On cue, Roke came to a sharp halt, pointing toward the desert floor just in front of them. “There.”
Viper rolled his eyes. “Man of few words.”
“Preferable to one who doesn’t know when to shut it,” Roke countered.
“Agreed,” Styx said dryly, shifting so he could study the ground where Roke was pointing. It took a long moment to recognize that the lines etched into the dry dirt were more than just the scribblings from some human. “Oh . . . shit.”
“What the hell?” Viper tilted back his head as he caught the lingering scent. “I smell pureblooded Were.”
“Cassandra,” Styx said, easily recognizing the scent of his mate’s twin sister, who had recently been revealed as a powerful prophet.
“And Caine,” Viper added. “Why would they be in the middle of the Mojave Desert?”
Now that was a hell of a question.
The pair of pureblooded Weres had been missing for weeks, despite Styx’s best efforts to locate them. An unbelievable feat considering he possessed the best trackers in the world. Of course, if the rumors were true, then the two Weres were already beyond his reach.
Which made any clue as to how she’d been captured or how to retrieve her from her current prison priceless.
“I’m more concerned with what they left behind,” he admitted, prowling around the edges of the strange symbols.
Viper frowned. “An etching?”
Styx shook his head. “It looks more like a hieroglyph.”
“A prophecy,” Roke said with a quiet confidence.
Styx turned to study the clan chief with a searching gaze. “Can you decipher it?”
“Yes, it’s a warning.”
Viper frowned. “You’re a seer?”
Roke shook his head, his gaze trained on the lines etched into the ground. “There’s only one prophet. But I was sired by a wisewoman who taught me to read the signs left by our forefathers.”
Of course. Styx abruptly understood precisely why he was standing in the middle of a desert. “So now we know why Cassandra chose to travel to Nevada,” he said wryly.
“Why?” Viper demanded.
He pointed toward Roke. “Because it was the one place to make certain her message would be understood.”
Viper snorted. “She could have sent a text and saved us a trip.”
Styx’s attention never wavered from the silent Roke. It was impossible to judge how the vampire felt about being pulled into the battle against the Dark Lord.
But then, he no doubt realized that it wasn’t a choice. Styx wasn’t the head of a damned democracy. He led his people by cunning and brute force when necessary.
“How did you discover this?”
“A cur stumbled across it two nights ago,” Roke promptly answered. “There are no Were packs in the area so he came to me with the information.”
“How many others did he tell?”
Roke instantly understood Styx’s concern. “None, but it’s been here at least two, maybe even three weeks.” He grimaced. “It’s impossible to know how many others have seen it.”
A pity, but there was nothing to be done, Styx silently conceded. “Could anyone else interpret it?”
Roke paused before giving a shake of his head. “Doubtful.”
Viper crouched down, studying the desert floor with a frown. “What does it say?”
Roke moved forward, careful not to disturb the marks as he pointed toward the strange etching closest to them. “This is the symbol for the Alpha and the Omega.”
Styx froze at the familiar words.
“The children,” he murmured, speaking of the twin babies that had been found by the half-Jinn mongrel, Laylah. She hadn’t known that they were the babies mentioned in the prophecies. Or that they’d been created by the Dark Lord so he could use them as vessels for his eventual resurrection. “What about them?”
Roke traced the symbol in the air. “Here they are joined.”
Styx nodded. When Laylah had found the children they’d been wrapped in the same stasis spell and she’d assumed there was only one child.
“Yes.”
“And then they were separated.” Roke pointed toward the second etching. “The Omega is lost to the mists.”
Viper muttered a low curse. Styx didn’t blame him.
They’d struggled to protect the children, but while Laylah and Tane had managed to rescue the boy child and named him Maluhia, the girl child had been taken through the barriers between dimensions and used by the Dark Lord in his attempt to return to this world.
Styx shifted his attention to the last symbol. “What’s this?”
“The children reunited.”
Hissing in disbelief, Styx turned to meet Roke’s steady gaze, the pale silver eyes even more eerie than usual. “Reunited?”
