Chapter 1

The man on the boat stripped half naked, exposing a lean golden chest and muscled arms.

In the parking lot across the street from the dock, Lara Rho sucked in her breath. Held it as he dropped his shirt to the deck and began to climb.

The top of the mast swayed, stark against the bold blue sky. Her stomach fluttered. Nerves? she wondered. Recognition? Or simple female appreciation?

The sun beat down, forging the water of the bay to a sheet of hammered gold. The air inside the car heated like an oven.

Beside her in the driver’s seat, Gideon stirred, chafing in the heat. His corn silk hair was pulled into a ponytail, his blue eyes narrowed against the glare. "Is he the one?"

Lara leaned forward to peer through the windshield of their nondescript gray car, testing the pull of the internal compass that had woken her at dawn. They’d driven all morning from the rolling hills of Pennsylvania through the flat Virginia tidewater, wasting precious minutes in the traffic around Norfolk before they found this place. This man.

Are you the one?

She exhaled slowly, willing herself to focus on the climber. He certainly looked like an angel, hanging in the rigging against the bold blue sky, his bronze hair tipped with gold like a halo.

"I think so." She bit her lip. She should know. "Yes."

"He’s too old," Gideon said.

Lara swallowed her own misgivings. She was the designated Seeker on this mission. Gideon was along merely to support and defend. She wanted her instincts to be right, wanted to justify their masters’ faith in her. "Late twenties," she said. "Not much older than you."

"He should have been found before this."

"Maybe he wasn’t meant to be found before." Her heartbeat quickened. Maybe she was the one meant to find him.

"Then he should be dead," Gideon said.

The brutal truth made her shiver despite the heat. Survival depended on banding together under the Rule. She was only nine when they brought her to Rockhaven, but she remembered being alone. Hunted. If Simon Axton had not found her . . .

She pushed the memories away to study her subject. He must be forty feet above the gleaming white deck. Snagging a rope at the top of the mast, he fed it to the two men waiting below, one old, one young, both wearing faded navy polo shirts. Some kind of uniform?

"He’s been at sea," she murmured. "The water could have protected him."

It could do that, couldn’t it? Protect against fire. Even if the water wasn’t blessed.

"I don’t like it," Gideon said bluntly. "You’re sure he’s one of us?"

She had felt him more with every mile, a tug on her attention, a prickle in her fingertips. Now that she could actually see him, the hum in her blood had become a buzz. But it was all vibration, like listening to a vacuum cleaner in the dark, without shape or color. Not only human, not wholly elemental . . .

"What else could he be?" she asked.

"He could be possessed."

"No."

She would know, she would feel that. She was attracted, not repelled, by his energy. And yet . . . Uncertainty ate at her. She had not been a Seeker very long. The gift was rough and raw inside her, despite Miriam’s careful teaching. What if she was wrong? What if he wasn’t one of them? At best she and Gideon would have a wasted trip and she’d look like a fool. At worst, she could betray them to their enemy.

She watched the man begin his descent, his long limbs fluid in the sun, sheened with sweat and sunlight.

And if she was right, his life depended on her.

She shook her head in frustration. "We’re too far away. If I could touch him . . ."

"What are you going to do?" Gideon asked dryly. "Walk up and ask to feel his muscles?"

There was an idea. She gave a small, decisive nod. "If I have to."

She opened her door. Gideon opened his.

"No," she said again. She needed to assert herself. Gideon was five years older, in the cohort ahead of hers, but she was technically in charge. "I can get closer if you’re not standing next to me."

A frown formed between his straight blond brows. "It could be dangerous."

She had chosen their watch post. They both had scanned the area. It was safe. For now. "There’s no taint."

"That’s not the kind of danger I’m talking about," Gideon muttered.

She disregarded him. For thirteen years, she had trained to handle herself. She could handle this.

She swung out of the car, lowering her sunglasses onto her nose like a knight adjusting his helm, considering her strategy. Her usual approach was unlikely to work here. This subject was no confused and frightened child or even a dazed, distrustful adolescent.

After a moment’s thought, she undid another button on her blouse. Ignoring Gideon’s scowl—after all, he was not the one responsible for the success of their mission—she crossed the street to the marina.

It was a long, uneven walk along sun-bleached boards to the end of the dock.

