Sylvia Day - A Touch of Crimson

“Can you teach me the difference between vampires and demons?”

“So you have a preference.” He crossed his arms. “I can point you in the right direction and give you backup. I can train you how to hunt more effectively and show you how to kill without relying on surprise. Right now you’re floating aimlessly, waiting for random encounters. I can give you focus and specific targets.”

Lindsay leaned back in her chair. “You don’t even know me.”

Her proclivities, while deeply troubling, provided him with an ideal excuse to keep her close. “I’m holding the front line in a battle in which I’m outnumbered. I can use every soldier.”

“But this isn’t all I do. I have a regular life and a job.”

“So do I. We can work out the logistics together.”

She caught her lower lip between her teeth. After an interminable moment, she nodded. “Okay.”

Perfect. He enjoyed a moment of sharp satisfaction. Then he heard the front door opening. A moment later, Damien stepped into view.

Adrian’s focus shifted to the expected report on Phineas’s death. “Join us.”

The Sentinel entered the kitchen. He glanced briefly at Lindsay, then turned his attention to Adrian. “Captain.”

Introducing them, Adrian made a point of identifying Lindsay as a recruit.

Damien’s seraph blue eyes returned to her. “Ms. Gibson.”

“Call me Lindsay, please.”

“Speak freely,” Adrian prompted Damien, giving the Sentinel a look that told him to hold his questions about Lindsay’s incarnation of Shadoe until later.

There was a moment of hesitation; then Damien began relaying the details. “I didn’t get a lot of usable information out of Phineas’s surviving lycan. The beast was incoherent with grief. He did say that the vampire who attacked them was sick. I’m not sure if he meant physically ill or mentally twisted. The attack was especially brutal, so it could very well be the latter. Phineas’s neck was gnawed down to his spinal cord.”

Lindsay cleared her throat. “Lycans? As in werewolves?”

Adrian glanced at her. “Werewolves are demons. Lycans share a bloodline with them, which allows them to shape-shift in a similar manner. But unlike weres, they were once angels.”

“And as a heads-up,” Damien added grimly, “they get very offended if anyone calls them werewolves.”

“Angels.” Lindsay’s eyes were wide and dark, the irises a mere sliver of brown around dilated pupils. “Why didn’t they become vampires?”

“Because I needed reinforcement,” Adrian said. “We came to an agreement-I would petition the Creator to spare them from vampirism if they agreed to help me keep the vampires in line.”

“Were they part of the same group of angels, the vampires and the lycans?”

“Yes.”

Her only sign of disquiet was the way she twisted her glass of water back and forth on the countertop. “I’m sorry about your… Phineas.”

“My second-in-command. My friend-no, more than a friend. He was like a brother to me.” Adrian had retracted his wings during dinner, but they unfurled again, flexing with his inner agitation and thirst for battle.

Her gaze followed the upper curve of one wing, softening. He felt that tender look as if she’d touched him directly.

She slid off the stool and stood. “Do we know enough to hunt the bastard who killed him?”

Her use of “we” didn’t escape him. “We will.”

Damien shot her another look, this one less antagonistic than the previous. “From what I could gather, Phineas was ambushed. He stopped only to feed the lycans.”

“Where is the surviving guard?”

“I put him down.”

“I didn’t authorize that.”

“It was him or me, Captain.” Damien straightened his shoulders. “He charged me. I was forced to defend myself.”

“He assaulted you?”

“He tried. In my opinion, it was a deliberate suicide.”

Elijah had been correct in saying that no lycan would be able to watch their mate die on purpose-they couldn’t live without each other. But if the surviving lycan planned on dying shortly after…? “Phineas’s wound-you said his throat had been gnawed on. Is it possible the bite wasn’t inflicted by a vampire?”

Damien’s head tilted to one side. “Are you asking if it could’ve been a lycan mauling? Yes, it’s possible, although I would wonder about the lack of blood at the scene. There was some initial arterial spray, but otherwise, he was drained.”

It was concerning that Phineas had walked into a snare. Sentinels weren’t susceptible to hunger, so it was the lycans’ prompting that led him to pull over where danger awaited him. If Jason’s speculation about a lycan uprising had merit, Adrian was facing a battle certain to spill over into mortal lives. He couldn’t afford to rule anything out. “Report to Jason now, then see me in the morning. I want to go over this again after you two put your heads together. That will be all for tonight.”

The Sentinel bowed slightly and left the kitchen.

Lindsay stifled a yawn behind her hand, reminding Adrian that she was mortal and her body was still running on eastern time.

“Let me escort you to your room,” he said.

Nodding, she rounded the island, her movements fluid and graceful, despite her exhaustion. “You and I need to talk tomorrow, too.”

“Yes.”

She came to a halt in front of him and crossed her arms. “You said you wanted me.”

“I do.” The urge to pull her close, to take her lush mouth and discover the taste of her was riding him hard. A purely human reaction he couldn’t control. They’d never worked together before, in any of Shadoe’s previous incarnations. Shadoe herself had remained neutral, preferring not to choose between her father and Adrian. This would be the first time they’d work in alignment, pursuing similar goals. The thought of sharing his true purpose with Lindsay, of being known in all ways for whom and what he was, affected him in ways he couldn’t have foreseen. “Want” seemed too tame a word for the power of his attraction to Lindsay Gibson.

Her lashes lowered, veiling her eyes. “How bad a sin is it to lust after an angel?”

“The sin is mine, for lusting after you.”

Her throat worked on a swallow. “And if it goes beyond just lusting? Am I going to get struck by lightning? Or worse?”

“Would that deter you?”

“I’d hoped I’d earned some brownie points by ridding the world of things like the dragon.”

“I’ll help you earn more.” He couldn’t wait to get started. Already, she’d proven herself to be remarkably resilient and adaptable. In a matter of hours, she had learned that the vampires and humans she’d thought she knew were only a small piece of a much larger underworld. And she had taken it all in stride, because she was a survivor, a fighter, a woman he anticipated having by his side in the days ahead.

“Will I need them?” Lindsay fell into step beside him. “You didn’t answer my question, so I’m thinking I will.”

“The sin is mine,” he repeated, leading her down the hallway to the room set aside especially for her. He always made room for her in his homes, as a reminder to himself of both his fallibility and his capacity for humanity. For him, the two were joined. He couldn’t have one without the other, and he had neither without Shadoe.

They reached Lindsay’s bedroom door. He opened it for her but didn’t move inside. As unavoidable as his transgression was, it was resistible-for now. It wouldn’t be for long. Not after going without her for as long as he had. And Shadoe’s innately assertive sexuality only upped the stakes. Whether she reincarnated during bawdy, adventuresome epochs or in eras of inhibition and repression, she was always quick to seduce him. And he was always quick to fall.