Excerpt from Destined for Shadows
Chapter 1
Cori
Cori used to have a cranky old lady for a
neighbor who nagged her incessantly about her numerous faults, but Ms. Callahan
had recently been replaced by a cranky immortal with a lack of social skills
who rarely made an appearance outside of his cabin. She should have
appreciated the change. Truly, she should have been happy that her one
and only neighbor for miles in the Alaskan wilderness kept to himself.
Except the immortal was half angel—also known as a nephilim—who’d just
come from a hundred-year prison sentence in Purgatory. And yeah, it was
the same Purgatory from religious texts that most people thought was only a
myth. A place in some other plane of existence where souls were tortured
for their crimes on Earth.
Bartol, the nephilim, needed someone to bring
him out of his shell and show him how to live again. Cori believed she
was the right woman for the job. Not that she was looking to get into a
relationship or anything. Neither of them was in a place where they were
ready for that, but it didn’t mean she couldn’t give Bartol the kick-start he
needed to get going again, and they could have a little fun along the
way. She liked focusing on other people’s problems, rather than her
own. Especially since her problems were in the past and not exactly
fixable.
Cori headed for the kitchen, entering the only
part of her two-bedroom cabin she’d remodeled since moving into the place a few
years ago. It had black marble counters, dark wood cabinets, and
stainless steel appliances. A window was set over the sink so she could
view the forest behind her place and a bit of the blue sky above. She
loved cooking in the kitchen even if she had to eat alone most of the
time. Her regular customers at the tattoo studio would have never guessed
she enjoyed preparing meals as much as permanently marking people’s skin with
artwork.
The lasagna she’d baked sat cooling on the
stovetop. The aroma wafted from the dish, overwhelming her senses and
making her stomach growl. She grabbed a spatula, cut through the pasta,
and scooped out a large chunk to put in a plastic container. Then she
took a few slices of the garlic bread she’d also made and put them into a
plastic baggy. Bartol would eat at least a couple of decent meals a week
if she had anything to say about it. Left to his own devices, he only ate
baked potatoes or canned soup. As a man who was born when the Roman
Empire was still around, and who’d missed out on the biggest technological
changes in modern history, he had a lot of catching up to do if he wanted to
survive in this era.
After grabbing a pre-made bowl of salad from the
fridge as the final piece of the meal, Cori put everything into a plastic bag
and left the house. Cool air touched her face as she stepped
outside. Though it was mid-September and the days were still long, autumn
had already arrived to the Alaskan interior. She had lived in the state
her whole life and was used to the weather being colder than most other
places. Forty degrees might seem a bit cool to southern folks, but she
had no problem wearing jeans and a tank top until it hit below freezing.
She carried the food bag as she walked down a
narrow dirt road lined with evergreen trees. The rutted path ran for
about half a mile until it reached the highway. Bartol’s cabin—a smaller
one-bedroom place—wasn’t quite as deep in the woods as hers, but it only took a
few minutes to reach. She caught the smoke from the chimney before she
saw the actual home. Only during the warmest days of summer had she not
seen it going.
According to Cori’s friend, Melena, the bowels
of Purgatory where Bartol had been imprisoned were freezing cold. The ice
set into the bones of whoever stayed there, so that the inhabitants could never
truly feel warm. Melena had gotten over her stay fairly quickly, but
she’d only been confined there a few months. Bartol, whose stay was
longer than most people’s life spans, acted as if anything below seventy
degrees was too cold for him and kept his fireplace blazing day and
night. The poor guy probably should have moved to Florida, but his
friends had talked him into living in Alaska instead. He had a lot of
catching up to do in the modern world, and at least here he could ease into it
a little slower.
Cori skipped up the wooden steps to his front
porch and knocked on the door.
No answer.
“Bartol!” she yelled. “I’ve got dinner for
you.”
