Guardian Demon (GUARDIAN SERIES) Read Free Page A

presence in her mind, he’d made those mental adjustments for her so that knowing the distance and direction of any noise seemed instinctive. Though he was still in her head, he wasn’t doing that anymore—and that rasp could have been ten feet away or a thousand feet.
    Hopefully a thousand. And hopefully made by a small creature, like a wyrmrat. As long as they didn’t come in a swarm, Taylor could deal with the scaly rodent beasts. Other things wouldn’t be so easy.
    Whatever was out there, it had probably smelled her. Guardians didn’t have much of a natural odor, but Khavi had carved a symbol into Taylor’s chest with the tip of a flaming spear before bringing her here. Normally, such a shallow injury would have mended by now, but the spear had once stabbed through a dragon’s heart and absorbed that creature’s power, and even a Guardian couldn’t heal quickly from that weapon. The scent of raw, burned flesh likely wafted through Hell’s stench, calling to the monsters here like blood to a shark.
    Maybe it called to a hungry dragon, too. Right now, Michael might be coming because he smelled a tasty snack.
It’s in his nature.
Taylor really hoped that wasn’t what Khavi had meant.
    Supposedly, the symbol was part of Khavi’s plan to return Michael to his body. The woman had carved similar demonic symbols into Michael’s body just before he’d kissed Taylor and transformed her into a Guardian. Those symbols had linked their minds and strengthened the bond between Michael’s soul and his flesh, so that when Taylor took his body into her hammerspace, the link between their psyches also deepened.
    The symbol between Taylor’s breasts apparently reversed that process. Khavi hadn’t let Taylor see the glyph that she’d carved, because Michael would see it through their mental link, too. Taylor had pointed out the stupidity of that—he might not know what the symbol said, but he would know it was there and that they were trying to bait him—but Khavi had only shaken her head and said the same damn thing:
    “He will come. It’s in his nature.”
    So maybe Michael was just the curious sort and couldn’t resist coming in to take a look. It hadn’t mattered in the end, anyway. Taylor hadn’t watched when Khavi used the burning spear to write the symbol. She’d been too busy gritting her teeth and trying not to scream.
    But being free of Michael would be worth the pain.
    Where was he? Her gaze searched the sky. Empty. She turned and studied the horizon. A smudge in the far distance might have been a phalanx of flying demons or a cloud of nychiptera. Whatever they were, they didn’t worry her. With her Guardian eyesight, Taylor could read the number on a license plate from a half mile away. If she couldn’t see them well enough to differentiate between demons or giant bats, they were obviously too far to threaten her—at least for now.
    She’d keep an eye on them. And if they came closer . . . well, then she was screwed. Like any other Guardian, Taylor could form wings—but she couldn’t fly yet. Michael had always done that for her, too, and even though she’d practiced flying on her own, she hadn’t realized how much he’d been helping her before he’d stopped. Until then, flying had been yet another skill that had seemed instinctive.
    It wasn’t. She just flapped around like a wounded chicken. If any demons or nychiptera came, she’d have to rely on Khavi to rescue her.
    Yep. Khavi’s plan had shaped up into a brilliant freaking idea, all right.
    Unless . . . if
Michael
had made that noise, then this really had been the right plan. Taylor looked to the boulders again. No movement. That didn’t mean much. Some Guardians could force false images through another Guardian’s psychic shields, creating illusions. Michael was already in her head and past her mental defenses. He could be standing right next to her and she wouldn’t know it until she heard him.
    Or felt him. With a quick