Servant: The Kindred Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Epilogue

  Teaser chapter

  Praise for SERVANT: THE AWAKENING

  “Unique and fascinating.”

  —Elizabeth Lowell, New York Times bestselling author

  “The first book in a new series, The Awakening features a unique heroine, a wonderful hero, and a likable sidekick . . . The gritty, atmospheric inner-city setting, graphic violence, and raw language are perfect for a story that unfolds, scene by scene, like a graphic novel and cries out to be graphic-novelized en route to the movies. May this be just the first in a long series.”—Booklist (starred review)

  “A new name and an enticing new series propel Lori Foster into an exciting new direction . . . Servant: The Awakening practically blew me away . . . [It’s] brash, darkly edgy, and insightful. And all grown up. Kudos to Ms. Foster for this fascinating, utterly unique fantasy.”—Romance Reader at Heart

  “Fascinating . . . a new twist on demon slaying.”—Fresh Fiction

  “With Servant: The Awakening, L. L. Foster shows she has a true gift for writing dark urban fantasy . . . The Servant series will be addictive.”—The Romance Readers Connection

  “Brilliant . . . The tone, intensity, and sheer grittiness of this book is awesome. I think Ms. Foster was channeling early Anita Blake, Eve Dallas, and a dash of J. R. Ward . . . A great intro to a series that I will be following religiously!”

  —Night Owl Romance

  “Dark, gritty, raw . . . urban fantasy at its finest . . . As can be expected from the darker alter ego of Lori Foster, L. L. Foster delivers characters that are engaging yet in your face . . . This looks to be the beginning of a really great series. Get your copy today and get in on the ground floor.”

  —Love Romances & More

  “Entertaining paranormal romantic suspense that grips readers . . . Romantic fantasy readers and fans of Buffy and the movie They Live will want to read the first tale in the human war against demons.”—Midwest Book Review

  Titles by L. L. Foster

  SERVANT: THE AWAKENING

  SERVANT: THE ACCEPTANCE

  SERVANT: THE KINDRED

  Writing as Lori Foster

  THE WINSTON BROTHERS

  WILD

  CAUSING HAVOC

  SIMON SAYS

  HARD TO HANDLE

  MY MAN, MICHAEL

  Anthology

  WILDLY WINSTON

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

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  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

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  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196,

  South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  SERVANT: THE KINDRED

  A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Jove mass-market edition / September 2009

  Copyright © 2009 by L. L. Foster, LLC.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-13471-9

  JOVE®

  Jove Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  JOVE® is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  The “J” design is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  Chapter 1

  God please, not now.

  For long minutes, what began to feel like an eternity, Gabrielle Cody fought the inevitable. Naked on Luther’s king-sized bed, she stretched taut as sweat beaded on her skin and her teeth locked.

  The agony grew.

  And she fought it.

  As her heart pounded too hard in her chest, she repeatedly fisted her hands, clenching and unclenching the smooth, clean sheets beneath her. Exiguous moonlight snaked through a part in his heavy bedroom drapes, sending a silvery dart to cross the floor and crawl, with painstaking slowness, up the wall.

  Clean. Organized. Masculine. Everything about Luther’s home, a real home, felt nice, smelled nice.

  So inappropriate to the likes of her.

  That Gaby could hear Luther in the bathroom finishing up a hot shower was the only salvation, the only measure to fight the staggering call. It dragged at her, commanding acceptance, gnarling her muscles, relentless in its claim on her.

  She squeezed her eyes shut and thought of Luther, remembered his pleasure as she’d capitulated to his demands.

  Demands to join him, to try for a normal life—to give them, as a couple, a chance.

  He was a fool. She was a fool for accepting even the slightest possibility of a normal life, a real relationship.

  Before excusing himself for the shower he’d smiled at her, thrilled to have her in his home, anticipation bright in his eyes. Luther thought he’d gotten his way. He thought he had Gaby where he wanted her.

  Be careful what you wish for.

  Another shaft of pain pierced her. It was always this way—the bid to fulfill her duty was a wrenching agony she couldn’t fight. Whenever she’d tried, the pain had grown insurmountable.

  As it did now.

  Sweat trickled down her temple to soak into Luther’s pillow. Already she’d soiled his fine home. If she stayed, she’d turn his entire existence black with depravity.

  Her breath caught as the shower turned off. Luther would not expect to find her in his bed. No, he thought she was downstairs, waiting, where she should have been, where he’d left her. He wanted to go slow, to give
her time.

