Shades of Blood

  The laughing kisses they pressed to one another’s mouths grew quickly heated and Noah reached for the handle on the closet door. “Choose quickly. Please.”

  “Your room.”

  They made it upstairs to Noah’s room without meeting a soul, despite Eden mocking Noah’s determination to get her alone. Her hand was practically numb in his, he was gripping it so tight, and he’d nearly pulled her arm out of the socket twice, hurrying her along. His bedroom door slammed shut behind them, the key turning in the lock with blurry movement. And then he was kissing her roughly again, matching her need for need as they stumbled across the room onto his huge bed.

  Determined to make sure she did things right with Noah, Eden had talked with him weeks ago about taking things slow. Not just emotionally but physically. He hadn’t been too happy with the emotional slowdown, and in fact had ignored that part of her concern completely because he said he was already in love with her… so how much could he really slow that down? But he’d been as much of a gentleman as he could be about the physical stuff. He’d been careful with her, and so far he hadn’t pressured her into having sex. But every time they made out it escalated quickly into more and Eden had to fight her way through the fog to put the brakes on. Noah had always stopped, frustrated physically, which she got. But she worried he was growing impatient. He never said he was, but she knew it must be hard for a guy who was used to getting laid all the time (randy little manwhore that he’d been) to have to temper his lust for her.

  And, she gasped, as his body pressed her against the bed, he was definitely hot for her.

  And she for him.

  Like every other time, the fog descended over Eden, smothering her in Noah’s scent and heat. Her whole body was on fire as their kisses grew more frantic. She helped tug Noah’s shirt off, throwing it somewhere over his shoulder, his silken, tan skin hot and hard under her hands as she pulled him back down to her, her fingertips trailing shivers down his spine. He shuddered against her, murmuring love words in her ear that made her feel safe and so happy. She never thought she could be this happy. She smiled against his mouth, her breath hitching as his own hands trailed down her side and across her stomach, exposed by the shirt that was rucked up to just below her chest. She glanced down as Noah’s strong fingers stopped on the button above the zipper on her jeans. An excited flush swept up from her toes to the top of her head and her eyes flew up to meet Noah’s. They glittered down at her, asking the silent question.

  It was so foggy. So so foggy.

  She nodded and jerked involuntarily as his eyes darkened to smoldering amethyst.

  God he was so hot.

  How did she get so lucky to have someone like him want her?

  Noah loved her.

  Wow.

  At the tug on her jeans, Eden’s eyes followed the feeling, watching as Noah popped the button off. Her chest rose and fell harder and Noah made a rough sound sensing her excitement. His fingers brushed her skin there and her lower belly trembled. He caught the zipper and began pulling it down-

  BANG BANG BANG!

  “Noah! Are you in there with Eden?” Cyrus yelled through the door after pounding it to hell.

  They both froze against one another, the heat seeping out of Eden at the sound of her guardian only meters away behind a very breakable wooden door. Noah groaned, falling against her, his lips pressing against her shoulder where he buried his head. Eden choked on a sympathetic laugh, her fingers running comfortingly through his hair.

  “Noah?!”

  He lifted his head to glare at the door. “No!”

  “Well, it is time for your patrol,” the Princeps voice lowered marginally.

  “OK. Got it. I’ll be downstairs in a minute.”

  “Eden, you too,” Cyrus growled unhappily, his footsteps fading down the hallway.

  They were quiet and tense for a moment, realizing Cyrus knew exactly what they’d been up to.

  A bubble of rare giggles erupted from Eden, and Noah pushed up away from her, shaking his head. He smiled lovingly down at her before pressing a frustrated kiss against her lips. “I guess the interruption was worth it just to hear that sound.”

  Chapter Two

  A Race to the Truth

  The air of anticipation that met her as she joined Noah, Cyrus and Val in the entrance hall almost defused the glow across her skin from her and Noah’s make-out session. After Cyrus’ interruption she’d taken off for her own room to throw on black jeans and a black long-sleeved top. Her eyes met Noah’s. He grinned suggestively at her as she skipped down the stairs and she eyed him, flushing. He was wearing black too. Correction, he was wearing the tight black thermal top that accentuated his athletic build and made her mouth go dry.

