Guardians (Chosen Trilogy Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

filed in behind them as they pushed through the dark doors and into the air-conditioned lobby. Lucy was to my right and I distinctly heard her sharp intake of breath upon sighting Ethan. One look and she was smitten. The kid had jet-black hair and piercing eyes, a sharply chiseled face, and rippling muscles made all the more apparent by his tight Hollister t-shirt. His gaze swept across us all and settled upon my daughter.
    I tend ed to notice these things.
    Ethan smiled. Lucy took another breath. I stepped in between the almost silent exchange. “You booked us some rooms?” I asked Giles.
    The Englishman shook his head. “No. I booked us the entire building to the far left.” He shrugged. “Twenty floors.”
    I shook my head a little. Talk about overkill. But the distance between the lobby and the building would be a nice buffer zone. “Shall we go?” I asked. “The sooner we set up a HQ and get organized on tracking these things down the better.”
    Cheyne seemed to agree. “Let’s grab our things. My cove n are close by. I will call them over.”
    I smiled as we all started to move out, leaving the vampire kid, Ethan, with a surprised look on his face. “Maybe this time you’ll let them take their hoods down, eh?”
    “A witch is forbidden to reveal her identity until she ascends to a certain level,” Cheyne said gravely. “It is one of our laws.”
    “Oh? Why?”
    “Many reasons. Secrecy. Anonymity. Safety. Protection from each other, if required. Preservation of focus through the whole initiate period. Preference.”
    Lucy cast another glance back at Ethan as we walked out the doors. I urged her onward. Don’t get me wrong, if the youth hadn’t been sporting a sharp set of fangs it wouldn’t have bothered me. Not so much anyway. Back home we had youths that drove five-hundred-dollar cars and fitted them with booming exhausts and an eight-speaker stereo system. If one of those guys ever turned up to collect your daughter then, in my opinion, the baseball bat was an acceptable deterrent. Over here they had vampire receptionists with muscles and winning smiles. I wondered which was worst.
    We headed over to the rearmost part of the hotel. The attractions and wonders of I-Drive were just a road away, visible over the trees even from here. Some kind of Pirates Dinner Adventure sat across the street. A brightly lit strip mall promised everything from soft drinks to suitcases.
    And Asmodeus the demon waited too, even now searching for part of the puzzle that would enslave all mankind. Soon, we would have to face him. But better that than a slow death in bondage and captivity.
    Better that than the experience of hell on earth.

FOUR
     
     
    Ken decided to forgo the pleasure of the vampires—lame joke, he thought—and try his luck with Felicia. Just because he was tramping through hell itself didn’t mean a dude had to stop practicing the art of seduction. And besides, the bouncy lycan was a playful little thing. Maybe she would welcome the opportunity.
    Ken drifted over as she ranged ahead. When she spotted him she took a quick scan of her surroundings and then dropped back, walking quickly through the thigh -length grass.
    “Everything okay?”
    Ken rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. I just never realized chasing a demon with a chick dressed in black leather could be quite so . . . dull.”
    Felicia’s mouth turned up at one corner. “You expected something more? From Eliza?”
    “I guess not.”
    “The lowliest gutter vamp rates himself a hundred times better than the best of humanity. What exactly did you expect to get from Eliza, a queen?”
    “At this point I’d settle for a friggin’ smile.”
    “Don’t hold your breath. It’d be easier to find a lycan that didn’t like to run naked through the woods.”
    Ken fell in beside her, warming to her openness. “I see. And is that something all lycans enjoy?”
    “Every chance they get.”
    “Excellent. Maybe we could do it together one