Under His Wings
Chapter One
Dusk bullied its way across the skyline, the rolling bank of gray and black clouds forcing daylight to pick up its ball and go home.
Nicolai Abioud studied the fast-moving mass as several stories beneath him the denizens of the dark stirred and crept out of their hiding places, ready to go about their business of the encroaching night. The rundown five-story building he crouched on top of probably hosted all manner of illicit activities. Drug addicts and prostitutes peered out of windows as jagged as their souls, scouting the dirty garbage-littered streets for patrolling cops or predators more vicious then they.
He was such a predator.
Only he had bigger prey to bag.
He scanned the obsidian alleys, his raptor’s eyes sighting even the smallest scurry. Below, a scantily clad woman led an old man down the passageway. As she maneuvered him behind the large dumpster, she glanced toward the sky as if sensing the hunter who perched above her.
Even if she could spot Nico, her concern would’ve been misplaced. Her wariness was better reserved for the other who stalked these streets.
“Nico.”
He didn’t glance over his shoulder as the low sandpaper-over-gravel voice echoed inside his head. The heavy strokes of wings against air had reached his ears several moments ago.
“Yes?” he asked aloud. The prostitute had finished her transaction and was headed toward the mouth of the alley. Either she had a blue-ribbon-talented mouth or the man had a two-second fuse. Nicolai was betting on the latter.
“There’s no sign of him,” Lukas Gallo reported along the telepathic link they shared. “Maybe he’s moved on.”
“No.” Nicolai met the steady ice-blue gaze of his second-in-command and one of the three males he led. Tonight Lukas hunted with him. The other two warriors—Adon Laskaris and Dorian Zarides—searched for traces of their prey on the east side of the city. Together the three males formed the krinos, the select highly trained fighting unit that served under the Dimios, their people’s executioner. Or Nicolai.
On the rooftop, Lukas’ obsidian plumage, wings and body seemed to swallow the shades around him, a wormhole sucking the shadows into his huge bulk. Only his arctic gaze and the distinctive three white stripes across his back relieved the midnight feathers, equestrian hindquarters and tail.
“This is prime hunting ground for him. He’s not finished,” Nicolai murmured.
A sigh whispered down their connection. “We were almost too late to cover up his last kill. Even Evander wouldn’t risk the exposure another would bring.”
“No?” Nicolai arched his eyebrow. “He’s a rogue, Lukas. By the very definition, he doesn’t give a fuck about rules. And he damn sure doesn’t care if he reveals us to the human world. It’s a game to him,” he rasped, returning his gaze to the streets that grew more active, teemed with more people…more quarry for the kill. “Us. Them. We’re all pawns in this screwed up version of Clue to which only he knows the rules.”
Lukas remained silent at the words that sounded bitter to Nicolai’s own ears. Evander Agnew, the latest of his people to go rogue. Over the last four months, he’d cut a bloody trail through Europe and now here to North America. The kills had been spread out and Nicolai, Lukas, Adon and Dorian had worked swiftly to cover them up. But Evander didn’t show any signs of stopping. The humans had no idea a monster out of their mythical lore—and their worst nightmares—had been unleashed on them.
And Nicolai had trained the sadistic bastard.
As the Dimios, the race’s judge, jury and executioner, it fell to Nicolai to hunt Evander and bring him down just as Nicolai had done all other rogues who’d gone off the proverbial reservation.
Hunting his brethren, executing them and preserving the secrecy of his people’s existence were Nicolai’s responsibilities—had been for eight hundred years. As long as the hippogryph had been in existence, they had those who’d gone rogue for one reason or another—resentment over the restrictions governing their exposure to the world, exile or bloodlust.
Whether they were angry, power hungry or deranged, he’d pursued them all. Yes, he experienced regret over some of the punishments, but it had never been personal.
Until now.
Until Evander—an elite warrior Nicolai had trained and a trusted soldier he’d commanded—betrayed him by preying on the weak and defenseless.
Until four months ago when Evander had started his rampage with the murder of Nicolai’s best friend.
Grief writhed in his gut like snakes on a Gorgon’s head. Nicolai, Lukas, Adon, Dorian—they accepted their deaths were possible every time they pursued a rogue and engaged in battle. But Bastien hadn’t signed up for that. He’d been a healer, not a warrior. Yet Evander had targeted Bastien because he’d been Nicolai’s friend. Just to hurt Nicolai, Evander had stolen the life of a good man.