The man descending the mast had stopped halfway down, balanced on some sort of narrow crossbeam, staring out at the open sea on the other side of the boat.

She tipped back her head. Her nerves jittered. Surely he wasn’t going to . . .

He jumped. Dived, rather, a blinding arc of grace and danger, sending up a plume of white water and a shout from the younger man on deck.

She must have cried out, too. The two men on the boat turned to look at her, the young one with a nudge and the old one with a nod.

The one in the water surfaced with an explosion of breath, tossing his wet hair back from his face.

Cooling off? Or showing off? It didn’t matter.

He stroked cleanly through the water, making for the swimming platform at the back of the boat.

Show time, she thought.

Pasting a smile on her face, she walked to the edge of the dock. "Eight point six."

He angled his head, meeting her gaze. She felt the jolt clear to her stomach, threatening her detachment. His eyes were the same hammered gold as the water, with shadows beneath the surface.

"Ten."

She pushed her sunglasses up on her head. "I deducted a point for recklessness. You shouldn’t dive this close to the dock."

He grinned and grabbed the ladder. "I wasn’t talking about my dive."

Heat rose in her cheeks. No one under the Rule would speak to her that way. But that was what she wanted, wasn’t it? For him to respond to her while she figured out what to do with him.

"I’m flattered." This close, she could feel his energy pulsing inside him like a second heart. She tried again to identify it, but her probing thought slid off him like a finger on wet glass. He was remarkably well shielded. Well, he would have to be, to survive this long on his own.

She cast about for a subject. "Nice boat."

He shot her a measuring glance; hauled himself out of the sea, water streaming from his arms and chest. "Yeah, she is."

She tried not to goggle at the way his wet shorts drooped on his hips, clung to his thighs. "How long have you had her?"

"She’s not mine. Four of us crewed her up from the Caribbean for her owners."

"So you’re staying here? In town."

He shook his head. "As soon as she’s serviced, I’m on to the next one."

Apprehension gripped her. She arched her brows. "You’re still referring to the boat, I hope."

He flashed another grin, quick and crooked as lightning. "Just making it clear. Once I line up another berth, another job, I’m gone."

"Then we don’t have much time," she said with more truth than he knew.

He stood there, shirtless, dripping, regarding her with glinting golden eyes. "How much time do you need?"

Her heart beat in her throat. Her mouth was dry. He thought her interest was sexual. Of course he did. That’s what she had led him to think.

"Why don’t we start with coffee," she suggested, "and see what happens."

He glanced at his companions, bundling sails on deck. "Drinks, and you’ve got yourself a date."

Lara swallowed. She had hoped to be back in Rockhaven by nightfall. But a few hours wouldn’t make that much difference to their safety. She wanted desperately to succeed in their mission, to prove herself to the school council. She rubbed her tingling fingertips together. If only she could touch him . . . But they were separated by more than four feet of water. "Five o’clock?"

"Seven. Where?"

She scrambled to cull a name from their frustrating foray along the waterfront earlier in the day. Someplace close, she thought. Someplace dark. "The Galaxy?"

His eyes narrowed before he nodded. "I’ll be there."

Relief rushed through her. "I’ll be waiting."

***

Justin watched her walk away, slim legs, trim waist, snug skirt, nice ass, a shining fall of dark hair to the middle of her back. Definitely a ten.

"Hot." Rick Scott, the captain, offered his opinion.

"Very," Justin agreed.

Her face was as glossy and perfect as a picture in a magazine, her eyes large and gray beneath dark winged brows, her nose straight, her mouth full-lipped. Unsmiling.

Why a woman like that would choose a dive like the Galaxy was beyond him. Unless she was slumming. He picked his way through the collapsed sails and coiled ropes on deck. Which explained her interest in him even after she’d learned he wasn’t a rich yacht owner.

The stink of mineral spirits competed with the scent of brine and the smells of the bay, fish and fuel and mudflats.

"The hot chicks always go for Justin," Ted said. "Lucky bastard."

Rick spat with precision over the side. He was tidy that way, an ex–military man with close-cropped graying hair and squinting blue eyes. "Next time you send the halyard up the mast, you can climb after it. Maybe some girl will hit on you."

A red stain crept under the younger crewman’s tan. "It was an accident."

