Dark Destiny (Dark Sentinel #1) - Lexxie Couper Page 0,44

the thought and tapped the armrest once again, this time with less rancor. The last Fate made a great addition to his throne. In fact, she was more comfortable to plant his backside on now than alive.

Alive.

At the single word, Pestilence’s humor vanished.

The lifeguard was still alive. No matter his efforts to the contrary, the cursed human was alive and had achieved the impossible—killing a third-order demon.

A cold thread of fear twisted into Pestilence’s chest and curled tightly around his heart. How had Patrick Watkins killed an aqueous demon? According to his source in the human world, the lifeguard’s interfering, irritating, overprotective, impossible-to-get-past vampire brother had finally been otherwise occupied. Nothing should have prevented the mature male nikor from tearing the man apart below the surface of the very water he so pitifully and pathetically loved. Nothing.

And yet he still lived. In one piece.

Not only that, Death, the supercilious bitch, had not succumbed when he had attacked her. According to the last Fate, Death would be weak when he found the lifeguard. Well, he had found him. Had a metaphysical lock on him, so why the fuck was Death not coughing up a rat-filled lung right at this moment?

Tapping his nails—now dagger-tipped claws dripping disease—against the armrest of his throne, Pestilence stared without interest at his bed and the naked succubus chained to it.

He could not, would not believe the last Fate had been wrong. She had never been wrong in her four millennia of existence. It was not possible she’d been this time.

No. Everything she had said was true. He knew it.

But time was running out. Within the next moon cycle the thinning of the veil between his world and the human world would reverse and his opportunity would be lost. He needed to eliminate the problem of the lifeguard soon. Very soon. Otherwise he would be in danger of failing and he would not let that happen.

He was not going to let some pathetic, weak, feeble mortal take from him that which he had lusted for, planned for, for the last millennium.

He needed to tap his source. Hard.

He needed answers. He needed to know Patrick Watkins’ weakness.

Now.

Before his only window of opportunity closed.

The chill of the wind and the cold, white light of the sun.

That was always the first memory Patrick had of the moment in time he’d come to think of as the “event”.

The early morning wind had gusted across Bondi Beach, uncommonly cold, even for mid-winter, its icy breath cutting into his face, whipping up grains of sand and tearing at the ragged peaks of the crashing waves. The stark, heatless sun had bleached the angry surf and empty beach to a washed-out grey, leeching the color from the world, turning it into a monotone of chilly stillness.

Out on the waves bobbed six surfboard riders, Bluey the most senior. They crested each irritable peak, disappeared into the trough and popped up again. Of the six only Patrick’s second-in-charge challenged the waves enough to put feet to board. Passion and insanity was always a thin, tenuous line for the die-hard surfer.

Standing on the empty winter beach, the collar of his windcheater turned up in a futile effort to protect his face from the elements, Patrick had watched his work mate maneuver onto the arcing face of a six-foot curl. The mad man rode it with all the grace of a dancer…until the wave turned nasty and smashed him into the water. A jolt of fear had tinged Patrick’s startled laugh and he’d cringed, knowing Bluey was fine—no wave yet had bested him—but feeling his mate’s pain anyway. A wipeout like that would be spoken of for decades to come. Bluey’s pride would take a beating even if his body hadn’t.

Turning from the sight of his right-hand man scrambling back on to his board and paddling back out past the breakers, Patrick had shaken his head. They were all insane. He loved to surf as much as the next bloke, but it was bloody freezing, the surf was a messy bitch, and he had paper work to do. Just because it was winter, didn’t mean he didn’t work.

Slapping at his biceps in an attempt to ward off the chill, he’d begun walking toward the patrol tower.

And stopped.

A man stood on the high-tide line about twenty feet away, neat black suit doing nothing to hide his thin, almost scrawny build. His lank, dark hair fell over his pasty white forehead, brushing at his eyes, and Patrick frowned. The Nor’wester