Dark Horse: Nate Temple Series Book 16 Read online

  DARK HORSE

  NATE TEMPLE SERIES BOOK 16

  SHAYNE SILVERS

  CONTENTS

  The Nate Temple Series—A warning

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  TRY: UNCHAINED (FEATHERS AND FIRE #1)

  TRY: WHISKEY GINGER (PHANTOM QUEEN DIARIES # 1)

  MAKE A DIFFERENCE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT SHAYNE SILVERS

  BOOKS BY SHAYNE SILVERS

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Shayne Silvers

  Dark Horse

  Nate Temple Series Book 16

  A TempleVerse Series

  Formerly published as The Temple Chronicles Series

  © 2022, Shayne Silvers / Argento Publishing, LLC

  [email protected]

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.

  THE NATE TEMPLE SERIES—A WARNING

  Nate Temple starts out with everything most people could ever wish for—money, magic, and notoriety. He’s a local celebrity in St. Louis, Missouri—even if the fact that he’s a wizard is still a secret to the world at large.

  Nate is also a bit of a…well, let’s call a spade a spade. He can be a mouthy, smart-assed jerk. Like the infamous Sherlock Holmes, I specifically chose to give Nate glaring character flaws to overcome rather than making him a chivalrous Good Samaritan. He’s a black hat wizard, an antihero—and you are now his partner in crime. He is going to make a ton of mistakes. And like a buddy cop movie, you are more than welcome to yell, laugh and curse at your new partner as you ride along together through the deadly streets of St. Louis.

  Despite Nate’s flaws, there’s also something endearing about him…You soon catch whispers of a firm moral code buried deep under all his snark and arrogance. A diamond waiting to be polished. And you, the esteemed reader, will soon find yourself laughing at things you really shouldn’t be laughing at. It’s part of Nate’s charm. Call it his magic…

  So don’t take yourself, or any of the characters in my world, too seriously. Life is too short for that nonsense.

  Get ready to cringe, cackle, cry, curse, and—ultimately—cheer on this snarky wizard as he battles or befriends angels, demons, myths, gods, shifters, vampires and many other flavors of dangerous supernatural beings.

  DON’T FORGET!

  DON’T FORGET! VIP’s get early access to all sorts of Temple-Verse goodies, including signed copies, private giveaways, and advance notice of future projects. AND A FREE NOVELLA! Click the image or join here: www.shaynesilvers.com/l/219800

  FOLLOW and LIKE:

  Shayne’s FACEBOOK PAGE:

  www.shaynesilvers.com/l/38602

  I try to respond to all messages, so don’t hesitate to drop me a line. Not interacting with readers is the biggest travesty that most authors can make. Let me fix that.

  PROLOGUE

  Bellefontaine Cemetery was dark and cold and eerily silent. Nadia and her daughter, Asha, seemed to have the place to themselves. Fat snowflakes drifted down from the night sky, dusting the cemetery in a patchy layer of white death—much like how the first shovelful of brown dirt thumped and skittered over the top of a shiny new coffin after a loved one was lowered into the ground.

  The sound of that hollow thump striking her husband’s coffin one month ago still haunted her dreams, mockingly reminding her of the time he’d knocked on her apartment door for their first date.

  Then that same hollow thump had hit her son’s coffin in the adjacent grave, reminding Nadia of the first time he’d kicked inside her womb, giving his mommy a thump of his own. His first hello.

  The terrorist attack at the St. Louis Arch last month had taken her boys from her, leaving Nadia and Asha all alone in a world seemingly gone mad. Two simple headstones were all that was left of her boys, now.

  Henry Pickwick. Loving husband and father.

  Thomas Pickwick. Loving son and brother.

  Nadia brushed her dark graying hair out of her face and tucked it behind her ear. The cemetery was peacefully silent as Nadia watched Asha kneeling before the two fresh tombstones in the withered grass. Although fifteen years old, she looked so much younger and smaller on her knees before the silent stones. Her dark hair fanned down her back, and her fingers trembled as she reached out to touch the words etched into the rock. They hadn’t been able to afford anything special, and that harsh reality only added to Nadia’s anguish. A cheap bouquet of flowers rested on each headstone. Nadia winced to see the price tag still nestled into the wilting daisies, a hurtful reminder of their financial woes.

  Two bouquets for $5!

