CHAPTER 3
Gauge stood in the shade of a tall evergreen overlooking the deep blue waters of Crater Lake, his thoughts troubled.
He and his partner Teo had been tracking a particularly vicious rogue over the past two weeks.
They were closing in, the male having few options left if he wanted to survive.
If the rogue had lost the will to live, it could turn out bad for everyone here.
He wouldn’t care how many innocent lives he took out with him.
Gauge knew this male shifter had lost his lifemate nearly five years ago, his mental state having deteriorated more and more every year.
A scenario he and Teo had dealt with more times than he could count over the long centuries.
Almost always a male, they would lose a mate, or never find one to begin with, then in desperation begin to think they could find a suitable replacement on another world.
Earth was a popular target, the typical human’s defenses almost nonexistent against the strength of a vampire or shifter.
This problem had grown much worse since a few of their people had actually managed to find true fated mates in halfbreed humans.
The council should have taken charge and placed this particular rogue in an asylum years ago, where he could have learned to accept the loss of his mate, that or be humanely euthanized.
But the rogue’s alpha, his king, hadn’t been ready to give up on him.
Given enough time, a few shifters could sometimes get past the loss of a mate, even develop a new relationship, though most went insane.
A scenario he now faced with this rogue.
Gauge did not enjoy killing but wouldn’t hesitate to do so if the rogue couldn’t be reasoned with.
“Did you find him?” Gauge asked, sensing his partner walking up behind him.
Teo, a tall, lean Lycaeonian with golden eyes and long silver and black hair, didn’t answer until he stopped beside him. “Yes. Unfortunately, he sensed we were closing in on his position and he decided to go into the lodge. I fear he’s planning to use innocent humans there as cover.”
“Did you try to reason with him?”
“Yes, but he is beyond reason at this point. He is threatening to gut or rip out the throats of all humans within reach unless you agree to step back and allow him to escape.”
Of course he was. Rogues were all the same, nothing if not predictable.
Gauge glanced toward the sun sitting low in the sky.
UV rays weakened his kind, but the day was about to come to an end.
And so would this hunt. The rogue had nowhere else to go.
They would wait until darkness settled over the land before they approached him.
Hopefully, most of the human guests would have left the gift shop and restaurant by then or returned to their rented rooms. Regardless, Kye had already caused enough damage in this area. He had to be stopped.
As they turned to walk down the trail toward the lodge, Teo asked, “Have you heard anything more from Lena? Did Rafa and his mate manage to get her to Liore?”
“No. They were forced to return to Raiden. The crown prince of the House of Sabula is going to try to claim her.”
Teo didn’t immediately answer. “You know you can’t allow this, Gauge. What will you do?”
“Once we finish here, I’ll approach the council to seek permission to travel to Raiden.”
“And if they say no?”
Gauge glanced over at his tracker, surprised Teo would push this hard. “I’ll decide then what to do.” They both knew even if the council said yes, one of the Raiden kings would need to agree to lower the shield around the planet before he could transport in.
“What will you tell the council?” When Gauge didn’t reply, Teo added, “Perhaps the full truth would not be out of line, my friend. The council is likely to deny your request unless you’re completely transparent in your reason for wanting to go there.”
Teo’s advice was not unmerited, but Gauge still struggled to accept what the real truth might be.
How could he explain to the council what he didn’t fully understand himself?
“I care for the female’s well-being, Teo, but she cannot be my mate.
My eillelé died.” And he should have died with her, but they were not given time to consummate their union.
“What if Meegan was not your fated mate, Gauge? You were both very young. Mistakes like that have been made before. What if you were always meant to be with Lena? There was a time not so long ago when we believed it impossible for a human to be a fated mate to a Laizahlian or shifter. Don’t throw this opportunity away out of stubbornness, my friend.
You need her as much as she needs you. Even I could feel the connection between you two. ”
“The humans who were recently mated to one of our Hunters already carried Laizahlian blood in their veins. They were not fully human. The same for the shifters who found true fated mates on Earth. Lena is fully Leviathan, a serpent from Raiden. There is no possibility of her carrying Laizahlian DNA. It is wishful thinking on your part, Teo.”
“I believe you are wrong, Gauge.”
“How so?”
“What you did for her has never been tried before. You stripped her of Ngozi’s essence, but you also stripped the prince of Lena’s abaci.
You could not return the abaci to her, not without leaving Ngozi a pathway back to her.
Part of Lena resides inside you now, Gauge.
Perhaps it is enough to establish a mate bond. ”
Gauge didn’t react when Teo mentioned Lena’s abaci.
He carried the proof of it on his skin, a pale-yellow diamond pattern along the outside of his neck, shoulders and arms. Not as prominent as it would be on a Raiden warrior, but still there all the same.
Unlike the many others Gauge carried a blood bond with, Lena remained at the forefront of his thoughts and dreams. She’d become like an obsession with him, which he found worrying.
Obsessing over a potential mate, especially one you couldn’t ethically claim, was the first step to turning rogue.
Gauge was an ancient, thousands of years old.
It would take another ancient of equal or greater strength to put him down if he lost control.
Gauge forced himself to put thoughts of Lena away while he concentrated on this rogue. Many human lives could be put at risk if he didn’t get his mind in the game. Thankfully, Teo knew when to stop pushing. He remained quiet by his side as they made their way toward the lodge.
