Wynn gritted her teeth in satisfaction and focused on the glimpses of bright sunlight that penetrated the trees at the edge of the copse. She needed to judge the best point to leave the cover of vegetation, where the distance between her and the car was shortest and she would have the highest chance of reaching it before the guard reached her.

  Her breath rasped in and out of her chest, and she knew she’d have to find her way out soon. Her ankle was screaming like a blonde in a horror flick, and she could feel the stitch developing in her side, so she knew she didn’t have much more running left in her. That lifelong disdain of jogging as a form of exercise was really coming back to bite her in the ass, wasn’t it?

  Huffing a little, she once more wished that being a witch was a lot more like Harry Potter made it out to be and a lot less like being a good cook. This whole situation would be vastly improved if all she had to do was dig her magic wand out of her bag, point it at the security guard chasing her, and shout, “Stupefy!” Too bad it didn’t really work like that. She’d have better luck picking up a hunk of stone from the ground and chucking it at the guy’s head. Back when she’d played junior high softball, she’d had a pretty decent arm.

  Wynn grunted and stumbled a couple of steps as the cover of trees gave way. She stepped out into the bright sunlight and blinked against the sudden glare, momentarily blinded. Shit. She needed to get to her car, like now.

  Sandals digging into the crushed stone, she swiveled in the direction she thought she needed to go and poured on one last burst of speed. She could hear the snap of branches as her pursuer pushed his way out of the woods and knew she had only seconds to get into her vehicle, lock the doors, and take off like a bat out of a belfry. Already, she was thinking of how tight a turn she’d need to make to head back to the main road, but she shouldn’t have worried. She never made it that far.

  One minute her legs pumped, carrying her over the even field of the driveway; the next, the world dropped out from under her, and Wynn took flight. For all of the distance between her face and the crater left behind by the demolished Guardian statue. The two items met with an abrupt impact, Wynn’s cheek and temple getting the butt end of that encounter.

  In the adrenaline-fueled race to escape her attacker and the sudden alteration in light levels, she had completely missed seeing the ditch in front of her, and now it looked like she might as well have served herself up to the Order on a silver platter. Or maybe that should be bloody altar-stone? Whatever.

  Wynn rolled to her back, unable to suppress the groan that welled from her throat. She’d hit the ground hard. The side of her face, her knees, and the heels of her hands felt like raw hamburger where she’d hit the disturbed bed of soil, gravel, and stone debris. Not to mention the state of her already injured ankle, which currently throbbed like a bass drum and felt as if it was beginning to swell up again, at least judging from the way the straps of her sandal now seemed to be taking on the role of accidental tourniquets.

  The crunch of a man’s shoe on the drive tore her focus off her discomfort and forced it back onto the more urgent matters. Like attempting to not get herself offed like the secondary female lead in a low-budget slasher film. She wanted to be the battered but victorious survivor girl, damn it.

  Wynn managed to roll onto her hands and knees and was scrambling to get her feet back under her when the high-speed train slammed into her from behind. Back into the dirt and stone she went, only this time the weight on top of her also managed to force all the air out of her lungs. She struggled to remember how to breathe even as a hand fisted in her hair and dragged her head up out of the crater bottom.

  “You shouldn’t have come poking around here,” the security guard growled in her ear even as he used his free hand to press a shiny knife blade to the skin of her throat. “Do you work for the Guild? Did they send you? You Wardens are supposed to be dead, not hanging around here making trouble.”

  The Guild? Wynn started to shake her head, but the feel of a trickle of her own blood against her skin stopped her cold. She hesitated in confusion, trying to figure out the correct answer. If her attacker knew about the Guild, then he definitely had to be connected to the nocturnis, but if he couldn’t tell for himself whether she was a Warden, then he couldn’t be an actual member of the Order; their own magic had no trouble identifying the energy of a Warden’s power. Was this guy not a full-fledged nocturnis but some kind of hired lackey instead?