Curses and grunts came from inside. A
minute later, the door flew open and an annoyed man with golden eyes filled the
opening. Cori couldn’t help dropping her gaze to his bare chest where
he’d filled out over the past few months—mostly thanks to her cooking. A
healthy nephilim tended to be large and strong due to the angelic half of their
DNA, but years of wasting away in Purgatory had left Bartol unnaturally
lean. He’d grown to a healthier weight recently, and his muscles were
more defined now. Black sweatpants covered his long legs, and he had a
pair of thick socks on his feet. For all that he complained about the
cold, he didn’t like wearing shirts for some reason. Cori didn’t mind
that little quirk at all.
“Here.” She shoved the bag of food at him.
If she wasn’t brusque and demanding about it, he’d try to refuse her. “I
cooked more than I can eat again.”
Bartol took hold of the bag, sparing it a brief
glance. “Then why don’t you try cooking less?”
And the game resumed with him pretending a
complete lack of interest in her food, but she wasn’t fooled. The
containers always appeared on her porch the next morning empty and freshly
washed. He liked her cooking, but he’d never admit it.
“Because most of my recipes were designed to
feed a family.” She didn’t dare admit she’d had a family once and that
was how she’d picked up her love of cooking. It wasn’t something she ever
wanted to discuss, not even with her closest friends.
He narrowed his eyes. “If you knew what
was good for you, you’d stay away from me.”
“About the only thing I do that might be
considered good for me is take long walks through the woods.” With a
rifle, just in case a bear or other wild animal made an appearance.
“Bringing food to you doesn’t even rate on my list of bad.”
He set the bag on a side table next to the
entryway and braced his hands on the door frame, leaning closer to her.
“Look at me. Do I look friendly or nice to you?”
Cori swallowed. She had a knack for
pretending not to notice the burn scars on the left side of his face. If
she ignored that half, he was stunningly beautiful, but if she stared at the
part where a guardian from Purgatory had burned Bartol from his hairline down
to his chin—only leaving the area around his eye intact—then his skin bordered
on grotesque. Everything from next to his nose to just before his ear
appeared to have melted, begun to heal, and then got locked in place by some
sort of magical spell.
That was the story she’d been told by others,
anyway, since Bartol would never talk about it. Nephilim could normally
recover from any injury, but what happened to him was an exception to the
rule. His wounds couldn’t be fixed, and he would have to live with the
scars for the rest of his life. He didn’t even have the glamour
capabilities some of his kind had to cover it up. At best, he could make
himself invisible, but then no one would notice him at all. It was kind
of sad since she had a feeling there was so much more to him that he kept
hidden away.
“I see you,” Cori said, forcing herself to stare
at the damaged half of his face. He’d grown a light beard that obscured
some of the scarring, but not all of it. “So what?”
Bartol let out an exasperated breath and pulled
away from her. “Did you come here just to look at the poor man who lost
his face?”
“It’s not that bad, and you have both your
eyes. There are other people out there who have it way worse than
you.” She took a step closer until their noses almost touched.
“Stop being a baby and get over yourself.”
His golden eyes blazed. “Go to Hell.”
The door slammed in her face almost hitting her
nose. They’d had this conversation a few times, so Cori wasn’t
daunted. She pounded on the door and screamed at him, “I will keep coming
by, and I won’t stop until you quit hiding in there and start living your life
again!”
Silence.
“If he just got laid, he would feel so much
better,” she muttered, looking up at the sky. “He might as well be a
virgin after a hundred years without a woman.”
The door flew open and Bartol stepped out, his
face a mask of fury. “And you think you’re the one to take care of that
problem?”
Cori lifted a brow. “Maybe, maybe not, but
someone has to do it. I’m right here if you need me.”
He growled and stomped forward, forcing her
backward until she almost reached the porch steps. Cori gripped the
railing next to her for support. Maybe she’d gone too far this time with
the virgin crack, especially considering how Bartol had ended up in Purgatory.
His nostrils flared as he stared down at
her. “I wouldn’t fuck you if you were the last woman on Earth—or anywhere
else.”
He always thought it would hurt her feelings to
say things like that, but he didn’t know she’d suffered far crueler insults in
the past and learned to ignore them. Cori knew she wasn’t that bad
looking. Men hit on her all the time at the tattoo studio, and she went
out on dates—once or twice a year.
