Dark Destiny (Dark Sentinel #1) - Lexxie Couper Page 0,15

her hips, “I was having what you Australians call a perv. I saw you on the beach and thought you were worth checking out again.” She flicked a look at Ven, now stumbling to his feet, a stunned and very pissed-off expression on his face. “Of course, I didn’t know you had a pet vampire guarding you.”

Ven hissed “I’m his brother.”

“Or that you could see me,” she continued, ignoring Ven. “And while we’re having this lovely little conversation, how can you see me, human? Why do you have a blood sucker for a brother? And why is Fang Face over there leaping to your protection like an overzealous fox terrier?”

Folding her arms across her chest, Fred fixed Patrick with a hard look and then turned her attention to his brother.

What was the deal with this vampire?

He wore his human face again, almost a mirror of Patrick’s but slightly paler with less life in the seams around his sharp green eyes.

She remembered him. The second their stares connected, she’d remembered him. His soul had fought the Claiming with more strength and ferocity than she’d ever encountered before. Those with a powerful reason to stay attached to the mortal coil always did, but this one’s soul, Steven Owen Watkins’ soul, had resisted the Claiming like the world itself depended on his continued existence.

The night of his Claiming came back to her in a flurry of shadows and senses. She’d arrived as he lay stretched on the grimy concrete sidewalk, blood oozing like thick red paint from his neck through the fingers of the young man leaning over him, a man she’d paid little attention to at the time but now realized was her lifeguard eighteen years ago.

She’d been impressed by Steven’s strength and tenacious stubbornness back then. Dealing with it again now he was a vampire however…

Argh.

She flicked Patrick a glance. No denying who his brother was when it came to personality traits, that’s for sure. They were both as stubborn as each other.

“So, what’s the story?” she asked, arching an eyebrow at them both. “With you both? What’s the deal?”

“The deal?” Steven echoed, contempt thick in his deep voice.

A deep squirming sensation unfurled in the pit of her stomach and she ran the tip of her tongue over the edge of her teeth. Fang Face was pretty damn fine, even more so for the simmering demon lurking in his blood, almost as fine as his human brother, but even that felt wrong.

She knew what demons felt like, knew what energy they radiated. Something about Steven’s demonic energy didn’t…gel.

Her spine tingled, a soft tickling itch at her tailbone that made her worry. When that part of her spine tingled, the place where—when in her Rider form—her spine became her tail, mischief was brewing in the Realm. That part of her spine had tingled the time the Fallen Star had tried to alter the spiritual status quo, that part of her spine had tingled the time the serpent started up its conversation in the Garden, and it tingled now.

Why?

What was it about the Watkins brothers that set off her internal warning system? How could these two men, okay, this one man and this one vampire, have any impact on the Realm?

“I’ve had enough of this.” Steven took a step toward her, his pale-green stare shimmering yellow anger. “Time to tell us what you’re really doing here, Death.”

“It’s been fun, Fang Face.” She grinned, ignoring his demand. She flicked another quick look at Patrick and the tingle in her spine exploded into an undeniable spasm of sensations, some of them downright delicious.

He stared back at her, a flash of ambiguous color seeming to shimmer through his deep-green eyes.

Who are you, Patrick Watkins?

She touched her tongue to her lips, tasting him still…and transubstantiated herself from his bedroom.

Something was not as it was meant to be, and she needed to find out what it was. Now.

Ven raked his fingers through his hair, staring hard at the empty spot in Patrick’s bedroom only seconds earlier occupied by Death, before turning to glare at his semi-naked brother. “I hate to say I told you so, brother—”

“No, you don’t.”

“But I told you so,” he went on, shaking his head.

He crossed the room to the tallboy under the window, yanked open the top drawer, snatched out a white t-shirt and threw it at Patrick. “Well, at least I know who’s after you.” He watched his brother pull the item of clothing over his head, forcing aside the driving urge to