Shades of Blood (Warriors of Ankh #3) Read online

  Infuriated, Eden delighted in the sounds of his rapid footsteps - they thudded louder in her ears as she closed the gap between them. His heavy puffs of breath made her heart pound harder, adrenaline riding her like a roaring, purring Harley. The smell of his cologne hit her nostrils moments before her hand reached out and gripped his collar. She yanked him back to a stop before cutting to the left, pulling him with her into the dark alley behind a florist. She shoved him into the black with a force that sent him careening. The clatter of metal on concrete echoed loudly around them and she winced as she realized she’d thrown him into trash cans. Even less subtle.

  Eden was on him before he could get to his feet, his pale eyes startling in the dark. Her katana unleashed, Eden gave into the disappointment that tonight couldn’t be much of a fight since they’d already attracted enough attention. She brought her sword down with hatred and frustration, the lethal blade slicing through the soul eater’s neck. The thick, smothering stench of copper filled the air, a smell that no longer kicked her gag reflex into action.

  With a sigh, Eden stood up, wiping the blood and gore off her blade with her black coat. That would be the third coat she’d ruined doing that.

  Pulling out her smartphone, Eden grimaced as she got blood on the screen. Idiot. She wiped it against her coat, accidentally calling Cyrus instead of Terrence, the Head of Security. Cyrus went to voicemail anyway so she tried Terrence.

  “Eden,” his deep, no-nonsense voice answered.

  “I need a clean-up a.s.a.p. And I mean a.s.a.p. I left a number of witnesses in my wake chasing this piece of crap down.”

  “How many?”

  “Dude, I was too busy running with the wind to notice how many civilians eyeballed me.”

  He sighed. “I meant how many soul eaters.”

  “Oh. One. Only one, but he made a lot of a noise going down so I need you guys, like, right now. The alley behind the florist on Cedar Lane Way.”

  “On it.”

  The line went dead. Eden grunted, shoving her cell back into her pocket. “Bye to you too. And you’re welcome.”

  With one last glance over her shoulder at the mess she’d made, Eden slipped out of the alley, wiping her face to make sure she had no blood on it. She looked left and right, double checking no one was watching her. It was pretty late and the streets were quiet so she was almost sure no one had seen her drag the soul eater into the alley…where she cut his head off with a samurai sword.

  God, she loved her life.

  Pity it hadn’t been more of a fight though.

  Rolling her neck on her shoulders, Eden was about to take a step back up Cedar Lane Way and towards Noah, a contented smile on her face for having rid the world of one less asshole, when a buzz shot up the back of her neck. She froze, not sure why or what it was. The only name she could give it was… familiarity. Frowning, Eden turned on her heel and walked silently in the opposite direction.

  A familiar soothing voice whispered towards her ears and she grew still again.

  Val?

  Of course. She’d chased soul eater loser guy into Val’s patrol area.

  Eager to see Val in action, Eden quietly followed the feeling.

  Her heart literally stopped in utter confusion at the sight that greeted her when the feeling found Val. Huddled in the dark, down basement stairs at a residential redbrick townhouse, Val crouched in the shadows, her elegant hands clasping the face of a young soul eater whose huge grey eyes stared up in horror into Val’s face. Eden saw the tension in the back of Val’s shoulders as she spoke soothingly to the girl, she saw the imperceptible tremor that shook her mentor’s muscles and was about to take a step down towards her when the unimaginable happened.

  The girl made a frightened, croaking sound from the back of her throat, her chest rising and falling in unnatural shudders as the grey in her eyes bled out into dark brown. Eden’s sharp eyes blinked.

  No way.

  She looked harder.

  Sure enough. The grey was gone.

  Before she had a chance to triple check, the girl’s eyes rolled up into the back of her head and she passed out. Val sighed, leaning back. She slipped her cell out of her back pocket. All the while Eden never moved, never made a sound, as her brain tried to figure out what the hell had just happened.

  “Cyrus,” Val whispered into her cell. “I got one.”

  Fear caught in Eden’s throat and she must have made a noise because Val whipped around so fast Eden barely had time to blink before ducking the dagger that was thrown at her.

