Passion Unleashed

Chapter 3

It took less than a day for Gem and Tayla to track down Serena Kelley, but their discovery came at a high cost. They’d had to consult a Darquethoth shaman, who had, after casting a seek spell, taken a strong interest in the human. Too strong. Eidolon had a feeling that the shaman would gladly reveal the charmed human’s location to the highest bidder.

Wraith needed to get to Serena immediately, because not only was his life at stake, but so was the entire hospital’s future.

But before Eidolon unloaded all the details on his brother, he was going to have a little chat with Reaver, who had recovered from his ordeal and was about to be released.

E entered Reaver’s hospital room, where the dripping wet angel had just stepped out of the shower.

“We need to talk about Serena Kelley.”

Eidolon swore Reaver’s hands shook before he clenched them into fists at his sides. “Who?”

“The charmed human you told us about yesterday. We think she may be the cure for Wraith—”

In the span of a heartbeat, Reaver’s fist was wrapped in Eidolon’s scrub shirt and he’d been yanked into the fallen angel’s face. “Keep Wraith away from her.” Reaver’s voice was a low, dangerous growl, but the writing on the walls—a ward against violence—hadn’t begun to pulse, so he didn’t intend harm.

Shade entered the room, black brows raised at Reaver’s nudity. “Am I interrupting a private moment?”

Eidolon met Reaver’s heated gaze with a glacial one of his own. “I suggest you release me,” he said coolly. “Now.”

Reaver uttered a curse and stepped off. “Eidolon, you can’t let this happen.”

“Wraith will die.”

“I’m sorry for that,” Reaver said, pulling on a pair of scrub pants, “but he got himself into this mess. Serena is innocent.”

“He’s not going to hurt her. He’s going to have sex with her. And you know he can’t rape her if she’s protected by the charm, so she’ll be going into it willingly.” Eidolon was bluffing, performing a little exploratory surgery with the fallen angel. What information Tayla had gotten from The Aegis about charmed humans was mostly speculation, but so far, it seemed as though her information was dead on.

Reaver jammed both hands through his golden hair, kept them there as though he was trying to hold his head on. “Why her? Why not one of the other half-dozen charmed humans?”

“There are only six of them?” When Reaver didn’t answer, Eidolon shrugged. “You gave us her name. Gem and Tay consulted a shaman who performed a locator spell. She lit up like a cheap beer sign.”

“Dammit,” Reaver breathed. “The cloak that keeps all charmed humans invisible to demon eyes has been broken. It’s what caused my… condition. Someone must intend to use her for great evil.” Before Eidolon could ask more, Reaver shook his head. “You’ve got to forget about Serena. Wraith can’t touch her.”

The persistent headache E had been suffering for days kicked up a notch on the pain scale. “That’s not your call.”

“Don’t do it. I mean it, E. She needs the charm.”

“Why?”

“Because,” Reaver said, his voice as cold as a grave, “the charm is all that’s keeping her alive. If she loses it, she’ll die.”

Reaver watched the expression on Eidolon’s face fall. Shade just looked pissed. As usual

“What the hell do you mean, she’ll die?” Shade demanded. “Does that happen to all charmed humans who give up their charm?”

Reaver didn’t want to answer any of their questions, didn’t want to talk about something so sacred, and he really wanted to kick his own ass for spilling his guts about Marked Sentinels at all. The existence of charmed humans had been a carefully guarded secret for thousands of years, and if it got out… Reaver’s stomach turned over violently.

“Answer the question.” E was all cool Justice Dealer calm, which was deceptive; the guy could go from sub-zero to scorch in a heartbeat. He’d been raised by the Judicia, demons who meted out justice, and his icy, detached disposition only made him that much more lethal, because he was rarely swayed by emotion.

“Serena is a unique case.” Reaver’s voice was guttural, the instinct to protect the charmed human something he couldn’t suppress even though he was no longer worthy of doing so. Technically, no angel could interfere in a Sentinel’s life—not directly. That job fell to their human Aegis Guardian.

He rubbed his temples, considering how much to reveal. He couldn’t do anything about whoever broke her cloak, but if he wanted to save her from Wraith, Reaver would do well to appeal to his brothers’ medical sides, the parts of them that saved lives.