  And that had almost been too much money for her to spend. It was almost Christmas, after all. Their first holiday as a broken family. She realized she was absently rubbing her belly and she hurriedly lowered her hand, relieved that Asha hadn’t noticed. Every dollar counted. Diapers were going to be expensive. She hadn’t told her daughter the big news yet. Nadia was determined to make the most out of the holiday, knowing it would be remembered for years to come as their first victory over trauma.

  What better way to celebrate the tragedy than to tell Asha she would again get to be a big sister? That they would have the opportunity to fill the gaping holes in their lives with a new bundle of life to love and cherish? It was a small hope. A tiny yet powerful hope. A candle flame in the darkness.

  Why did you leave us, Henry? Nadia thought to the stone marking the final resting place of the love of her life with a silent sob, swiftly wiping away a lone tear before her daughter happened to turn and see it. Henry hadn’t known she was pregnant either. She had intended the news to be his Christmas gift. He’d always said he didn’t want presents for himself, but she knew the greatest gifts she had ever given her husband
had been their children, Asha and Thomas.

  He had loved them fiercely and passionately. Their births were the only times she had ever seen Henry cry.

  She had wanted to see him cry again…

  Henry had been her childhood sweetheart. The first boy she’d danced with. First boy she’d kissed. Her whole life of firsts had been shared with Henry.

  And now…

  She had new terrifying, debilitating firsts to face, and she would have to do so without her husband.

  Asha stared at the headstones for her father and brother with a faraway look in her eyes. She lowered her fingers and dipped her chin in silent prayer. Her shoulders trembled faintly but she made not a sound.

  That silence was dangerous, and Nadia didn’t know what to do about it.

  Before the fateful event, the lithe teenaged girl had been the first to whip her long ebony hair back into a ponytail to get into a fight with a perceived bully, the first to get into mischief, and the first to take unreasonable risks—often roping her younger, impressionable brother Thomas into her shenanigans. Each scrape, bruise, and bandage was taken as a badge of honor to the spitfire girl. She simply did not know fear.

  Or she chose to reject the premise on the principle of pure, stubborn foolishness, her mother thought with conflicting emotions of pride and concern.

  In essence, Asha had been a firebrand.

  Impossible for her mother and father and brother to control.

  Or, as Henry had often claimed with a glint of fatherly pride in his eyes, my girl is full of grit. It will serve her well.

  Nadia studied the strangely foreign, nymphlike creature that was her adolescent daughter, wondering whether she should be concerned or overjoyed. Asha…had changed dramatically. She no longer rebelled or took risks. She had become a ray of sunshine in every way imaginable. Nadia could tell that it was forced but it was no less genuine for it. Asha had applied her grit to turning her grief into gratitude, her agony into appreciation, her horror into happiness, and her loss into love.

  It was remarkable.

  As long as it was healthy. Denial was a very real concern. Therapy was too expensive with a baby on the way—everything was too expensive with a baby on the way and Henry’s income abruptly halted. There were no life insurance payouts for acts of war, she’d been informed earlier today. She didn’t have the money to pay a lawyer to fight the heartless claim.

  Asha gasped, making Nadia jump and shift her attention to her daughter as her pulse skyrocketed. Asha lurched to her feet and pointed up at the sky, her bright green eyes as wide as could be. “An angel!” she blurted with a look of awe on her face, her ebony black hair whipping back in a sudden gust of wind.

  Nadia blinked rapidly and followed her daughter’s finger to see…

  She sucked in a breath, clutching at her stomach. A mighty angel wearing gleaming golden armor with strange metallic wings was flying away from the front of the Temple Mausoleum, sweeping her gaze across the cemetery as if searching for evil. As if hearing Asha’s declaration, the angel halted in mid-air less than a hundred feet away, flapping her wings in a steady rhythm as she turned to look directly down at them.

  The angel looked nothing like any stories Nadia had ever heard. She was a stunningly beautiful woman. Her blonde hair seemed to glow, backlit by the moon’s luminescence. She wore gleaming armor that looked like it was designed for a queen of old, except it had a crimson hue to it like it was spattered with blood. Her wings were not feathers, but looked more like two fans of golden swords. Her face was stark and beautiful.

  And deadly.

  But her eyes…

  One was blue and one was green, and they seemed to contain living fire within.

  The angel pointed a shining trident directly at Nadia and Asha, and a commanding voice struck their ears in an urgent whisper, even though she was too far away for such a thing to be possible. The hair on the back of Nadia’s neck stuck straight up as the angel seemed to speak directly into her ears. The look on Asha’s face told Nadia she was experiencing the same thing.

