“This speciesism ideology of yours is bullcrap,” she snapped. “You lot insist on hunting us when the Guardians do work none of you would even contemplate on a normal day. You think because I’m human, you can simply stride in here and demand I put my neck out for you to end me?”
“It is the law, human.”
Nik wanted to punch the dick’s teeth down his throat for his rudeness, but a smile started on Shadow’s face. One Nik learned long ago never to trust. Shadow, whatever you’re planning, no—
Trust me.
Fuck.
“You say I’m human? Then prove it.”
“I could kill you.” The asshole drew out the deadly black-edged silver sword from the scabbard on his back.
In a flash, the Gaian swords appeared in all the warriors’ hands.
“Yeah, yeah, even immortals can die with that weapon,” she retorted. “And you know it. But talking to you one-track-minded dummies is like bashing my head against a brick wall. So I’ll make this really easy for you…”
Can I kill him? she demanded through their mind-link.
I would have already done so, Nik growled.
Good. The next minute, power flared out of her in a red haze.
What. The. Hell?
Shrubs broke free, the stone pathway detached, along with the dark-haired asshole threatening her, all of it flying up into the sky and swirling like a cyclone, arms and legs flaying as everything organic and non-organic merged in a looming pile. A shriek of pain erupted.
Fluttering, lustrous wings, wide as Shadow was tall, spilled free from her back, and her skin took on a beautiful, glowing, iridescent sheen.
Nik’s jaw dropped. How could this be?
She leaped into the air, wings flapping, and then she glided around the trapped law-keeper. He felt her exhilaration through their mate bond…she’d done this before?
Still, his heart jammed in his throat, the primal need to protect his mate overwhelming his appreciation for her newly discovered powers. It had to be from her symbionts and otherworldly blood combined.
“Explain to me how a mere human can do this?” she demanded, pointing behind her at her fluttering wings. “Fly?”
“Release me!” the shithead snarled. But with his body and limbs fused with the broken branches and stone paving, he couldn’t use his abilities to free himself. This alone almost had Nik grinning.
“Release him,” the other law-keeper snapped, even though the Guardians had him trapped with their swords at his throat.
A sudden flare of power flashed from the nearby ivy-covered trellis toward…his mate.
“Shadow!” he yelled, but she’d already darted to the other side of the swirling detritus of immortal and debris. The power blasted off a chunk of their comrade.
Nik flung his hand, showers of ice arrows nailing the unseen fucker. Ice wrapped around a male form, and he stumbled out of the trellis and rolled to the ground. Frozen.
Fucking assholes.
“They always come in threes,” Blaéz muttered at his side.
“You would attack my mate while hiding like a damn coward?” Nik snapped. “Just because we don’t use our abilities where humans are, doesn’t mean we won’t with you fuckers!” His gaze shot up to his mate.
Hell, she was magnificent, her entire body sporting the luminous glow, and those gleaming wings, swirling with shades of black, blue, red, and lavender like her eyes, so reminiscent of a—
Fae?
Shit. Nate had been telling the truth.
“Answer me, Law-keeper,” she snarled. At the power of her voice, the spiral detritus whirled faster. “Or you will die in five seconds.”
“No, you’re not human,” he grunted. “You’re an anomaly with human form.”
“You knew, didn’t you? And yet you came here to kill us?” She flung out her arms. The spinning heap of fused law-keeper and debris exploded, raining back to the ground in dust. A stream of silvery-blue light shot up to the sky as his soul left him.
Absolute silence reigned as Shadow floated down. Her wings fluttered, and sparkling dust drifted down like twinkling stars in the early morning light. She stumbled the moment her feet touched the ground.
Nik grabbed her, and her luminescent wings fluttered, showering more glitter and a heady, wildflower scent that was all her. He cast a quick look over her glorious appendages. Each wing appeared covered by thousands upon thousands of tiny, shiny, colorful chitin, giving them the paint-splashed effect. Another flutter of her wings before she folded them against her back, and they vanished.
“Are you all right?” he demanded, putting his hand on her stomach. All appeared well inside her, the babe unharmed by her change, but the back of her top sported elongated rips.
“Yes, I’m fine.” She glanced at her hands and expelled a deep sigh. “I’m glowing again.” Her delicate features hardened. “I had to show them the truth. I’m not what I once was. It happened that night by the church ruins, after…after what happened.”
When he died.
“It’s like all my pain and anger released them.”
“Yo, Nik,” Týr called out, sword still in hand as if itching to use it. “Are we killing these two worthless mofo’s or what?”
“No. Release them,” Michael said.
Teeth clenched, and with great reluctance, Nik let the ice arrows melt, and water slid harmlessly off the coward’s body on the ground. He rolled to his feet.
His Guardian brothers lowered their swords and they stepped away from the other asshole.
“I normally stay out of these things—” Michael grabbed them both by their tunics, stopping them mid-dematerializing. “But when you insist on wanting to harm those under my care even when you know the truth, you will be dealt with my way. Or, maybe, this female you hunt would merge you and nature together and leave you for the crows to fucking feed off—you get me?”
“We understand, Archangel.” They both stood there like damn robots. “We will notify the head law-keeper of this new change.”
“You do that.” Michael shoved them away.
Their gazes flickered to Shadow.
Nik growled. “Get the hell off our property, or I’m gonna drop you dead.” In a flash, they vanished. “Great fuckin’ homecoming,” he muttered.
“Yeah, never a dull moment here,” Dagan added, smirking and dusting glitter off his black t-shirt.
Trying to calm down, Nik crushed Shadow to him, face buried in her hair.
Shadow stroked his back, the up-down movement of her palm soothing, and his heartbeat eased to its usual rhythm.
A moment later, she looked. “So what exactly am I?” she asked, cool as all hell—like she didn’t just destroy nature and a shithead—pushing her hair out of her face, back to her ivory-skin self. “A half-demon with shiny wings?”
Nik noted a further change. Her ears sported little points at the tip, not fully elongated ones.
“No, agápi, you are fae, for the most part,” he said. “Nate told me. But at the time, I thought he was fucking with me.”
Her mouth dropped open, eyes rounding like saucers in shock. “How is that possible when I’ve been given demon blood?”
“Your symbionts are of fae origin. The demon blood somehow fused with the symbionts.”