  “You ready?” Cyrus asked her quietly, the concern in his dark eyes drawing her thoughts away from happy Noah ones to real life. Cyrus allowed Eden to patrol because it was what she was born to do and because he knew she was capable of taking care of herself.

  It didn’t mean he liked it.

  His concern always warmed her.

  She smiled, glad he hadn’t mentioned catching her in Noah’s room. “As always.” She grinned at Val who was busy strapping her favorite short sword – an acinaces - to her hip. She wore a long black coat made of the softest leather, the stylish and expensive outerwear hiding the acinaces from view. Noah smiled at Eden again before disappearing inside the weapons’ closet. Although Cyrus had a secure weapons’ room in the basement, they all kept their favorite weapons locked up in the entrance hall closet for easy access. To the casual observer the hall closet was a small space that housed their coats and other outer gear behind white, wooden, double doors. To those in the know, an electronic keypad on the left wall allowed those with the correct password to open the sliding steel wall to reveal a small-ish weapons’ room. Noah came out, his broadsword - a kaskara - already strapped across his back. He tugged on his leather jacket, frowning at her.

  “Your katana isn’t in there.”

  Confusion wrinkled the skin between her eyebrows just as a familiar voice called her name. She spun around, an automatic smirk turning up the right corner of her mouth as Jack, one of Cyrus’ security guys, strode towards her across the entrance hall, her katana in hand.

  “You left it in the training room. Thought you might need it.” He smirked back at her, clearly remembering her kicking his ass too. God that had been fun.

  “Thanks.” Eden grasped the hand guard, taking her ‘baby’ from him. She loved her katana, especially since Noah had had the words Blood Will Tell inscribed in the blade as a reminder of who she really was.

  Her mother’s daughter.

  Jack shook his head, laughing, a warm buttery sound that Eden liked immensely. “You should see how possessive you are about that thing.” He gestured to the sword.

  She raised an eyebrow. “We’ve been over this. She’s my baby.”

  “Well you certainly didn’t need ‘your baby’ the other night. That was quite the smackdown.”

  She tilted her head, staring into space as if fondly remembering their training session in the gym. “Ahh, it was, wasn’t it.”

  “I want a do-over.” Jack crossed his arms over his chest, pretending to look annoyed.

  “A do-over smackdown?”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  She grinned again, comfortable in his company. Jack was one of the few - OK, who was she kidding? Only - member of Cyrus’ security team who talked to her as if she was a human being. The others went out of their way to avoid her and if they had to talk to her they were like frickin’ robots.

  Jack had been different from the first moment they’d met and as they gradually grew to get to know one another over the last few weeks, Eden learned why.

  Their training sessions started up fairly quickly. The first night Noah went out patrolling without her in fact. From then on, when Noah was out, Jack would come find her and they’d head down to the training rooms. Neither one went easy on the
other. It was a good time though. They had the same dark sense of humor and somewhat cynical outlook on life. Eden knew what made her that way but she was curious to know why Jack was the way that he was. When she’d asked, he’d ended their training session early. Cursing herself for irritating the one person outside her new family who actually liked hanging out with her, Eden hadn’t expected to see much of Jack again.

  She’d been wrong.

  The next day he’d come to her room and told her his story.

  Jack’s father had been a killer.

  A gun for hire.

  When Jack was seven his dad had taken off. It hadn’t been a huge loss. He’d beaten Jack’s mom too many times to count and had just begun to start in on Jack. Finally his mom had gone to her Councilman for help but Jack’s dad had disappeared before they could stop him. Things had been quiet right up until Jack turned sixteen, when his Councilman and Cyrus came to him to tell him they suspected his father of being an assassin. He’d taken his Neith abilities and used them to set himself up as a professional hitman. He’d been under suspicion for a while but it was only as the investigation went on that they realized Jack’s father went above and beyond ‘regular’ assassination. He tortured his victims, toyed with them, enjoyed their pain. The thought that someone who carried the same DNA in him as he did could be capable of such a thing had messed with Jack’s head… to say the least. The only way he thought he’d be able to deal with it, to deal with the pain his father had caused not only his victims but his victim’s families, was to deliver the justice himself. Cyrus had given Jack permission to hunt his own father.