“‘The Alpha and Omega shall be torn asunder and through the Mists reunited,’” the clan chief of Nevada murmured, quoting the Sylvermyst prophecy.
“Maluhia,” Viper breathed, his expression grim. “Cassandra was warning us that the baby is in danger.”
“Shit.” Styx shoved his hand in his pocket to yank out his cell phone, his sense of furious urgency frustrated by the realization there was no service. He needed to get back to civilization. Now. Grasping the startled Roke by the upper arm, he headed back across the desert at a blinding speed. “You’re coming with us.”
Three weeks earlier
Las Vegas
The Forum Shops in Caesars Palace were a wonderland for any female, let alone one who had spent the past thirty years secluded from the world.
Beneath the ceilings that were painted to resemble a blue sky, the elegant stores wound their way past fountains that were intended to transport shoppers back to Roman days. Glass display cases were filled with the sort of temptations designed to make a woman drool.
With a wry smile, Caine stepped behind his dazzled companion to wrap his arms around her waist, tugging her back flat against his chest. He could only wish Cassie would look at him with that same wistful longing, he ruefully acknowledged.
Or perhaps not, he swiftly corrected as his body hardened with a familiar, brutal need.
Since discovering Cassie being held prisoner in the cave of a demon lord weeks ago, Caine had done his best to play the role of knight in shining armor.
Although possessing the natural strength of a pureblooded Were, Cassie had not only been altered in the womb not to shift, but she was as innocent as a babe and twice as vulnerable.
Add in the fact she was the first true prophet born in centuries, and currently being hunted by every demon loyal to the Dark Lord, and she was a disaster waiting to happen.
She desperately needed a protector.
And since Caine, once a mere cur, had died and been resurrected as a pureblooded Were in her arms, he’d assumed that protecting Cassie was the reason the fates had returned him to this world instead of leaving him to rot in his well-deserved hell.
Unfortunately, his miraculous return to life hadn’t included a sainthood and he remained a fully functioning male with all the usual weaknesses.
Including a rampaging lust toward the tiny female currently wrapped in his arms.
As always completely impervious to his torment, Cassie breathed a soft sigh of wonder. “Oh . . .”
“Cassie.” Bending down, he spoke directly in her ear. “Cassie, listen to me.”
She tilted back her head to meet his narrowed gaze and Caine briefly forgot how to breathe.
Holy shit, but she was beautiful.
Her hair was pale, closer to silver than blond, and pulled into a ponytail that fell to her waist. Her skin was a perfect alabaster, smooth and silken. Her eyes were an astonishing green, the color of spring grass and flecked with gold.
Her face was heart-shaped with delicate features that gave her an air of fragility that was only emphasized by her slender body. Of course, beneath her jeans and casual sweatshirt, she possessed the lean muscles of all pureblooded Weres.
“What?” she prompted when he continued to gawk at her in mindless appreciation.
He sucked in a deep breath, savoring the warm scent of lavender that clung to her skin. “You promised me that you would blend.”
She wiggled from his grasp and darted toward the nearest store to press her face against the window. “Mmm.”
Caine rolled his eyes. “I knew this was a mistake.”
“There’s so many,” she murmured as he moved to stand beside her. “How do you choose?”
“We’ll go into a store, pick out a few of your favorite clothes and try them on—”
“Okay.”
Without waiting for him to finish, Cassie was darting through the open doorway. Caine was swiftly on her heels, but with immaculate timing a buxom nymph with dark hair and brown eyes pretended to stumble and landed against his chest.
Instinctively, his hands reached to grasp her shoulders, his sapphire blue eyes narrowed with irritation.
Once upon a time he had appreciated beautiful females tossing themselves into his arms. Even though he’d been a mere cur, his short blond hair that fell across his brow and tanned, surfer good looks ensured he had more than his fair share of babes. And it didn’t hurt that his body was chiseled muscles beneath the low riding jeans and muscle shirt.