Justin felt a flash of sympathy. He remembered—didn’t he?—when he was that young. That dumb. That eager to please. "Could have happened to anybody."

He’d made enough mistakes himself his first few months and years at sea. Worse mistakes than tugging on an unsecured line.

He wondered if the girl would be another one.

Dredging the disassembled winch out of the bucket of mineral spirits, he laid out the gears to dry. He was working his way north again like a migrating seabird, following the coast and an instinct he did not try to understand. The last thing he needed was to get tangled up on shore.

"I’ll be waiting," she’d said in that smooth, low voice.

He reached for the can of marine grease. Maybe she could slake the ache inside him, provide a few hours of distraction, a few minutes of release.

Mistake or not, he would be there.

***

This bar was a mistake, Lara thought.

The Galaxy was four blocks from the waterfront, off the tourist path, in a rundown neighborhood of shaded windows, sagging porches, and chain fences.

She perched in one of the dingy booths, trying to watch the room without making eye contact with the sailors and construction types straddling the stools at the bar.

Or maybe not.

At least in these seedy surroundings, no one would question if she and Gideon helped one slurring, stumbling patron out to their car later that night.

Over the bottles, a TV flickered, competing with the glow of the neon signs. Miller. Bud. Pabst Blue Ribbon. The air stank of bodies and beer, a trace of heavy cologne, a whiff from the men’s room down the hall. She folded her hands in her lap, her untouched Diet Coke leaving another ring on the cloudy table.

"Is it hot in here, or is it you?"

She looked up to find two sailors flanking her table. "Excuse me?"

The larger sailor shifted closer, trapping her into the booth. "You’re too pretty to be sitting here alone. Mind if we join you?"

She wasn’t alone. Gideon watched from an ill-lit corner, his attention divided between her and the door.

She straightened on the sticky vinyl seat. "I’m waiting for someone."

"I don’t see anybody." The sailor—hovering drunkenly between cheerful and offensive—nudged his companion. "You see anybody, T.J.?"

T.J.’s blurred gaze remained focused on Lara’s breasts. "Nope."

"Let me buy you a drink," the first guy said.

"No, thanks," Lara said firmly.

"There you are." A male voice, deep and smooth, broke through the noise of the bar and the wail of the jukebox. Somehow the sailors shifted, and there he was, tall and lean and attractively unshaven, looking perfectly at ease among the Galaxy’s rough clientele.

It was him. Her quarry from the boat.

Her heart, her breath, her whole body reacted. Her fingertips tingled. Well, they would. She was attuned to him, to his energy.

He grinned at her. "Miss me?"

"You’re late," she said.

Twelve minutes. Not enough to abandon her mission, but enough to pinch her ego.

"Come on, baby, don’t be mad. You know I had to work." The newcomer’s eyes danced, and she realized abruptly he was acting, playing a part for the sailors who still hemmed her into the booth. He lowered his voice confidingly. "Thanks for keeping an eye on her. She gets . . . restless if I leave her alone too long. If you know what I mean."

Lara kept her mouth shut with an effort. The shorter sailor guffawed. His companion shifted his weight like a bull, hunching his shoulders.

"I should pay you back," the newcomer continued easily. Man-to-man, she thought, making them like him, make them side with him, diffusing the tension. He moved again, angling his body so smoothly she almost didn’t see him slide his wallet from his front pocket.

Feet shuffled. Something passed hands. The sailors nodded to her and then ambled back to the bar.

Lara narrowed her eyes. "Did you just give them money?"

"I bought them a round." His grin flashed. "Why not?"

"You paid them to go away," she said, torn between outrage and admiration. She couldn’t imagine Gideon—or Zayin or any of the Guardians—dispatching an opponent by buying him a drink.

"Think of it as supporting our troops." He met her gaze, his own wickedly amused. "Unless you’d rather we pound each other for the privilege of plying you with alcohol."

"Of course not. Anyway, I already have a drink, thank you."

He eyed her glass and shook his head. "Place like this, you order beer. In a bottle. Unless you want to wake up with something a hell of a lot worse than a headache."

He turned to signal the waitress.

