Elijah Read online

  THERE WAS NO CONTROL IN THAT MOMENT

  She was first flushed, and then chilled. She was terrified, but craving. She was seeping liquid heat, and locking up in solid awareness. The contradictions battered her from the inside out and she felt wildly, deliciously out of control of it all.

  The warrior felt the female’s heart pounding madly beneath him. She was aroused. He felt a tremor shimmer through her and he was pressed with the urge to rub himself up against her supple body. It made no impression on him that he was still weak and wounded. He was blind to everything but the sensations and the desires of his instinctive thoughts.

  Elijah was no stranger to women—he enjoyed them immensely, in fact—but this was something quite remarkable. Never had he reacted so strongly, so quickly, to a female before. Except, perhaps, one other time. But he had refused to acknowledge it then for what it was, excusing it as part of the heat of battle. The very idea of it had been utterly appalling because the woman in question had been—

  That was when recognition finally set in.

  Elijah’s eyes went pale, just as the rest of him did, as he finally realized exactly who it was he held pinned beneath this body. Who it was he was feeling this outrageous craving for. And who it was that was responding with an inconceivable reciprocation of heat and interest.

  “Siena,” he hissed, his hand finally leaving her throat to reveal the gold and moonstone collar she wore.

  Also by Jacquelyn Frank

  JACOB: The Nightwalkers

  GIDEON: The Nightwalkers

  And coming soon:

  DAMIEN: The Nightwalkers

  Published by Zebra Books

  ELIJAH:

  THE NIGHTWALKERS

  JACQUELYN FRANK

  ZEBRA BOOKS

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  For my rabid fangirls:

  Ange, Alaska

  Denise, Dragoneen

  Jabberwookie, Jennifer

  Lasair, Lila

  Magic, Nephilim

  Serena, Shoshana

  Stacy, Stella

  Thatch, Treca

  Vickie and

  Renee (who is also my bestest childhood friend)

  As well as everyone else who has helped me through all my ups, downs, ins and outs this year.

  Eye candy, anyone?!?

  Also,

  For my very own stalker, Amy,

  This one’s for you guys!!!

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  PROLOGUE

  Whosoever wishes to know the fate of Demonkind must consult these prophecies…

  …as magic once more threatens the time, as the peace of the Demon yaws toward insanity…

  …it will come to pass that in this great age things will return to the focus of purity that Demonkind must always strive for. Here will come the meaning and purpose of our strictest laws, that no uncorrupted human shall be harmed, that peaceful coexistence between races shall become paramount…

  —Excerpts from The Lost Demon Prophecy

  …it is therefore forbidden for any of Demonkind to mate with creatures who are not their equals, not of their nature, not of their strength and power. Those lesser creatures are ours to protect from ourselves, not to be violated in impure sexual abomination. This is the law and the will of nature. The dog does not lie with the cat; the cat does not lie with the mouse. Whosoever breaks this sacred trust must suffer under the hand of the law…

  —Excerpts from The Original Scroll of Destruction

  Elijah fell to his knees, clutching at his chest as warmth spread between his fingers, staining them and his white shirt a bright crimson. He looked down at the blossoming picture of his life’s essence spreading over the material, almost with the fascination given to the sprawling, artistic circlets of a tie-dyed shirt.

  The warrior Demon was astounded.

  He had been injured repeatedly over his centuries-long lifetime. He was certainly no stranger to it. Everything from mystical electricity to wicked blades made of the brutal, burning iron that was so toxic to his kind had cut into him in one way or another over the ages. Some wounds had been serious enough to leave scars in spite of his remarkable innate healing powers, some had not. But never had he been injured in a way he would consider a truly mortal wound. Mortal to others was not mortal to him. Mortal to the average Demon was also not mortal to him, if only because of his stubborn refusal to succumb to something so passé as death.

  However, in this case it was not simply because a hole was torn through his chest and very near the vital workings of his heart that his life was threatened, but because he was in the middle of nowhere, too weak to call for help, and surrounded back and front by enemies. Even if he could somehow find the stamina to survive this rending intrusion into his body, these enemies would not let him live any longer than they wanted him to.

  Elijah was immediately furious with himself for ending up in this predicament. He was Captain of the Demon warriors, the elite army at the beck and call of the great Demon King. He was the most skilled fighter of all Demonkind, a Nightwalker race renowned for its awesome abilities in battle. He had lived all the centuries of his life honing his craft, learning everything there was to know about battle, war, and the weapons and strategy required for success in those situations. Jacob, the Demon Enforcer, and his liege lord, Noah, the Demon King, were the only ones he would have considered his equals in battle prowess. He was not supposed to be so stupid as to fall into even the best laid traps, nor capable of being bested once caught by said trap.

