Dark Fates (A Paranormal Anthology)(103)

Aja – She-cat, coordinator for clean-up teams. She’s known for her temper.

Cara – Healer and dove shifter, she is relatively young and new to the Watchers.

Enoch – A nephilim and part of the triumvirate that leads the Watchers.

Kincaid – A demon and part of the triumvirate that leads the Watchers.

Sage – A witch and part of the triumvirate the leads the Watchers.

Jubilee – A human who is saved by Fox and proves to be housing a colossal secret that indicates a change in the stalemate of the war.



Glossary of terms



Blood-bonded – The exchange of blood with a nephilim or a demon that transforms a human into something more. Some abilities are exchanged, and longer life is bestowed. The bonded can also call upon their patron; it is a power exchange and a guarantee of shelter on both sides. With the help of a witch, the final transformation allows the blood-bonded to become shifters as well. The type of animal is not predetermined, though all cats are blood-bonded to nephilim and all wolves are blood-bonded to demons.

Watcher – Nephilim, demons, witches, and blood-bonded humans sworn to avoid all-out war between heaven and hell. They stand as the gray line between the two divine worlds.

Nephilim – The children of heaven’s sons and humans, they possess divine gifts and broke with heaven.

Demons – The children of hell’s sons and humans, they possess divine gifts and broke with hell.

Witches – Powerful non-humans, most often female, though male witches exist, they owe allegiance to the natural world and not to heaven or hell.

Kitsune – Japanese fox shifter, associated with chaos. Only one Kitsune exists within the Watchers.

Cat shifters – The blood-bonded of the nephilim.

Wolf shifters – The blood-bonded of the demons.





Chapter One


Jubilee stared at the numbers of the elevator as they continued to climb. Why had she gotten into an elevator going up? Worse, why had she gotten into an elevator in which someone had pressed several upper floor buttons at random? Damn kids. She needed to get to the first floor and out of the hotel. When the elevator continued past the twentieth floor, her stomach bottomed out. Fisting her hands, she bounced from her heels to her toes and back again.

“Come on. Come on.”

The chant didn’t speed the elevator up, but, when it halted, she squeezed through the doors before they’d finished opening and ducked out onto the twenty-seventh floor.

After looking one way and then the other, Jubilee dashed down the quiet hallway and straight for the stairwell. Sweat slid down her spine, and her heart hammered. Her old beat-up leather coat was too damn hot, but she didn’t dare take it off. She needed her hands free.

Thank God, she didn’t run into anyone in the hallway. Pushing the stairwell door open, she paused and listened. Hearing nothing suspicious, she raced down the stairs and winced every time her boots skidded on the metal lips. She was making an ungodly amount of noise. A door thumped open below her, and she froze.

A man's voice snarled. “Go up,” she heard him say. Then he said something else, but she couldn’t quite make out the words. She didn’t have to, though. She recognized the voice. It was Andropov, her brother’s dealer and a cold-blooded killer. If he caught her…well, she’d be lucky if all he did was slit her throat.

“Find that f*cking bitch.”

Yeah, she didn’t think she would be lucky. Footsteps pounded against the stairs. They were coming up and getting closer.

Fuck Fuck. Fuckity f*ck f*ck.

Backing up the stairs, Jubilee tried to climb more quietly, but how the others couldn’t hear the thunder of her heart she had no idea. One level up, she found the door to the twenty-third floor and got it open. As soon as she put her feet on the hallway carpet, she began running. An older couple, dressed in clothes that probably cost more than she could make in a month, came around the corner ahead of her, and she forced herself to walk. It didn’t surprise her when the woman stared askance in her direction and the man nudged his wife to the side.

She knew what they saw, what everyone saw—a scrawny girl with black spikey hair, too much makeup, a hollow face with too-sharp cheekbones. Then there was the black. From her lace top to her leather jacket, careworn jeans, and motorcycle boots, Jubilee looked exactly what she was, a street rat who did not belong in the expensive part of Manhattan.

Well, f*ck them.

Lifting her chin, she kept a steady pace and strode down the hall. The elevator was a bad idea but preferable to being in the stairwell with Andropov and his goons. A ding sounded from ahead, and she halted. In the middle of the hallway, she had nowhere to hide, and she dropped the relaxed act and darted down a cross hall. The hotel was laid out like a big rectangle.

Running, she made it to the next hall and around the corner before she glanced back.

Two men strode in her direction. She didn’t know who they were, but she recognized the type.

Shit.

Where to? All she saw behind her was another endless hallway filled with closed—and locked—doors.

Daring to look back at her pursuers, she found them closing in. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. They’d seen her, and they broke into a run. Cursing, she spun and ran like hell. She made it to the end of the hall and flung herself around another corner. This would bring her right back to the first hall, and maybe she could make it to the elevators.