Epilogue #2
He sounded hurt, and Nicholas found himself hating Marcus a little because of it. He placed a hand at the small of Gabriel’s back, feeling him relax under the touch.
“If you mean that I’m the level-headed one who’ll keep the bloodshed to a minimum, then yes, it’s exactly why he called me.
You’re lucky I don’t blindfold you. I’m trusting that you won’t find yourself back there in the middle of the night to slaughter him.
Actually, I’m trusting the kid to make sure that doesn’t happen. ”
Being referred to as ‘kid’ didn’t hold power over Nicholas anymore, but it didn’t stop Hamza from calling him that.
It wasn’t to provoke him, though. Not anymore.
Hamza treated Nicholas like the younger brother he needed to look out for, the way he wanted—but couldn’t—treat Gabriel.
It was said with love now, so Nicholas accepted it.
“You think it would be that easy for me to hurt him?” For once, Gabriel allowed Hamza behind his stoic facade, revealing just how much this thing with Marcus pained him.
“No, I don’t,” Hamza said gently. “But I know you’d do whatever needed to be done to protect your mate.” He lowered his tone further. “He didn’t sound good, Muharib.”
Nicholas felt Gabriel tense underneath his hand, his only outward sign that Marcus’s hurting affected him. Nicholas took his hand, squeezing before addressing Hamza.
“Let’s go.”
Forty minutes later, they arrived at a compound outside Irongard. Home didn’t quite fit the military-grade structure nestled deep into the forest. Wrought-iron bars were welded to the outside of the windows, and the steel front door looked thick enough to survive an apocalypse.
Cameras were mounted along the barbed-wire gate and atop the tall perimeter walls. Some of them faced inward, as if surveilling what exited, not what entered.
The gate buzzed to life, sliding open. The three of them looked at each other before passing through. Several beeps sounded as they began the long trek to the front door, locks disengaging before it opened with a hiss. Marcus waited there, shoulders drawn back, a husk of the man Nicholas once knew.
Normally clad in an all-black suit, his white T-shirt hung askew from his broad shoulders, his sunglasses missing, revealing his near-white gaze. He shielded his eyes from the sun, gesturing for them to enter.
“Are you The Guardian?” Gabriel asked with no preamble. “Who the hell was that in the church?!”
“Easy,” Hamza warned as Nicholas held his mate back.
“All of that can wait,” Marcus said in a detached voice. “I called you here for something much more important.”
As if only now realizing how unlike himself Marcus seemed, Gabriel let Nicholas push him back a few steps, his temper simmering.
“What’s wrong?” he asked his friend.
“I need your help with my priest.”
Liam.
“Where is he?” Nicholas asked. “Take me to him. Now.”
They descended into the dark, dank bowels of the compound, working their way down the steep, winding stairs. Cells lined the dungeons’ drafty corridor, and he and Gabriel linked hands again as they followed Marcus to the one at the very end.
He wanted to ask why they were down there, wanted to know where Liam was, but it felt important that he remain silent, so he did.
Marcus unlocked the heavy door, and they continued until they were met by an iron gate that had been lowered from the ceiling.
Heavy breathing came from the back of the cavernous cell, and through the shadow of darkness Nicholas made out a naked figure standing with his back to them, head lowered.
“Liam?” he whispered. The panting stopped, Liam’s head rising slowly.
“Rouhi,” Marcus whispered, the word echoing with pain and suffering. “Your friend is here to see you.”
Before Nicholas could register the action, Liam spun, lunging for them.
He smashed into the gate with a hiss of pain, skin sizzling upon contact.
The iron gate must have been doused with luwayzah—also known as vervain.
The herb was harmful to their kind, and Gabriel believed it was what tainted the hooded man’s bullet.
He fell to the floor, thrashing in his shackles, mouth wide, revealing a mouth overcrowded with razor-sharp teeth.
“What the fuck?” Hamza muttered.
The whites of his heavy-lidded eyes were pitch black, his lips a matching hue, and something slithered under his skin.
He jerked against his chains, the clicking sounds coming from the back of his throat making Nicholas’s skin crawl. Gabriel wrapped an arm around him.
They stood shocked, frozen still, watching him crash against the gate repeatedly until the vervain weakened him enough to leave him passed out on the flagstone floor.
His lips turned pink, the unknown thing beneath his skin ceased moving, and the tension in his body melted away.
“The burns will heal once he’s had blood,” Marcus said, turning to them with a pleading expression.
Nicholas shrugged Gabriel off him, his beast vibrating as he advanced on the man he considered family. With deep-seated anger born of lies, cruel deception, and culpability for his part in this, he demanded, “What is he?”
The End