Dreams of a Dark Warrior

strain.
Those screams …
    The front door was open, the house quiet. He eased inside, going straightaway to the kitchen, to the bottle of whiskey he knew he’d find in one of the cabinets. Might help him get through the next couple of hours. He lifted it, chugging—
    He lowered the bottle, peering into the dark. In a murky corner of the kitchen, someone lay on the floor. Was his brother passed out? “Jaysus, Colm. Ye’re too young. Ye want to end up like me?” Declan would beat his arse for this. “Colm?” he demanded, striding over. “What the bloody—”
    His brother’s sightless eyes were opened wide, fixed on the ceiling. His throat was slashed down to the spine.
    “C-Colm?” he rasped.
Dead?
Someone had murdered his little brother? He stared dumbly, tears welling. Until muffled screams sounded from the living room.
    Somebody’s hurting me parents too!
Fury ignited within him, burning away the tears. In a daze, Declan slipped into his parents’ bedroom, grabbed the bat propped by his da’s side of the bed.
    When he entered the living room, he faltered, barely able to comprehend what he saw. Red-eyed beings with fangs and claws filled the area. And those were thecreatures with humanlike bodies. Others were winged monsters with bulging eyes and limbs jutting out all over.
    The winged ones had gagged and tied up his parents on the floor so they could … slowly feed. Their deformed mouths peeled away one strip of flesh at a time—while his mam and da still lived, screaming in agony against their gags.
    Me mind’s going to break, can’t do this, can’t believe this is happening.
But just when Declan thought he’d pass out from the crazy pounding of his heart, one monster’s head rose up from his da, and blood dribbled from its mouth.
    Da’s blood.
    A mindless wrath overwhelmed Declan, and he attacked them. All he could hear was his thundering heart, his bellows, the bat connecting with bone over and over. He didn’t know where this frantic strength was coming from, but he crumpled the metal bat against their skulls.
    Yet as powerful as he was, they were more so. They kept coming and coming until they overpowered him, pinning his thrashing body to the floor. Even as he flailed, he spied a glimpse of some eerie kind of intelligence in the hideous eyes of a winged monster, and Declan had an instant of clarity.
    Colm was the lucky one. …
    As ever, Declan’s mind wasn’t ready to relive what those creatures had done to him—the unimaginable torment until he’d blacked out; twenty years later, hisdream easily flickered past, picking up at the time when consciousness had trickled in once more. From outside his parents’ house, he’d heard voices, and finally the blackness wavered.
    He felt the biting tension on his bound wrists and ankles ease, nearly screaming as circulation coursed to his hands and feet once more. How long ago had he been tied up?
    Days. …
    He was aware of a man’s voice telling him that he would live, that help was here. “Those things have been slaughtered, son. They’ll never hurt anyone again.”
    “Da?” Declan rasped before the blackness took him once more.
    In a kind of twilight, he felt his bones being set, his skin pierced again and again as his numerous wounds were stitched.
    When he woke, he was in a hospital, covered in bandages and casts. A tall, dark-haired man sat beside his bed.
    “I’m Commander Webb,” he said, his Yank accent marked. “You’re in a private hospital. You’re safe now.”
    Declan recognized the voice of the man who’d saved his life. He was middle-aged, his hair closely cropped. He wore what looked like a military uniform, but Declan had never seen one like it. “Wh-what happened?”
    “I’m sure you’re in a state of shock right now. The docs are amazed you survived—”
    “And me family?” He hated the way his voice broke.
    “I’m sorry, Declan, but they’re all dead.”
    He’d known, but he’d still held out hope. “You’re the one who got me out of there?”
    “My team and I did. I belong to an organization called the Order, and it’s our job to protect people from those miscreats. Unfortunately, our scouts didn’t locate this pack until too late.”
    “Miscreats?
Pack?
” Declan pinched his forehead, wincing as the skin on the back of his hand pulled tight under a bandage.
    Webb nodded. “Miscreations. They’re immortal beings. Just about anything you thought was a myth is out there walking the