  But, God knew, time wasn’t always something she had.

  Tonight, right now, her time had run out before she’d even begun.

  Damn her plight. Damn her duty.

  For so long now, Detective Luther Cross had tried to worm his way into her dysfunctional, psychotic life—and she’d resisted.

  With good reason.

  No matter his claims of “knowing” her, of “accepting” her and her strange eccentricities. He might think he had an inkling of what she did as a paladin, and why, but he didn’t, not really. He couldn’t.

  Why had she come here?

  Tears, salty and hot, trickled along her temples, mingling with the sweat. Her body strained as she tried to find just a few minutes more, just enough time to have Luther. Once. A memory she could keep forever . . .

  But the relentless pull and drag on her senses, the encompassing pain that twisted and curdled inside her told her to stop being fanciful.

  Should she leave without telling him? Make a clean break of it and let him wonder, let him worry?

  Let him give up. On her.

  On them.

  Or should she try trusting him?

  No, no never that. She couldn’t.

  The pain lashed her, impatient for obedience, and Gaby knew she couldn’t resist it any longer. As she sat up, she cried out—and the bathroom door opened.

  Luther stepped out, buck naked, tall and strong and oddly beautiful for a man. That stunning golden aura swirled around him, bright with optimism, with the promise of all that was good.

  All that was the opposite of her.

  Seeing her, he drew up short, stared for a moment. His hot gaze moved over her body, but not with lust as much as concern. “Gaby?”

  “I was waiting . . .” She gasped, nearly doubled over with the physical torment of the calling. “For you. I was willing, Luther. I was anxious. But . . .” She staggered to her feet, unseeing, choked with the need for haste. “But now I have to go.”

  He remained steadfast, still, watching her. “Where?”

  How could he remain so composed, so . . . detached, in the face of what she was, what she had to do? “I don’t know yet.”

  She fumbled for her shirt and dragged it on.

  Words hurt. Leaving felt like death.

  But she was a paladin, and being interested in a man, even a man as irreproachable as Luther, didn’t change that.

  Luther didn’t ask any more questions, he just dried with the speed of a man on a mission—all the while keeping his gaze glued to the naked parts of her.

  To her shock, he said, “I’m coming with you.”

  “Don’t be fucking stupid.” She stepped into jeans, almost fell, and had to stop, had to gnash her teeth and squeeze her eyes shut in an attempt to contain the overpowering draw, but she knew the only relief would be to give in.

  And she would—once she was away from Luther.

  It was his nearness now that made the pain bearable at all, that gave her the opportunity to delay, to explain. “I work alone.”

  “Not tonight, you don’t.” Already dressed in a black T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers, he reached for her. His hand touched her face, smoothed back her damp hair and some of the awful, distorting agony dissipated.

  How could he affect her so strongly? How could a simple touch from him alleviate the agony?

  Almost sad, definitely accepting, he reiterated, “Not tonight.”

  From the day she’d met him, he’d always influenced her this way, bringing clarity in the midst of the turbulent summons, easing her misery, calming her heart.

  With the short reprieve, Gaby slapped his hand aside and after stepping into her sandals, grabbed up her knife. She secured it in a sheath at her back. “I’ll say it once, Luther. Stay out of my way.”

  And then, unable to resist any longer, she gave herself over to her duty.

  Once accepted, it lashed through her, jarring her body, rolling her eyes back, straining her spine. On the periphery of her senses, she felt Luther there, not touching her, not deterring her, but keeping pace as she moved forward, out of his bedroom, out of his house—and into the hell that was her life.

  She raced so quickly that Luther could barely keep up. The seconds it took him to lock his front door almost allowed her to get away. Ignoring the blustery morning air and lack of sunshine, he trotted across his lawn after her. Fallen leaves scuttled over his shoes. The autumn air nipped.

  Gaby never noticed. She was impervious to the weather, and to his calls for her to wait.

  When Gaby started past his car, he finally caught up and dared touch her just long enough to suggest, “I’ll drive.”

  With her eyes unfocused, eerily vacant, she entered through the car door he’d opened and sat with a sort of charged energy that had her teeth sawing together, her brows pinching, and her chest heaving.

  Pained by the sight of her, Luther bolted around to the driver’s side and got in as quickly as he could. He started the car, turned on his wipers to counter the heavy fog, and pulled out.

  “Other way,” she said in a faraway voice, one that was hollow enough to send fingers of unease crawling up his nape.

