Marked (Eternal Guardians #1)

  ***

  The scent of death hit Nick’s senses the second he killed the bike’s engine and pulled off his helmet.

  Casey’s house was dark, but he knew even before he stepped inside what he’d find.

  With a sinking stomach, he walked around the house and found the back doorframe shattered, the door itself hanging from its hinges. The kitchen was neat and orderly, but even here he could smell what lay farther inside.

  He made himself cross the hardwood floor, his boots clunking with each step. When he reached the arched doorway that led into the living room, he stopped and swallowed the bile sliding up his throat.

  The couch was slashed and overturned, the coffee table nothing more than a pile of kindling. Books and broken trinkets littered the floor, and in the middle of the mess lay Dana’s lifeless body.

  “Ah, shit, Dana.”

  He knelt beside her, scanning what was left. Dana’s wide, unfocused eyes stared up at the ceiling, and her face was bloody and bruised. One leg was cocked at an odd angle, the bone jutting through skin and denim alike, and bloodstained scratches marred most of her body. But the most disgusting thing—and that which Nick had suspected when he’d first come upon the house—was the gaping hole in the center of her chest where her heart used to be.

  He ran a hand over his mouth, shut his eyes and cursed himself for walking out on her the other night. He’d sensed her death was coming, but he hadn’t done enough to protect her. If he’d driven her back to the colony himself, if he’d been more insistent… Dammit, if he’d opened his eyes and tuned in to her, she’d be alive now.

  If is for shit. She’s dead, no thanks to you.

  He opened his eyes and stared down at her. Their relationship had been warped on more than one front, but in his own way, he’d cared for her. More than maybe anyone else in his life. She’d understood him and his needs, and she’d never once said no, even when those needs had been pretty fucking twisted. And how had he repaid her? With this.

  She’d accused him of having a god complex. He knew she was right. But even a god wouldn’t fuck up this bad.

  The cell in his pocket vibrated. “What?” he answered.

  “Nick, it’s Helene. We have a situation.”

  He rose slowly to his feet as those fucking scars on his back began to tingle. “What’s happened now?”

  “Marissa wandered off this morning. Search parties are out looking for her. But the woman you brought here yesterday? Casey? She and the Argonaut are out there now, too. And they’re the only pair that hasn’t checked in yet.”

  Nick’s hand tightened around the phone. “Fuck me.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I couldn’t stop her from going.”

  “I’m on my way back.”

  “Did you find Dana?”

  Nick glanced down at Dana once more and buried the pain deep inside as he did every time one from his colony was killed. The anguish from her death would last longer than the rest, but he was half Argonaut. His son-of-a-bitch side would get over it soon enough. “I found her.”

  “Is she—”

  “Ready the fires, Helene.”

  He closed the phone just as Helene began weeping.

  Chapter Nineteen