Bitter Sweet Love

But it was the way it was. Humans either thought the Wardens were superheroes fighting crime, or that we were the Devil incarnate.

You win some. You lose some.

I landed on the flat roof of our ancestral home a second before I registered another shadow in the sky, drawing close at a fast clip. A jolt of surprise shot through me as I recognized my father’s regal silhouette. He wasn’t supposed to be home! I shed my true skin quickly, taking on my human form a half breath before he hit the ledge in a crouch.

One look at him and I knew it was too late.

Yep. He knew.

Crap on a cracker.

My father rose to his full height, standing close to seven feet. His wings, spanning several feet on either side of him, rippled as he stepped over the ledge, causing the roof to tremble under his sudden weight. In his true skin, he was an intimidating sight to see. His flesh was the color of granite and would be just as hard to touch, making him and all Wardens almost indestructible. Two dark horns parted his mane of black hair, each curving into a fine, wickedly sharp point. His nose was flat, nostrils thin, and his eyes, normally the color of the sky at dawn, were now a vibrant electric blue.

He was my father, but as the head of the New York clan, he was the most powerful of all Wardens here. Even I knew to tread lightly when he was in a mood. And apparently he was in one now.

The curve of his jaw jutted out and his eyes flashed. “Jasmine.”

My back straightened, as if steel had been dropped down my spine at the sound of my name. “Dad?”

“You were out there again.” It wasn’t a question.

He made it sound as if I was chilling in the Gaza Strip instead of merely flying over mountains. I decided to play the old avoidance game. “I thought you were in New York City.”

“I was.” As he strode toward me, he too took on his human form. The effervescence of his eyes faded as his wings receded into his skin and his features became more commonplace. But he was no less fearsome as he stared down at me, and it took everything I had to match him, glare for glare.

I got my dark hair and my height from my father, but the rest was from my mother—the fair skin and more curves than the back roads of Greenwich.

“Where are your sister and Claudia?” he demanded.

At nearly forty-two, Claudia was the oldest female in our clan and our token matriarch. Most females didn’t make it to that age. Not when they regularly died during childbirth or were gleefully picked off by demons. It was a worrisome trend. Without females, the Wardens would eventually die off.

“Danika is with Claudia.” We took turns distracting her so we could sneak out. “I think they’re doing some late lesson plans.” Or Danika was currently banging her head against a wall. Like me, she was keenly aware that being shut up in the house, as pretty as it was, was still being caged.

In the sky, the fat moon slipped behind a cloud, as if taunting me. I took a deep breath. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t go very far. I was just—”

“It doesn’t matter.” He waved it off, and immediately the tiny hairs on my body prickled. Unease poured into me. Since when did my sneaking off not matter? He placed a heavy hand on my shoulder and squeezed gently. “Things are going to change. You won’t be able to take flight whenever you feel like it going forward.”

My brows rose. “Wh-what does that mean?”

His lips curved up, and some of the tension seeped out of my rigid muscles. When he smiled, it meant something good, and he hadn’t smiled much since Mom was killed. Unlike most Warden matings, theirs had turned into a love affair, going beyond their duties to our race. Once upon a foolish time, I had hoped the same thing would happen to me.

“I have good news for you, Jasmine.” He moved his hand to my back, steering me toward the door leading toward the top floor of our home. “You are going to be happy.”

“Really?” Now excitement gripped me like a warm hug. “Are you going to take me to New York City? Or to DC?” Apart from my late-night flights, I’d never been anywhere besides this little section of the world and there was so much I wanted to see. I was practically bouncing at the prospect. “Or are you going to let me go to the mall without Leo and an entire fleet of Wardens? Because they make it seriously hard for a girl to do some shopping. And they scare people. So it’s awkward.”

His lips twitched up at the corners as he waited for the door to open. Our house, which was the size I imagined a high school to be, was as heavily guarded as Fort Knox. “No. It’s better than that.”

“Better?” Holy Christ, I was going to have a stroke from the anticipation.

Once inside the house, he turned to me. Warmth radiated from his gaze. I tensed up, seconds from squealing. “Dez has returned.”

Blood rushed from my head so fast I thought I’d faint. I knew I hadn’t heard him right. There was no way. “What?”

My father’s smile spread. “He’s back, Jasmine.”

There was a roaring in my ears.

“And he’s claimed you,” he continued, completely oblivious to the fact that I was seconds from dying on the roof right in front of him. “You will be mated in seven days.”

Chapter Two

I was not happy.

I was knee deep in freak-out mode.

Dez was back after leaving for three years, without so much as saying a “Hey, I’m skipping out and leaving you,” or a goodbye or anything? He’d just up and left after...

I tried to swallow, but there was something huge in my throat. I hadn’t heard from him in three years. Not a single phone call, email or letter. Nothing. I hadn’t even known if he was dead or alive. No one in our clan had known. He’d vanished, his sudden departure as horrifyingly abrupt as the death of my mother. There one second and gone the next.

Home hadn’t even been home since he left.

“Are you breathing?” my sister asked, her voice floating from somewhere behind me. “Jasmine?”

Consumed with not hurling all over the place, I wasn’t sure if I was breathing or not. I stared at my reflection in the vanity. Light blue eyes stared back at me, set in a face way too pale against the darkness of my hair. Even my lips looked leeched of blood. My cheekbones appeared too sharp, too angular.

The last hour had blurred. Somehow, the entire clan knew that Dez was back and they’d swooped in on me within a nanosecond of my entering the house. I’d been shoved into a shower, because apparently, I needed one. Danika had dried my hair, letting it fall loose in long waves down my back because I was beyond the ability to do it myself. Then Claudia, who either didn’t know I’d sneaked out or had chosen to ignore it in light of what was happening, had brought in a blue gown that I’d never seen before. It was tight around my chest and I knew if I bent too low, my breasts would be coming out and saying hello.

It was tradition to look your best when a male claimed you. The whole ritual was barbaric, absolutely wrong on so many levels. Part of me understood the necessity of having to mate and produce some babies. Our kind was dying off and what the Wardens did was a necessity to maintain the balance of good and evil and blah, blah. The other part wondered why in the world I would sign up for something that would most likely result in my death at some point.

We were given seven days after the male made his claim to say yes or no, to ensure that both parties understood that mating was a lifelong commitment. There was no such thing as divorcing or separating among our kind. We weren’t forced to say yes, and the male, even if he was embarrassed before the whole clan, had to accept our refusal. We could keep saying no until we wanted to say yes and there were female Wardens who did say no, like Claudia. She hadn’t yet found a male she wanted, but...

But my father had announced his intentions of mating Dez and me three years ago. The night before Dez had disappeared.

I dragged in a gulp of air, but the dress was cinched too tight, constricting my waist. “He came back,” I whispered, not sure why I felt the need to say that. Maybe because it didn’t feel real.

Danika’s reflection appeared above my shoulder. We shared the same features, except she was a younger version of me. “He did.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and counted to ten. “Have you seen him?”

“No.”

Why had I even asked that question? I didn’t care.

Danika placed a hand on my shoulder. “Everyone is waiting downstairs. The whole clan.”

The whole clan could go jump off Algonquin Peak.

Opening my eyes, I didn’t see my reflection or my sister’s. Images of Dez and me flashed together in a walk down memory lane that I didn’t want to take, but once I saw him in my mind, I couldn’t stop them.