Lover Uncloaked (Stealth Guardians #1) - By Unknown Page 0,8

“I protected her as best I could!”

“If you’d cloaked her properly, she wouldn’t be lost now!”

“What are you saying?” Aiden bit out.

“You know what I’m saying!” Manus countered and moved in. “If you wanted her properly cloaked you should the fuck have been touching her the entire time.”

Aiden knew exactly what Manus meant. He and his fellow guardians had two ways of cloaking humans: by the power of their minds, or by touch. The first needed more energy, but just as a cell phone signal could be intercepted or interrupted, it was possible to break the connection and inadvertently uncloak a charge. The second brought with it other problems. A Stealth Guardian’s touch could be perceived as intimate even when it was not intended as such.

“Like you touch them? Like you pretend to feel something for them so they trust you? That’s not protecting them! It’s against every single rule in the book,” Aiden snarled.

“I don’t care about the fucking rules. Rules are for people who can’t think for themselves.”

“And you break them all.” Aiden felt his chest heave. He couldn’t be like Manus, who pretended to love each woman he had to protect, so he’d have a surefire way of making certain the woman was at all times cloaked. He, on the other hand, preferred not to touch humans when it could be avoided. Other than having the occasional one-night-stand with a human woman, he wasn’t interested in them. Not anymore. Not after what a human had done to his family.

“You fuck them so you don’t have to expend any extra energy!”

The accusation only earned him a smirk from Manus.

“I wouldn’t exactly say that. I’m expending plenty of energy doing that.”

Before Manus could turn away, Aiden landed a punch in his face, wiping the grin right off it.

Damn, it felt good to hit someone!

It felt cathartic to beat the crap out of Manus, to unleash his anger and frustration on him. Maybe it would dull his mind.

An uppercut to his chin whipped Aiden’s head back. He tasted blood an instant later, but ignored it to answer Manus’s blow. Leveraging his right leg against the kitchen counter, a bar stool crashed to the floor as Aiden swung against his fellow Stealth Guardian. The strike knocked Manus against the fridge, which groaned under the impact.

“Jerk!” Manus spat. “This isn’t about what rules I’ve broken. Don’t pretend you haven’t thought of it yourself . . . how sweet it is to break a rule once in a while.” He gave a devilish grin.

“Fuck you!” There were plenty of willing women in the bars Aiden frequented. He didn’t need to screw his charges. Sex was sex—and as long as the woman was reasonably hot, what did he care who she was? He had no interest in getting involved with a charge. He kept his distance from them, emotionally and physically, knowing that the day might come where he’d have to kill one of them, just like tonight. He couldn’t allow his emotions to get in the way.

“And stop blaming me for your failures! I’m not playing scapegoat today,” Manus growled, interrupting Aiden’s thoughts and making him focus on the issue at hand.

He had only himself to blame for what had happened tonight. Well, and Hamish. But once he tracked down his errant second, there’d be hell to pay.

Beating Manus to pulp wouldn’t bring his charge back, wouldn’t make it undone.

“Ah, shit!” Aiden cursed and lowered his fist. “I failed.” He raised his eyes to meet Manus’s gaze, but instead of a mocking glare, he recognized a flash of compassion.

Manus pushed himself off the fridge and brushed past him. “Get used to it.”

Aiden grabbed his shoulder and turned him around. “What do you mean?”

“Haven’t you seen the reports come in from the other compounds?”

“And when do you think I would have had time to read stupid reports?” He’d been on this assignment for several weeks and barely had time to rush back to the compound for urgent updates.

Aiden wiped the blood from his mouth and looked at the others in the room.

Pearce cleared his throat. “The demons are getting stronger. The other compounds are reporting more and more . . . losses.”

Aiden shook his head in disbelief. “How?”

“They somehow seem to know where our charges are. Despite them being cloaked, they find them.”

“That’s not possible,” Aiden protested and looked at Logan and Enya. “They don’t have those capabilities. They can’t sense our charges when they’re cloaked.”

Enya nodded solemnly. “That’s right, but what if they