  “Are there more of you?” He jerked harder on her hair, and she bit back a yelp. “There’s a reward out on your heads, you know. The Order is searching, but why should the big boys get all the cash, right? You got friends I should know about?”

  Sickness roiled in her stomach. Was that why she hadn’t heard from Bran in nearly a year? Had someone like this gotten ahold of her brother and used a knife to silence him as well?

  Instinct curled her fingers around the wrist beneath her chin, and her nails dug into flesh, but the guard didn’t even flinch. He was way stronger than she was. From the looks of it, he really was about to slit her throat. Goddess, her mother would never recover. She was already burdened by the weight of Bran’s disappearance. Losing Wynn, too, might just knock her the rest of the way down.

  Boy, could she use a Guardian of her own right about now.

  The Order’s minion shook her, using his grip in her hair to rattle her from side to side. Her eyes teared at the sharp pain, and she clenched her teeth to keep from crying out. Only a low hiss escaped her. She wouldn’t give the bastard more satisfaction than that.

  “Tell me, bitch,” he snarled. “Either way, you’re gonna die, but if you give me what I want, I’ll at least make it quick.”

  The pain and rage-fueled tears rolled down her cheek and dripped onto a chunk of ragged granite, punctuating the only response Wynn could muster. “Fuck. You.”

  The blade was sharp enough that she didn’t feel the initial prick, but it didn’t matter. The earth beside her opened up and the knife slid from her attacker’s suddenly nerveless hand, thudding to the ground about the same time she did. His grip on her hand disappeared the instant that something else emerged in a blast of stone and magic.

  Wynn’s cavalry had arrived, in the form of one very large and very angry Guardian, a Guardian that was supposed to be nothing but the teeny-tiny pieces still scattered around her.

  Huh. How about that?

  Chapter Two

  Knox emerged into the human world aware of two things—that the woman beneath him must be protected, and that the man clutched in his large, claw-tipped hands needed to die. It was just a matter of how and how soon. He would personally prefer bloody and right now, but something urged him to caution.

  Quickly he glanced around him and evaluated the scene. At his feet, the human woman half lay, half crouched in a field of rubble. To his battle-ready senses, she reeked of magic, a rich and earthy variety that spoke of witchcraft rather than the Guild. She had straight, even features marred with dirt and abrasions, and masses of tumbled hair the color of dark ale. He also noticed several nicks and a seeping line of blood at her throat. Someone had held a knife to her pale, fragile skin, and the thought made Knox’s lip curl up to expose the length of his fanged incisors.

  In his hands, the male human trembled. “You’re supposed to be dead! The Order blew you up! They bragged to us about it. I saw pictures. The statue was broken into a million pieces.”

  Knox frowned and searched his awareness. He knew he had just moments ago been summoned into existence. Before now, there had been only nothingness, but with his appearance on the mortal plane came all the knowledge he needed to join his brother Guardians in carrying out his duty to protect humanity from the threat of the Seven. He knew exactly who and what he was, knew the history and skills of his kind, and knew that if this man was associated with the Order of Eternal Darkness, then the demonic forces he served had written their minion’s death warrant.

  However, Knox also knew that the villain in his grasp did not lie. All around them lay the scattered remnants of a fallen brother. A Guardian had been destroyed here, so Knox had come to take his place. He didn’t know the details of why or how, but he knew his duty.

  “Your masters are not nearly so powerful as you think, human,” he advised, shifting his grip so that he held the man aloft with one hand fisted in his clothing while the fingers of the other curled around the evildoer’s throat. “They cannot rid themselves of the Guardians. Where one of us falls, another shall rise. We will not surrender, and your masters cannot protect you from our wrath.”

  “Wait!”

  The sharp cry froze Knox instantly. He looked away from the servant of the Order and glared at the human witch. Why did she seek to stop him? The man had attempted to slay her, had succeeded in causing her injury, in making her bleed. Why would she not desire revenge? It was, after all, a uniquely human emotion.

