Gideon's Promise (Sons of Judgment Book 2) (29 page)

“Well, well, well.” Tattoos glanced back at his friends. “What do we have here?”

“Are you lost, little girl?” Baldy asked.

“Maybe she needs some help,” Flannels decided.

Riley never so much as blinked. To them, she would have appeared terrified, but Gideon, who hunted monsters for a living and knew when to sense true danger, could almost feel the ripple of power radiating off her.

“This isn’t going to be pretty,” he muttered under his breath, body tense.

It was in his nature, built into him after eons of training and fighting to protect humans from creatures they should never know about. Standing idly by and possibly encouraging an attack went against all his basic instincts. But killing Riley was not an option either. Part of him wished he had stayed behind.

“Riley better not get put into harm’s way because of this,” Octavian warned Valkyrie. “I don’t care who you are, I will kill you.”

Gideon snarled. “Back off!” he warned his brother.

Octavian turned to him fully, his gray eyes stormy with rage. He opened his mouth to reply when there was a sickening crunch followed by a gurgling scream. All three of them whirled to the path and the mayhem taking place two feet out of the halo of light.

Riley had Tattoos in her clutches. He was on his knees, front glistening with his own blood as she tore his throat out with her fangs. The other two were frozen on the spot, watching with horror as their friend became a puddle of crimson across the gravel. He made a sickening thump when she released him. She was breathing hard and her entire front shone a ghastly sight in the lamplight. Blood dribbled from her chin. She moaned, the sound deep and lusty, like a woman in the midst of mindless pleasure as she slid a red tongue over her lips.

“That was so good,” she purred.

Her voice seemed to finally penetrate the other two. They opened their mouths to scream, but Riley was on them. She backhanded Baldy, sending him sailing five feet before landing in a dazed heap on the ground. The other she grabbed by the throat and jerked to her.

“Like hurting innocent girls, do you?” she hissed.

Flannel shook his head wildly. “No! No! I swear!”

Riley tightened her grip, gouging her fingernails into his esophagus. “You’re lying to me. I can smell them on you. I can smell what you did to them.”

What little color the man had left drained from his face. “It—it wasn’t my idea. I didn’t mean—”

Riley didn’t even bite him. With a natural flick most people used to swat a fly, she snapped his neck. The crunch of it made Gideon flinch.

Baldy, having now watched two of his friends die horribly before his eyes, was staring at Riley with a look of absolute horror. He had soiled himself. The stench of his terror impregnated the air. He was sobbing and begging for his life.

“Did you show those girls mercy?” Riley asked, crouching down next to him. “Did you stop when they begged you?”

The man sobbed harder, his words intelligible.

“I loathe men like you,” Riley continued in that soft, haunting murmur of hers. “Not so brave without your friends, are you?” She flashed her blood stained fangs in a laugh. “You’re not very brave at all, actually. You’re a coward and I’m going to kill you.”

And she did. She grabbed him even as he thrashed and sank her teeth into his throat.

It wasn’t until it was over and the screams had ceased echoing off the water and through the trees that reality finally perched like an ugly, black bird on their shoulders. Riley remained crouched over Baldy’s drained and broken body, her hands braced on her knees. Her labored breathing strained across the clearing. Her stooped spine rose and fell rapidly and Gideon vaguely wondered if that was just a lingering human reaction, if she even knew she was doing it.

“Riley.” Octavian freed himself of the branches and ran to her.

Riley’s head came up slowly. Her crimson eyes seemed to glow, or maybe it was just the light. They followed Octavian until he was kneeling in front of her. He peeled damp strands of hair away from where they clung to the mess across her face. He cradled her cheeks in his palms and peered into her eyes.

“How do you feel?”

“Amazing.” A sound escaped her that was between a sob and a laugh. “I just had to kill three people—”

“Bad people,” Octavian interjected. “They weren’t innocent and would have kept on hurting women if they continued.”

“But the law—”

“Sometimes the law needs help,” he told her firmly.

“It was the right thing, wasn’t it?” she whispered so quietly, it was merely a faint movement of her lips.

Octavian stroked her cheek with loving sweeps of his thumb. “Yes.”

Tension unfurled from around Riley’s shoulders and she melted into her husband when he pulled her into his arms.