She cocked her head. “Really? I
can’t be that bad of a choice unless you were castrated along with having your
face screwed up.” She dipped her gaze down to the slight bulge in his
pants, pretending horror. “You weren’t, were you?”
He might be the one with burn scars, but she was
the one playing with fire. It was just too hard to resist. The only
way to get any kind of reaction out of Bartol was to poke sticks at him, and it
worked every time.
“I assure you that everything down there is
intact.” He looked her up and down. “I would not choose you because
you are human…and annoying.”
“You’re not exactly Mister Approachable.
If I wasn’t annoying, you wouldn’t talk to me at all,” she pointed out.
Bartol stepped back, allowing the dark shadows
of his home to obscure him. “I don’t need your charity. Find
someone else to bother.”
At the rate she was going, it would be another
six months before he even let her enter his home. “Are you going to live like
a monk for the rest of your life?” She cocked her head. “Because
for you, that’s going to be a very long time.”
The only way he could die was if an archangel
cut off his head since they were the only ones strong enough to do it.
Cori had been hanging around the supernatural community for over a year now,
and she’d learned quite a lot during that time.
Bartol gripped the door. “If I do change
my mind, it will be long after you’re dead.”
She let a slow smile spread across her face,
taking a step closer. “Maybe, but I’ll make sure you remember me while
you’re doing it.”
His jaw hardened. “I sincerely doubt it.”
Cori jumped when he slammed the door on
her—again. One of these days he was going to take that sucker off the
hinges. She sighed in resignation, figuring she’d reached her limit with
him for this day. It was just long enough that Bartol had been forced to
socialize, and he’d have something to think about while he ate. The fact
that he didn’t ignore her knocks told her he didn’t hate her visits half as
much as he claimed. Though it was probably a good thing she knew how to cook
well, or else he might never open the door.
Taking a fortifying breath, she headed back down
the road to her own cabin. The sun was beginning to set with the trees casting
long shadows across the ground. Unease filled her as she reached her
home. There was a red envelope tacked to the wall next to her door that
she hadn’t noticed before. This evening was the first time she’d left her
cabin all day since her tattoo studio was closed on Sundays, and she’d had no
reason to go out before now. The envelope could have been left there any
time since last night. But by who and why? Most people called or
emailed if they had something to say to her.
She took the envelope and broke the seal,
finding a folded white sheet of paper inside. Opening it slowly, she took
in the neatly typed message on the page. Her heart began beating harder,
and her throat swelled as she scanned the words.
Next time you leave someone for dead, make sure
they’re dead.
See you real soon, babe. –G
Cori fell to her knees, the sheet of paper
crumpling in her hand as she hit the wooden planks of her porch. He
couldn’t be alive—he couldn’t. No one could survive what she’d done to
him, and she’d buried him in four feet of snow in the middle of nowhere.
Not to mention there’d been no signs of life when she’d dumped him. She
was almost positive of that, but niggles of doubt wormed their way into her
mind now. Cori hadn’t checked his pulse. She’d been too far out of
her mind at the time to think about that.
Even if he hadn’t been dead right then, he
couldn’t have survived for long and no way could he have crawled over a mile to
the nearest highway for help. This had to be some kind of cruel
joke. Someone—though she didn’t know who
or for what reason—had found out what she’d done nearly four years ago, and now
the past was coming back to haunt her.
Chapter 2
Bartol
She had brought him food—again. Bartol
could not understand why the crazy woman kept visiting him no matter how he
much he tried to push her away. Though he’d implied that she was not good
enough for him, it was quite the opposite. Cori was a beautiful woman.
She had shiny black hair with a slight wave to it that just brushed her
shoulders and a heart-shaped face that if he allowed himself the luxury he
could stare at all day. Her nose was small and impertinent, her skin
creamy, and she had hazel eyes she used to challenge him at every turn.
There was a time when he would not have hesitated to grab that lithe body of
hers and take her to his bed right away.
But he’d changed.
Not only had his face been disfigured, taking
away the striking looks he once employed to charm women, but he no longer
possessed the skills to handle a human. His kind had far greater strength
than mortals. It took practice to hold them carefully. And though
he could get past that little problem with a bit of effort, it wasn’t the worst
of his issues. Bartol couldn’t stand to be near anyone. For too
long, the only physical contact he’d had with others were with the guardians in
Purgatory who’d beaten and tortured him unmercifully.
