Heart of the Guardians: Adoring Destiny by Adrianna Adore (best big ereader .TXT) 📗

his first instinct to lash out, knock that silly smirk off his face but he didn’t. The wolf man was right. He could turn into a bear in an instant but that was all he could do. Dimitri could be anything from human to oversized wolf to everything in between. He controlled the change.

“Will you teach me how to do that?” he finally asked.

“Will you go through the portal with me?” Dimitri asked in return. “I hope they succeed but three injured shifters leaving blood tracks in the netherworld probably don’t stand a chance. They were headed for an opening crowded with the unclean fighting to get through to our world. Shifters are a delicacy, nothing tastes better than the meat of one of their own bastard children.”

“How do you know all this?” James asked, “I thought your kind were scattered and savage, uncivilized and out of control.”

“They hid things from you and you didn’t try to find the truth,” Dimitri replied. “Stig questioned their ways, he was a thorn in the council’s side. He learned much from us and we learned much from him.”

James looked to the setting sun and tried to find reasons not to enter the portal. It was dangerous, the creatures inside were vicious and there were no guarantees. He could be killed. He had an easy life ahead of him, he’d found the love of his life, he would have riches and they could travel the world. The duties he had as ruler of Galador were mostly ceremonial. The Senate ran the day to day affairs of the country. He would head the council of Guardians but they didn’t do anything except meet a few times a year and ensure the elite guard watched the portal. Until now. Until the wolves came into town and kicked a hornets nest. He sidestepped the question again.

“How long should we give them?” he asked. “Should we wait to see if they can mark the open portal?”

“We’ll have to,” Dimitri said. “You need to learn how to fight, not lumber in and bash things. Time is different there. Sometimes it’s faster, sometimes it’s slower according to the scrolls. We could enter tomorrow and they may only be a few steps ahead of us or we might stumble across their crumbling bones, dry, brittle and turning to dust. It doesn’t matter when we enter, as long as we do. We’ll find them or we won’t. They’ll be dead or they won’t.”

James clenched his fist. He hated being talked down to, treated like a no-nothing child but he also knew the Russian spoke the truth. He had been protected his whole life, the truth hidden from him. He didn’t know why the council kept their secrets but when he became king, things were going to change.

“Teach me, then,” James said.

“After you are coroneted,” Dimitri replied. “There is time. If I die, I would rather the stories remember that I battled beside a king rather than a spoiled rich brat.”

James glared at him but Dimitri continued. “I tell you this, something we learn from childhood that they have kept from you. Listen and learn, young king. You must know who you are. Who we all are. We are the children of immortal demons. It took generations for us to be able to control the shifts and still more before we could blend in with society. The last of the known portals was buried and forgotten thousands of years ago. All but yours. Man grew stronger and bolder as the centuries passed and hunted most of our ancestors to extinction, the ones that couldn’t blend in. The demon seed grows weaker and sometimes skips over a generation. In some the power never manifests or it’s so diluted that it presents itself as a mild madness. An obsessive collector of all things bear. Figurines and carvings and stuffed toys. A woman with a hundred cats because she is drawn to them, believes she can communicate with them. A man becomes a breeder of wolves, loves them more than his own children and can’t explain why. A circus performer who can walk with the tigers without fear because they sense he is somehow like them.”

James said nothing as he listened. He should have known all these things but knew none of them. He should have been groomed to lead but had been pampered as a child after his parents died. As he grew older, he was spoiled with lavish gifts, fast cars, big yachts and a playboy lifestyle. His uncle encouraged it, told him the people loved him and lived vicariously through him. A prince should be extravagant. For years he had embraced it, believed it, but he was never satisfied, something was missing. On the one occasion he had mentioned the emptiness to his uncle, he had told him it was the burden all Guardians carried and he should fill it with more women, more cars and more parties. Now he wondered how much the old king knew. Why hadn’t he called all of the other Guardians for help when he discovered the breach in the portal? Why had he only called for two of them? How had he known the wolves were going to try to break in? Accidentally discovering them didn’t ring true, the portal was far from the living quarters and deep underground. What secrets had they been hiding?

They had reached the cabin and Dimitri stopped him before they entered the clearing. His voice lost the condescending tone as he turned to face the man who would be king.

“How much do you know of our world?” he asked, his tone serious. “Do you know of the vampires and witches? The mermaids and banshees? The bigfoot and yeti?”

“They’re not real,” James said dismissively, sure the Russian was goading him again.

“Neither are werewolves, shifters and skin walkers,” he said. “But here we are.”

A battle raged inside James. His world had been completely upended. He wanted to run away with Claire, he