Darkness Avenged (Guardians of Eternity) Page 0,46
gargoyle,” Santiago corrected, tugging open the door of the vehicle, which looked as if it should be headed for the junkyard. ASAP. “It’s ‘what crawled up my ass.’”
“Ew.” Levet wrinkled his snout. “I do not wish to know anything concerning your nether regions.”
Santiago narrowed his eyes, his beautiful features tight with irritation. “Just get in and shut up.”
Nefri reached to pat the gargoyle on the head, her gaze never wavering from the cranky male. “Ignore him.”
Levet gave a flick of his tail. “He’s rather large to ignore.”
A humorless smile curved Santiago’s lips. “Nefri can give you lessons. She’s made an art form of ignoring what she doesn’t want to have to deal with.” He waited until she reached the truck, his finger lifting to stroke down her cheek. “Haven’t you, cara?”
She refused to flinch from his glare. Maybe she had been too swift to protect herself from the emotions Santiago threatened to expose. And clearly she could have been more sensitive to his male ego.
But now was hardly the time to be bickering.
“Are we going or not?” she demanded in cool tones.
“Oh, we’re going.”
“Yes, well.” Levet cleared his throat. “Perhaps I should—”
“Don’t even think about it,” Santiago snapped, grabbing the gargoyle by one horn and tossing him into the truck.
“Mon dieu,” Levet squeaked as he landed on the leather seat.
Rolling her eyes, Nefri rounded the back of the truck to slide into the passenger side, in a cowardly way pleased to have the gargoyle between her and Santiago.
Not that she believed he would ever try to harm her. Santiago was by nature a protector and no matter how she might infuriate him, he would never strike out. Besides, she had enough power to protect herself from any enemy.
No, she simply didn’t want to spend the next few hours rehashing her impulsive decision to share Santiago’s bed only to panic when she awoke in his arms.
It would mean exposing her scars from a past she simply wanted to forget.
With a low curse, Santiago climbed behind the steering wheel and used his powers to start the engine. Then, with a last glare at Nefri, he shoved the truck into gear and sent them jolting down the narrow road.
Once they reached the highway, Santiago pressed the accelerator to the floorboard, urging the truck into breakneck speed.
Thankful for her immortality, Nefri watched the landscape flash by, catching only blurred glimpses of tangled wetlands that eventually gave way to small farms, with the occasional town huddled in the soft glow of streetlights.
They had traveled nearly an hour in uncomfortable silence when Nefri’s brooding thoughts were interrupted by the strange sensations that suddenly filled the air.
“Santiago.”
Even as his name fell from her lips, Santiago was slowing the truck and turning onto a service road. “I feel it,” he muttered, his gaze trained on the trees that lined the recently plowed fields.
“What?” Levet stood on the seat, his expression troubled. “What is going on?”
Nefri shivered, rolling down her window to test the chill breeze.
There was the same pulse of emotion that surrounded Gaius’s lair. An unnatural coercion that could easily manipulate the feelings of both human and demon.
But this wasn’t violence that brushed over her skin and tugged at her emotions.
This was . . . fear.
A drenching, unrelenting fear.
“It’s not the same,” she muttered.
“No,” Santiago agreed, turning the truck onto an even smaller path, downshifting as they were forced to dodge fallen tree trunks and potholes large enough to swallow them whole. “But it’s close enough we have to track it down.”
“Yes,” she agreed, clenching her teeth as he cut through an overgrown meadow to halt near an abandoned schoolhouse.
They crawled out of the truck, all three of them studying the three-story brick building with a rusting tin roof. The cement steps were crumbling and most of the windows had been smashed, while the double front doors hung at drunken angles.
The surrounding playground had long ago conceded defeat to the encroaching weeds, although someone had cut a path around the swing set and metal slide. No doubt the same someone who’d built the smoldering bonfire and brought the keg of beer.
Allowing her powers to flow through the thick air, Nefri swiftly sensed the human hiding in the building. She lifted one finger and Santiago nodded.
“I’ll circle around and come in from the rear,” he said, pulling loose the sword he kept strapped to his back.
She instinctively reached to touch his arm, an uninvited concern clenching her heart. “Whoever is inside is close to breaking,” she murmured, able