Fear the Darkness (Guardians of Eternity #9)(63)

“Santiago?”

“So you haven’t completely forgotten about him.”

“Of course not.” Gaius clutched the medallion so tightly his knuckles turned white. “He is my child. He will always be my child.”

Styx didn’t have to fake his contempt. Not when he’d personally witnessed what had happened to Santiago after Gaius’s abrupt departure behind the Veil.

“A father doesn’t abandon his child.”

Gaius frowned, visibly disturbed by the memory of leaving behind the child he’d sired. “I couldn’t allow him to be tainted by my bargain with the Dark Lord.”

“So instead you allowed him to become a slave to one of the most vicious vampires it has ever been my misfortune to meet?” Styx rasped, recalling Santiago’s broken and bleeding body he’d found in the fighting pits beneath Barcelona. “He made him into a Gladiator. Santiago was forced to fight every night in the blood pits just to stay alive.”

“I suppose you slayed his dragon and became his hero?” Gaius attempted to mock.

“Would you rather I had discarded him like you did?”

Gaius flinched, his gaze shifting away from Styx’s accusing expression. “No.”

Styx lowered his sword, but he wasn’t foolish enough to approach the skittish vampire. “Gaius, it’s not too late to redeem yourself,” he urged.

Gaius shuddered. “It’s later than you can even imagine.”

On cue, the door behind Styx was shoved open and a female with short, spiky strands of red hair and black eyes rushed into the cell. Laylah, the Jinn mongrel and mother to Maluhia.

“The baby’s gone,” she announced, her face white with a combination of shock and fear.

God dammit.

He’d known that Gaius was merely a distraction.

“How?” Styx didn’t bother with platitudes. People didn’t come to him for comfort. They came to him for results.

“I don’t know.” Laylah struggled to contain her panic. “I was holding Maluhia in my arms when he was suddenly snatched away. He”—she gave a helpless lift of her hands—“disappeared.”

“Magic?”

“I don’t think so.” Laylah shook her head, turning to reach out a hand to the male vampire with Polynesian features and a dark mohawk who rushed into the room.

Behind Tane was another vampire, this one a slender female with long dark hair and tilted blue eyes.

“I could feel the hands as they grabbed Maluhia,” Laylah continued, her voice breaking. “And I’m certain something stirred the air when I raced through the door.”

Tane tucked his mate tight against him, his expression warning that when he got his hands on the evil bastard who had taken his son, he was going to rip them limb from limb. Then he was going to stitch them back together and do it again.

“The kidnapper was invisible?” he demanded.

There was a minute of silence as they all pondered the strange turn of events.

Then, Jaelyn growled low in her throat. “Kostas,” she said.

Laylah sent the one-time Hunter a puzzled frown. “How can you know?”

Jaelyn shuddered. She had never fully revealed what had happened to her in the hands of the Addonexus, and in particular Kostas, but what little Styx had discovered had been enough for him to make a clean sweep. He wouldn’t have his people terrorized by tyrants.

“There’s no one else who is capable of cloaking themselves so deeply in shadows,” Jaelyn pointed out, her gaze turning toward Styx. “And he’s been crazed with the need for revenge since you removed him as Ruah.”

Shadows.

Styx felt the urge to ram his thick head into the wall.

“Beware the shadows,” he snarled. “Dammit, we were warned and I still failed.”

“No, the failure was mine,” Laylah said softly, her voice filled with such heartbreak that it filled the air with sorrow.

“We will get him back, Laylah,” Styx said, his gaze shifting to Tane. “I swear.”

“It’s too late, Anasso,” a voice said from behind him. “Concede defeat and bow to the Dark Lord.”

With a snarl, Styx spun on his heel and prowled toward the forgotten Gaius, delighted as hell to have something to stab with his big-ass sword. It was obvious the vampire had deliberately distracted them to give Kostas the opportunity to steal the child.

Now he would pay the price.

“Never.”

Gaius smiled with unmistakable bitterness. “Then die.”

His words were still hanging in the air when he abruptly vanished from the cell.

“Shit.” Coming to a halt, Styx lifted his eyes toward the ceiling. “Could this day get any worse?”

“Don’t tempt fate,” Tane muttered.

Leashing his fury, Styx forced himself to concentrate on the best means of tracking Maluhia. Then, turning back to his companions, he took command.

“Jaelyn, see if you can pick up the bastard’s track.”

The Hunter gave a swift nod. “Of course.”

“I’m going with her,” Laylah abruptly announced.

Styx frowned. The half-Jinn was powerful, but no one was certain if she was truly immortal.

“Laylah.”

The hint of lightning prickled through the air. “I’m going.”