Lara appreciated his concern. But his caution would make her task more difficult. Her fingers curled around the handle of her bag on the seat beside her. Maybe it wouldn’t be necessary to drug his drink, she thought. Explanations were out of the question. He wouldn’t believe her, and they might be overheard. But surely she could rouse something in him, a response, a spark, a memory.

Assuming he was one of them.

Perhaps she should offer to feel his muscles after all.

The thought made her flush. "I don’t even know your name."

"Justin." No last name.

"Lara. Lara Rho."

She started to extend her hand, but at that moment he caught the waitress’s eye and the opportunity to touch him was lost.

Lara swallowed her disappointment.

The waitress, a hard-edged, hard-eyed blonde who looked like she’d rather be somewhere else, left the knot of locals absorbed by the game on TV. "What can I get you?"

"Two Buds," Justin said.

The waitress looked at Lara. "ID?"

"Of course," she said, reaching for her purse.

Axton insisted they do their best to abide by human laws, to blend in with their human neighbors. She pulled out her perfectly valid Pennsylvania driver’s license, hoping Justin would do the same, eager for any hint to his identity, any clue why he hadn’t been found before now.

He smiled at the waitress. "Thanks."

The blonde cocked her hip, pulled a pen from her stack of hair. "Anything else?"

His grin was quick and charming. "I’ll let you know."

Oh, he was smooth, Lara thought as the waitress sashayed away.

"So, Lara Rho." He stretched his arms along the back of the booth, his knees almost-not-quite brushing Lara’s under the table. "What brings you to Norfolk?"

You.

Bad answer.

"Um." She inched her foot closer to his across the sticky floor, hoping that small, surreptitious contact would give her the answers she needed. "Just visiting."

"For work? Or pleasure?"

Her toe nudged his. A buzz radiated up her leg, as if her foot had fallen asleep.

Deliberately, she met his gaze. "That depends on you."

His tawny eyes locked with hers. The tingling spread to her thighs and the pit of her stomach.

"I’m done work," he said.

Her mouth dried at the lazy intent in his eyes. "Won’t they be expecting you? Back at the boat?"

"Boat’s been delivered and I got paid. Nobody will care if I jump ship." He smiled at her winningly. "I’m a free man."

She moistened her lips. "Isn’t that convenient."

No one would miss him if he disappeared tonight.

Her heart thudded in her chest. All she had to do was identify him as one of her own kind, the nephilim, the Fallen children of air.

From his corner, Gideon glowered, no doubt wondering what was taking her so long.

If only she were more experienced . . .

The waitress returned with their beer, two bottles, no glasses.

Lara gripped the slick surface and gulped, drinking to ease the constriction of her throat.

"Let’s get out of here," Justin invited suddenly.

"What?"

He reached across the table and took her hand, wet from the bottle. An almost visible spark arced between them, a snap of connection, a burst of power. Shock ripped through her.

His eyes flickered. "You pack quite a punch."

So he felt it, too. Felt something. Hope and confusion churned inside her. She dampened her own reaction, feeling as though her circuits had all been scrambled. The air between them crackled, too charged to breathe.

"I . . . You, too."

Her heart thudded. He was not human.

Or only partly human. His elemental energy beat inside his mortal flesh.

But he was not nephilim either. She didn’t know what he was.

His energy was not light, but movement, swirling, thick, turbulent as storm. It swamped her. Flooded her. She clung to his hand like a lifeline, focusing with difficulty on his face.

". . . find someplace quiet," he was saying. "Let me take you out to dinner. Or for a walk along the waterfront."

"What are you doing?" Gideon demanded.

Lara flinched.

"Who the hell are you?" Justin asked.

Gideon ignored him. "Are you trying to call attention to yourself?" he asked Lara.

Lara tugged her hand from Justin’s, her mind still stunned, her senses reeling from the force of their connection. "You felt that?"

"They could feel you in Philadelphia," Gideon said grimly. "Shield, before you get us both killed."

Justin’s eyes narrowed. "Look, buddy, I don’t know who the fuck you think you are, but—"

Gideon gripped Lara’s elbow. "We’re getting out of here."

Justin rose from the booth. "Take your hands off her."

"It’s all right," Lara said quickly. She struggled to pull herself together. "I know him."

Justin’s mouth tightened. "That doesn’t mean you have to go with him."

"Try and stop her," Gideon invited.