  Hunt him he did.

  Kill him he did.

  After that Jack had grown silent, unable to say much else about it. Eden didn’t press him for answers. Instead she’d reached for his hand and squeezed it tight, her eyes telling him she understood.

  It was then it made perfect sense to her why Jack treated her like a friend.

  He got her.

  He understood what it was like to question your own psychology, your own morality, when you were the child of a psychopath.

  “Well if you can stand the humiliation, I will see you in the training room tomorrow,” Eden promised him as she belted her katana’s blue lacquered scabbard around her hips.

  Jack snorted. “It’s a deal.”

  They smirked at one another again before his eyebrows drew together, a flash of concern brightening the dark blue of his irises. “Be careful.” He nodded at her and then acknowledged Cyrus with a deferential nod before turning on his heel, striding out of the entrance hall with a confidence Eden admired.

  “Training room?” Noah queried softly and Eden turned around to find him frowning at her, his own arms crossed over his chest, his legs splayed. His entire body vibrated with an energy that screamed DANGER.

  “Yeah.” She shrugged, confused by his demeanor. “I must have left it there the other night.”

  Noah shook his head. “That’s not what I meant.” He was scowling now as he took a few steps closer to her. “You two spar together?”

  “A few times, yeah.”

  With an unhappy grunt, Noah walked away catching the car keys Cyrus threw at him. Bemused, Eden raised an eyebrow at Val. Her mentor grinned back knowingly.

  Val was off on her own patrolling the Beacon Hill area while Eden walked calmly beside Noah south of Boston Public Gardens. They’d already made their way up through Bay Village with no sign of anything out of the ordinary. Eden marveled over her ability to put aside everything else when she was out on patrol. Only hours before she’d been flushed hot, ready to devour Noah and now she was barely aware of a word he said to her as her head swiveled from side to side, her ears cocked, her senses open and alert. She was a little disappointed they hadn’t found anything. She wondered if Val was fairing any better. Eden wondered a lot of things about Val. True they were close, but not close enough to hunt together? In fact, Val never hunted with anyone. She was a lone wolf, she joked. Eden wondered what that was about but never worried about Val’s safety. Val was a badass.

  She and Noah had just turned onto Boylston Street, the shadow of Arlington Street Church casting a gloom over Noah’s face despite the lights from the nearby commercial buildings and street lamps, when Noah’s words actually penetrated her patrol mode.

  “What?” She frowned up at him.

  He stopped, glancing over his shoulder as a couple passed by, their arms tight around one another and their eyes wary. Cyrus had been right. People knew there was something off about the Ankh when they came upon one and this couple wasn’t any different. They wanted away from the two young people dressed all in black, the energy around them crackling with danger, as quickly as possible. Noah waited until they were out of earshot, and the almost silence of early morning (late night) Boston made the hair rise on Eden’s neck. Or was that something else? She scowled, throwing a look at the couple disappearing around the corner.

  Nah. It was cool. They were just human.

  Noah cleared his throat. “I asked how long you and Jack have been having these little training sessions of yours.”

  Eden shook her head, biting back a sarcastic ‘really?’ They were on patrol for pity’s sake and he wanted to talk about Jack. She sighed and started to walk again, heading towards the Arlington Street junction. “I don’t know. Three, four weeks.”

  He made a disgruntled, huffing sound and Eden smirked at him. “That long, huh?”

  “Noah, Jack is the only Neith in that whole place who treats me like a normal person. The others are cold and distant… so forgive me for wanting to interact with someone who doesn’t hold my past against me.”