“Serena’s mother, Patrice, was the keeper of the charm until Serena was seven, and Patrice gave it up to her.”

Shade interrupted. “Wait. Patrice had to have been a virgin, right? So Serena was adopted?”

“Patrice was a virgin,” Reaver said, “but she was Serena’s biological mother. She was impregnated through in vitro fertilization.”

Eidolon propped his hip on the sink and watched Reaver with the intensity of a hawk. “How do you know this?”

“When there are only a handful of charmed humans in the world, you know everything about them,” he said, though it wasn’t entirely true.

“And why was she gifted?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Reaver was telling the demons far too much as it was. Eidolon and Shade were about as decent as demons could be, but if Reaver had any hope of getting back into Heaven, he didn’t want to blow it by handing over vital information to demons. Consorting with demons, working in a demon hospital… he was walking a fine line as it was.

“What matters is that shortly after Serena was born, a Mara demon somehow learned the truth about Patrice. He bit Patrice’s parents… and Serena.”

Being bitten by a Mara was bad news. Each one carried a unique disease within its body, to be spread through a bite, and only that demon possessed the antidote to its individual disease.

“He wanted the charm in exchange for the cure. Patrice had a terrible choice to make, and she chose to kill the demon. As a result, her parents suffered for months before they died. Serena spent years in and out of hospitals, and doctors could do nothing. Just before her seventh birthday, her time ran out.” Reaver’s voice was scraped raw after being dragged down memory lane. “When it became clear Serena was going to die and no cure could be found, Patrice passed her charm to Serena in order to keep her alive—”

“How?” Shade interrupted. “I thought sex was the key.”

“Serena was a special case,” Reaver said shortly. The truth, that the transfer never should have happened, was something he didn’t care to discuss.

Or think about.

Shade took the hint and steered the conversation in a new direction. “So what happened after Serena got the charm?”

“Her health improved instantly, but if she loses her charm, the disease will progress. She’ll die in a matter of days. Hours, maybe.”

“Oh, fuck,” Shade muttered. “We can’t tell Wraith.”

Eidolon’s dark brows shot up. “He needs to know.”

“If he knows, he might not take her charm.”

Reaver stared. “Are we talking about the same Wraith who screws and eats everyone he meets?”

“Wraith won’t kill human females.”

“That’s a character flaw I didn’t see coming,” Reaver muttered.

“If it makes you feel any better, he does make exceptions for female Aegi,” Shade said, and turned to E. “She’s just a human, so I don’t know what your deal is.”

“Your own mate is human.”

“Was human. She’s cured of that now.”

Reaver rolled his eyes. It was a stupid argument; werewolves, both born and turned, had human souls, and were therefore technically human. Vampires were, as well, though the fate of their souls was more complicated than that of humans, weres, and shifters.

“Find another way to cure Wraith,” Reaver said, “because I won’t allow this to happen.” It was a bluff; under no circumstances were angels, especially fallen ones, allowed to interfere in a Marked Sentinel’s life.

Then again, he’d done it before when he’d facilitated the transfer of the charm from Patrice to Serena.

And he’d paid dearly.

Shade got right up in Reaver’s face. “You interfere, and I’ll make you sorry.”

“You can’t kill me, incubus.”

“I sure as hell can try. And if I fail, I can still drag your sorry ass down to Sheoul for a little eternal fun.”

Sweat dampened Reaver’s temples. Right now Reaver was stuck between realms, tossed out of Heaven but not completely ruined. A fallen angel who stayed in the human world still had a chance of getting back into Heaven, but one who entered Sheoul was lost forever.

“Shade.” Eidolon clamped down on Shade’s thick biceps. “Back off. This isn’t helping anything. Wraith will do the right thing.”

Wraith? Do the right thing? Reaver couldn’t believe that had come out of Eidolon’s mouth.

Reaver willed his heart rate to slow down so he could hear through the roar of blood in his ears. He didn’t care about Wraith’s survival, or even Serena’s, no matter how much he liked her. Because this wasn’t truly about her life or death.

Every Marked Sentinel was charmed for a reason. Every one of them was in possession of an object vital to the well-being of humanity.

And what Serena held was the most important of all.

Shade hung his head. “We tell him. Gods help us, we tell him.”