  Even without training, at their hearts all Demons were essentially battle-ready beasts. He believed that—it was a personal philosophy—and he strongly felt that no matter how heavy the veneer of civilization within their race, or within the individual, there were instincts that could not ever be denied. Sure, Demons looked human, although taller and tanner than average, but they were considered extraordinarily attractive when in human circles. Elijah knew this was because the elemental and animal genetics within them allowed for heightened pheromones that called out to the opposite sex, a predatory sense of awareness that exuded attractive danger, and the extraordinary eyes behind which settled extraordinary cunning and intelligence. All the qualities of natural-born hunters, always seething just beneath the surface, waiting for someone to make themselves prey. Demons were capable of behaviors as untamed as the elements they claimed their great powers from, behaviors they had embraced and integrated into every skill they cultivated in their long lifetimes, making them formidable opponents to those who managed to get on their distant bad sides.

  Thus, even the most juvenile of fledglings could have avoided his current predicament, the warrior thought crossly to himself. So to be caught like this, like a weakling mouse in a trap, was shameful and enraging. How had the act of doing his duty suddenly turned on him? He was the Warrior Captain, the stalker of all Nightwalkers with a price on their head, those who were not of the Demon race who had committed egregious acts and sins against the Demon people, a direct challenge and insult to the Demon King. He was the specialist in all those species, an anthropological strategist. If anyone wanted to know the true ways of how to destroy Vampires, Lycanthropes, and most every other Nightwalker spec
ies, Elijah would be the best source of information. War and peace were, unfortunately, transient things, and it was his duty to be prepared for all possibilities, in case friends became enemies or enemies threatened friends.

  Elijah fought off a passing cloak of dimming consciousness and the spinning of his immediate surroundings. It was he alone who belonged at the head of his monarch’s armies when needed, and he who must train the spies and assassins who would slink through the cloaking shadows in the face of threatening intrigue. Therefore, he knew everything anyone could currently discover about the humans who dabbled in the perverse arts of black magic. The same kind who stood around him that very moment, circling him like vultures awaiting the end to a victim’s final death throes.

  The use of this corrupt power turned these foolish human men and women into necromancers, staining their souls with the inky dye of evil and embedding a stench so foul into their flesh that no Nightwalker with a clean soul could bear to breathe the odor of it. They were powerful, capable of growing even more so the more they studied and practiced their vile arts, but they were not powerful enough to capture him, never mind kill him. No, only his stupidity could have provided that opportunity to them.

  He must have looked like a holiday turkey, breaking through the tree line and stepping into their trap, necromancers all around, as well as the human hunters who spent time chasing down myths so they could torture and kill them. Mortals who took it upon themselves to not only uncover the existence and locations of the hidden Nightwalker races, but made it their personal quest to eradicate them from the planet armed with little more than myth, legend, and ignorance.

  Demons were one of the least exposed Nightwalkers in human mythos, but species like the Vampires and the Lycanthropes were not so lucky. Stories of them abounded, whether accurate or not, titillating the avid hunter into stalking them, looking for proof and personal vindication, occasionally getting lucky in their bloodthirsty quests. For the hunter, it was a victory, a mental trophy. Mental only. The body of a dead Nightwalker would often look very little different from that of a murdered human being, so it was not exactly one of those treasures a hunter could mount on his wall and tell stories about. At least, not to anyone outside of his own secret society of deranged heroes.

  It was becoming far too common an occurrence lately, finding the ashes of Vampires left staked in the sun, Lycanthropes shot and stabbed with the silver weapons that poisoned them, and even Demons impaled by weapons made of scorching, disfiguring iron. That was, of course, when the Demons were not instead being Summoned into the mutilating destruction of the necromancers’ tainted pentagram traps. Murder upon senseless murder, and between these two groups of humans, the list of victims would go on.

  It was a painful betrayal. Demons had always held human mortals in such precious esteem, much in the way a parent protects its young, developing child. They and the other civilized Nightwalkers fiercely protected these humans, perhaps instinctively knowing that though they were not empowered themselves, left to grow and develop, they might someday become so. It would be a beautiful evolution to watch in the centuries to come. Though Demonkind knew it was only a comparative handful of mortals who sought to harm them, it still stung bitterly. And now, with hunters and necromancers joining forces, the danger had doubled for them all.

  Tripled, the warrior thought dryly.

  Elijah knew he was close to death in that moment, with that thought. The warrior within him would never indulge in reflection during a battle that required all of his attention. But this battle was all but over, so it left him a few precious seconds to reconcile the thoughts in his head. It seemed ironic that these badly informed humans, who sought to destroy the empowered races they so thoroughly feared, would not feel threatened by the black magic they now consorted with. What, Elijah wondered, in their minds, was the distinction? What made a Demon, born and gifted of the clean and beauteous elements of the Earth, so reprehensible to these humans? And yet, the embalming of evil magic that bled through necromancers was suddenly being lauded and accepted by the very same self-righteous groups?

