Beyond the Darkness (Guardians of Eternity #6)(3)

“Hess, on how many occasions have I told you that if I want your opinion I’ll ask for it?” Salvatore drawled.

The cur lowered his head. “Forgive me, sire.”

“The cringing cretin is not entirely wrong.” Levet waddled forward, his long tail twitching. “It had to have been the demon who killed Duncan and knocked both of us out.”

“No one is asking you to join us, gargoyle,” Salvatore snapped.

“Sacre bleu. I am not going to be left alone in these tunnels.”

“Then chase after the vampire.”

The damned gargoyle refused to budge, a sly amusement entering the gray eyes.

“Darcy would not be pleased if something was to happen to me. And if Darcy is not happy, then Styx is not happy.”

Salvatore snapped his teeth. Darcy was one of the female purebloods he’d been searching for over the past thirty years, and while he didn’t have the least fear of her, she’d recently mated with the King of Vampires.

Styx he did fear.

Hey, he wasn’t stupid.

Muttering a curse, Salvatore led the way down the tunnel, his already pissy mood plunging to foul.

“Get in my way and I’ll chop you up and feed you to the vultures. Understood, gargoyle?”

He sensed his curs falling into step behind him, with Levet bringing up the rear.

“Mangy dogs can smooch my posterior,” the gargoyle muttered.

“A jinn is not the only creature capable of ripping off a wing,” Salvatore warned.

A blessed silence filled the dark tunnel, and at last able to concentrate on the faint trail of cur, Salvatore quickened his pace.

It was moments like this that he regretted leaving Italy.

In his elegant lair near Rome, no one dared treat him as anything other than Master of the Universe. His word was law, and his underlings scrambled to do his bidding. Best of all, there were no filthy vampires or stunted gargoyles.

Unfortunately, he’d had no choice in the matter.

The Weres were becoming extinct. Pureblooded females could no longer control their shifts during pregnancy, and more often than not lost their babies before they could be born. Even the bite of Weres was losing its potency. A new cur had not been created in years.

Salvatore had to act, and after years of research, his very expensive scientists had at last managed to alter the DNA of four female pureblood babies so they could not shift.

They were a miracle. Born to save the Weres.

Until they had been stolen from the nursery.

He growled low in his throat, his anger still a potent force even after thirty years. He had wasted far too much time searching through Europe before he at last traveled to America and managed to stumble across two of the female Weres. Unfortunately Darcy was in the hands of Styx, while Regan had proven to be infertile.

During his trip to Hannibal, however, he’d managed to discover that the babies had at some point been in the hands of Caine, a cur with a death wish who’d convinced himself that he would be capable of using the blood of the females to turn common curs into Weres. Moron.

Salvatore had been in a cabin to meet with one of Caine’s pack who’d promised to reveal the traitor’s location, when he and Levet had been knocked unconscious and kidnapped.

It had to have been Caine who attacked him.

Now the bastard was leaving a trail straight to his lair.

A smile curved Salvatore’s lips. He intended to savor ripping out the traitor’s throat.

A near half hour passed as Salvatore weaved his way through the winding tunnel, his steps slowing as he tilted back his head to sniff the air.

The scent of cur was still strong, but he was beginning to pick up the distant scent of other curs, and…pureblood.

Female pureblood.

Coming to a sharp halt, Salvatore savored the rich vanilla aroma that filled his senses.

He loved the smell of women. Hell, he loved women.

But this was different.

It was intoxicating.

“Cristo,” he breathed, his blood racing, an odd tightness coiling through his body, slowly draining his strength.

Almost as if…

No. It wasn’t possible.

There hadn’t been a true Were mating for centuries.

“Curs,” Levet said, moving to his side. “And a female pureblood.”

“Si,” Salvatore muttered, distracted.

“You think it’s a trap?”

Salvatore swallowed a grim laugh. Hell, he hoped it was a trap. The alternative was enough to send any intelligent Were howling into the night.

“There’s only one way to find out.”

He moved forward, sensing the end of the tunnel just yards in front of him.

“Salvatore?” Levet tugged on his pants.

Salvatore shook him off. “What?”

“You smell funny. Mon Dieu, are you…”

With blinding speed, Salvatore grasped the gargoyle by one stunted horn and yanked him off his feet to glare into his ugly face. Until that moment, he hadn’t noticed the musky scent that clung to his skin.

Merda.

“One more word and you lose that tongue,” he snarled.

“But…”

“Do not screw with me.”

“I do not intend to screw with anyone.” The gargoyle curled his lips in a mocking smile. “I am not the one in heat.”