  “Get your children out of here, woman! HIDE!” the angel commanded. Nadia jerked her hand away from her belly like it was a hot potato. The angel had said children, plural. She’d somehow recognized the idle action of a pregnant woman fondly rubbing her belly. Or the angel had looked into her heart and soul and seen the truth.

  Asha grasped her mother’s hand, squeezing it tightly as she stared, slack-jawed at the angel. Nadia was too startled to react, staring up at the impossibility like a deer in headlights.

  The angel let out a string of violent curses seemingly directed at Nadia and Asha. Angels couldn’t curse, could they? And was her golden armor covered in blood, or was that some trick of the moonlight? The mesmerizing angel swiveled in the air as if deciding to approach them, but she halted as a ball of fire as big as a man abruptly screamed through the air towards her, coming from somewhere behind the Mausoleum—the same place she’d fled moments before. Nadia heard men shouting from that direction, but she was too transfixed with the fireball to look for them. The flames were yellow and blue, and its passage illuminated the cemetery in a blinding glow. Somehow, Nadia knew it was a deadly projectile rather than some kind of firework or flare shot into the sky. The fire looked…alive. Hungry. The angel dodged it with a sweep of her wings, and her face contorted into a look of despair and outrage, torn between two difficult decisions. A second and third fireball came screaming towards her, making the decision for her. With a frustrated snarl, she took off in the opposite direction from Nadia and Asha, racing across the night sky like a shooting star. She abruptly winked out of existence between one moment and the next, leaving Nadia and Asha physically shaking.

  The two fireballs arced downward from their missed target and struck a stand of trees near the entrance to the cemetery. The trees instantly ignited into towering pillars of flame like the Gates of Hell.

  Nadia swept her gaze across the cemetery, taking the angel’s words to heart. They needed to hide. Right now. This part of the cemetery was wide open and making a run for the cemetery’s exit would put them in full view of the fighting men. Nadia knew they wouldn’t want witnesses to their battle, so she couldn’t risk anyone seeing them. The surrounding tombstones were too small to hide behind and would only hide them from one angle. If anyone scouted the area, they would be caught out in the open.

  She wished she hadn’t left her phone in the car. She didn’t see the men who had launched the fire into the air, but she could now hear plenty of screams and shouts, roaring of fire, beastly growls, and the sound of metal striking metal. The fact that she couldn’t see the source of the noises only made the scene more terrifying. Every shadow looked sinister and threatening.

  There was only one hope for safety. She turned to face the Temple Mausoleum.

  The large gothic building loomed over the cemetery, looking like it had been plucked out of medieval Europe and settled here. The building was massive, sporting tall statues of fantastical creatures and gods from various religions. She recognized only a few of the more iconic figures—like Zeus, Thor, and Anubis—but the others were only vaguely familiar.

  The Temple Mausoleum must have cost a fortune to build.

  The late Calvin and Makayla Temple had been industrial tycoons of some sort. All Nadia knew was that the name was considered nobility in St. Louis, and the heir was a degenerate playboy named Nate Temple.

  Well, she didn’t know anything about him, but that’s what all her friends at church claimed. Greta supposedly knew him, but Greta seemed to despise everyone who didn’t attend church on a regular basis. She hadn’t seen Greta in what felt like years. The cantankerous old woman had supposedly moved to Kansas City to work at a Catholic Church of some kind. Maybe her grandson had moved there and she’d chosen to follow him. He’d often come to visit her over the summers. What had his name been? Yahn? Something foreign. She dismissed the line of thought, knowing time was not a luxury to waste.

 
The statues lining the sides of the building were large and Nadia spotted plenty of hiding places behind them where they would be hidden from multiple angles. “Let’s go,” she urged her daughter. And then the two were running towards the building, pounding through the snow like they were fleeing a pack of wolves. The statue of the jackal-headed Anubis was the largest and closest, granting them the biggest space to hide behind. Unfortunately, it was also closest to the front corner of the Mausoleum, but it was safer than the risk of being quickly discovered behind a smaller statue.

  They ducked behind the jackal-headed god in a little space between the wall of the building and the base of the statue. They tucked their legs close so as not to be spotted if any of the dangerous men circled the building. Nadia clutched her daughter in a tight hug, holding her close and whispering reassuring prayers into her daughter’s raven-black hair.

  Shouts now filled the air, along with screams. So many screams. Slice. Scream. Cut. Scream. Slash. Scream…

  She could have sworn she heard beastly growls and roars intermixed with men shouting, but that was impossible. St. Louis didn’t have animal predators. Especially nothing large enough to make sounds like that.