  Was it as simple as the fact that the average human mortal was too outbred, in evolutionary sixth sense particularly, to feel or smell that innate evil? Were they really such a child race that they did not have the instinct to determine good from evil, right from wrong, on a purely intuitive level? Certainly, the moment they stepped on the path, there would be no recognition of the error as they were pervaded and overrun, but was there no forewarning at all within them?

  These were answers Elijah did not have and, it seemed, would not find in what was left of his lifetime. After over five centuries, thousands of battles, and thousands of victories, it seemed Elijah’s so-called immortality was about to come to a decided end. He had finally caught the wrong tiger by the tail.

  Or should he say tigress?

  Elijah lifted dark, forest green eyes, full of malice and contempt, to his attackers, who were all standing so proudly in their defeat of him. The hunters and necromancers surrounding him were all women, part of an all-female sect the Demons had recently become aware of. What burned his emotions with the intensity of a wildfire, however, was the presence of the two female Demons standing at the forefront of these murderous feminine forces.

  Traitors.

  The Demon on the right, the one known to him as Ruth, was a very powerful Mind Demon. In fact, she had been the firstborn female to that youthful element, which had existed in the Demon culture for only a little over five hundred years. She was an Elder, formerly a Great Council member, who had helped form the very roots of Demon society and law over many, many years. The magnitude of her defection was immeasurable. Elijah could barely wrap his mind around the concept.

  Though she was the older of the two, her youthful appearance matched that of her daughter, the one called Mary, who stood close to her. Since Demons did not visually age beyond a certain point, the duo looked more like sisters. However, Ruth had an arm around her offspring’s waist and was stroking the young woman’s hair with a maternal fondness that belied the fact that Mary was nearly a century old herself. It was eerily unnatural and must, even to these human eyes all around them, seem more than a little creepy. Perhaps it would have, had those eyes not been blinded by hatred and fear.

  It was the inconceivable idea that both women were of Elijah’s very own race, turncoats openly joining up with these malevolent magic-users and self-righteous human hunters, that burned him with such unholy rage. Of course, with even more irony, Elijah understood that none of the mortals realized that these two women were members of the very same race they were now declaring war on with this attack upon him. None of them knew Ruth’s motivations were driven by her personal need for warped and misdirected vengeance and that they were merely tools, a weapon she could wield against her former people.

  To the mortals, she was nothing more than a beautiful, knowledgeable human woman. A gifted sorceress, perhaps, if she had shown them her masterful ability to command certain aspects of the element of the Mind. It was this Demon deceiver and her daughter who were goading the humans into battles against victims the mortals never would have found with such awful ease and so little effort. Every day Ruth stood on the opposite of that line drawn in the sand by these paranoid and misguided people, she would reveal more and more to them about the Demon race. It would not be long before she carefully gave them the means to destroy those she had once called friends. Beyond that lay every other Nightwalker race, innocent or not, who would be threatened by Ruth’s centuries of knowledge.

  All that mattered to the humans was their fear of the unknown, terror of creatures whose power so outstripped even their wildest imaginations, making them quake with the conviction that it was only a matter of time before these night-living races fell upon the human race as myth and legend had predicted over and over again. It did not matter that, if they had wanted to, any Nightwalker race could have done so thousands of times over the last millennium alone.
r />   Bitterly, Elijah felt that even if someone gave them the truth, they would still only expect the worst of all Nightwalkers because they were under the sway of stubborn prejudice and fear. The only thought that comforted Elijah in that moment was that his death would rouse a retaliation from the oldest and most powerful of his kind, and it would very likely be the end of this insurrection of evil.

  “Spawn!” Ruth hissed the epithet with wicked delight, fueling the bloodlust of the women around him. “Devil in the guise of a human!” She smiled and said softly, “Elijah, the mighty Warrior Captain.” Ruth laughed, the sound deceptively beautiful as she leaned forward to peer at him, her voice low so others could not hear her familiarity with him. “Noah’s little pet pit bull, felled by mere women. I know your thoughts, Wind Demon. There will be no vengeance in your name. They will never find anything of you by the time we are through.”

  Ruth straightened, tossing back a length of luxurious blond hair, smiling serenely. She kissed her precious child’s cheek, if one could call a fledgling Demon of almost ninety years of age a child, making Mary smile with a fawning affection that turned Elijah’s stomach. But a child she was, compared to the adults and Elders of her kind, and even compared to other fledglings her age. Though she had the beauty and the body of a full-grown woman, she was a little girl at heart and in mind, completely under the sway of her overprotective, smothering parent.

  Why had none of them noticed Ruth’s detachment from her senses? As a Mind Demon, Ruth had no doubt blocked that awareness from other skilled Demons of the Mind. Why had no one ever insisted on separating the child from the unhealthy and domineering behavior of the mother? Because it wasn’t their way to gainsay a parent’s right to raise her child as she saw fit? Now their entire society would live with these errors and their consequences, just as Elijah would die because of them.