Darkness & Lies: A Brotherhood Novel (#1) (23 page)

“You’re out of here
,
bud,” the
burly
one on his right said as he shoved open the heavy wooden door.

With a great deal of force, they tossed him out onto the
snow-covered 
ground. They slammed the door closed behind him with a loud
thud, the metal knockers jingling
against the force. He wanted to laugh. Did they really think that was enough to keep him
out?

Hardly.

Closing his eyes, he tried to flash himself back into his room. It didn’t work.

What the hell?

He tried it again only to find himself still sitting in the cold hard snow that was slowly saturating his jeans. He hated the cold.

This had to have something to do with his drunken
state, but
then he had always been a heavy
drinker,
and it hadn’t affected him quite like this before. Besides, he’d o
n
ly had a
couple of
of whiskey and a few beers tonight. Where was the problem in that?

Standing, he banged his fist into the door to express his pis
sed-offness
then trudged around the building to the back where he knew there was a service door.

He’d made friendly with
a couple of
locals some
time ago,
and he knew the boy
who managed the shi
p
ments.
Tommy was a young lad and the son of a family he had known for generations. They alone knew the truth of his existence.

It happened about three hundred years ago in the forest at the outskirts of town. He had been fighting a Coli demon, one of the nastiest of their kind. With blue skin and long,
razor-sharp 
teeth, the Coli demons prayed on the weakest of the humans in the darkest of
the night.
Which ge
n
erally meant they ate small children and the
elderly, but
their preference was for
babies.

The more innocent they were the tastier.

The Coli had just opened up his side with its sharp black talon
s
and was about to take another swipe at him
,
when a shotgun blast blew his arm clear off. Erias wasn’t sure what to make of it, but with his side gaping and blood pouring freely painting
the serene snow covered grounds
red, he couldn’t do much.

Luckily,
for the human, the Coli ran off to tend to his wounds. They were cowards at their finest and weren’t used to meeting with opposition.
Unfortunately,
for him, he was left to deal with the
aftermath.

Appearing through a thick line of trees, dressed in head to toe fur, his face covered in
shadows,
the male held his
riffle
at the ready as he approached Erias with
caution.

Kneeling down beside him, the man glanced b
e
tween the wound and the landscape as he peeled back the parka that covered Erias’s midsection and studied the wounds.

“I have a cabin about a mile back. We have food and drink and can tend to your wounds there.”

Erias was about to argue with him
, but wasn’t given the chance
. Hauling him up by the arm
, the man gave him a stern look and
pointed up at the star covered sky to a full moon that was blood red.

“The gods are displeased and the night is not on our side. We mustn’t stay out here long. The demon will return soon.”

Erias was shocked that the man had known what it
was, but
then he reminded
himself; people 
full of superst
i
tion and talk of demons ran rampant through these parts. Talk of fairies and demons around the dinner table wasn’t
an
uncommon
practice.

It was a long trek back given his condition, but E
r
ias knew better than any that it would heal. All he needed was to get clean and get a solid night’s
rest,
and he would be as good as new by
morning.

This was not the worst he’d had. Not by a long shot.

The cabin was small, r
ustic. It was clear that it had been put together with care by someone very knowledge
a
ble. From the
precise
placement of the logs
and the mud packed into the spaces in
between; he
knew it was airtight. Hunching down to clear the
low threshold
, the men stepped
inside.

Greeted by warmth, Erias soaked in his surroun
d
ings. The room was deceptively
larger
than the outside of the building had hinted at and boasted a roaring fireplace wi
th a large stone hearth. An oversized
wood slab table sat in the center of the room and held a
bowl of ripened apples, a delicacy this time of
year, and
a definite sign of a f
e
male’s touch no doubt.

The kitchen area was sparse, but then they always were. With a small table for cooking and a few cabinets to hold their goods, there was a chair and a crock and that was about it.

“Hang your coat and hat by the fireplace.
Leave y
our boots by the door.” The man did the same then disa
p
peared behind a door in the far corner of the room.

Erias did as he was
told,
and just as he was hanging the last of his gear over the hearth, a woman with long red hair, pale skin and ruddy cheeks appeared in the
doorway.

Not sure what to do, Erias just stood there. He hadn’t been around people in a while. Having kept to the mountains for the last hundred years
or so
, he was a little out of practice.

Even so,
he knew enough to know that a man did not so much as look at another man’s woman
crosswise,
unless he planned to be six
feet under by morning. And at the rate his life was going, that didn’t sound like too bad an
idea.

