For that the betrayer would die. If Nicolai had to track him for the rest of his existence, he would destroy this rogue.
“Nico, let me take this one,” Lukas urged. “You’re too personally involved—”
“Forget it,” Nicolai snapped. A loud crack rent the air and he glanced down, startled his black talons had stabbed the edge of the roof. Fine fissures zigzagged over the railing and chunks of cement littered the ground. Lifting his head, he met Lukas’ censorious gaze. Juveniles half-shifted as they learned to dominate their beast. For an adult—especially a nine-hundred-year-old warrior—to do so meant a loss of control. Dangerous for one whose duty required he discipline not just himself but an entire race of people.
“Forget it,” he repeated, voice grim. He eyed his second-in-command until Lukas lowered his sleek black head, a sign of the male’s submission. “We hunt here tonight. And we’ll keep on until we find the demented bastard and take him out.”
The cold, grim words echoed in the night air as Nicolai leaped onto the high narrow ledge, landing in a crouch. He splayed his fingers on the rough concrete, maintaining his balance as he reexamined the murky expanse of sky. The dense blanket of pollution hid the twinkle of stars and obscured the moon’s pearlescent glow. A shaft of longing for the clean, fresh air of his home pierced him. If he breathed deep, he could almost taste the rain-scented breeze that blew over the private peninsula off the Washington state coast. There the stars glittered like bright diamonds scattered across a velvet cloth by a celestial hand.
As different from this place as shit from shine.
“Lukas.” Nicolai squinted at a sizeable dingy cloud sailing at a slightly faster clip than the others. Something about the odd shape…and when the moon’s beam struck it…
“That’s him,” he growled. Not waiting for Lukas’ reply, he dove off the ledge, arms outstretched, head thrown back. Magic sizzled from the soles of his feet, blazed a path up his legs, thighs, to his gut and chest and shot to his shoulder blades and legs. It consumed him. Bone snapped and popped, muscle and tendon contorted. His head rounded and formed a large high-arched beak and shaggy crest as feathers sprouted along his arms and back. Two pairs of legs—the front pair talon-tipped and the back hoofed—stretched and kicked as his wings beat hard once, twice, and the hippogryph’s powerful, magnificent body climbed high into air. At the same time he cast a gyges,the magical net rendering him invisible to the human eye.
Beside him, Lukas’ black half-eagle, half-stallion beast appeared and together they streaked through the sky after their prey.
“Stay back,” Nicolai ordered through the telepathic link. Lukas’ head snapped to the side, his arctic-blue eyes glittering with shock and growing anger. Before the other hippogryph could voice an objection, Nicolai growled, “Don’t interfere. That’s an order.”
Lukas’ rage crackled down their link, but he spread his wings wide and reared back on his hind legs, talons clawing the air.
Nicolai launched forward, all his attention focused on the smoky billow several feet beneath him. The mist—too thick to be natural—didn’t hinder his search. Tonight he would end this, damn it. He would end Evander. A warning whispered through his head. The same warning he gave those who trained under him.
Never let emotion enter the hunt. If you do, you’re dead as fuck.
Well he was as dead as a damn doornail because there was no way he could separate the hatred, the overwhelming grief and thirst for revenge…for blood. Nicolai wanted the black, shriveled lump Evander called a heart in his claws. It was the only outcome of this battle that would satisfy him.
The fog clung to his feathers and coarse hair on his back and legs, the wisps like chilled tentacles that sought to leach the warmth from his body, render him slow and sluggish. He relegated the discomfort to the part of his brain labeled Life’s a Bitch and peered deeper into the—
There! Triumph roared through him as he discerned feathers the color of ash. Folding his wings against his body, he lunged, slicing through the clouds.
A piercing battle cry escaped him. His legs extended, talons curled, ready to tear through flesh and hide.
Just as the tips of his claws grazed charcoal feathers, Evander cut hard to the left. Nicolai bulleted past him before abruptly drawing up. He wheeled around to the soft sound of taunting laughter inside his head.
“Tsk, tsk.” Evander hovered several feet above him, seeming to hang motionless in the air like a black spider suspended on its invisible web. A large crest rose behind his head, granting him the image of the crown he desired to own and detested serving. Mottled gray and black covered his breast and wings and merged with muscled, strong, fully feathered legs so deep-brown they appeared as dark as the rest of him. Evander was a phantom pillar of smoke, except for the ring of white that edged the outermost points of his wings as if the tips had been dipped in paint. “You violated your first rule in Attack 101. Never let ’em know you’re coming.”