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  Dread filled her next, but she didn’t step back from the woman’s image. Instead she looked closer.

  Hadn’t the woman been facing left earlier?

  Had the face shifted? Just an inch, maybe? Mara stepped back. Surely she’d imagined it?

  The eyes glowed, the purple stone was back, intact. She knew most of it had been missing only a moment ago. What was happening? Mara stepped back.

  She stepped back again. Right into a large, hard male chest.

  Chapter Four

  Rion knew exactly who—and what—she was the instant he smelled the clean scent of her skin, the moment her back pressed against his front.

  His.

  He’d waited for this woman for almost five hundred years. A Dardaptoan had one mate, a rajni, and that mate’s name was whispered by the Goddess of their people when a Dardaptoan was born.

  Most Adrastos waited centuries for their mate. He was no exception. Once an Adrastos found their rajni they did not let go.

  Ever.

  “Careful, little one. The demon world possesses magics we do not know a great deal about. It is not safe for you here.”

  The first words spoken to the woman he would spend the rest of his life with, and they were a warning, a chastisement, a caution for her going against the rules put into place to protect her.

  Would that bode trouble for their future?

  She gasped and turned around.

  He got his first real look at the woman he’d be with forever.

  She was smaller than average, but built thin like most Dardaptoan females. Her eyes weren’t exactly Dardaptoan, though the dark gold color fell well within the typical color range of his people.

  She looked at him with fear and mistrust.

  Rion held out his hands toward her.

  Chapter Five

  Mara shivered, then studied the warrior in front of her. There was no doubt he was Dardaptoan. They looked slightly different than any of the other Kinds. Their eyes, for one thing. A Dardaptoan always had gold in their eyes. Hers were a darker gold that she’d always considered a light brown until she’d found other Dardaptoans.

  She thought. Dardaptoans really looked no different than humans to her—although demons did come in far more color choices than Dardaptoans.

  She’d even seen one that was purple walking around the city. That had taken a bit more getting used to than she’d expected.

  This guy was as tall as any other of the warriors she’d seen, or spoken with. A bit more muscled.

  This one wore white, which she wasn’t entirely sure the significance of. Some of the Dardaptoans wore that color, but not many.

  Her mother had never explained, even with Mara’s questions of her mother’s origins.

  He wore a sword strapped to his left side. She’d taken several classes on ancient civilizations, drawn to them from the time she was a young girl, and she knew with one glance that the weapon was old and immensely valuable.

  He was someone important, then.

  Was she about to be arrested? Did Dardaptoans even do that? “I wasn’t do anything…I mean…”

  He held up a large hand. “Do not be frightened of me. Tell me, what is your name?”

  “What is yours?”

  He wasn’t a sort of authority, was he? He was just a warrior who had followed her in here. What did he want? What was he intending?

  Maybe going in the abandoned library alone hadn’t been her best idea? This guy could do anything he wanted to her, there was no way for her to really stop him. “I…need to get going…”

  He wrapped his fingers around her elbow. “Shhh.”

  Chapter Six

  Rion knew he was frightening her. He could feel her shivering, but he also felt something else. Something that had him drawing the girl to him and gripping the handle of his sword.

  Something was coming.

  And it was coming for her.

  “Listen closely. We need to head for the doors, as quickly and quietly as we can.” Nothing would hurt this girl while he was alive. Nothing, no matter what he had to do. “When I say run, you are to go as fast as you can, three hells bent on the doors. Do not stop—no matter what—until you are out the door. Do not stop even then. Keep going if you have to. And I will be right behind you.”

  She nodded.

  “Go.”

  Rion kept his body between hers and whatever lay in the depths of the library. They were still in the main hall, he could see the entrance about seven hundred feet from where they were. She had been near the back staircase—a large, probably hand-carved stone monstrosity that dominated the entire back wall of the library—studying an intricate stone relief when he’d first found her.

  There were stone chunks between them and the door. Invasive vines covered much of the debris.

  It had started to rain before he’d followed her inside—and the holes in the roof allowed too much of the water in. With the vines and rubble everywhere, it was going to be slippery as all three hells for them.

  He fought the urge to pick her up and haul her over his shoulder. Then he decided that was exactly what he should do.

  Rion grabbed her and lifted. She wasn’t exactly burdensome. But she was so infinitely precious. He could feel something behind them, watching.

  Waiting.

  He ran.

  Chapter Seven

  There really wasn’t any time for her to think. The man—whatever he was, though she suspected he was Dardaptoan—ran through the library as if she weighed nothing.

  She screamed and wrapped her arms around his neck and clung to him when the first stone tile fell from the roof. More followed.

  The building around them shook, so loud she could not hear anything but the horrific rumble.

  Another earthquake?

  He made it to the edge of the library, and carried her free of the building.

  Into screaming chaos.

  It wasn’t another earthquake—it was another attack.

  Dear God, what about her mother and brothers?

  He dropped her on her feet and wrapped one hand around hers. He pulled his sword free with the other hand.

