Ace Read online

  Ace

  Zodiac Dragon Guardians, Book VIII

  Kim Faulks

  Edited by

  Angela Kelly

  Illustrated by

  Jacqueline Sweet

  Copyright © 2017 by Kim Faulks

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  For you.

  For Spirit.

  Contents

  Introduction

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Kim Faulks

  1. Ace

  2. Ghost

  3. Ace

  4. Ghost

  5. Ace

  6. Ghost

  7. Ace

  8. Ghost

  9. Ace

  10. Ghost

  11. Ace

  12. Ghost

  13. Ace

  14. Ace

  15. Ghost

  16. Ace

  17. Ghost

  18. Ace

  19. Ghost

  20. Ace

  21. Ghost

  22. Ace

  23. Ghost

  24. Ace

  25. Ghost

  26. Ace

  27. Ghost

  28. Ace

  Also by Kim Faulks

  Afterword

  Brothers to the last enemy.

  The Shadow Government is cleaning house and high on their hit list are four names: Regan Rivers, Darrion Slater, Senator Artemas Roth, and one lone man with a damaged past, and a dangerous need to protect.

  Former US Marine Sniper Holden Lee—a.k.a Ace.

  Ace will risk his life to protect his team.

  He'll do what he does best…move toward the sound of gunfire and kill everything in his path.

  Brothers to the last fight.

  But when an ambush goes wrong and Ace is left hurt, who will protect him?

  Brothers to the last breath.

  Ghost is the last of her Berserker Clan. The one left behind to remember the enemy, and Major General Newman Slater of the US Marines is the enemy she’s never forgotten.

  Newman Slater bought his General stars through blood, sweat, and tears…but it wasn't his blood, and they weren't his tears.

  Ghost is the only one alive who knows the truth of Slater's dirty, bloody secrets. When a chance encounter brings Ghost into his sights she knows there’s nowhere she can hide.

  Slater is coming for her again. Only now she’s not alone—she has a wounded Marine by her side…one she rescued, one she’s kept safe…one she’ll die to protect.

  Brothers to the last bullet.

  When it comes to that final bullet… Ace cannot miss…

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to my editor, Ang, and my kick-ass Alpha readers Kristy and Dianne. Without your support I’d be a miserable, mess of a human. Thank you to Eden, for always being there for me when I get stuck, you have no idea how good it is to see your replies. Thank you to my husband, for all the constant dribble when I try to work through every train of thought and every agonizing problem. You are my rock, and my world.

  And thank you to you, my readers—my friends. I hope you enjoy book eight.

  Also by Kim Faulks

  ALSO BY KIM FAULKS

  The Zodiac Dragon Guardians

  Taurus - Book 1

  Aquarius - Book 2

  Cancer - Book 3

  A Roaring Fire - Christmas novella

  Aries - Book 4

  Alpha - Book 5

  Virgo - Book 6

  Sagittarius - Book 7

  The Submissively Ever After Series (Dark Fairytale Retellings)

  Beast

  Gretel

  Vampire Blood Courtesan Romance

  Bitten - Book 1

  Taken - Book 2

  Resurrected - Book 3

  The Fire and Ice Series

  Reclaimed - Book 1

  Seductive Sands - Book 2

  Enslaved - Book 3

  Emergence - Book 4

  Yesterday’s Ashes - Book 5

  The Underworld Coven

  Part 1

  Part 2

  DARK FANTASY

  End of Dreams

  Secrets Room

  Hells Angel

  1

  Ace

  The fetid smell crawled inside me—through my nose, along my veins—to well like acid in my gut.

  I slowed my breaths and dragged dust-choked air through my lips as Alpha turned away.

  But I couldn’t. Not from the blackened plasterboard walls, or from the six-month-old decomposed body curled in the corner.

  “Jesus.” Alpha’s tanned skin turned ashen. He glanced back to the corner of the room and then wrenched his gaze to me. “What does that? What the fuck does something like that?”

  The light bounced around the darkened room. I had no answer.

  There was no entrance wound.

  No blood splatter.

  No mark of death that I could see—and I’d seen plenty.

  Hours. That was all it’d taken. I took a step and moved around Marcus to kneel at her feet.

  The last known contact with the target had been at oh five hundred hours this morning.

  I lifted my hand and touched her cheek. The skin sagged under my fingers, her jaw crumbled, bone now turned to dust. Ten goddamn hours to do something like this…

  “Eva,” Lucas murmured behind me. “Did you know she was here?”

  There was a second before the Vampire Princess answered.

  Long enough for a lie…or a bullet.

  “No, why?” There was a shake to the words, one that pulled me to my feet and made me find her in the dark.

  The Guardian never took his eyes from hers. “I had a feeling you might.”

  She turned her head and those milky, soulless eyes met mine.

  I could kill you. Faster than you could aim that gun.