Darkness closed in on Serena as quickly as the demons surrounding her. Four of them, ugly toadlike creatures that came no higher than her waist, had ambushed her when she’d stopped the car at the mailbox outside Valeriu’s mansion’s main gate

Yesterday she’d depleted her entire savings to pay a sorceress to repair her cloak, but clearly, the word was out.

She still hadn’t told Val. There was no reason to at this point, and besides, he was already on edge, because an alarm had been sounded within The Aegis, of which Val was a high-ranking, card-carrying member.

According to Val, The Aegis was gearing up for what they thought might be a demon incursion. Demon sightings by the general human population were on the rise, skirmishes between demons and The Aegis were taking place much more frequently, and they were taking heavy losses.

In an effort to combat the growing threat, the demon-fighting organization had lowered their standards for recruitment, put former Guardians on alert for recall, and were deploying current members on research and reconnaissance missions.

Serena was itching to help, had been hoping Val would send her on her own assignment, and if the text message she’d gotten from him telling her to get home immediately was any indication, her itch might just get scratched.

After she got away from these demons, anyway. Their creepy, overly wide mouths gaped open, rows of sharp teeth disappearing far down their throats. A tremor of excitement shot through her, because she rarely got to handle things like this. Her specialty was treasure hunting, and normally her only challenges consisted of layers of dust, poisonous insects, and the occasional booby trap of either the physical or magical variety.

She supposed she should be cautious—after all, if her cloak had failed, maybe her charm could too, but she didn’t think so.

There’s a way around every charm, spell, and curse. Val’s constantly uttered words, spoken with a Romanian accent, rang in her head. The guy was seriously paranoid.

One of the demons hissed and leaped for her. She nailed it in the face with her purse, and it tumbled backward, bowling over two others. Whirling, she opened the Land Rover’s driver-side door, whacking a demon as it came at her. She jammed the SUV into gear and drove over the things, squashing them like bugs.

Though she’d never killed a demon before, Val had assured her that they disintegrated aboveground, and sure enough, as she idled in the driveway and watched through the rear window, they shriveled up and disappeared, leaving greasy stains on the road.

She was so not telling Val about this.

Her phone beeped. Val again. Stepping on it, she sped up the drive. She parked at the guest quarters, where she’d lived for the last six years, and jogged to the main house. She found Val and his son, David, in the lavish library, which was lined with shelves of books about archaeology, anthropology, world history, and demonology. Val might be an Elder, a high-ranking member of The Aegis, but he’d also been an archaeology professor for years, one of the few who specialized in paranormal archaeology and demon artifacts.

Neither man bothered with a hello. Val didn’t even look away from his computer. “Where have you been?” He waved his hand. “Never mind. You’re here now. I’m sending you to Egypt. You leave tonight.”

“But I thought you wanted to finish research on the Philae project before we went.”

“Actually,” Val said with a sly smile, “I believe I may have found something.”

A thousand questions formed on her lips, tangling together until only one slipped out in a tentative whisper. “The Temple of Hathor?”

“Yes.”

“And the other artifact? The coin?”

“Alexandria. The catacombs of Kom El-Shuqafa—the Hall of Caracalla, specifically.”

“Oh, my God.” Her fingers trembled as she tugged her amulet back and forth on its gold chain. “Of course.”

This was amazing news. The two artifacts he’d been seeking were of historical importance, but more than that, Val was certain they would be critical in a battle between good and evil. A battle The Aegis believed was brewing at this very moment.

The artifacts, an ancient Gnostic tablet and a bronze coin, were, by themselves, capable of powerful protection against evil. But together they could strike a critical blow to demonkind.

“Can you be ready to go in two hours?”

“No problem.” She moved to the wet bar in the corner and scooped ice into a highball glass. “I can’t wait. I love Alexandria.”

“Yes,” Val said, reaching out to run his finger over the intricate designs etched into the bracelet she’d stolen from the vampire the night before. “I know. But there’s no time for sightseeing. You’ll get in and get out as fast as you can.”

She froze as she tipped the bottle of bourbon toward her glass. “Alone? You aren’t coming with me?”

“Unfortunately, no. The Sigil has called all Elders together. David and I will leave for Berlin tomorrow night.”