  “Stay close to me. I will keep you safe!”

  “My brothers—they’re only twelve! I need to get to them.”

  “I will get you there.”

  For some reason she trusted him to do that.

  He said nothing else. The big warrior used his sword to cut down a something that flew straight at Mara’s head.

  Mara screamed—she couldn’t stop it, even if she tried. The sound just came from her when the black and gold animal dove right at them.

  He cursed, something in another language that she could not identify. If she’d known what words he was using she would echo them.

  Instead she just stayed with him, even after he let go of her hand.

  What else was she supposed to do? There was no way she was going to make it through the attack on her own.

  The man pulled her behind a stone pillar, a large one as big around as her old car had been. “Stay here. It might be safer to stay hidden until this ends. And it will end, I promise you that!”

  She wanted to protest, but how could she? The creatures were everywhere. People were screaming and probably dying.

  The demons and Dardaptoan warriors were everywhere, fighting the creatures back with swords and fists and whatever else they could find.

  The big male in front of her was battling back the flying black and green monsters with a sword almost as long as her body.

  She didn’t know him from Adam, but then again, she barely knew anyone in this world enough to have people to trust.

  Especially in the second demon attack of her life.

  What she really wanted to do was find a hole somewhere close and hide there until the monsters went away.

  She was old enough to know that wouldn’t really work.

  He pulled on her arm, guiding her toward the back alley that stood behind the old sanctuary of
some type of church. It hadn’t been used much since the Great Relocation.

  People were running toward it, seeking shelter from the flying beasts above them.

  The screams echoed around the stone buildings and dug their way into Mara’s head. One creature swooped down and clamped his claws around Mara’s arm. He yanked her from the big man’s hand. She screamed and shoved at the beast with her free arm. He bit at her hand.

  Mara fell to the ground, screaming, unable to fight the demon off.

  Others were attacking the man, the warrior, the whatever he was.

  Mara didn’t care, all she could focus on was the pain.

  On fighting, on surviving as best she could.

  ***

  Rion felt his Rajni’s pain the instant the carske demon sank his fangs into her skin. He used his sword to defend them both but it took him much longer than he would have liked to behead the animal tearing into his mate’s skin.

  When he pulled her into his arms, fear was greater than he’d ever experienced before. She was covered in blood and for a small Dardaptoan female that was life-threatening in itself.

  She could not afford to lose so much blood.

  The battle had started to reside and he gave thanks to the Goddess. There would be time, then, to get her to the safety of his cousin Nalik’s great hall, where she could be healed by the Dardaptoan healers, or the Laquazzeana Eaudne, even. He would be fine with that—Eaudne was the mother of the greatest healer of all time. Rion wanted the best for his female.

  He did not even know her name, only that she was young and beautiful.

  He tore the turquoise hasha scarf he always wore in half and wrapped the two pieces around each arm, hoping to stem some of the blood. He lifted her against his chest and held her tightly. Rion would get her to the great hall, and the healers.

  Nothing was going to stop him.

  Chapter Eight

  He was lucky. And he knew it. There were warriors aplenty in this new city of three hundred thousand and they were a fast response to the influx of demonic rodents attacking the city.

  It took little time for the necessary order to be restored.

  That mattered little to Rion. All that mattered was the unconscious female in his arms. She hadn’t moved since he’d pulled the final carske demon off of her and flung it aside.

  Her skin was pale, paler than it should have been. Blood loss will do that to a Dardaptoan, especially the females.

  Rion felt real fear.

  He carried her through the crowd toward the ruling hall. Had the crowd not been so full he would have run, but that was not possible. He settled for yelling for people to get out of his way.

  That worked at first.

  To his relief, he was joined by his older brothers Aodhan and Marcos. They were filthy and covered with foul green sludge, but both lived.

  A rush of worry for Nora hit him—had his sister survived the attack? “What of the rest of our Houses?”

  They were brothers, but each of them led their own people, their own houses broken off from the once larger and far nobler Adrastos House.

  Now that original House was becoming the joke of this land.

  Rion’s father had led poorly in the hundreds of years since the great splits.

  The original Adrastos House now numbered fewer than ten thousand. Rion’s own branch had grown to almost five thousand five hundred.

  “There were some losses,” Aodhan said at his Rion’s left, his sword at the ready. Rion appreciated it. “The girl?”

  “My Rajni. I do not know her name.”

  Aodhan looked at her for a moment. “The Garnier girl. House of Black, though her mother left the original house almost thirty years ago. Mated a Lupoiux who died at Redd Gothan hands. I brought them here. Her family has not had an easy time in the City of Thrun, I am afraid. From what I have seen, she has had a harder time than she should have. I approached the mother to bring her family to ours, but was turned away. Had I known the girl was yours, Rion, I would have pressed harder. The mother is…difficult, at times. Like many of the Black lines.”

  “That ends today.” And Rion knew his brothers understood. “What is her name?”