And the reason? Because the last female
he’d ever touched in a passionate way had been strictly forbidden to him.
His primary punisher had made certain that even being near a woman would make
him ill, and the very idea of sex had him breaking out in cold sweats. It
was why he needed to push Cori away. No matter what she hoped, he could
not be the man she wanted. Purgatory had broken him, leaving only a husk
of his former self behind.
Bartol moved across the living room to the
adjoining kitchen. Only a dining room table separated the two spaces in what
others informed him was an open floor plan. He set the bag of food Cori
had given him down on the kitchen table, the scent of the lasagna wafting to
his nose despite the airtight containers. His stomach rumbled in
reaction. Ever since returning to Earth, it seemed as if he could never
eat enough. There were times in Purgatory when he’d gone without food for
months, and even when he got it the contents were questionable at best.
At worst, his meal might move about of its own volition. He would never
eat rice again.
After taking a plate and silverware from the
cupboards, he settled on one of the bench seats next to the dining table.
It was a long, rectangular piece of furniture made of wooden planks with iron
supports underneath. Not many of the items in his home were anything he’d
chosen and instead came from a fellow nephilim friend, Lucas, and his wife,
Melena. When Bartol had decided to purchase the cabin with his limited
savings, he hadn’t given much thought on how to furnish the place other than a
bed. Melena and Lucas took care of the rest, insisting he couldn’t live
in an empty home. He’d argued the matter, but they’d insisted and
promised to give him space if he allowed them to do that one thing for
him. True to their word, he’d hardly seen them in three months. If
only Cori would follow their example. Of course, they might have made her
their spy, which would explain a few things.
He opened the food containers and transferred
the lasagna and bread over to his plate, digging into his meal right away while
it remained fresh. It was no surprise to him that it tasted
wonderful. Cori might not behave like a proper woman, but she certainly
knew her way around a kitchen. It had only taken eating her food one time
before he couldn’t get enough. No matter how much he might wish to ignore
her frequent visits, he could hardly turn away anything she prepared. He
suspected she knew that, the damn woman.
As Bartol finished the lasagna and began to dig
into the salad, a knock sounded at the door. Who in the hell could be
bothering him now? Cori never came back twice in the same evening, so he
doubted it was her.
He ignored the firm knock and continued to shove
forkfuls of salad into his mouth. Whoever had come to bother him could
stand out there all night if they wished. Nothing would come between him
and his food.
He was chewing on a tomato when a bright flash
of light appeared inside his living room.
A moment later, a man stood next to his black
leather couch, frowning at him. The nephilim was a long-time friend that
Bartol had known since his youth. Lucas had found him when he was a
gladiator and only twenty years old—before he’d gained his full powers and
strength. The older immortal convinced Bartol to travel the world with him.
They’d fought in numerous wars, honing their fighting skills until they were
unbeatable to all except the most powerful supernaturals. That was before
Bartol got bored with battles and turned to seducing women for amusement
instead. Once in a while, he’d met up with Lucas again for a few weeks if
there was a human conflict he found interesting enough to take a side, but even
that became risky. The angels started enforcing the rules on nephilim
more strictly than ever about five centuries ago, which made it harder to kill
humans even when the mortals were going to kill each other anyway. Those
were the good old days before life became more complicated for them both.
Lucas stood more than six feet tall, had broad
shoulders, golden skin, and short blond hair. The man was powerful and
had certainly become one of the greatest warriors of their kind. Bartol
had even seen him defeat an archangel a couple of years ago.
He finished chewing his tomato. “What are
you doing here, Lucas?”
“Did Cori give that to you?” the nephilim asked,
nodding toward the bowl.
“Yes.” Bartol set his fork down.
“But that doesn’t answer my question.”
Lucas strode across the room and took a seat on
the other side of the table. “There was a time when you would exchange
pleasantries before getting to business.”
“And here I was just thinking how well you and
your wife have done at staying away like I asked.” Bartol gazed at the
remainder of his salad mournfully. “But I should have known it wouldn’t
last for much longer.”
