Dark Secrets (3 page)

Anger whipped through me with the speed of a striking viper.
I’d obviously been left out of the loop on this one. “Rescue? I thought your
mother was dead. Explain. Now.”

“You haven’t told her?” The disapproval in Castro’s voice
washed over me and made the low-level nausea I’d been fighting all day worsen.

Screw anger. I upped the ante, skipped a few levels and
found myself in a state of rage. My fury uncoiled and boiled in the pit of my
stomach, an uncomfortable churning. The steady beat of my heart kicked up a few
notches and knocked against the inside of my chest. “Tell me what?”

Micah faced me. The expression in his eyes was guarded, his
face hard and emotionless. It was a look I hadn’t seen in a long time, at least
not directed at me. A cold chill ran down my spine, a direct contrast to the
heat in my gut. Pain, not just from my ribs, but also from something deep
inside, sliced me open.

I got it now. He’d been keeping something from me. Something
he didn’t want me to know. Whatever his secret was had kept him from touching
me for almost two weeks. He’d deliberately kept something from me.

“My mother is alive and being held in a
government-maintained institution,” Micah said in a flat voice devoid of
emotion.

The bottom of my stomach dropped out and whatever I’d been
about to say vanished. How could he keep something this huge from me? My anger
melted into something worse. Something very close to betrayal.

Micah—whose world hadn’t just been rocked by the person he
trusted—kept talking. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a demon to maim.” He
stalked forward, grabbed Castro’s arm and pulled him from the room.

Mother-fucking, cocksucking prick. A hard, morphing ball of
fire settled in the pit of my gut and I fought to push it away. Now that I’d
seen what the flames looked like streaming through the air, I could visualize
them stoking to life. Flesh melted from the inside out, decimating everything
in its path. The hotter my anger burned, the fiercer the roiling mass became. I
despised the heat—hated that I’d nearly killed my mate because I couldn’t
handle my fucking emotions.

The words forever drilled into me surfaced and I heard
Richard’s voice, felt the spray of his spittle and tasted the stench of liquor.
You’re nothing but a weak, pathetic pussy.

A low, rumbling sound left my throat and I bared my teeth.

Richard’s face, twisted in rage, flashed in my mind. Double
exposed over it was Ella. The betrayal in her vibrant blue eyes stripped away
my control one layer at a time and gave the demon I’d been born with free rein.

The violence I fought to suppress morphed and twisted until
the humanity I clung to vanished under the weight of darkness. Where I clutched
Castro’s arm, I flexed my fingers and dug in, ready to rip flesh from bone.

My palm smoldered, curling wisps of smoke threading between
my fingers. The glass and splinters embedded in the bottom of my feet sliced
deeper with every step and I welcomed the stabs of pain. My penance.

I deserved so much more.

Ella might know of my deception, but she didn’t know the
truth—the real reasons I’d kept her at arm’s length or how I’d wrestled with
the decision to keep the information about my mother to myself.
Fuck
.
Had it really been so wrong to keep this
one
thing private until I
figured how to process this shit?

I loved Ella, I did, but the bond between us was suffocating
at times. I couldn’t breathe without her knowing about it. My mother was alive
and a part of a breeding program if Castro’s information from two weeks ago was
accurate. I was a demon. How could I tell Ella I was a product of rape? She’d
never look at me the same.

My mother had probably suffered god only knew what so that I
could be born. My very existence spoke of pain and violence. I couldn’t wrap my
mind around it and I sure as fuck didn’t want to talk about it. So I’d avoided
it—avoided her.

Mistake. She’d looked at me as if I’d kicked her in the
stomach. Newsflash, this crap wasn’t a piece of cake for me either. The last
two weeks had been hell. Not touching her, not taking her, not feeling her
writhing beneath me while she made those sweet-as-fuck sounds was agony. The
longer I went without losing myself inside her, the hotter I burned.

Today I’d reached my limit. Fuck. I’d thrown a goddamn
fireball at her, watched with horror as she stood there staring death in the
face. There’d been a moment, a split-second choice I’d seen in her eyes when
she’d decided to succumb to the dark. She’d been so out of it lately, moody and
emotional—nothing like my girl. Then again, I hadn’t been acting like her man
either.

One drop at a time, water leached from my skin, a desperate
attempt to escape the flames. Beads of sweat peppered my forehead. A few paused
on my upper lip, some curled along my jaw. Another rolled down the center of my
spine.

The consuming heat eating me alive was so intense I saw
everything in a haze of red, as if blood painted the walls. In a few minutes,
it might. The frilly Victorian wallpaper, all unfurling roses and winding
vines, threatened to make me lose my mind.