The sun had dropped behind the mountains by the time they opened the door to step inside the lodge.
Gauge was relieved to see few humans walking around.
He wasn’t surprised when those few gave him and Teo a wide berth.
He knew how intimidating they would appear wearing their black leather clothes, the long coat billowing out around their legs as they walked.
The humans would instinctively know they stood in the presence of two predators.
He noticed several of them rubbing the backs of their necks as they quickly moved toward the exit.
“Kye is in the restaurant section,” Teo said softly, motioning to an open area to his right.
Gauge ignored the humans as he walked inside.
A timid hostess headed their way with menus to greet them, but he shook his head no and she quickly changed direction.
There weren’t many humans here, but those who were chose to sit on the opposite side of the room from Kye.
It wasn’t surprising that they had also sensed a predator in the rogue.
Kye sat against the far back wall, facing the entrance. He was wearing human clothes: black jeans, a long-sleeved striped shirt, and cowboy boots. A denim coat had been thrown over a chair. The rogue didn’t bother to stand as Gauge and Teo walked over to him.
“Will you come willingly back with me to Laizahlia?” Gauge asked, standing across the table from Kye.
“Why do you ask when you already know the answer, Hunter? We both know I have nothing left on Laizahlia to go back to. All I ask is that you leave me in peace here. Let me try to make a new life for myself.”
“That might have been possible if you had not chosen to infect a human.”
Kye scowled. “She was too weak. I’ll find another one who is stronger.”
“You’re not thinking straight, Kye,” Teo said softly. “Full humans cannot be converted. It won’t matter how many you bite, or how strong they are. They’ll be doomed to become an unreasonable hybrid, a monster.”
Hybrids were a danger to everyone. They couldn’t be reasoned with, much like rogues tended to be.
Gauge and Teo always had to clean up the mess rogues like Kye left behind, which meant killing those pathetic creatures, and any others the hybrid might have infected.
Creatures who had once been happy, healthy humans.
“That’s not true,” Kye said. “Not anymore. Some of our people are finding true mates among humans. The council just refuses to let us try to find one. I won’t go back to an empty life, Hunter. I would rather die fighting you here.”
“That is your choice,” Gauge replied, his tone empty of emotion. He’d known from the start it would come down to this. It almost always did.
A waitress came out of a swinging door near Kye, carrying a tray. In a blink, the rogue was up, his arm wrapped around her waist, eyes cold as he set his open mouth against her vulnerable neck.
“Would you infect another innocent rather than fight me yourself?” Gauge said. “It is a rather cowardly action on your part.”
“You would not fight fair,” the rogue sent telepathically.
The rogue was not entirely wrong. A fair fight would mean they were equal in strength.
This simply wasn’t the case and they both knew it.
Kye could never hope to be a match against an ancient Hunter’s powers.
Gauge sighed internally, knowing he needed to end this now, quickly.
He might or might not be able to save the life of the young human female.
With nothing but a thought, Gauge took control of the minds of the humans still foolish enough to remain in the room.
Most had fled when the tray the young waitress held went skittering across the floor.
Next, he entered the mind of the rogue, flinching internally at the hatred he found there.
Yes, the rogue’s alpha back on Laizahlia had made a huge mistake in not sending this male to one of their asylums. There was nothing much good inside Kye left to save.
Soft female laughter caused him to pause, there and gone in an instant. Gauge stiffened, the sound of her voice a familiar one, but it shouldn’t be possible. Djinn had been chased back to their home world three thousand years before.
“Soon, Hunter,” the female Kye held captive said.
Gauge shifted his gaze to her, narrowing his eyes when he noticed a flash of red in hers. “Who are you?” he said.
“Now is not the time, Hunter. We will meet again very soon, I think.” The human female groaned, her eyes rolling back in her head. Kye was forced to hold her whole weight when she collapsed, unconscious.
“Release the female,” Gauge said softly, at the same time inserting his will upon the rogue. He would have to figure out how a Djinn became involved in this later, or why she would make her presence known to him through a human.
Kye roared internally, furious over the invasion, but he dropped the female and took a step back. “Leave me in peace, Gauge. I will only try to bond the females given to me. The rest, like this one, will be safe.”
Given to him? Given to him by who? “You know I can’t let you go free, Kye.
” Gauge turned to Teo. “Check her for injury.
They both knew he would have to dispose of her if Kye had bitten or scratched her.
Sometimes humans could fight off the infection from a minor scratch, but never a bite.
Saliva from the rogue doomed the innocent once blood was drawn.
Teo carried the female a short distance away, checking her neck, arms, and waist for wounds. “She’s clean, Gauge.”
Gauge returned his attention to the humans in the room. Since they were all together in one spot, it only took seconds to wipe their memories of the event.
He and Teo watched over the humans for a few minutes after they were released from Gauge’s control to make sure the memory blocks held, then they walked Kye out of the lodge and called for transport back to Laizahlia.
This new Djinn brought up problems he didn’t need right now.
It could hinder his ability to reach Raiden, and Lena needed his help right now.
Would the council care about a single serpent female?
Not if Djinn were making a bid for Earth again.
It had been nearly three thousand years since Gauge had last dealt with one of the vicious creatures.
Why were they showing up now? All he knew for sure was that nothing good would come of it.
Time to go back and face the council. Falkner, their ancient chairman, should be able to answer at least some of his questions.