  He hesitated. Perhaps she wished to take a more active role in the man’s punishment. “You wish to dispose of him yourself?”

  “Dispose of him?” The human’s voice squeaked unattractively. “No, I don’t want to dispose of him! I want you to let him go. You can’t just kill a guy in Lake Forest, for the Lady’s sake. You’ll be on the wanted list before he goes cold. The police will be all over you.”

  The small woman glared at him fiercely, her brown eyes regarding him not with the wonder or reverence his inherited memory told him to expect, but with something that looked an awful lot more like … irritation? Did she not realize who he was?

  “Do not concern yourself, human,” he instructed her, ignoring the way the man in his grasp squirmed and choked. “This creature is a servant of the Darkness and does not deserve your compassion. You see, I am a Guar—”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know, you’re a Guardian.” She waved her hand at him, her tone dismissive.

  Dismissive?

  “Sworn to protect humanity from the ultimate evil of the Seven demons of the Darkness,” she continued, her tone sounding suspiciously bored as she recited his reason for existence. “Trust me, I can see what you are, but that still doesn’t mean you get to kill the security guard. You’ll get both of us arrested if you try. So do me a favor and put him down before he slips into a coma, okay? He’s already looking a little bit blue around the edges.”

  Startled, Knox looked at his captive and saw that the human woman was right. His huge, bat-like wings rustled in irritation. The male had ceased struggling, and the edges of his lips had paled and begun to turn a strange bluish-gray color. His eyes began to roll back in his head even as Knox released his hold and let the human drop to the ground, where he lay motionless.

  “Thanks. Now, be a good Guardian and shift into something I can fit in my car, would you? We need to get the hell out of here before one of the neighbors decides to walk his poodle down the driveway and gets a look at us. Explaining why we’re here could be put down to curiosity and some innocent trespassing. Explaining why I look like I went twelve rounds with the champ, and a security guard is lying unconscious at our feet, would probably be a hell of a lot trickier.”

  The witch spoke while she climbed, stiff and wincing, to her feet. She stumbled a little as she attempted to catch her balance, and he looked down to discover that one of her feet looked bruised and swollen under the hem of her heavy blue trousers. Clearly, she had sustained more injuries than the obvious cuts to her neck. When she turned her head and wiped her hands against her thighs to brush off the dirt, he also caught glimpses of numerous scrapes and abrasions.

  She appeared in need of medical care, and Knox found himself fascinated by the way she seemed to ignore her own physical condition in favor of talking. A lot. Or giving orders, really. To him.

  A Guardian.

  He shook his head and flexed his shoulders, settling his huge wings into careful folds against his back. “You say that you know what I am, but you do not seem to fully grasp the situation, human. I am a Guardian; this man is a servant of the nocturnis. Therefore, it is my duty to dispose of him, ensuring your safety. Then I must locate my Warden and discover what new threat the Seven have concocted that requires my presence in this realm.”

  The woman snorted—actually snorted—at him and rolled her eyes. “Trust me, bat man, of the three of us here right now, I’d bet fifty bucks I am the least confused about who’s who and what’s what.” She pointed at each of them, emphasizing her identifications with a jabbing finger. “He’s the bad guy, you’re the good guy, and I’m the chick with the information about why the chances of you having an actual Warden are currently running slim-to-none.”

  Knox sifted through her speech and pulled out the disturbing nugget of information. “What do you mean by that, witch? Where is my Warden? How could I have been summoned if, as you say, he does not exist? What has happened to him?”

  On the ground, the security guard groaned and shifted restlessly. The witch made an impatient noise of her own and reached out to grab Knox’s hand. While he watched, nonplussed, she began attempting to tug him away from the semiconscious cult member.

  “Seriously, I promise to explain everything to you, but right now we have to go,” she urged as she attempted to limp toward the small vehicle parked several yards away. “We really need to not be here when that guy wakes up. Can you just give me the benefit of the doubt and trust me for, like, five minutes? We have to go. Now.”