I navigated the halls, all but dragging Castro with me in my
fury to get him somewhere private. Once we were inside the sprawling office
slash library, he ripped his arm from my grasp and glared down at me. A lesser
man might have cowered under the penetrating energy rolling off the demon lord.
Me, I could give a fuck if he was pissed. His anger had nothing on mine.

His judgment filled the space between us, something I could
touch and taste. Castro’s eyes—similar in color to mine—swirled and glowed. I
balled my smoking hand into a fist. It took all of my strength not to punch him
in the face.

“You didn’t tell her.” The cultured sound of his voice had
never been more grating.

I drew in a deep lungful of air and tasted the lingering
dust hovering in the room. Centuries-old books lined the walls and gave off a
musty, almost mildewed aroma. This place, pre-Fenrir attack, would have been a coveted
spot for Eli to lose himself in for hours. Books always had been his thing. Now
it was just a spot for him to screw one of the many females he’d been parading
throughout the house.

“No shit?” I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at
Castro. “I had everything under control until you waltzed in and screwed it up.”

“Control?” He lifted a black eyebrow. “So the fireball you
threw at Ella was on purpose then?”

I clenched my teeth together. “Fuck you.”

He searched my face as if he could draw out my secrets with
just a look. It was the same way he’d studied me all those years ago when I’d
first contacted him to help me find the demon that had raped and murdered my
little sister, Lily.

“Why didn’t you tell her?” he asked.

My skin crawled and the tight pulsing knot in my stomach was
almost more than I could bear. For a brief second, at the back of my mind, I
saw Lily’s pale body, naked and brutalized before it sank back into the
darkness where I kept it hidden. Had my mother had suffered the same fate?
Living seemed so much worse. Death would end the torment. Life—being
face-to-face with a breathing memory of your attack was a cruelty no one should
have to endure.

I balled and released my fists. “My reasons don’t concern
you.”

Castro clucked his tongue. The sharp crack of his anger
lashed out and threatened to split my skin. “Haven’t I proved you can trust me?”

I lifted my chin. “You’ve proven you’re a pain in the ass.”

He pulled his emotions back, leaving me alone with the hot
mess festering inside.

“Let me help you, Micah.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose, hoping it would help push
away the headache throbbing through my temples. “Tell me where my mother is.”

“The information comes with a price.”

Of course it did. Castro’s main motto in life was tit for
tat.

He withdrew a folder from the inside of his pinstriped suit
and handed it to me. I took the file, but the demon didn’t let go.

“Other than making Ella want to cut off my balls? What more
could you possibly want?”

“You did that, not me. Secrets are like cancer—they fester
and eat you alive until nothing is left. Trust me, I know.”

I was no stranger to secrets. I’d been raised under a web of
lies and had resented them my entire life—now more than ever.

“Love isn’t sunshine and roses, not in our world. She gets
that. She’ll get over it. Now, what’s your price?”

“Inside this folder you’ll find the location of your mother
and the details you’ll need to plan a rescue mission.”

My heart kicked into overdrive. She was alive.

Castro continued. “She’s being held at a privately owned
hospital about three hours from here. The security detail is high, but I feel
confident you’ll find a way in. When you retrieve her, bring her to the Vault.”

I narrowed my eyes and fought not to rub the center of my
chest where my unease gathered. “Why?”

“That isn’t your concern. I need your word that you’ll bring
her to me.” I opened my mouth but Castro spoke over me. “No matter what, Micah.
You must promise me.”

“That’s a broad statement.”

The demon leveled me with a potent stare that reached in and
gripped my soul. “Your word.”

I inclined my head. “You have it.”

Castro returned the gesture and I knew our bargain was
forged. He let go of the folder and took a step back. The curling tendrils of
smoke vanished when he shoved his hands into his pockets and stared at me. “Just
so you know—I wouldn’t have let you kill him.”

It took me a few silent seconds to decode his cryptic words.
I met his eyes. Just one of my many dark, damning secrets danced in his gaze
and I realized he knew. This was the other reason I’d been avoiding my mate. To
protect Ella I’d planned on killing Richard McGregor, the man who I’d believed
was my father my entire life, and Castro knew it. The trial the Shadow Agency
planned was bullshit. I knew it, Roy knew it, the council knew it and Ella,
while in denial, knew it.

One way or another, Richard would find a way to take her
from me and I’d be damned if I let that happen.