  Her warning rang loud and clear…it’d been just a whisper—one that stole the steel in my spine.

  One that made a sniper shake.

  And she could…I had no doubt about that, as brutally damaged as she had been, she could do that and so much more.

  I’d watched her stumble toward the Guardian’s home not less than two hours ago.

  And I’d watched her fall.

  My red laser had danced across her chest as she crumpled and hit the ground. My steps cautious. I’d seen what immortals like her could do. But there’d been something about her. A vulnerability that made me kneel as she gasped and shuddered. She was hurting, lost…and desperate.

  The skin on one arm had been opened, right down to the pale shine of bone with one savage gash. Her black dress had been ripped, torn by burns across her waist.

  Not a wolf…

  The thought filled me, and that cold, empty feeling in my gut grew.

  There’d been no bite marks…no claw marks of any kind, other than the scrape of fingernails across her left cheek.

  I’d seen marks like that before. On a man’s face—one who’d been on the losing side of a lover’s quarrel. Women fought like that…marking, scarring; anything to unleash their rage, or to protect themselves…

  I stared now at the blackened walls that burned a single line upward and along the ceiling above—like a laser. What kind of fire would burn like that? I dragged in the filthy air—a current that left no scent—a current that never touched the ground. I looked to the body, to the curled blackened fingers and swallowed a shudder…a current that seemed to start at her fingers.

  Like a bolt of lightning.

  Power—dark mage.

  The hairs on my arms stood on end as outside the faint s
ound of sirens caught the wind.

  “We’ve gotta get out of here.” Marcus snarled, took one look at what was left of the Huntress, and scanned the rest of us. “Head back to the house. We’ve things we need to discuss.”

  They all moved except for Lucas. He watched Eva as she merged with the others and headed for the front door, and there was real fear…real gut tightening, ball shriveling, kiss-your-ass-goodbye fear. And amongst the flare of his nostrils, and the part of his lips—I saw something else.

  A desperation…a need.

  One that wasn’t driven by panic.

  One that was driven by desire

  Jesus. The poor bastard was falling in love with her.

  Heavy steps echoed as Lucas followed the others. I grabbed my phone and lingered in the room alone. They say a healthy dose of fear could be good for a relationship. Makes a man respect his better half, and not take her for granted.

  But Eva was something else. With her, fear didn’t just whisper—fear fucking screamed.

  I knew fear. I walked her streets, and shot her cocaine. I knew her in every foster home I’d been in. Knew her by the way she punched, the way she kicked…the way she burned my skin, and yanked my hair. I knew her by the marks she left…all over my body and my soul.

  But I was always better at creating fear, and that was where I excelled.

  I closed my eyes. I could still see him…the first one. Sixteen fucking years old, peddling his shit on the wrong damn street. Sweat dripped down my back as he begged, with tiny bags of rocks scattered at his feet. I was one month clean…one fucking month done with all that shit when he turned up.

  Nineteen pounds of pressure.

  Nineteen fucking pounds.

  That was all I needed.

  And still my finger never wavered on the trigger.

  I’d never felt fear until that day, not for the kid—but for myself. There was no flinch, and no end to the cold, controlled rage. There was nothing but cold steel in my hand and a target in my sights, and that filled me with goddamn terror.

  I enlisted that day. Signed where Sergeant told me to sign, packed my bag, and never went back to that pay-by-the-hour Hell Motel.

  I could die on those piss-filled, bloodstained streets, or die fighting for something real—my country—my brothers.

  Fear. I was good at it. I was so damn good I’d been looking down a sight of a sniper’s rifle ever since—but I was never this good… Wide opaque eyes filled my head as the phone flashed, the Huntress’s mouth open in a perpetual scream.

  I hit the camera button, once, twice, and three times before I strode from the room. The sound of an engine roared to life as I hit the stairs and found the pavement. Gunny’s black Jeep made a U-turn, and another followed. But Alpha waited with one of the Guardian’s rides, the Ford Ranger idling with the back door open—like an invitation to Hell.

  My brother turned his head, spearing me with a look every bit as feral as the Vampire Princess. “Should’ve been me who did that.”

  I slammed the door behind me and felt the lurch.

  “I’d leave nothing behind. Just like that bitch left me.”

  X reached for his hand over the gearshift and the growl of the engine filled the space. The Huntress was dead at the hands of another, and Alpha’s uncle was next. The car veered, rubbed, skidded, and then caught. My best friend was hurting, and it fucking killed me to watch.

  Stitch would've known what to say. He’d know the words—the affection. He was always better at keeping us together. Always better at being human.

  I looked out the window as agony cut deeper than any knife could. Stars sparkled through a blanket of angry dark clouds and from underneath the billowing sight, the moon peeked through. I stared at the sky, consumed by the steel gray and pale silver as the car hugged the road.

  I dragged in the thick scent of wolf, trying to rid my lungs of the rotting stench of that place.