  “Eden!” Val whisper-shouted. She shook her head in disbelief and pressed the cell back to her ear. “We have a problem. Did you hear?” She shut her eyes in weariness. “Yes. OK. West Cedar Street.” She snapped her cell shut.

  Heart pounding, Eden somehow made her way down the steps towards Val, her eyes glued to the girl slumped unconscious on the ground. “What the hell did you do?”

  For a minute she thought Val might not answer, there was such pain and concern in her dark, exotic eyes. Finally, she heaved a massive sigh. “I did what only the Unforeseen can do. What only you and I can do.”

  Afraid to ask, Eden’s eyes did it for her.

  The ancient warrior bent down to the girl, two fingers on her neck checking for a steady pulse. Satisfied, she looked up at Eden. “I turned a soul eater into a human.”

  Chapter Three

  What Will Never Be

  “Seriously, what happened?” Noah asked her for the fifteenth time as he drove them back towards the mansion. He’d had a little more trouble with his soul eater than she had, especially when two more park rangers turned up to check out the disturbance. Thankfully, the soul eater chose that moment to run so when Noah finally caught up with him it was in the shade of trees where the park rangers couldn’t see him decapitate the monster. Of course he’d then had to knock the rangers unconscious so the clean-up crew could get in and out of the gardens undetected.

  Tonight had not been a quiet, under the radar, patrol. Good thing they had a number of Neith in the Boston Police Department, as well as the Mayor’s Office, who could make any eye-witness accounts and complaints disappear.

  Eden shifted uncomfortably in the passenger seat. She was still reeling from what she herself had witnessed tonight. It couldn’t be real. It just… couldn’t. If it was real…?

  A dark, ugly pain began to form into a knot in Eden’s chest.

  “Eden?”

  “Nothing happened,” she replied quietly, hating to lie, but Val had specifically told her not to say anything to Noah. “I’m just kind of unnerved that there were so many people about tonight. Not the coolest takedown ever.”

  He didn’t say anything but she could feel him frowning at her.

  “Eyes on the road.” She smirked but still couldn’t meet his gaze.

  The tension between them grew thicker as she buried herself in the painful what ifs of Val’s revelation. As for Noah, she could tell he was pissed off at her for shutting him out of whatever was going on with her - it was pretty obvious when he flipped the song playing in the car from Barcelona to Buried Alive by Love by H.I.M.

  Eden rolled her eyes. Back at you, dude.

  They pulled up at the mansion, stopping at three security gates for the requisite checks. Finally the last gate swung open, the guards standing aside to let Noah drive up towards the huge garage.

  “Eden…” he sighed as they walked side by side out of the garage, along the cold corridor and up the small staircase that led them into the entrance hall of the mansion.

  She tensed but before she could say anything Cyrus was before them.

  Val stood by his side with her usual calm… but if you looked hard enough you could see the fear in her dark eyes.

  That alone made Eden’s knees tremble.

  “Good work tonight. They did not make it easy.” Cyrus nodded at them both. His eyes stopped on Noah, his jaw strained with seriousness. “Noah, there is something I have left in your room tha
t I would like you to take a look at.”

  Eden glanced up at her boyfriend, watching the frown deepen between his eyebrows. He glanced down at her, questioning her silently. When she didn’t say anything the frown turned into a scowl. With one last squeeze of her hand, Noah took off up the stairs, his shoulders tensed with annoyance that he was being left out of… whatever was going on.

  Without a word, Eden followed Cyrus and Val out of the hall and down one of the many carpeted corridors. She wasn’t surprised when they ducked inside Cyrus’ private drawing room/office. They clearly wanted no interruptions for this.

  As soon as the door closed behind them Eden pounced. “Where’s the girl?”

  They both gazed at her, their eyes apprehensive, and Val’s chest was rising and falling a little unsteadily. What the hell…

  “OK, just talk to me. Please.”

  “Eden.” Val stepped towards her unsurely. “What you witnessed me do tonight… it’s my gift. It’s our gift. It’s the gift of the Unforeseen.”