“Finish your meal. I will do the talking,”
Lucas said, resting his arms on the table. He was almost always dressed
impeccably and today was no different. A navy-blue suit, tailored to fit
his large frame, hugged his body and gave him an imposing appearance.
Bartol picked up his fork again. “Very
well, but this better not take long.”
“Yes, I would hate to interrupt your busy
schedule.”
“Save your sarcasm for your wife or that
insolent teenager you two are raising.” Bartol filled his mouth with
lettuce and chewed while glaring at Lucas.
“I have a job proposal for you.” He paused
and held up a hand when Bartol began to choke on his lettuce. “Wait and
hear me out first. I believe this could solve both our problems.”
Bartol got up to fill himself a glass of water,
gulping it down before returning to Lucas. “I sincerely doubt it.”
The older nephilim went on undaunted. “As
you are probably aware, we are in the final months of training the nerou, and
we’ve begun to work on their individual skills.”
The nerou were a hybrid race who were half
nephilim and half sensor. Normally, a nephilim could never hope to have
children because they were cursed with infertility. The exception to the
rule was with sensors because that race was immune to magic and therefore
nullified the curse. The product of the two races merging made for very
powerful offspring. For thousands of years, the archangels had taken the
children away shortly after birth to be hidden in Purgatory, claiming the
progeny of such unions were too dangerous to be allowed to roam free.
Most couldn’t remember their parents, and they spent their entire lives in that
wretched place.
Earlier in the year, Lucas and Melena, along
with a couple of others, staged a rescue to get the nerou out and bring them
back to Earth. Everyone involved had been punished, but after much
arguing on Melena’s part, the archangels allowed the nerou to stay on the
condition that they were trained to become enforcers. They would eventually
take over various regions of the planet, punishing any supernaturals who harmed
humans. Bartol suspected the angels had seen the day coming when they
wouldn’t be able to hide the vampires, nephilim, werewolves, witches, and other
races any longer. They’d been hoarding the nerou for all that time,
brainwashing them into their way of thinking so that when the nephilim-sensor
hybrids did get free, they would do what Heaven’s dictators wanted. Lucas
was one of their trainers, helping to orient them to Earth and teach them
fighting skills, but he was watched closely to ensure he followed a strict
program.
Bartol pushed his empty salad bowl away.
“You know I won’t step foot in that compound even for the nerou. Not with him there.”
He referred to Kerbasi—the guardian from
Purgatory who’d tortured Bartol for nearly a century and scarred his
face. Kerbasi had been relieved of his duties last year and sent to
Alaska where he’d been learning to find his “humanity,” and more recently, help
train the nerou. Too bad they couldn’t have sent the evil man to
Antarctica instead.
“You won’t need to go to the facility.”
Lucas clasped his hands together, resting them on the table. “There is
only one nerou I want you to help, and Remiel has approved him coming to you
for training instead.”
Remiel was the archangel who oversaw the Alaska
training compound. He didn’t make many physical appearances, but he was
almost always watching from a distance to ensure the program went as he
dictated. There were several other facilities around the world with
different archangels and nephilim running them. It was all designed so
that the nerou could acclimate themselves to the regions where they would be
assigned after their adjustment period was over.
“It sounds like too much trouble to me.”
Bartol grabbed his empty dishes and carried them over to the sink.
“You would be well compensated for your time.”
He stiffened. “I’m not looking for
charity.”
“I assure you that this is not charity,” Lucas
replied.
Bartol began rinsing the dishes. He’d gone
without a proper home for so long that he was obsessed with keeping the cabin
clean and couldn’t leave anything dirty. It likely had to do with living
in his own filth—rarely able to bathe—while he was in Purgatory. Nothing
about his stay there had been comfortable, and he wanted to distance himself
from that lifestyle as much as possible.
He glanced over his shoulder. “Who is it
you wish me to train?”
“Tormod—Yerik’s son.”
Bartol cursed. “The one who is part
demon?”
