Yeah, he knew. He’d gone through a battery of tests before the military released him to The Aegis. “So?”
“New technology has become available, and we’ve run old tests again.” Arik glanced down before looking back up, directly into Kynan’s eyes. “Something came up in yours. A suspicious gene.”
Kynan’s stomach took a dive to his feet. “Do not say it’s a demon gene, Arik. Don’t. Even. Say. It.”
“That’s the thing, Ky. We think it’s something else.”
“What? Shapeshifter?”
Arik shook his head. “It’s got divine coding. I don’t know the fancy technical term for it. I’m just the muscle.”
“Goddammit, spit it out.”
“Fallen angel, Kynan. We think that somewhere perched in your family tree, there’s a fallen angel.”
Kynan’s head swam with denial. “Fallen angels are demons.”
“Not always. This was probably an angel who hadn’t entered Sheoul yet. Fallen, but not quite demon.”
Kynan thought about Reaver, UG’s resident fallen angel. He was in that in-between state, though Kynan had no idea why. The guy never talked about it. As far as Ky knew, no one knew Reaver’s story … how he fell and why he hadn’t entered Sheoul.
This was just too unbelievable, and had to be a mistake. Had to be. But as much as he wanted to rail against the information, he also had to stay level. The tests could be wrong, but if they weren’t, he needed to know what the results meant.
“What does R-XR want with me?” he asked, his voice hoarser than he’d have liked. “Straight up.”
“We need to run more tests. Do some research.”
“Poke and prod, you mean.”
Arik didn’t deny it. “Nothing like this has ever been seen before.”
Yeah, and Kynan hadn’t been born yesterday. The R-XR didn’t send armed teams to grab someone they wanted to do tests on. “What else?”
A vein in Arik’s forehead pulsed, and Kynan knew this was Arik’s ace, the card he’d been given to play only if he absolutely had to.
“Jesus, it’s not some stupid prophecy, is it? Because those never make sense, never turn out like they’re supposed to …”
He met Kynan’s gaze with solemn eyes. “It’s more than a prophecy, Ky. We’re talking about a lock of biblical proportions. And you might be the key.”
“The key to what?”
“The end of the world,” Arik said grimly. “Armageddon.”
The concussion from Arik’s bomb rocked Kynan to his bones. His head snapped back, and he stood there in silence for a moment, too stunned and terrified to speak, move, or breathe. Finally, when his lungs began to burn, he sucked in some air and pulled it together. “Give me a second.” His legs were wobbly as they carried him to the kitchen.
Gem met him, her eyes watery and her chin trembling. She knew. “You’re leaving.”
“Yes.” There was no way to soften the blow. Though he hadn’t expected the blow to hurt him as much. Just when he was getting his life together, just as one wound had finally healed, he’d been knocked back to square one, because even though he wasn’t prepared to take Arik at his word, this couldn’t be ignored. “I’m sorry, Gem.”
He kissed her, putting everything he had into it. And then he walked away.
Chapter 23
It had been nearly a month since the last full moon—which had been Shade’s first shift to a werewolf, and Runa’s twelfth. Tonight would kick off Shade’s last; Eidolon’s vaccine was ready to use after the moon phase was done. But it would be her thirteenth shift, and while many people believed thirteen was a bad omen, Runa had always felt the opposite. Thirteen was her lucky number, so she couldn’t understand why she felt so unsettled lately.
Even Shade had been behaving strangely over the last couple of days, had been extra-attentive and plastered by her side. If not for the fact that he’d been called into the hospital for some sort of emergency, he’d not have let her out of his sight. He’d wanted her to go with him, but with the full moon only hours away, she’d needed to prepare.
Smiling, she approached her house. Their lair. Shade had sold his city apartment, and now they spent most of their time at her place, though sometimes, when Runa was feeling extra frisky, they spent their days off at his cave.
Shade had wanted to abandon the cave, but she’d convinced him to keep it. With a little redecorating—which meant getting rid of most, but not all, of his toys—the place had become downright homey. She’d even surprised him by researching his Umber background and then filling the cave with Umber art and woven carpets. When he’d seen what she’d done, he’d been too choked up to speak, but he’d drawn her into his arms and held her as if he’d never let her go.
Which would be fine with her.