  “They don’t hold your past against you. They’re just acting more professional than Jack.” At the bewildered look Eden threw him, Noah shrugged. “What? I just don’t like the guy OK. And I don’t like the fact that every time my back is turned he’s hanging around my girlfriend.”

  A sudden realization dawned on Eden. She stumbled to a stop. “We’re just friends, Noah.”

  She was rewarded with a grunt, his scowl fierce and as dark as the weapons they had hidden under their jackets.

  “Noah.” Eden shook her head, completely surprised by his reaction to her friendship with Jack. Noah?! Her Noah?! Cool, collected Noah that was rarely pissed off at anything? “Are you jealous?”

  “I don’t know,” he replied between clenched teeth, the tendons in his jaw flexing in frustration. “I’ve never been jealous before.”

  Trying not to laugh in delight that her boyfriend was capable of the same base emotions she was, Eden struggled for the right words, “Well… um… do you want to tear his head off every time he talks to me?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Wow. You are jealous.” She couldn’t help it. A warm, delighted chuckle purred from the back of her throat.

  Noah shot her look, less than amused. “It appears so.”

  Feeling unexpectedly close to him, Eden attempted to un-ruffle him. Standing on her tiptoes she pressed a soft kiss to his lips. His lips parted immediately, and his strong hands gripped her waist as he kissed her back, slowly, seductively. She felt his muscles relax beneath her and she pulled back, reminding herself they were on patrol. As she took a step back, Noah smiled hopefully at her. “Does that mean you’ll stop hanging out with him?”

  Eden snorted. “Nope.”

  Just as Noah opened his mouth to inevitably argue, a muffled cry reached Eden’s hypersensitive ears. Noah froze.

  “You hear that?”

  “Yeah.” He started striding across the quiet street. “The gardens.”

  Eden stared into the dark of the Public Gardens and shook her head. “What about the park rangers?”

  “If you see one… run.”

  Another cry echoed into the air. They took off, ignoring the startled looks of the few pedestrians that were around. They scaled the fence with ease, entering the closed gardens and peering out from behind trees onto the foo
tpath. A plea for help was muffled by the dark of the night but the Ankh heard it just fine. Noah growled. “The lake.”

  Eden took off after him, her eyes and ears open and alert, watching her peripheral, glancing over her shoulder to make sure no one jumped out and surprised them.

  What the...

  She paused for a moment, disbelieving that two idiot soul eaters were actually attacking two park rangers out in full view by the lake. OK, so the park was closed and there was no one there, but if anyone else had heard the guys cry out then they’d have come across these two jackasses beating the crap out of two rangers before attempting to suck out their souls. Way to be stealth!

  The whisper of steel as Noah slid his kaskara from the scabbard strapped to his back alerted their enemy. Like a true, soul sucking fiend, one of the soul eaters dropped his victim and took off, leaving his friend behind to watch after him in shock and disbelief.

  “I’m going after him!” Eden shouted to Noah, tearing down the footpath after the creep. He was a tall guy, but wiry, his long legs and slight build eating up the ground beneath him. Eden pushed her muscles, the wind whipping her pony tail back, her lightweight coat fluttering behind her. Damn it, her weapon was on display.

  There was nothing for it.

  She couldn’t let this tool go.

  But hell he was fast.

  She chased him across the bridge and through the gardens, a startled shout from her left telling her she’d been spotted by another ranger. Furious that this was not going to be a subtle takedown, Eden poured her anger into her legs. The soul eater spilled out onto Charles Street, knocking a young guy on his ass as he did so. Eden yelled an apology for him over her shoulder as she tore up the road after him, barely checking for traffic as he sped north into the Beacon Hill area. Winding his way around people who yelped out in fright at the truly unnatural speed of the guy pumping his guts away from a young girl in a black coat (and wait, was she carrying a weapon?!), meant the soul eater lost ground. Eden felt the tingle of coming battle and cut the distance between them just as they hit the bottom of Cedar Lane Way. She could run for a long time but even her immortal muscles were feeling the burn of sprinting for four blocks.