Gideon lowered his gaze. “I have shovels and plastic in the car.”

Valkyrie inhaled deeply. “I’ll help.”

It wasn’t until the bodies had been buried miles away from the university and the area cleaned of any evidence that a massacre had ever occurred there that it struck Gideon as odd that Riley had been so lucid. Usually, she had no control over the hunger and it ran rampant with her. But she had been in perfect control of her actions like she had done it a million times. Maybe it was her basic instincts, but he had been so sure she would turn savage and go on a killing spree the moment she left the manor. Yet a part of him couldn’t help being worried.

At Final Judgment, his brother and Riley climbed out of the car. Gideon watched them shuffle to the doors and slip inside, leaving him alone with Valkyrie, who was making no conscious move to exit the vehicle.

“This stays between us,” Gideon muttered to the woman next to him. He turned his head to fix her with his even stare. “No one will ever know—”

“That your sweet little sister in law was rational during each kill, which means she could have stopped, but she didn’t. She chose not to. She chose to kill them.”

Gideon curled his fingers into fists. “Don’t you dare turn this around on Riley. You did this. You told her to kill them.”

Her gaze was penetrating. “You can defend her all you want, Maxwell. But the fact remains the same, she is a stone cold killer.” She turned forward to face the manor and its warm glow. “And don’t worry.” The corner of her mouth turned up. “I won’t tell a soul.”

M
agnus had been right about one thing, Reggie wasn’t stealthy. Between the four of them, his youngest brother was an elephant in a china shop when it came to sneaking out of the house. It both amused and baffled Gideon how he managed to do it without the entire manor knowing about it.

He trudged down the stairs and flew out the backdoor, slamming it shut behind him. Gideon, at a slower pace, followed. It was baffling how Reggie couldn’t hear the clip of Gideon’s boots a mere ten feet behind him, but his brother seemed lost in whatever thought was rattling around in his head.

“You know, these moonlit walks really need to stop.”

Reggie never so much as flinched. Maybe he was more aware than Gideon gave him credit for.

“What can I say, I’m a romantic.”

Gideon snorted. “Well, then maybe you should think about brushing up on your ballet steps. You’re getting a little heavy footed. I could feel the tremors all the way up in my bedroom.”

“If I wanted to sneak out, you would never know.”

Gideon couldn’t help it. He arched a brow. “So you’re deliberately defying Father? Do I detect rebellion from my innocent, little brother?” He quickened his strides to fall into step with the other man. “It may be, oh, a few thousand years too late, but you have my attention.”

“I’m not looking for your attention, or
Fathers.
” The curtness in Reggie’s tone perked Gideon’s curiosity even further.

“Okay, well, I’m officially concerned.” He threw up his hands. “You haven’t been this testy since that horrible incident with those spiders finding a way into your underwear drawer.”

Reggie shot him a dry glower. “That was last month.”

Gideon blew out a breath. “Really? That long? Wow. I’m losing my touch.” He nudged Reggie with his elbow. “Just so you know, those suckers took days to collect. You wouldn’t think it, but they are impossible to find when you’re looking for them.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“Uh, yeah!” He shoved Reggie a little harder. “Nothing but the best for my snot nosed little brother.”

Reggie’s frown wasn’t nearly as stern as it was supposed to be. “I’m not five anymore, dipshit.”

Gideon hooked his arm around his brother’s neck and pulled him in. “Ah, but you will always be the same annoying shit that followed Magnus and me into that cave and got stuck.”

Reggie groaned. “Ugh! Will you ever forget about that?”

“Forget?” Gideon laughed. “Not even if I bonk my head and get amnesia.”

“I was six!” Reggie protested vehemently. “You guys told me there was treasure down there.”

“Well, we didn’t think you would be stupid enough to listen,” Gideon argued.

“I was
six
!” Reggie repeated, stressing his age. “And you guys were supposed to be my brothers.”

“Aw, Reg.” Gideon scored the top of Reggie’s head with the knuckles on his free hand, making the other man yelp and struggle to get away. “We got you out, didn’t we?”

Reggie shoved him away and ruffled a hand through his hair, trying to straighten the tussled brown locks. “Yeah, after it got dark and Mom made you.”

