Rising

  Xanthus gripped the steering wheel of his SUV so tightly that the leather squeaked and steel bent under the pressure. His nostrils flared at the scent in the air. It was unmistakable.

  It was impossible.

  His eyes darted around the dark, decaying neighborhood. Rain battered against crumbling buildings and piled-up garbage. Across a narrow parking lot sat a small figure in a wheelchair—a woman. Another woman strolled up behind her and startled her. They wasted no time before entering the building.

  It couldn’t be. He had to be mistaken. He may have been living here five months now but he could never forget or mistake that scent. A female Dagonian’s ripe fertility saturated the air.

  What the Hades was she doing here? Did she come here on her own? Of course she did.

  A horn blasted his eardrums. He cursed when he realized he sat parked in the middle of the street. He eased his SUV next to the curb and let the car pass.

  He had to find out what this little female was doing here. Actually, her reasons were irrelevant. There was no good reason she’d be here. He turned off his engine, opened his door, and stalked into the night.

  He approached the front door. Should he simply enter the building and knock? No, the other woman was there. He didn’t want any collateral damage. The human might be innocent, even if this particular Dagonian female wasn’t.

  He circled around the darkened building and found the female’s window within minutes. Her scent blew through a gap in the old, splintered window frame. Sudden need hit him like a blow to the stomach. Her scent billowed thick in the air and it smelled different from what he’d expected. It had a sweet, earthy smell to it and it appealed to him much more powerfully than he remembered. In fact, despite his years of training, he had to make an effort to keep his attention on the task at hand.

  He approached the window and attempted to peer inside. Heavy draperies made it impossible to see in. Resigned to the fact that he could not see her at this point, he pressed himself close to the window to listen in on the conversation.

  “Sara. Listen, I know you had a really rough childhood…” The human spoke. Her voice grated the way human voices do.

  “I should have never told you that.” Xanthus almost smiled when he first heard the musical lilt of the female. His near smile turned to a scowl as he realized the effect her voice had on him. He forced himself into predator mode, analyzing the criminal, looking for weaknesses.

  Her voice rose and fell in a quiet, singsong way. The Dagonian sounded young, like a female who had just emerged into womanhood, yet she had an amazing command of the language. Xanthus listened further. She had no distinguishable accent. In fact, she spoke better than he did and he’d been studying English for years. How long had she been here?

  Xanthus heard the door shut as the human left.

  He followed the Dagonian’s appealing scent as she moved to another room. He found it wafting from another window. That window proved just as visually impenetrable as the first one. She guarded well against prying eyes.

  He heard her rummaging about the room for several long minutes, and then heard running water. It almost drowned out the heartbreaking sound of her weeping.

  Almost.

  Whatever her reasons for being here, she sounded miserable.

  He knew what he had to do, what he’d done countless times before. As a trained soldier, he had a sacred duty to protect his people, guard their secret, and uphold the law. This female’s presence here was not only a criminal act, but it also presented an imminent threat. And because of that, his course was clear.

  He had to kill her.

  His plan lay clearly before him. Blanketed in the shadows, he’d enter her apartment window. Moving silently, he’d strike fast. Before she could cry out for help, he’d have her throat slit wide open. With her blood flowing swiftly, she’d be dead in mere seconds. The fact that she bathed at this time added to the ease of the execution. Clean up would be simple. Before the night ended, it would be as if she’d never existed. The Dagonian threat of exposure would be wiped clean from the human world.

  Xanthus stood, his feet rooted in place under her window. Her sweet scent surrounded him as he listened to her pitiful sobs. Then, in that moment, he did the most shameful thing he’d ever done in his life.

  He hesitated.

  No, he didn’t merely hesitate. He halted. Fingering his blade in his holster, he willed his feet to move, but they seemed unwilling to obey. Then his mind latched onto a thought. It was no crime to wait for a more opportune time or a more secluded place to strike. He didn’t need to act rashly. True, finding her here in the human world shocked him, but he needed to be clear-headed and sure when he killed her.

  He made his way back to his vehicle and climbed behind the wheel. He leaned his head back against the seat, closed his eyes, and attempted to clear his head.

  He’d be back and she would die. She deserved to die. She may have the voice of an angel, but that was a lie. She was a traitor, a threat to their people. No other explanation made sense.

  He felt someone near just before a fist rapped on the glass. A big, filthy man with wild hair motioned for him to roll down his window.

  As soon as the glass lowered, the barrel of a high-caliber pistol poked inside. “Give me all your money and I won’t hurt you,” the man growled.

  “Put away that gun and I won’t hurt you,” Xanthus said, his voice low and menacing.

  The man didn’t seem too impressed. “Yeah man, right. You might notice I’m the one with the…” Before he got the words out, Xanthus had the gun out of the man’s hand and pointed back at his face with his windpipe clenched in his fist.

  “Hey man, I was just joking,” the human choked out.

  “Just walk away. And don’t come back. If I see your face anywhere near here again, I’ll kill you. Do you understand me?”

  The man’s eyes widened in fear. “Yeah, yeah, I hear you,” he said, just before Xanthus released him and he escaped into the darkness.

  Xanthus looked toward the little female’s apartment building across the street. Could she have found a more dangerous place to live? He placed the gun in the glove compartment. He shouldn’t have let the gunman live.

  This Dagonian female probably felt at home with these bottom-feeders.

  Probably? Aw Hades. He cursed himself and the doubt in his mind. He doubly cursed that he couldn’t seem to stop himself from caring about her welfare. He’d be killing her himself, after all. The traitor had to die, regardless of his feelings and no matter how appealing she was. Of course if she died by a human’s hands then he wouldn’t…

  No.

  He shook his head at his own idiotic thoughts. If a human killed her, then her body would be taken to the morgue, for the humans to see. He couldn’t let that happen. He had to be the one to kill her and carefully dispose of her body. And he would, soon.

  Just not tonight.