  Ignoring the massive ball of screaming, breath-stealing shock that was swirling in her chest, Eden shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

  Her mentor sighed heavily, leaning back against Cyrus’ desk. Cyrus himself stood as straight-backed and as vigilant as ever, his dark, penetrating gaze boring into Eden. “Everyone who knows the legend of the Unforeseen is under a misapprehension. They believe what you yourself have been told… that the Unforeseen are stronger and faster than any other Ankh.”

  Eden nodded. That was what she’d been told.

  “But… when you train with Noah… do you always outwit him?”

  Her heart missed a half-beat in her chest and the feeling brought on a wave of nausea. “No,” she answered hoarsely. No, she didn’t always beat Noah. Sometimes she won. Sometimes he won. Six weeks… and she’d never questioned that.

  Idiot.

  “You and I are just as strong and just as fast as any other Ankh, Eden. Ryan assumed the legends were true, that was why he wanted you. In truth he would have been disgusted to discover your true talent.”

  She longed for more air. “I can turn a soul eater into a human?”

  “Yes. We have energy within us, perhaps born from our transition from soul eater to Ankh, that allows us to burn out the hunger, burn out the soul eater within. Once we burn that part of them out, they’re no longer supernatural. They’re just human.”

  “Then why didn’t you just do that to me, rather than making me go all the way to Scotland… I don’t get it!”

  “Eden.” Cyrus shook his head at her, his expression demanding she keep calm.

  Keep calm! Keep calm! Just when she thought she was coping with her bizarre life something new and creepily effed up entered into it!

  “We were afraid,” Val told her softly. “We didn’t want to veer from the path that had been taken when I was converted into Ankh. You may have been converted to human rather than Ankh, and that was never your destiny, Eden. Your destiny is to remove soul eaters from our world. It isn’t easy to do what I did tonight. A soul eater has to stay still long enough for me to get my hands on them to change them. And when they become human they have no memory of their life as a soul eater. It’s like a rebirth.”

  Eden shook her head, stumbling back against Cyrus’ armchair, her legs catching on it, her butt slumping down on the arm rest. Her chest rose and fell beneath her chin as she tried to gulp down the truth… and fight the ugly, darkness she’d felt earlier as one thought tried to bury its way out to the surface.

  No. She felt tears fall behind her eyes. No.

  “Cyrus has the converted placed in a private hospital where they are cared for until they are able to cope healthily with their amnesia. He then sends them across seas away from any soul eater family they might have left behind. They are set up with a new life, a new identity, and given a fresh start in life. Very few of them question a wealthy benefactor who found them and takes care of them. Would you? Well maybe you would.” She smiled wryly, sadly. “And some do. They are left to explore their new world alone.

  “We kept this from you, Eden, because…” she shook her head, her fingers gripping the edge of Cyrus’ desk so hard her knuckles turned white. “If anyone found out that you can do this, you’d be an even larger target than you already are. Nobody knows I’m Unforeseen, Eden. No one knows I can do this, they wouldn’t even know to turn to me if they discovered someone had this ability. But you… you’re already in a dangerous position as it is. We thought it was best we kept this from you, that you need never know you had this ability.”

  The darkness burst forth from Eden as Val ended on a pleading sigh. She looked up at them from underneath her lashes and they tensed at the look in her eyes. “Stellan.”

  They flinched.

  And she knew.

  She knew!

  “Was that your plan for him?” the anger crumpled into renewed grief as she thought of what the future could have held for her brother. “You were originally going to tell me because you were going to change him for me?”

  Val’s nod was almost imperceptible but Eden caught it like a lump of sorrow in her throat. “When Noah reported how close you two were, how protective he was… how… different he sounded… Cyrus and I thought it would be easier for your transition if he was saved too.”

  Eden choked on a sob as she thought of Stellan. He would have welcomed the change. She knew it. She just knew it.

  As Cyrus made to approach her, she waved him off, not wanting anybody to touch her. She curled into herself, trying to stop the shuddering sobs that cracked up out of her… but she couldn’t.

