Free Breaking Fate by Georgia Lyn Hunter

from the hospital to downtown and trawled the streets. Traffic had eased in the early hours of the morning.
    “Why?” Týr finally asked. “They were humans.”
    “My Guardian oath prevents me from killing them, it says nothing about not making them pay for their crimes.”
    “This is about her, the female you brought back tonight?”
    “They hurt her.” He remembered the bruises on her face and on the tender skin of her breast. He longed for the sensation of anger so his vengeance would feel good. “They would have done worse.”
    “The human police could have handled it, if the female reports them.”
    Hands in his pockets, Blaéz sidestepped several stinky dumpsters in the darkened alley, his attention on a skinny tabby skulking along the grimy warehouse walls. “Why? When I can dispense justice for said crime.”
    “Yeah, s’pose so,” Týr agreed. “Now they’ll live the rest of their lives as babbling babes with whatever terror you instilled in them.”
    “Then the world’s a safer place.”
    “Why the interest in this female, Celt? When we’ve saved countless before?”
    Because she’s given me things I never thought possible. And she makes me aware of what a fucked-up bastard I am.
    “No reason.”
    Despite the fact he’d finally found the one person who’d made living bearable again, he couldn’t drag her into his wretched life. He was steeped too deeply in a hellish place, trapped in a nightmare. Being with Darci would only put her in Maloch’s crosshairs. The bastard would use anything to tighten his hold on Blaéz since he’d been able to resist the pull to Hell for longer periods now. But if Maloch abducted her, then he’d have Blaéz exactly where he wanted him.
    Trapped back in Hell.

Chapter 6
    Darci pushed aside the dark gray covers and sat up. Lying in Blaéz’s giant-sized bed made sleep impossible, his tormenting scent too prevalent. The man was too distracting, even when he wasn’t here.
    With a tired sigh, she pushed off the bed and padded over to the couch in the turret living room and lay down. The leather beneath her a cool comfort against her heated limbs. Through the undraped window, the moon cast a silvery light on all it touched, forming deep shadows in the room.
    She blinked eyes heavy with sleep, a chill skating over her. The tiny hairs on her arms rose. Heart pounding, Darci struggled to push through the fog, but it held her down like an invisible band. A thick, swirling haze surrounded her. From the walls, a long wispy shadow lifted and transformed into a woman shrouded in black. She glided toward Darci, her face obscured by the very shadow that gave her form.
    I gave you ease as a child. It is time. See… you must see. Remember your promise, the whisper snaked through her, the urgency twisting Darci’s gut. The specter reached out with a pale hand and trailed her ghostly fingers down her face. Her lungs constricted.
    Darci jerked free and broke through the paralysis, gulping air into her burning chest. She rubbed her sternum at the pain there. Inhaling another shuddering breath, she glanced around the softly lit room, but all was quiet. With a shaky hand, she reached for her cell phone on the coffee table and checked the time. 5:12 A.M.
    Too disturbed to go back to sleep, she rose and crossed to the window. Night had given way to purple skies. Daybreak was just a breath away. Birds perched on a shrub nearby and welcomed the morning in a noisy raucous.
    Darci rubbed the goose bumps on her arms as she recalled those strange words from the smoke woman. See? See what? And what promise?
    Being in this strange and enormous castle had to be the catalyst for her odd hallucination, dream, or whatever that was. At least it wasn’t her childhood nightmare of a man flogging her with a flaming whip — God, she squeezed her eyes tight and hastily shut off those images.
    A half hour later, she showered and changed into her clothes someone had laundered and left for her on the