David, a handsome, thirty-four-year-old version of Val, with his dark hair and eyes, finally looked up from the map he was studying. “No one to hold your hand on this one.”

He was teasing—he often gave her a hard time about Val’s constant hovering, but he was right; this was highly unusual. Val rarely let her go on trips longer than a night without him. Her safety wasn’t an issue; he was more concerned about the possibility that some man would sweep her off her feet, and she’d finally give in to her desire for a relationship that included all the normal things, like sex. Lots of sex, if she had anything to say about it. God, her body was a powder keg ready to blow, and Val knew it.

He was like an overprotective father with a shotgun.

In many ways, she was glad for that. She’d grown up without a father, without a male influence at all.

After her mother died, she’d been raised in a convent, educated by nuns who had hoped she’d become a nun as well. But Serena had been too adventurous, had desired travel and excitement, and she’d left the good sisters to follow in her mother’s footsteps and become a female Indiana Jones.

She smiled at that, because she’d done the Indiana Jones thing, all right, but not in the way she’d expected.

Eighteen years old and hungry for life, she’d gone to college, her days filled with archaeology and anthropology courses. Which were bo-ring with a capital B. It had taken only a year of working part-time in the archaeology department and falling asleep in class to realize that becoming an archaeologist might not be the right career for her. Too much research, too few ancient curses and speeding bullets.

And that was when Val had stepped in.

He’d been an assistant professor of anthropology at Yale University, and had, in fact, been the reason she’d chosen the college. She’d remembered him as the Guardian who had watched over her mother until she died, and who had visited Serena occasionally as she was growing up.

He’d encouraged her love of archaeology, from the moment she demonstrated an uncanny ability to find pretty much anything anyone lost, and then later during college, when he took a few select students on a field trip to a historical Revolutionary War battlefield.

A gut feeling had led her away from the group, to a forested area just beyond the battleground. There near the remnants of a stone fence and three feet under the soil, she’d discovered a shoebox-sized chest containing a few coins, a pipe, and a letter detailing a heinous betrayal by the leader of the Americans. A leader who had gone down in history as a hero, but if the letter could be authenticated, history would be turned on its ear.

That very day, Val had offered her a position with his private archaeological contracting company, a place to live in one of the two guest houses adjoining his mansion-slash-museum, and pretty much squat for pay. Not that the pay truly mattered—she wanted for nothing, in part because Val paid for the essentials, and in part because he kept her so busy traveling that she didn’t have a lot of spare time.

He’d left the university right after that—solely so he could keep an eye on her, which he still did with annoying frequency.

So yes, she had everything—a great life and the career of her dreams. She had almost everything she wanted and no fears save two: years of illness and time spent in hospitals had given her an irrational fear of death—irrational because as long as she was charmed, she couldn’t die. Well, she couldn’t die unless she fell victim to her other fear—that she would someday give in to her desire for a relationship.

Right now she was strong, but she was terrified of the day she met the man of her dreams, because as strong as she was, she was also curious and hungry, and temptation was an evil mistress.

“I’m assuming all my travel, hotels, and entrance into the catacombs have been arranged?”

Val pushed a file on his desk at her. “It’s all here. An ex-Guardian named Josh Nichols will meet you in Alexandria to give you an item you may need to gain access to the chamber I believe holds the coin.”

Setting aside her drink, she picked up the folder and thumbed through it. “Does he know about me? What I am?”

“No.”

Very few humans did. As far as she knew, only a handful of the twelve Aegis Elders, including Val and David, knew. “What am I supposed to tell him?”

“You don’t need to tell him anything. He’s used to people borrowing the artifact, which we think is a key of sorts.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Why would people borrow it?”

“It’s been in his family for centuries, but no one knows precisely what it does. Only that it has been associated with the catacombs, and whenever a new section is excavated, his artifact becomes an object of interest.”

“And now that you know the location of the coin, you think his artifact is significant?”

“Exactly.”

“Okay, then. I’ll get going.” Giddy, because this might be the find of a lifetime, Serena headed for the door.

“Serena.” Val’s voice stopped her in her tracks, and when she turned, his dark gaze sent a chill of foreboding up her spine. “Be very careful.”

“Always,” she lied.

“You can’t be too careful,” he said. “Don’t ever forget that, Sere. Never.”