  Striving for calm, Luther turned the car, alternately looking at Gaby and watching the street. Dark clouds that shadowed the colors of changing leaves threatened a downpour. It’d be a cool, miserable day—perfect for his introduction into the arcane phenomena of Gaby’s mission.

  The astonishment of seeing her naked, in his bed . . . well, she hadn’t given him time to assimilate that, to get his visual fill before she’d gone all ominous with recondite purpose.

  Her features were now sharper, distorting the way he’d seen before, but amplified beyond anything familiar. This, he realized, was Gaby in the zone. She’d warned him against seeing her like this, tried to prepare him, but the surreal qualities gripping her had no explanation other than supernatural.

  Or pietistic.

  Vibrating with repressed strength and dynamic force, she paid no attention to the scenery or the direction he took. Perched at the edge of her seat, one of her small hands gripped the dash and the other squeezed the side of her seat, near her hip.

  Her pale lips barely moved when she intoned, “Left.”

  Luther had to cut across traffic to make the turn, but he didn’t argue with her. Warring with the need to show his trust, to give her reason to trust in return, was the image of her bare body, there for him.

  Never had he wanted anything or anyone as much as he wanted, needed, Gabrielle Cody. And that in itself felt influenced by a higher power. From the first day he’d met her, he’d felt a draw to Gaby unlike anything an experienced, educated adult would recognize.

  As a man of faith, Luther gave himself over to the desire, to Gaby.

  But as a man of law, a man who enjoyed controlling his own fate, he prayed for guidance and understanding. In his guts, he knew he belonged with Gaby. But his mind balked at the idea of playing a role in her self-devised fight against evil.

  He’d chosen a balancing act—one that left him on the precarious edge of disaster.

  When they reached their destination, how would he stop Gaby from issuing her own form of punishment? He’d seen her secure her knife at her back; she never went anywhere without the deadly blade.

  He knew what she could do with that knife, what she’d likely done in the past.

  The rapid turn of his car, the squealing tires and angry horns from other drivers made no impact on Gaby’s expressionless void. Knowing he had to get a grip, had to formulate a plan, Luther drew a breath to steady himself against her unearthly mien.

  They’d traveled out of his neighborhood and into another. Occasionally Gaby twitched or jerked, then stilled herself with obvious pain, accepting it all as any martyr would.

  Already they’d gone quite a distance, surprising Luther and piquing his curiosity. He glanced at her finely drawn profile. Her damp hair hung loose, a few tendrils sticking to her cheek. “Would you h
ave come here on foot?”

  She didn’t answer, didn’t even acknowledge his presence.

  Her pallor worried him, but not so much as her fast, panting breaths and the racing pulse he noticed in her slender throat. Every muscle in her thin body twitched with fervent edginess. He’d seen that body naked now, knew the frailty of it, the feminine curves and hollows.

  More than anything, more than he feared the consequences of what she intended to do, Luther wanted to haul her close and protect her, soothe her however he could.

  But accepting Gaby meant taking part in her dysfunctions, trusting her aberrant province and inverted moral code, being there for her wherever her mind or body ventured.

  A juggling act, for certain, but somehow he’d make it happen.

  The early hour of the day and the inclement weather accounted for the hush in the neighborhoods they traveled through. They drove along a street of houses converted to small privately owned businesses. Two black men stood in quiet conversation at a bus stop. A gray-haired white woman pushed a rickety cart out of a mom-and-pop grocery. A dog jumped against a fence, barking as crows dined on indistinguishable roadkill.

  The damp day began to sputter from the dark clouds hanging above. The humidity thickened, and the temperature dropped.

  Gaby turned to stare out the window as they passed a dress shop, a pony keg, a bar—

  “Turn.”

  Scouring the crowded street, Luther finally noticed the narrow alley barely visible between two parked cars occupying the curb. It ran alongside a ramshackle brick dry cleaner. Over the front door a faded wooden sign offered alterations and fast service. Prices were hand-painted in the dingy picture window.

  Having only one option, he turned right into the alley.

  Gaby opened her car door with the car still moving. Luther slammed on his brakes but not before she leaped out, landing on her feet like a cat. Her abrupt departure left him no choice but to park with haste and little discretion. He blocked the alley, but that was too damn bad.

  Already Gaby had strode straight to the warped, unsecured back door of the establishment. Rain dripped off the leaf-clogged gutters. An overturned garbage can sent soggy refuse fleeing with the wind. Drying weeds punctured the ground of the small yard.