  Wolves. Dragons, Vampires, and dead mages.

  Where did it end?

  The way things always did around us…with blood and violence.

  “You okay?” Alpha growled and glanced in the rearview mirror. “You get anything back there? You know…who…how?”

  “She was a current.” The words slipped free as blackened fingers came to life. “Like some conductor of energy.”

  “You think that’s what killed her, electrocution?”

  I shook my head as the Princess filled my head. “No, that’s not what killed her at all. I think she used it as a defense—against someone stronger. Someone who wanted her dead more than she wanted to live.”

  “Jesus…” he whispered. “Jesus fucking Christ.” He was silent for a long time, concentrating on the road before he whispered. “The wolves I can handle. Hell, even the Dragons I get. But the witches…the witches and the Vampires creep me the fuck out.”

  I nodded. They creeped me out too.

  “Did you hear what that Vamp Princess did? She stopped the kid from dying. Just like that, saved her from death and then consumed that death like it was a dose of bad chicken. How does that happen? How the fuck can someone manipulate death like that? And where the fuck was she weeks ago?”

  When we needed her.

  Those unspoken words clung to the darkness of my mind. I didn't want to think about Stitch down there in the cold dirt. I clenched my jaw. That wasn’t right. That wasn’t him.

  My brother wasn’t gone—he was waiting.

  Waiting for his team to arrive for one last mission.

  The familiar hills reared in the distance. I mapped the speed, took notice of the routes and the terrain as we climbed the mountain and then slowed just before the peak and nosed the car into the overgrown drive.

  I scouted this place over and over again, and then took up a vantage point east-southeast where the trees were clear and waited. I didn’t have to wait long. I was expecting the Huntress—I wanted the damn Huntress, but Eva stumbled in bloodied and broken, snarling like a wounded animal.

  “I’ll just hang out here,” I murmured as Alpha pulled the four-wheel drive into the garage.

  Alpha shook his head and killed the engine. “I need you in there, buddy. I need you to be my eyes and ears, ’cause I just can’t be subjective anymore. I’m too drawn in, and so is Gunny. I need someone like you…someone…”

  …cold and calculated…

  “…critical.”

  I was the loner, and the only part of the team who stood separate. I didn’t like the emotion that came with this Guardian family and I didn’t like how we’d been dragged into their fight. I needed a target and my rifle—that was all, everything else just faded away.

  Alpha climbed out, and X followed, but they waited, lingering just outside the car as I followed. The three of us walked into a thunderstorm. A hunger swirled around the house. Marcus paced the floor rubbing the five-day growth on his jaw and stole glances at the Vampire Princess.

  “And you don’t know how she got there? You don’t know anything at all?”

  “No,” she answered without moving, without taking that eerie fucking gaze off him. “I don’t know how she got there. If I killed her, don’t you think I’d remember?”

  “Fuck, this shit’s a goddamn mess,” Marcus moaned and shook his head. “Your brother, the Prince?”

  She flinched with the name. It was the first time I’d seen her show emotion. “Disappeared, along with what remained of the Lowest Kynd…believe me when I say, I didn’t know, Bloodletter…I didn’t know he planned on betraying me this entire time.”

  “I know.” His voice hardened as he finished. “You wouldn’t be standing here if I thought you did.”

  Her arms were almost healed now. The gash now nothing more than a raised line that ran along her arm. The scratch on her cheek was gone, as were the blackened burns on the side of her neck.

  “And your circle?”

  “Is by our Queen’s side.”

  I turned to the Vampire Gabriel as he moved through the
crowd. Tension grew as he cut a look to the Doctor and to the Guardian at her side. “Those who are left are loyal. We will find the betrayer, it’s only a matter of time. I promise you one thing—justice will be swift and very unkind.”

  The betrayer? So not even Prince, anymore?

  Marcus gave a nod. “And the two wolves from Haruin’s pack?”

  “Taken care of.” His voice never wavered, as he glanced to the female Alpha at the Guardian’s side. “I covered their tracks as well as I could, nothing that will lead them back to you.”

  I looked to Alpha and the words resounded. Seemed like betrayal was everywhere. Vampires…humans…kin. And as the words filled me, they also slipped from Alpha’s lips. “If we’re done here, we have one of our own we need to take care of.”

  Marcus glanced to Alpha, Gunny, and then finally settled on me. There was a second where the Guardian stared a little too hard, as though he couldn’t quite figure me out before he murmured. “You’ll call if you hear of anything?”

  “Yeah, we’ll be around,” Gunny growled and then turned.

  The Guardian Evander followed her as she broke away from the heard. She gave Alpha a nod, and then me. We were on the move, doing what we did best…hunting.

  “You want me to come with you?” Evander’s concern reached my ears. He reached out, brushing her arm with the back of his hand, and for the first time since I’d known this hard-ass woman, she let him.