“Yes. I admit he is a handful, but he
needs more individual attention than we can give.” Lucas sighed and gave
Bartol a plaintive look. “Yerik does what he can, but he’s only allowed
to visit his son once a month, and that’s not enough.”
Tormod’s father had committed numerous crimes to
upset the archangels, the first of which was simply being born. Yerik was
a daimoun—a product of an angel and demon union. He’d been separated from
his parents when he was young and forced to go into hiding after that.
It took a few thousand years, but eventually an
archangel tracked him down. They fought and Yerik won, killing his
opponent and proving he was even more powerful than anyone could have
imagined. Not that the daimoun took down the angel because he was a bad
guy, but because it was the only way he could survive. Then he fell in
love with a sensor about fifty years ago and had a child with her—Tormod.
While the daimoun was away from home, the archangels came for the baby and took
it to Purgatory. Yerik made a vow to his mate that he would get their son
back before she died. The sensor, like most of her kind, was
mortal. If she wanted to see her child again, they had a limited number
of years to recover their son.
It had taken a massive coming out party with
supernaturals across the world revealing themselves to humans to provide a
major distraction. Once it was well underway and the angels were
scrambling to handle the chaos breaking out on Earth, Yerik, Lucas, Melena, and
Lucas’ brother Micah—who also had a daughter there—broke into Purgatory and
freed the nerou. All of them were half sensor and half nephilim except
Tormod. He was both of those plus a quarter demon, which made him quite
the troublemaker. It didn’t help that he was the youngest of the entire
group as well.
“Surely someone else would be better qualified
than me,” Bartol said, drying his hands and turning to face Lucas. “I do
not see how I can be of much assistance with that boy.”
Lucas gave him a plaintive look. “Tormod
is developing a talent for fire, and he is able to flash.”
Flashing was usually something only nephilim and
angels could do, which was somewhat like teleporting from one place to
another. From what Bartol understood, none of the nerou had developed the
ability, but Tormod had more potent blood running through his veins than the
others.
“Tell me.” Bartol crossed his arms.
“What was the last prank he pulled?”
Lucas worked his jaw. “He burned a phallic
shape onto our training field. It was surprisingly…detailed.”
“So he’s also an artist with a penchant for
destroying property.” Bartol ran his hand through his loose hair.
“It does not sound like he will be easy to handle.”
Because the nerou were very long-lived, though
not immortal, they tended to mature at a much slower rate than humans.
Tormod might be fifty years old, but he behaved more like a seventeen or
eighteen-year-old with his hormones running high and the requisite need to
rebel. While Bartol agreed the boy needed special attention, he did not
think he’d have the patience for such a job.
“It would be better if you found someone else.”
Lucas stared at him. “We both know the
funds you have are limited from what I was able to save for you. Remiel
has agreed to not only pay you a monthly salary for training Tormod, but also a
sizable bonus if you get him under control. We only ask that you spend at
least a few hours a day with him doing whatever it takes to help him learn
discipline. You can even have the weekends off if you wish.”
Bartol paced the kitchen, considering it.
He’d once owned valuable properties and had a small fortune saved, but when he
was sent to Purgatory his investments were left for his solicitor to
handle. The man had done a poor job, made worse by the Great Depression
in the 1930s. Once Lucas had found out about the problem, he’d saved what
he could, but most of Bartol’s funds and possessions had been lost by
then. And by the time Bartol got out of Purgatory, he barely had enough
left to purchase his cabin and support himself for the next couple of years—if
he was careful. Lucas was well aware of that fact.
“I’ll think about it,” he said, stopping his
pacing. “But you must guarantee I will not run into him.”
Lucas nodded. “I see no reason why Kerbasi
needs to be involved, or why you would even need to go to the training
compound, but I will tell you he isn’t as bad as you remember. Melena has
performed a miracle in that regard.”
Lucas’ wife had spent over fifteen months
helping to humanize the guardian before the archangels assigned him
to work with the nerou. And though everyone swore Melena had changed
Kerbasi for the better, he was still evil in Bartol’s eyes. He could not
and would not go anywhere near the guardian, not even for revenge.
“I will let you know of my decision soon,”
Bartol said.
“Fair enough.” Lucas stood. “But do
not take too long.”