  All this time she’d thought a future with Stellan in it would have been hopeless anyway if Romany hadn’t killed him. That she’d have to avoid him all her life and hope they never crossed paths, that she was never put in a position where she’d have to choose duty over Stellan… because she knew she’d never have been able to execute that duty. She wouldn’t have been able to hurt Stellan. Ever.

  Never.

  And now… to know that if he’d lived, if her brother, her best friend, had lived… he would have been OK. He could have been in her life. And even if he couldn’t remember how much he’d loved his little sister it would have been worth it… because he’d have been free.

  “Eden,” Val whispered unsurely.

  Eden gulped down a deep breath, batting away her tears, unable to look at either of them. Her lips trembled as she tried to control herself.

  “Eden… we are very sorry for what happened to Stellan. For what will never be.”

  “Don’t,” she choked out, the aching pain in her chest too much. “Please don’t. I can’t…”

  They were silent a while as Eden’s breathing evened out, a numbness creeping over the grief. She needed to be numb.

  “You can’t tell anyone, Eden,” Val eventually spoke up. “No one can know what you are capable of.”

  Wiping her nose with the back of her sleeve, Eden shook her head, her voice still weak with tears, “I’m not lying to Noah.”

  “Good,” his warm voice entered the room, the door closing shut behind him. Noah stilled when she turned around, his eyes narrowing at the sight of her tear-streaked face. His pale eyes darkened as he approached her, his strong hand easing down onto her shoulder. With a questioning look he handed her a manila folder. “Because I refuse to lie to you too.” At that he threw a glare over at Cyrus. Eden immediately felt a pierce of panic shoot through her body. Not once had she seen Noah angry at Cyrus. Not once.

  With trembling hands, she turned the page of the paper folder.

  An image gazed back at her. An image of Neil McLeish, the Scottish Neith Councilman who had been less than friendly to her when she was visiting the Douglas’ in Edinburgh, standing talking to a young woman with sandy blonde hair.

  She turned the next page.

  And the next.

  They were surveillance photographs.

  Finally, Eden turned to a
nother. Her heart froze in her chest at this one. A close up of the young woman with McLeish.

  It was Romany.

  Chapter Four

  Unlikely Places

  Neil McLeish was not surprised by Cyrus’ test. Not in the least. After his attitude towards the Ankh and, in particular, Eden MacDouglas, it was no shocker that Cyrus might believe him to be the rebel Neith traitor their world was slowly growing abuzz with. For all his contacts, for all the rumors, Neil had been unable to unearth the identity of the Neith who was on the verge of leading a rebellion.

  That told him one, reassuring thing.

  Whoever it was he or she hadn’t been able to create much of a furor so far.

  And while that eased his worries somewhat, he knew it didn’t mean the rebel wouldn’t eventually have the kind of power he needed to take down the Ankh.

  Take down the Ankh.

  Neil grimaced at the thought.

  People perceived him as one thing when in truth he was neither this nor that. No wonder Cyrus had sent Romany Jordan of the Chicago Neith to sniff out his true loyalty. She’d come to him with a tale of woe. She’d dated Noah Valois. Had loved him. She’d killed Stellan Winslow, a soul eater and the half-brother of Eden MacDouglas, and Noah had turned his back on Romany. They all had. She’d just done her duty and the arrogant bastards had turned her out. She wanted revenge. She wanted Eden MacDouglas dead. She wanted the Ankh… gone.

  It hadn’t taken much to verify her story. That’s probably why Cyrus had sent her on this mission. A double agent. The Princeps had sent her to the wrong bloody man, that’s all. Still… he hadn’t been surprised by Cyrus’ mistrust. Neil’s sister had after all betrayed them and contacted Cosmina Arcos in an attempt to have Eden killed. Mary had always been narrow-minded, unwilling to rationalize or think things through. Just like their pig-headed father who had beaten his hatred of soul eaters quite literally into his children. And then of course there was Neil’s own behavior. He hadn’t been able to curb his negative attitude towards Eden. She was an anomaly… and she’d given him the willies. Not to mention she was just a complete and total pain in the arse.