“AERON! AERON!”

At the fortress, Aeron’s booted feet hit the balcony that led into his bedroom. Jolted by the unfamiliar female voice, he released Paris.

“Aeron!”

At that third ear-piercing feminine cry of terror and desperation, both he and Paris spun to face the hill below them. Thick trees knifed toward the sky, obscuring visibility, but there, amid the dappled greens and browns, he could just make out a figure draped in white.

A figure rushing toward their home.

“Shadow Girl?” Paris asked. “How the hell did she make it past our gate so quickly? And on foot, no less?”

Aeron had explained what happened with the woman from the alley along the way. “That’s not her.” This voice was higher, richer and far less confident. “The gate… I don’t know.”

Weeks ago, after he and Paris had recovered from battle wounds inflicted by Hunters, they had erected an iron gate around the fortress. That gate stretched fifteen feet tall, was wrapped with barbed wire and had tips sharp enough to cut glass. It also vibrated with enough electricity to send a human into cardiac arrest. Anyone who attempted to climb it wouldn’t live long enough to reach the other side.

“Think she’s Bait?” Paris tilted his head, his study of her intensifying. “She could have been dropped from a heli, I guess.”

Hunters had been known to use beautiful human females to lure the Lords out into the open, distract them and capture them for torture. This one certainly seemed to meet the criteria, possessing long wavy hair the color of chocolate, skin as pale as a cloud and a curved, ethereal body. Aeron couldn’t make out her facial features just yet, but he would bet they were exquisite.

His wings unfolded from their slits as he answered, “Maybe.” Damn Hunters and their perfect timing. Half his friends were gone. They’d traveled to Rome to search the Temple of the Unspoken Ones, ruins that had recently risen from the sea. They hoped to find anything that would lead them to missing godly artifacts. Four artifacts that, when used together, would then lead to the location of Pandora’s box.