He wouldn’t do anything to make the man
mad,
though. He had been kind enough to offer him food and shelter for the night so that meant he was good
people,
and he wouldn’t disrespect him that
way.

His mother
had raised him better.

Emerging from the same room just moments later, the man crossed the room holding a small glass vile and a scrap of clean white linen.

He motioned to one of the chairs at the dining table. “Sit.”

He did. In just his pants, Erias ignored the shooting pain caused by the movement
,
and eased back. “My name is Erias.” He grimaced when the elixir was dabbed onto his broken skin.

“Vanguard,” the man grunted. Focusing on tending the wounds, he didn’t say another word as he worked.

His woman flitted about the kitchen cutting potatoes and meat and looked to be rolling out dough
for a pie of some sort
. He hadn’t been around a woman in so long he had forgotten how one looked in
this type of
setting. It a
l
ways amazed him how much they could do and how fast. If only they could harness that
energy,
the world would be a much different
place.

She glanced up at him as if she could feel him watching her.
Plain, and not exceptionally attractive, she smiled a shy smile that brightened her face and lent her a subtle beauty,
and went back to her work.

“Are the two of you married?” Erias asked.

Vanguard eyed him suspiciously
,
then swiped the cloth across his cut causing Erias to hiss at the pain. “We married last spring.”

By his tone, Erias knew he had taken his inquiry wrong. “I didn’t mean anything by it,” he assured him. “I was just wondering how the two of you came to be here. You’re pretty far from town.”

“Look,” Vanguard said, irritated. “We are not hel
p
less here. We take good care about who we bring into our home. Don’t make me regret helping you.”

“I’m not here to harm anyone,” Erias said
,
aghast. “I’m just asking a few questions.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s kind of odd to be sitting here half n
a
ked with a woman c
ooking me dinner and another male
putting his hands on me.”

Vanguard looked to his wife briefly. “I can see your reasoning, but know this, if any harm befalls my beloved, you will pay with your life. I won’t hesitate to shoot you.”

“Duly noted.”

The woman was just setting the table when Va
n
guard
finished up
. Erias lifted his
arms,
so he could wrap the clean cloth around
him.

Once finished,
Vanguard rose to his feet and did the most uncharacteristic thing he had seen a man do since his father more than six hundred years ago.

He went into the kitchen, placed a tender kiss to his wife’s lips, then started helping her carry the rest of the dinner out to the table.

It was something he had always done
too
, back when he actually had a life. It made him ache with longing at all he had lost
, and yet
it filled him with hope tha
t one day he might experience such a thing
again.
It was so trivial and mundane an
action,
and he’d always taken it for gran
t
ed. Now he just hoped for another chance at
it.

They ate a dinner
of
steak and potatoes with a small apple pie. It was
quaint,
but he couldn’t have asked for be
t
ter company or a better
meal.

When they were finished, Erias watched as Va
n
guard helped his wife clear the table
,
refusing to let him help. They had no idea that his injuries were already well on their way to
mending
. In fact, there was just a treme
n
dous ache coming from the wound site, but it had sealed shut some time ago.

They set him up in a room built on to the back of the cabin. “Three rooms,” Erias commented
,
looking about the small spartan room appreciatively
as Vanguard held out a wool
en
blanket. “Impressive.”

During these times, to have one room as large as the one they ate in meant to be well off. To have three meant they were wealthy.

“Nothing has come to us easy.
Since
I was a
lad,
I have been
chopping wood and hunting the land. When Sie
r
ra’s parents were slaughter
ed
during a raid
on her village
, she was left with a mo
dicum of
wealth.”

The thing was, as Erias knew well, a woman couldn’t hold property or have money without a man to control it. Was that why they had married?

He pointed to a small basin in the corner. “There’s the crapper. Rest well.”

An
d with that, he left Erias
alone to face his own demons.

The morning came on him fast. Erias dressed quic
k
ly in his clothes that had dried
overnight 
and was just sneaking out the door when he heard Vanguard enter the
room.

“Leaving so soon?” he asked, moving to the fir
e
place to add some fresh wood to the pile.

“I have to be going,
”
he said, turning to face his host.

Vanguard nodded. “You don’t look to be in any pain. May I see the wound before you go?”

Erias heard
the
odd note in his voice but couldn’t place its meaning.
H
e couldn’t let him see the
wound; ho
w
ever,
because all that was left of it were three red lines where the Coli’s talons had dug
in.

“I should be going,
”
he repeated.
He moved to leave but Vanguard was
fast,
and he was blocking his path in an instant.