  He could hear the insistence in her voice. This female puzzled him. While she was the first human he had encountered—actually, the first anything he had encountered—she did not behave as he expected. Something inside him whispered that she should be either awed or frightened by him, especially in his natural form. Most humans, he gathered, would find his bat-like wings, long, razor-sharp claws, and harsh features intimidating.

  Clearly, this female was not like most humans in his inherited memories. The differences intrigued him, and he found himself wanting to accompany her for more than the information she had promised him. He wanted to learn more about her, as well as the reason he was here and what had become of the Warden who should have greeted him upon his arrival.

  “Very well,” he conceded, allowing her to lead him to her vehicle. “I will accompany you away from this place, but I will expect a full explanation from you of the significance of your words, female. A very good explanation.”

  “Yippee. I’m so looking forward to it,” she muttered, though her tone sounded quite contrary to her words. She stopped beside the automobile and opened the door. “Now, how about that shifting thing, hm? Because I don’t think all of this—” She gestured at his nearly seven-foot form. “—is going to fit in my Corolla.”

  Much as it irritated him that the small female continued to give him orders, he found her attitude, her defiance, and her confidence inexplicably intriguing. Knox eyed the interior of the small car and was forced to agree that in this case, the witch’s orders made sense.

  Calling on his inherent magic, he pictured a shape less conspicuous in the mortal realm. An instant later he stood before his companion in his new body and found himself surprisingly comfortable in the denim and cotton garments that came with it. Perhaps this confining human shape had its advantages.

  He nodded in satisfaction and looked to the woman. “Will this do?”

  * * *

  Will this do me? Now, that is the question.

  Wynn took in the Guardian’s human form and hoped her eyes were not literally bulging out of her head, because they sure as heck felt like they were. It felt as if the usually obedient organs couldn’t take in enough of the new view in their natural state and wanted to reach out and touch the gorgeous specimen of man that now stood before her.

  Because … wow.

  Somehow, the immortal warrior had condensed his huge, bestial form into just over six feet of white-hot sex appeal. Gone were with enormous bat wings, the animalistic facial features, the pointed ears, fangs, claws, and bulging, rock-hard muscles. In their place she took in chiseled bone structure, intense dark eyes, and slightly less bulging rock-hard muscles. Only the smooth-shaven head seemed pretty much the same.

  The Guardian looked like the kind of man women drooled over and men tread carefully around. His size could get him a job bouncing at any club in Chicago, and he had the sort of sharp gaze and situational awareness that spoke of a highly trained military professional. In a way, she supposed that’s what he was, but in this form she almost expected to see him wearing fatigues and carrying an assault rifle. And why did that image really kind of turn her on?

  Tearing her attention away from his thick, jean-clad legs—and lingering only briefly on the impressive pecs displayed under his snug black T-shirt—Wynn cleared her throat and focused on his face. His brutally masculine face.

  “Uh, yeah,” she managed to squeak out. “Yeah, tha-that’s fine. So … let’s get going, huh?”

  Feeling the heat rise in her cheeks, she slipped into the car and fumbled with the ring of keys still dangling from the ignition. The Guardian folded his long frame into the passenger seat while she tried very hard not to look at him. Unfortunately, the confines of the car put them so close together that her peripheral vision picked up the way he bent and twisted as he tried to make himself comfortable in the small space. It would never work. Used mostly for herself, running errands and dropping off deliveries of her herbal bath products, Wynn’s car rarely carried passengers. As a result, the front seat had been set forward to create more cargo space in the back. The huge Guardian just wasn’t going to fit, not without a few adjustments.

  “Here.” Wynn gritted her teeth and leaned over to grip the lever beneath the seat cushion. “If you slide all the way back, you’ll have a bit more legroom. And the thingy on the right side will let you recline the back if you need to.”