melt off and revealing all your worldly goods… Not my thing, but whatever floats your boat.”

  Asshole. But Týr appreciated the try for levity.

  These males that he’d fought alongside against evil and any adversity through the millennia were worried about him. But he never felt more isolated, trapped in his guilt, anger, and need for vengeance.

  Dagan folded his arms over his chest. “Did anything unusual occur during the time you were away from the castle after the reception?”

  Týr breathed in roughly, the walls closing in on him as questions flew. Ones he could never, ever answer. He had to get out before he lost his shit again. “Look, when I find the answers, you’ll be the first to know. I gotta go get changed.”

  Re-hitching his sliding towel, he stumbled out—grateful that his legs held him upright—and took the elevator to the second floor. The landing appeared disturbingly silent. It would be when everyone hounding his ass was still in the windowless chamber.

  In his quarters, he shut the door and leaned against the wooden panel, music vibrating against the walls. Damn, he’d forgotten about that. He flipped off the system with a thought and shut his eyes. Dead quiet swept over him, but his head remained too crowded with thoughts of everything that had occurred since last evening.

  A knock sounded on the wood.

  Ignoring it, Týr stalked out from the small entrance hall and headed for his bedroom, not interested in talking to anyone. They’d only be here to bust his balls again.

  The door opened. Gritting back a snarl, Týr pivoted.

  Michael lifted a brow and entered, along with the long-haired, overweight feline who ruled the castle.

  If the Arc were here to chew off his ass for losing control of his ability, then there was no avoiding this shit.

  Týr retreated into the bedroom as the door shut. Bob waddle-stalked past him, tail high, then clambered onto the chaise lounge near the window an
d flopped down like a shaggy, soot-colored rug with a heavy orange ruff. How the cat pulled that girth up to the sofa, Týr had no idea.

  He faced his leader. “You want to know what the hell happened, too? I have no damn clue, okay?”

  “Yeah, figured with that attitude,” Michael countered, stopping near the cat, who appeared settled in for this debacle. “But I’m more interested in the wound on your jaw and why the hell it isn’t healing. Are you marked?”

  He freakin’ hoped so. He wanted the scum to find him so he could end the fucker. Týr shrugged. “Probably got hit by one of the damn demonii horde I took on that night,” he evaded. “I sure wasn’t paying attention to any injury back then. Maybe I just need more of the Oracle’s miracle ointment.”

  The shattered irises fixed on him made Týr feel as if Michael could see right through his falsehood. Truth was, he hadn’t bothered to treat it.

  “I was going to pull you off patrol—”

  “Forget it. I’m not staying in like some damn invalid!”

  “No, you aren’t. I need you all out on the streets. Nik and Dagan filled me in about the disappearing children. It means more trouble is about to hit us. There’s a sect of demons in the Dark Realm who use humans as prizes for their sadistic games. They’re probably going after the homeless kids now because no one really pays much attention to them.”

  Except for Kira. She’d even put her life on the line. Anger coiled deep in Týr’s gut at her complete disregard for her safety. It took everything in him to clamp down on his fury.

  “Rumor has it they use the children as bait to tempt demons into playing with promises of being rejuvenated by the light found in a human soul, which they get by harvesting said untainted light through the kid’s blood.”

  “And having dark souls, the assholes are tempted by this ultimate prize since they won’t turn demonii.”

  Michael nodded, reaching down to scratch Bob’s head and got a happy purr in response. “While some wait for the young to regain his or her strength so they can start the reaping all over again, others drain their victims too quickly. Now, they’ve slipped back into this world and have become bolder, trying to get the kids to restock their supplies.”