I tapped the file on the open palm of my hand, the subtle
thwack, thwack, thwack filling the silence. “I would have done what was
necessary to keep Ella safe. I still will. No matter the cost. Even with
evidence, the trial could go either way. Richard wants to punish me, and he’ll
use Ella to do it.”

Castro curled his upper lip and I glimpsed the monster the
demon lord concealed with such ease. “Let me deal with Richard. He’s not to be
touched.”

The vehemence in his voice resonated through me. I cocked my
head to the side to study him. I notched my chin up in a
what-the-hell-are-you-hiding motion. “What did he take from you?”

“Everything.” Castro paused at the door and gripped the
molding. His knuckles went white. “This might be nothing, could be everything,
but there is a rumor circulating that Richard has acquired the Blade of Souls.
Look into it.”

I shook my head at him as he turned and started down the
hallway. I called out to his retreating form. “The what?”

His reply, a clear dismissal, carried through the corridor. “Look
it up.”

Asshole.

On a sigh, I leaned back against the obscenely large oak
desk and opened the folder. I ignored the hard spine of a book that jabbed into
my kidney. No, I was more focused on the loose photo. My mother smiled up at
me, a sight I hadn’t seen in too many years to count. Her eyes were the same
shape and color as Eli’s.

I traced the curve of her face and tried to recall a time
from my childhood when she’d smiled like that. Before we’d lost Lily. Before
the weight of Richard’s anger became too great to shoulder.

Perhaps it was before I was even born.

Everything around me faded as I flipped through the
information Castro had given me. My disgust and self-loathing ratcheted up with
each new facet of information revealed. It wasn’t just my mother being held in
that hospital. There were dozens of others, all linked to the Shadow Agency,
all who’d supposedly given birth to demon or shifter hybrids. Forced breeding. Who
in the fuck had orchestrated this?

A subtle tingling at the base of my spine pricked my
attention. The sensation spread, kicking my heartbeat into a faster tempo, and
I looked to the doorway. Ella. Waves of pure, unadulterated, pissed-off female
preceded her into the room. The sight of her stole my breath and hardened my
cock.

Her long dark hair was starting to dry in loose waves that
curled around and behind her shoulders. The slender crimson lines magically
inked along her arm, collarbone and down to cup her breast filled me with
pride. She was mine.

Dressed in a sports bra and a skimpy-as-hell pair of shorts,
she might as well have been walking around in her damn underwear. She slammed
the door closed behind her, sealing us inside one of the only soundproof rooms
in the house.

When I really wanted to make her scream and beg, I brought
her here.

I shook the thoughts from my head. Ella was probably a few
seconds away from striding over and kneeing me in the nuts. I spoke before she
could.

“My mother and thirty-seven other women—all of whom were
reported dead—are being held at a privately owned and operated institution in
upstate New York, near Albany. Every patient can be linked to the Shadow
Agency.”

She crossed her slender arms under her breasts, a move that
pushed her tits up and almost out of her sports bra, and glared at me. I ran my
gaze over the tops of her breasts, down her taut belly to the flare of her hips
and licked my lips. I knew how every inch of her skin tasted, which spots made
her squirm and which ones made her all soft and vulnerable.

“Eyes up here.” Ella’s eerily calm words were a true
indication of her ire.

My girl didn’t yell, not when she was truly pissed. I
scraped a hand through my hair and pushed the wet strands back, out of my face.
The insistent tap, tap, tap of her foot against the carpet grated on my nerves.
The anger pouring off her invaded, infecting me with it until I couldn’t tell
my emotions from hers, something that had been happening with increasing
frequency. Not for the first time, I wondered what would have happened between
us without the bond forcing our hand.

I snapped the folder closed and threw it on the cluttered
desktop behind me. “You’re pissed, I get it.”

She uncrossed her arms, dropping her hands to her sides as
she strode to me. Part of me wanted to meet her halfway, to sweep her into my
arms and plunder her mouth. The other part, the one dominating me, suggested I
throw her onto the ground, tie her up and fuck her. My neglected cock wept at
the thought.

Ella stopped in front of me, close enough for me to touch,
close enough for the demon to taste her scent and demand more. She tilted her
head back so she could meet my gaze.

“What gave you the impression I was upset?”

A month ago, a bout of hot, angry sex would have put us to
rights. This time, though, I didn’t think it was going to work. I might have
fucked up more than I’d thought. She wasn’t just pissed—she was hurt.

“I’m not required to tell you every detail of my life the
second it happens. I was going to tell you when I had more information.”

So what if it was a partial truth? Something she and I had
gotten quite good at over the last several weeks.