King of the Damned: A League of Guardians Novel by Juliana Stone

think Abigail is still in Canada, but Auntie Dot will know for sure.”
    “Canada? Seriously?” Rowan frowned. “Why would she leave Salem?”
    “Why else would a twenty-nine-year-old single woman leave her family and friends?”
    “A man.”
    Hannah nodded. “Bingo. She met him out on the water. The boat he was in nearly cut hers in half. There were injuries and blood and lust. They bonded in the ER.” Hannah’s eyes widened. “Auntie Dot is horrified. Horrified. Abigail had been dating an Ivy League professor from Boston, and I’m sure Auntie Dot was already planning the wedding. But now she’s shacked up with some Frenchman in another country.” She giggled then. “Living in sin as they would say.”
    “Wow.” Rowan exhaled. She’d certainly missed a lot.
    “Wow is right.” Hannah paused. “So who’s the tagalong?”
    “What?” Rowan had forgotten how fast Hannah changed gears.
    “The blond guy with the tight abs and weird-ass energy. You guys been together a while?”
    Rowan blushed at the suggestive look in Hannah’s eyes and shook her head. “It’s not like that.”
    “Well, what’s it like?” Hannah wasn’t giving up.
    “It’s”—Azaiel was hard to define, and for a moment she was stumped—“he’s complicated, and honestly, I don’t know much about him. He showed up at the Cauldron last night.”
    “Last night.” The teasing tone fled, and Hannah’s hands gripped tight around the gun once more. “Rowan, I know he’s one hell of a looker, but seriously, how do you know you can trust him?”
    “I don’t really, but he helped me slay a pack of blood demons.”
    “What?”
    Rowan nodded. “It was a great homecoming,” she said bitterly.
    “Well I hate to be the one to point this out, but how do you know he’s not the one who killed Cara? Maybe he’s trying to win your trust, so that he can hand you over to Mallick himself. His energy is way off. Like out-of-this-world off. I’ve never felt anything like him before.” Her eyes narrowed. “What is he?”
    Rowan shuddered as another strong gust of wind whipped along the veranda. She thought of how he’d gotten down on his hands and knees the night before and scrubbed her grandmother’s blood out of the floor. She sensed something dark in him, but there was also good. “He’s not the enemy. That’s all you need to know at this point. He’s a . . . a friend, I guess.”
    “A friend. ”
    “Not that kind of friend.” Rowan’s cheeks were hot, and her thoughts turned, however briefly, to the ride in from Salem and how good it had felt to hold on to something so solid. So incredibly male.
    “That’s what you said about Danny Bagota, and we all know how that ended,” Hannah said dryly.
    “Look, we don’t have time to discuss Azaiel—”
    “Aza—what?” The expression on Hannah’s face was near comical. “Shit, Rowan. Does he come from the land of the ice and snow? What the hell kind of name is that?”
    “A—zee—el.” She pronounced the name slowly, an irritated frown furling her brows as she stared into the amused blue eyes of her cousin.
    “Got it.” Hannah’s smile disappeared. “Okay, that doesn’t look good.”
    Rowan followed Hannah’s gaze. A swirling black mass of something strange hung in the sky, off in the distance. “What is it?” she murmured, wincing as the bad feeling that had never really left her stomach returned with a vengeance.
    “I don’t know, but I can tell you one thing. That sure as hell ain’t a storm cloud. It’s carrying full-fledged storm babies that are gonna drop a shit-ton of crap on top of us.”
    The two of them studied the darkened mass for several moments until the door slammed open behind them. The shaggy bartender stood there, chest heaving, a worried expression on his face as he stared up at the sky.
    “That there is trouble.” He ran his fingers through the greasy mess of salt-and-pepper hair atop his head and clenched his hands. His steely eyes