Blood Born Read online

  BY LINDA HOWARD

  A Lady of the West

  Angel Creek

  The Touch of Fire

  Heart of Fire

  Dream Man

  After the Night

  Shades of Twilight

  Son of the Morning

  Kill and Tell

  Now You See Her

  All the Queen’s Men

  Mr. Perfect

  Open Season

  Dying to Please

  Cry No More

  Kiss Me While I Sleep

  To Die For

  Killing Time

  Cover of Night

  Drop Dead Gorgeous

  Up Close and Dangerous

  Death Angel

  BY LINDA JONES

  Untouchable

  22 Nights

  Bride by Command

  Prince of Magic

  Prince of Fire

  Prince of Swords

  The Sun Witch

  The Moon Witch

  The Star Witch

  To Robin Rue and Beth Miller,

  for their unfailing support and enthusiasm

  FOREWORD

  The warriors have always been with us; they’re the ones who were willing to die to protect the ones they loved, the ones who were honored to live another life afterward, and who had the courage to stand watch even from the other side, ready and willing to once more step into danger if they were needed. Once the warriors who live beyond this world were accepted, even revered. Then, for a long time, they weren’t needed and they became myth, their stories passed from father to son, from mother to daughter. Now they are forgotten.

  Immortal Warriors live in a very real world much like this one, a world far away and at the same time close enough to touch. Some think they are ghosts, or spirit guides, or even angels. But they are none of these things … yet all of these things. Some among us—blood descendants of these warriors—can see them, can hear them when they call. But how do you hear someone who has been forgotten? How do you understand why they are calling?

  Each warrior once walked this earth. They lived, loved, and went to war. Now they fight forever, sacrificing their eternity in order to preserve the human race.

  But only if they’re called. Only if we learn to hear.

  PROLOGUE

  Los Angeles, California

  She was losing her mind. There was no other explanation.

  She hadn’t slept more than thirty minutes at a stretch for the past three days. How could she, when the dreams were so vivid and came so quickly, one after the other, startling her awake every time her name was called? Some of the details were murky, but two things she always remembered very clearly: the man, and the way he called to her.

  It wasn’t fair. She was twenty-three years old, healthy, unattached—at the moment—and living in the bustling and exciting city of Los Angeles, far from the family she’d left behind in Missouri. She should be having the time of her life, the way she had been just a few days ago, and not dragging herself around in a stupor of fatigue. Normally she wouldn’t complain about vivid dreams of a very large and muscular, mostly naked, dark-haired hunk who felt so real there were moments she actually forgot he was the product of a dream, but she needed her sleep.

  Now it was getting worse; he was invading her waking hours, too, though, to be fair, for the past three nights it seemed as if most of her hours had been spent awake. She’d started hearing him at different times, and the way he called her name was getting more and more urgent. Hearing him! Really, truly hearing him. It might be a whisper of her name as she walked down the hall, or a very faint yearning call as she stepped into the shower. She wasn’t imagining the voice. It was real.

  Only it couldn’t be real. She didn’t do drugs, so that meant she was losing her mind. It was the only explanation. Fine. The mind could go, so long as she could get some sleep.

  She’d been sitting slumped at the table, picking at an ordered-in meal, but she was too tired to eat and finally she gave up on the effort. Dragging herself to her feet, she cleaned off the table and tossed what was left of her supper into the garbage can. As soon as she lifted the lid, the strong, sour odor of several uneaten meals hit her right in the nose. Shit, she should’ve taken the garbage out before it got dark. Not that she was afraid of the dark, and the Dumpster for the apartment complex was in a well-lit area just a few yards from the end of the stairwell, but she’d already changed into her at-home grubbies, she was barefoot, and if she dared leave the apartment looking like this the odds were she’d bump into some really hot guy who’d take one look at her and decide she was about as attractive as her garbage. That was the way life worked. On the other hand, did meeting at the complex Dumpster qualify as “meeting cute”?

  She could wait until tomorrow to take out the trash, but that would mean waking up to that smell. And that was assuming she actually got some sleep tonight. She was so tired, she didn’t think anything could keep her awake, not even a naked dark-haired hunk.

  She tugged the plastic trash bag out of the can and tied the top, tested the knot to be certain it would hold, then trudged out the door, down the flight of stairs just outside her apartment door, and around the corner.

  “Johanna!”

  Her hair stood on end as her name echoed both in her head and from somewhere around her. It was spooky, the way the sound seemed to come from everywhere at once. It made her want to run home like a scared little kid, to hide her face in her mother’s lap.

  And that was the last thing she wanted to do, considering how dead set her mother had been against her moving away. Things hadn’t changed since then, either. Her mother was always warning her to be careful. L.A. was a big city. She hated the idea of her daughter being in such a heavily populated place. So many people! The lecture was delivered on a regular basis: Lock your doors, don’t go out alone at night, watch out for strangers. Yeah, right. That last one was a hoot. She was a hair stylist, so she met new people every day. Moreover, she was fairly new to the area, which meant almost everyone she met was a stranger. Why bother to live in L.A. if she was going to close herself off in her apartment every night? She was here to make her reputation as the hair stylist to go to if you had a special event, someone who could make you look both elegant and edgy. One of these days she’d be stylist to the stars.

  The strange sound came again. There was an urgency in this latest call of her name, as if it were a warning.

  “Leave me alone,” she whispered, focusing on the Dumpster straight ahead. The faint sound of her own voice made her sharply aware that there was no one in the parking lot of the small apartment complex at this time of night. People who had to be at work early were already asleep, probably having perfectly ordinary dreams. Those who worked at night weren’t home yet. All she saw were a few cars, including her own, a lamppost, and the winding sidewalk that led to the pool. It was all comfortingly familiar. This was her home now; there was nothing to be afraid of, except the possibility that she was going nuts.

  She tossed the bag of garbage into the Dumpster, turned, and stifled a shriek as she lurched backward, almost bumping into the trash container. A tall man with long blond hair stood right behind her, reflective sunglasses making his eyes look like giant insect eyes, with the lights reflecting in the lenses. “Shit!” she exclaimed, then put her hand over her heart as if she could physically calm its frantic pace. “I almost jumped out of my skin!”

  He paused, his head tilting to the side. “Interesting,” he said. “I didn’t know humans could do that.”

  She would have laughed if she hadn’t been so preoccupied with catching her breath. Where had he come from? She hadn’t heard a sound, though he had to have been following almost in her footprints. Surely she should have heard him leave his apartment, he