Her cell rang as she mounted the old wooden steps. The ring tone unique to her brother sang impatiently as she set down the grocery bags on the porch and dug in her windbreaker’s pocket.
“Hey, Arik, you home?” He’d come for a visit last week and had left this morning to head back to the base.
“Yup. Got off the plane about fifteen minutes ago.” The clank and whirr of a baggage carousel forced him to raise his voice. “Maybe you could bite me or something, so I can use Harrowgates. Much faster than airplanes.”
She laughed. She’d learned to use them, though she still preferred the good old-fashioned feel of a steering wheel in her hands. In fact, she almost always drove to work … at Underworld General.
A couple of days after the battle in the dungeon, Runa and Arik had talked things out. After meeting Shade, he’d been willing to keep her secret from the R-XR if she wanted to continue working there, but the idea had made her uneasy. She couldn’t put Arik’s career in jeopardy if the truth ever came out, and besides, she’d found something even better to do with her time.
She’d approached Eidolon with an idea to take over management of the hospital’s cafeteria. The challenge of providing for the needs of dozens of species excited her, and where she’d taken a conservative approach with her coffee shop, she now felt free to take risks. Sure, she wasn’t trotting all over the globe to sniff out shapeshifters and were-beasts, but Shade could take her anywhere she wanted to go when she felt the urge to travel.
“Arik, it’d kill you to be locked up three nights a month.”
“Maybe.” She could hear the smile in his voice. “It was good seeing you so happy, sis.”
“I’m very happy,” she said. “I know you had your doubts about Shade, but you don’t need to worry.”
“I’m not. He’s obviously devoted to you. Doesn’t change the fact that he’s a demon, but he did save my life.”
“And mine,” she said softly.
“Which is why I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt.”
“What about Kynan? Is the Army giving him the benefit of the doubt?” She still didn’t know what was up with that situation. Kynan had been taken to R-XR headquarters, where he’d been subjected to a battery of tests. He wouldn’t talk, and neither would her brother, but Ky had given her a message to pass on to Gem.
“Tell her not to wait.”
“I can’t talk about Kynan. You know that.” Arik paused. “There’s my luggage. Gotta sail. Love you.”
“You, too.”
She hung up, and for whatever reason, she looked down the street. A man stood on the corner, his heated gaze focused on her. A tingle skittered over her skin. Why, she had no idea, but when he jerked his gaze away, she followed it to where another man sauntered up the sidewalk toward her. He was as light as the other man was dark, but something united them.
Something familiar.
Her pulse began to race.
The men glared at each other, both measuring the distance between themselves and her. Their eyes glowed with hunger and impending change, and she drew a startled breath. They were wargs.
Her body flooded with heat and liquid arousal. Oh, God. That was why she’d been so unsettled lately. She was entering her first yearly breeding heat.
She needed to call Shade, and now. Before instinct overruled her mind and caused her to do something stupid, like take one of the werewolves into her cage to mate. Female wargs in heat waited for the males to fight it out, and would then mate with the victor. If she became pregnant during the moon cycle, the pairing would become permanent, as wargs formed bonds similar to those of Seminus demons, and mates were for life.
The men came together in a crash of fists. They were as propelled by instinct as she was, and though they’d started the fight in human form, they’d finish it in beast bodies. Which could turn into disaster in the middle of a residential neighborhood.
“Go,” she muttered to herself, because the darkest, most primal part of her wanted to watch, to root for a victor, but the still-human side knew she had to get out of there.
Shade, hurry … He’d sense her sudden hunger and was, no doubt, on his way now. No matter what kind of emergency had prompted his trip to UG, instinct would bring him home.
She looked up at the sky, at the rapidly growing darkness, though she didn’t need to. Her body told her the moon would be up in a matter of minutes.
Quickly, she let herself into the house and darted to the basement. The unfinished room was large, the soundproofed walls allowing for as much noise as two werewolves could make.
She slipped inside the cage in the center of the room, which she and Shade had enlarged and made comfortable for both of them. She slammed the door shut and spun the combination lock.
The crash of glass sent her pulse into overdrive, and then the men were in the basement with her, launching at each other. Come on, Shade. She dug her phone out of her pocket and dialed Shade.
“I’m almost there, babe,” he said, without a hello and with panic dripping from his voice. He hung up before she could say a word.