Dark Destiny (Dark Sentinel #1) - Lexxie Couper Page 0,34

it would be him.

It seemed her fellow Horseman wanted Patrick removed from existence for reasons she didn’t know. That made her uneasy.

And angry.

Shooting the crowd, the ocean, and the rising sun a harried look, she turned to Patrick. “I’m sorry, but we’ve got to get out of here.”

Steady, indecipherable green eyes studied her. Weighed her up. She waited, knowing she couldn’t rush this. She had no idea who Patrick was, no idea why Steven could withstand daylight, but she knew their very fate hinged on the answers.

It was time to get them.

“Patrick,” she spoke his name, and a ripple of scalding tension warmed the pit of her belly. “Come with me. Now.”

Ven stepped forward. “Hey!”

His indignant growl made her grin, and she sensed his demon rise close to the surface of his control in protective agitation. “You too, Fang Face.”

He bared his perfectly human, perfectly perfect teeth at her.

Turning back to Patrick, she looked at him. She needed him on her side. Until she figured out whose side he really was on. Whatever it was, it started and ended with him.

“Patrick?” she said again.

He studied her, impenetrable eyes never wavering from her face, and then shook his head. Once. “No.”

She bit back a growl of frustration. Damn it, that wasn’t the answer she wanted to hear. Suppressing the urge to just snare him in her hold and transubstantiate him back to the Realm, she took a step toward him, fixing him with a level stare. “Patrick. Please.” She reached for his hand. “Come with—”

Something pushed her backward. Something she couldn’t see but felt with no problems at all. Something hard.

Something strong.

“I said no.” Patrick’s angry voice punched into her, an echo of the unseen force shoving her chest. She stumbled, her boot heels sinking in the beach’s soft sand, her arms pinwheeling to keep her balance. What was pushing her? What—

Her gaze snapped to Patrick’s face and she gasped.

His eyes glowed a dark, dark emerald. So dark they almost appeared black.

Her spine erupted in a violent itch, making her cry out with pain. And fear. What was going on? Without thought, she snatched out for him with her mind, locking him in an inescapable psychokinetic hold. Whether he wanted to or not, she needed answers. She needed to get him back to the—

She went flying backward in a wild, abrupt arc. Struck in the chest again by the same invisible blow.

Her ass smacked the sand first, followed by her palms, elbows, and the back of her head. Her teeth snapped shut, sinking into the tip of her tongue and a galaxy of black stars exploded before her eyes.

What the?

Incredulous fury shot through her. She surged to her feet, uncaring of the humans hovering around them. How dare he? How dare—

He met her gaze, for a heartbeat, and then turned away.

“Hey?” What the hell? “Hey!”

She took a step forward, ready to run after him, prepared to tackle him to the ground if she must, when, in a blur of color, Ven stood directly in her path, eyes glowing yellow.

“You heard him, Reaper.” He gave her a cold, menacing grin, the tips of his fangs glinting in the sunlight. “Now, fuck off.”

Without waiting to see her reaction, he turned on his heel and followed after Patrick, his tall, lean frame relaxed and, she had no doubt at all, completely ready to tear her apart. “Oh, and one more thing,” he threw over his shoulder, not deigning to look at her as he moved with fluid ease across the uneven sand. “Stay the fuck away from my brother.”

She stared after him, after them both, her tailbone itching, her heart pounding. She watched Ven take two blurring steps, defying space and speed until he fell into place beside Patrick. Watched the two men—so alike from behind she would have had difficulty telling them apart if it wasn’t for Patrick’s naked torso and sun-kissed skin—move through the car park until they were blocked from her sight by a garbage truck.

She stood still, the weight of everything that had just transpired stealing her breath.

Should she go after them? She could overcome Ven easily enough, even if he could survive sunlight…well, she assumed she could, and as for Patrick…

And as for Patrick, what? She’d just witnessed him destroy a nikor with the fuck knows what; he’d shoved her halfway across the beach without lifting a finger let alone a fist; and her attempt to hold him with her mind had failed utterly. Something entirely impossible. No one