  Aodhan shook his head. “I do not remember. Her mother is Raejel, and is under fifty herself.”

  “Her mother will need to be told of her condition.”

  “And she has young brothers. They will all be brought to Nalik’s Hall,” Aodhan said. “I will set to that, if you and Marcos do not need me.”

  The home of the Dhar of Thrun was visible, less than three minutes away. “Go. Bring her mother to her. She will wake frightened.”

  “So be it done. And congratulations, brother. May your Rajni be a bit more tractable than mine.”

  “Thank you.” He’d met Aodhan’s Rajni, and the once human was a kind woman whose spirit was recovering from a great blow. Rion liked her a great deal, and knew Nora felt the same.

  But his sister-in-law did like to bedevil her mate.

  Chapter Nine

  Rion carried the girl into the great hall. It was in chaos, at first glance, but when one knew what to look for it became apparent that there was great organization at work.

  This was not the first attack the city had faced, nor did he think it would be the last. But never had the stakes felt so high.

  He carried his mate toward where the healers were gathering.

  There were not many healers in the Adrastos Houses, they ran more toward warriors than healers, but there were still a few.

  And in every city, the healers of every House would gather in the main hall. Especially when there was a crisis.

  It was the way of their people.

  The girl shifted in his arms, moaning quietly. The sound was a knife through his gut. The pain she must be feeling—the idea of his Rajni hurt sickened him.

  He would gladly take it from her if he could.

  The healers were readied, though Rion was the first through with an injury. He wondered at that, but pushed the thought aside.

  His female needed help, and thankfully they would not have to wait to get it.

  He was met by a familiar face—Barlaam, an age mate of his. And a very skilled healer. “Bring her here, Rion. Who is she?”

  “Of Nalik’s House, father’s name was Garnier. I do not know the first. And she is mine.” Rion looked down at her. “We were at the center of the attacks.”

  “It is good you arrived here so quickly.” Barlaam led the way through the hall toward a small room. Warmth hit Rion the instant he carried the girl inside. Relaklonos was colder overall when compared with Gaia, and the city of Thrun was definitely no exception to that.

  Dardaptoan females were so susceptible to the cold. He worried for her again. Would it always be so?

  The only other female he had worried over was Nora. He turned toward the healer waiting by the bed. His brother Marcos had entered the room behind him, and had the small healer enveloped in his own arms.

  Rion recognized the flame red hair and small stature and some of his tension lessened. Marcos’ female had been touched directly by the goddess of their people, and her healing gifts had grown quickly from that moment. How could they not, her being the reborn sister of that goddess?

  “Lana, my brother has found his female. She needs your skills,” Marcos said after he stepped away from his female. Rion looked at his sister-in-law, one he had met on many occasions, and saw the lingering fear in her eyes.

  He understood it. Marcos was one of the warriors charged with protecting the city. And the prognosticators of both Gaian and Relaklonos worlds had predicted that Thrun would be attacked many times before this war would be done.

  There was always the chance that Lana—and his other sister-in-law Mallory—would lose their mates in these coming times.

  Or that the young woman on the examining bed would also face such a fear.

  Should he tell her? Would it be best for him to wait until the war was ended, whenever that would b
e? That was not something he thought he could do.

  He’d waited for her for so long…

  Lana was pulling the bloodied hasha from the girl’s left arm. It had taken the worst of the attack. Why? Why had such a girl been targeted?

  “What were they?” Lana asked. “I did not see. Barlaam ordered us all deep inside the Healing Hall.”

  “Where you needed to be,” Marcos said. “The world cannot afford to lose you. I definitely cannot.”

  “And lose me you will not. But can I say the same of you? You are covered in green slime. May I assume that it is demon blood?”

  “I’m not entirely certain they were demons.” Marcos echoed Rion’s own thoughts. The winged creatures had resembled carske demons Rion had seen in his studies, but not completely. Though he had to admit he had only been in Thrun for five months. He had only begun to study the creatures of this world.

  “Whatever they were, they came straight at us. At her.” He would never forget how he had felt in the moment when he realized the black reptilian flying beasts were targeting his female. Why?

  Why would they have come for her?

  How was he to keep her protected from them if they were to attack again?

  “The wounds don’t look too deep, but we need to watch for infection. She’s not fully Dardaptoan, is she?” Barlaam asked. Rion watched the other male closely as he removed the hasha remnant from her right arm.

  “I don’t know. I do not even know her full name. Aodhan said something about her father being Lupoiux.”

  “That would match what I have seen. My own Jade also has Lupoiux tendencies, though she was only conceived by a human not quite changed. That is good. The Lupoiux are not nearly as subject to infection as our people. That will serve her well.”

  “Our first concern must be the reason she is unconscious. Did she fall, hit her head?” Lana was extremely gentle when she began cutting the t-shirt from his female’s body. “She seems to be in good health. A bit too thin to have Lupoiux blood—does anyone know if she has adequate food? I have seen starvation before. All too intimately.”