anyone what you’d seen.
“What did they use those for again?” Nick asked in a voice that came out a lot squeakier and in a much higher octave than he’d intended. One that sounded like he hadn’t quite reached puberty yet.
Yeah, it’d just sucked out a whole level of testosterone he wanted back.
Xev stepped around his father. “Messengers of the gods. They guarded the gates of Annwn. Were sent to hunt down the dark ones and Children of Llyr, and unchristened souls. They were also used by the gods in battle. It was said anyone who heard their baying would die. So in a way, they were like banshees.”
Nick cleared his throat and intentionally dropped it an octave before he spoke again. “And the gates of Annwn are what?”
“Celtic Underworld.” Xev moved slowly toward Kaziel. “You remember me, old friend?”
The way he eyed Xev with those freaky glowing eyes, Nick half expected him to take a bite out of him. But he held himself perfectly still as Xev approached him to present his hand so that Kaziel could sniff the back of his fist.
Only then did the hound shift to his human form. Crouched low, and wearing jeans and a black leather jacket, he unfolded himself slowly to emerge as an even more impressively giant, muscled beast.
Nick crossed himself again. Though this time, he did manage to withhold the verbal expletives. Yet he still exchanged a wide-eyed gaping stare with Kody.
Standing a good two inches taller than Nick, Kaziel had long pale blond hair that fell to his shoulders. Tiny braids interlaced with beads and feathers held it back from his face. That wasn’t the nonblending part so much as the facial tattoos that curved from his chin up and over his cheeks like tusks, to come to a sharp point under eyes so light and green they glowed with an ethereal, fey light.
There was also an additional tattoo in the center of his forehead that appeared to be the stylized symbol of some god.
More Celtic birdlike tattoos that were almost identical in form to the ones on the Dark-Hunter Talon, covered the left side of his well-muscled torso beneath his leather motorcycle jacket.
And none of that took in his lethal aura that said, yeah, I’m an ancient warrior who can kick your butt and not care.
Nick frowned. “Are those symbols for the Mórrígan?”
Snarling, Kaziel started for him, but Xev caught him and forced him back. “It’s okay, Kaz.” Over his shoulder, he scowled at Nick. “How do you know that? You never know that kind of thing.”
“Talon of the Morrigantes. He has markings like that, in the same place on his body. He’s also an ancient Celt. And though his hair is short, he has similar braids, too.”
That seemed to calm Kaziel.
Xev released him. “In the case of Kaziel, his have to do with Brân the Blessed. And the sun marks him as being aligned to the children of Dôn.”
Kody pursed her lips. “I thought she was a moon goddess like Artemis.”
“But aligned to the side of light.”
“So he’s like us,” Caleb said. “A creature torn between light and dark?”
Xev nodded. “Born of both sides. Forever lured between them. Never trusted by either, and cursed by both.”
“That explains it.”
Jaden scowled. “Explains what?”
Caleb gave his father a cold grimace. “Why he hides in the cellar and they get along.” Then he turned to Kaziel. “Nice meeting you, brother. Welcome to the family.… We should start making T-shirts.”
Without a word of comment on that, Kaziel stepped away from Xev to approach Kody. She slid an uncomfortable look to Nick who didn’t like the sudden light in those creepy green eyes as Kaziel circled her.
Yeah, he didn’t need his powers to guess what thoughts were in the horndog’s mind.
Before either of them realized what Kaziel intended, he stepped closer to Kody and nuzzled his face against her hair.
“Okay,” Nick snapped. “Dude, enough of that. She’s my girl. And you don’t go sniffing on other guys’ girls. I don’t know about the time and place you come from, but it’s considered rude here.”
When Nick closed the distance between them, Kaziel growled at him.
Nick didn’t flinch or back down. “Check the attitude at the door, ’cause I’m about to open up some fresh whoop … ass.”
“We don’t need to escalate this to violence.” Kody wrapped her hands in Nick’s baggy shirt and attempted to push him back a bit, only to learn he had no intention of budging. “I’m sure he didn’t realize he was