Tay couldn’t even imagine being so into someone. Especially not someone like Eidolon, who wasn’t even a someone. He was a something.
He held the door wider and motioned for her to come in. “Where have you been? Where’s Janet?”
Tears unexpectedly stung her eyes. Guardians died all the time. But guilt over Janet’s death plagued her . . . if only Tayla had come clean months ago about her strange symptoms. If only she’d taken herself off active duty status. If only, if only, if only.
Her self-lashing was pointless, but it was a family trait, an addiction as powerful as any other. When she’d been clean, Tayla’s mom had beat herself up daily for the things she’d done while under the influence.
The self-abuse had been as damaging as the drugs.
Tayla collapsed into one of the two overstuffed chairs, glad to rest the shaky noodles that were her legs. “Janet and I ran into some problems.”
Lori hurried over, squatted at her knee. “Tell us,” she said gently, her comforting, maternal presence at odds with the warrior-woman who could wipe out a den of man-sized Croix vipers with nothing more than a hatchet.
Her nickname, June Cleaver, definitely had its roots.
Kynan ran a hand through the spiky brown hair she knew from pictures hadn’t changed since his Army days. “She’s dead, isn’t she?”
“Yeah.”
“Goddammit.” He sank onto the couch and sprawled backward, legs spread, head back as he stared at the ceiling fan that spun in lazy circles. “Where? We need to retrieve what we can.”
“We went into the sewers at the Aspen entrance. She’s a few blocks north of that.”
Her stomach churned. The Guardians wouldn’t find much, if anything. Janet’s body had probably been taken or eaten by now. Every Guardian knew and accepted the risks of dying in demon territory. But it was the survivors who suffered when their comrades fell.
“We’d flushed out two Cruenti doing the nasty behind a Dumpster. We killed the female, but the male tucked tail. We gave chase, tangoed with a Croucher demon, and the Cruentus ambushed us.”
Lori and Kynan exchanged looks. It didn’t take a Velma to figure out what they were thinking. A Cruentus shouldn’t have been able to take out two experienced fighters. No way could she mention the truth of what had happened, how she’d lost the use of the right side of her body during the battle. The Aegis had doctors in their service, and Kynan, a former Army medic, performed most of the patch-up work, but despite her feelings of guilt, deep down she knew she had to keep her strange symptoms a secret. If the truth came out, she might be taken off the streets and relegated to training or paperwork. Or worse, kicked out of The Aegis altogether.
This was the only family she had left, and she wouldn’t lose it. Couldn’t. An ex-Guardian with no job prospects and without the tools and protection of The Aegis could measure her life expectancy in days. No, she’d keep her condition to herself, and she’d continue to hunt, but from now on, she was a solo act. No way would she risk another Guardian’s life.
“I’m not sure how it all happened,” she said, “but I saw her die. The Cruentus attacked me. That’s all I remember until I woke up in a hospital.”
“Hospital?” Kynan shot forward like he’d hit a brick wall doing ninety in his Mustang. Tayla half-expected him to rub his neck from the whiplash. “What hospital? We’d have heard.”
Lori stood, and ice formed in the room. “You know, Tay, you don’t look worse for wear.”
Yeah, as family-oriented as The Aegis was, a healthy dose of suspicion kept everyone alive. Tayla understood that, but the Regents’ reactions stung. The Aegis was all she had, and she’d felt secure in the knowledge that she soldiered on a team where everyone relied on each other, where everyone put aside personal differences while in battle. You might hate your partner on a personal level, but at least he or she was human, and in a fight with a demon, that was all that mattered.
But now a crack had formed in the brittle bubble in which she’d been living, and a frisson of insecurity shivered through her veins.
Slowly, Tayla lifted her shirt, revealing her well-healed scars and the one wound that still festered. “It was a demon hospital.”
Lori and Kynan said little as Tayla told them what she knew about Underworld General. She left out the fact that she’d knocked boots with a demon.
Twice.
And a niggling sense of . . . something . . . told her to, for now at least, leave out how said demon was tied to her bed, his big body dwarfing the twin mattress.
“That’s just what we need,” Kynan said, as he pushed off the couch. “Demons treating the wounds we give them. Infiltrating our medical schools. Learning our physiology and weaknesses.”