Dark Destiny (Dark Sentinel #1) - Lexxie Couper Page 0,32

the bright dawn sunlight.

With Death standing right beside him.

Fred gaped at Patrick, not entirely convinced she’d actually seen what her eyes told her she had.

Had he just destroyed a nikor? Had he? And if he had, with what?

All about him, swirling about on the suddenly violent wind, were the remains of the aqueous demon, the tiny particles of sand and even tinier particles of seawater scattering in the turbulent air. Aqueous demons were impossible to kill in the water and damn nigh impossible to kill on land. As long as they were close to their dwelling they were almost invulnerable. Yet she’d just witnessed Patrick Watkins decimate one with…what?

She didn’t know.

She returned her stare to him, her heart hammering so hard she felt sure it was trying to escape her body.

She’d heard his furious snarl in her mind the second she’d arrived back in the Realm, still unsettled from her unexpected interaction with Ven, her head still spinning with confused conflict. She’d had time to notice her reflection in her mirror—to note the troubled white glow in her eyes—and then, bam! Patrick’s voice had roared through her head, sharp with rage and fear: Fuck. It’s trying to tear me in two!

Without hesitation, she’d locked her existence onto his location and transubstantiated, arriving in the human realm just in time to see him destroy the aqueous demon with nothing but a stare.

That can’t be, Fred. No one can destroy a third-order sub-demon without a weapon. Even if it is a water demon on land.

She watched him study the minute particles of the annihilated nikor whirling through the air around him, his expression revealing nothing. He gazed at the floating grains of sand before, with a silent groan, he collapsed to his knees, head hung low.

A fierce, intense wave of concern crashed through her, an utterly alien emotion she’d never experienced before. She frowned. Concern? For a human?

But he’s not human, is he, Fred? He can’t be. Not if he can destroy a sub-demon with…with…

With what? His mind?

She didn’t care. Patrick, whoever, whatever Patrick was, was hurt. He needed help. He needed care and she wanted to be the one to give it to him. Wanted it more than she’d ever wanted anything in her infinite existence. There were questions to be asked, but she would ask them later. Starting with—

“How the hell did you do that?”

The sound of Ven’s shout smacked into Fred with almost as much force as Patrick’s earlier roar and she jumped, spinning to her left to stare at the vampire standing but a few feet away from her.

The dawn sun painted him in a warm golden glow and for the first time, thanks to the natural light, she noticed the strawberry-blond accent to his shaggy hair, the faint smattering of light brown freckles across his hawkish nose.

And then the obvious hit her. He wasn’t burning to a screaming, vaporized crisp.

He was a vampire. He was standing in the sun. He should be burning to a screaming, vaporized crisp…

What the—

Her tailbone erupted in a violent itch, the very same ominous itch that forewarned trouble in the Realm, and she choked back a gasp. Well, almost choked back a gasp. A soft hiccup of breath sounded in the back of her throat, barely audible even to her ears, but it was enough to make Ven spin in her direction.

He vamped out instantly, the beautiful dawn light illuminating his demonic features in stark, unavoidable detail. “You!” he snarled, and if she hadn’t been a creature of myth herself, she would’ve missed the instant coiling of finely honed, paranormal muscles as he went to lunge at her.

But she didn’t miss it. And neither did his brother.

“Steven!” Patrick yelled. “Stop it!”

The vampire seemed to freeze, his stare—locked on her with deadly, menacing intent—flaring bright red for a split moment, before he turned back to Patrick, his human façade flowing over his features once again.

She studied his profile, and then swung her gaze back to Patrick. A groan of dismayed realization vibrated up her throat and bit back a curse. Her sex remembered all too easily the erotic electricity of Ven’s demon-tainted kiss, but her heart, her very core, throbbed with a smoldering heat she could not name nor fathom whenever she thought of his brother.

Oh, no. This can’t be happening.

“What are you doing here, Fred?”

Patrick’s deceptively calm voice made her jump.

She looked at him, mouth drier than the sixth level of hell. “Umm.”

He cocked an eyebrow, his eyes green mirrors that revealed