Gideon sighed. “Oh the good ol’ days.” He sighed again and glanced around them. “So, where are we going?”

“
We
aren’t going anywhere.”

Gideon shrugged, nonplussed. “Okay, so where are you going so I can follow you?”

Reggie stuffed his hands into his pockets. “I’m going to check on Daphne.”

“Mm, brownies.”

He smirked when Reggie darted a bemused glance in his direction, but neither spoke as they made their way past Riley’s old apartment and continued onward towards Daphne’s dimly lit house.

The porch light cast a sad glow over the door. The rest of the house lay in darkness. The blinds were drawn over all the windows except the large bay ones overlooking the living room. Gideon narrowed his eyes at the silence that seemed to hum through the air. Even the crickets had vacated the premises. The wind stood silent. It was as though time itself had frozen in place.

“Uh, is this normal?” he wondered, looking over at his brother.

Reggie moved to a thin tree sprouting from the center of the property and leaned against it. “Mom loaned me her crystals.”

Gideon’s eyebrows went up. “You mean Grandma’s crystals?”

Reggie frowned at him. “They were given to Mom.” He turned back to the house. “I buried them around the house.”

Their mom had only ever made brief mentions to the ancient crystals she had inherited. They had been a present from a powerful seer and had been passed down for generations from mother to daughter. Separately, they were ordinary white stones, but together, the five formed a barrier that shielded the object within from harm.

“Okay,” was all Gideon could think to say.

“Mom thought it would be easier keeping Daphne safe this way rather than bring her to the manor, which I can’t do anyway.”

“Because of the summit,” Gideon mused.

Reggie shook his head, then shrugged. “Yes, because of that, but also because of Riley ... and me.”

“You?”

“Look how Octavian imprinted on Riley. It had been a complete accident. Besides, Daphne, unlike Riley, actually has family who will wonder where she is. It will draw attention if she goes missing.”

“So what do you do when you get here?”

“Nothing.” He exhaled deeply. “Just watch.”

Gideon narrowed his eyes. “You don’t sneak into her bedroom at night and watch her sleep, do you?”

Reggie snorted a laugh. “No.”

Gideon folded his arms and stared at the house, eyes narrowed. It was eerie being so surrounded by nature and so absolutely impervious to it at the same time. He had never actually witnessed the power of the crystals before that night, but it appeared as though it formed a dome that stretched over the property. However, why it muffled sound eluded him.

“How long do you stay for?” he wondered.

Reggie pursed his lips. “You know, I kind of miss having Magnus following me. At least he kept out of sight and left me alone.”

Gideon looked at his younger brother. “Do you want to be left alone?”

“Yes!” Reggie said at once.

Hurt, but unwilling to show it, Gideon shrugged. “Fine.”

Leaving the other man watching after him, Gideon moved away from the tree and, rather than turning down the driveway towards home, he made his way to the front steps of the house.

Reggie heaved himself away from the tree. “What are you doing?”

“Leaving you alone,” Gideon said over his shoulder as he crossed the lawn.

“Gideon!”

“Can’t hear you!”

“Gid...” Giving up on his attempts, Reggie bolted forward.

Sensing his brother was about to stop him, Gideon ran, taking the stairs to the front door two at a time. He hit the doorbell before Reggie could reach him.

“I’m going to beat the hell out of you!” Reggie threatened, coming to a halt at the foot of the steps.

“I thought you wanted to be left alone,” Gideon taunted.

Reggie’s fingers curled into fists, but before he could use them, the front door flew open.

The man that glowered at them through narrowed, sleep crusted eyes was a whopping seven feet with arms the size of tree trunks and an aura of someone not wholly against beating a man to death. He wore a blue wife beater and plaid boxers. And socks, Gideon noted with a strange sense of amusement—he never understood people who slept in their socks.

“Who the fuck are you?” the guy demanded.

“I’m Gideon,” Gideon said, pressing a palm flat to his chest. “This here is my little brother, Reggie. We’re looking for Daphne.”

“We’re not!” Reggie snapped, glaring almost as hard as the guy, who Gideon guessed was one of Daphne’s many brothers.

“We are,” Gideon insisted, giving the guy his most charming smile.