Lara shook her arm from his grasp. "That’s enough," she said, her voice sharp as a slap.

Gideon met her gaze. "Your little energy flare just gave away our location. This place will be crawling in an hour. We need to leave before they get here."

Lara’s throat constricted. "What about him?"

"Is he one of us?"

Not fully human. Not nephilim either.

"No," she admitted.

"Then lose him. He’s not our responsibility."

He was right. She was still new to her duties as Seeker, but the Rule of the community, codified over centuries, was clear about their obligations to keep and preserve their own kind. And the dangers of getting involved with those who were not their kind.

Yet . . .

"Give us a minute," she said.

Gideon’s face set, cold and rigid as marble. "Five minutes," he acceded. "I’ll wait for you outside."

Where he could guard the entrance and scan for danger. She nodded.

With another glare at Justin, he left.

"Are you okay?" Justin asked.

"Fine," she said firmly, whether it was true or not. Why had she felt the pull of his presence if she wasn’t meant to find him?

"Listen, it’s none of my business," he said. "But if this guy is giving you a hard time . . ."

His willingness to look out for a stranger shamed her. Especially since she was about to abandon him to his fate.

"Nothing like that. We work together," she explained.

He looked unconvinced.

"What about you?" she asked.

He frowned. "What about me?"

Who are you?

What are you?

"Will you be all right?" she asked.

"I think my ego will survive being ditched for another guy." The glint in his eye almost wrung a smile from her.

She bit her lip. Their enemies would be circling, drawn by that unexpected snap of energy. She already had to account for one mistake. She couldn’t afford another.

Besides, he was not one of them.

He would be safe. He had to be.

"Right. Well." She slipped her purse strap onto her shoulder. At least now she didn’t have to drug his beer.

"Take care of yourself."

As she slid out of the booth, he stepped back, lean and bronzed and just beyond her reach. "You, too."

She walked away, reluctance dogging her steps and dragging at her heart.

***

Justin watched his plans for the evening walk out the door with more regret than he had a right to. Her tight butt in that slim skirt attracted more than a few glances. Her fall of dark brown hair swung between her shoulders. The woman sure knew how to move.

He shook his head. He’d known she was slumming when she came on to him that afternoon. Presumably she was going back where she belonged, with Mr. Tall, Blond, and Uptight.

He hadn’t lost anything more than half an hour of his time. So why was there this ache in the center of his chest, this sense of missed opportunity?

He took a long, cold pull at his bottle, his gaze drifting over the bar. He’d been in worse watering holes over the past seven years, before he got his bearings and some control over his life. Worse situations, in Puerto Parangua and Montevideo, in Newark and Miami. He drank more beer. He fit in with the surly locals and tattooed sea rats better than pretty Lara Rho and her upscale boyfriend ever could. But he didn’t belong here. He belonged . . . The beer tasted suddenly flat in his mouth. He didn’t know where he belonged.

He set down his bottle. He didn’t want to drink alone tonight. And he didn’t want to drink with the company the Galaxy had to offer.

Careful not to flash his roll, he dropped a couple of bills on the table and walked out.

Nobody followed.

Outside, the sky was stained with sunset and a chemical haze, orange, purple, gray. The day’s heat lingered, radiating from the crumbling asphalt, sparking off the broken glass. He headed instinctively for the water, free as a bird thanks to the coworker boyfriend with the ponytail, trying to figure out what to do with the rest of his evening.

Or maybe his life.

Beyond the jumbled rooftops at the end of the street, he could see the flat shimmer of the sea. He passed a homeless guy huddled in a doorway, clutching a bottle, watching the street with flat, dead eyes. Something wrong there. He kept his arms loose and at his sides as the pawn shops and tattoo parlors gave way to warehouses and razed lots.

His neck crawled. Alley ahead. Empty. Good.

He lengthened his stride, taking note of blank windows and deserted doorways. Good place to get jumped, he thought, and angled to avoid the dirty white van blocking a side street.

He heard a thump. A grunt.

Not his problem, he reminded himself. None of his business.

A woman’s cry, sharp with anger and alarm.

Shit.

He circled the van, shot a quick look down the street.

And saw Lara Rho backed against the brick wall of an empty lot with a couple of rough guys circling her like dogs.