Darkness Hunts (DA 4) (38 page)

She laughed, collected her purse, then headed out into the hall.

“That,” I said, amusement teasing my lips, “was a very obvious exit. Your doing?”

“Yes.” He sat down on the bed and caught my hand in his, entwining our fingers. Heat pressed into my skin, and warmed far more than it should have. “I’m sorry.”

I frowned. “What for? It’s not like you could have done anything to help me on the astral plane.”

“No, but if I had not been so foolishly stubborn, I
could
have done something once your astral being had returned to flesh.”

I stared at him, confused. “But what? It’s not like you can heal me anymore.”

“Ah, but that’s not entirely the truth.”

I closed my eyes for a moment. Though I wasn’t really surprised that he hadn’t been honest with me—even with something as simple as that—it still hurt. I thought we’d at least gotten past the lies—

“I did not entirely lie,” he interrupted. “I currently can
not
fully heal you. Not against major wounds or the infection the hounds caused.”

“Then what—”

“I cannot heal because I no longer have the energy.”

I blinked. “What?”

“I need to recharge,” he said softly. “I have gone a long time without doing so, and it is beginning to show.”

“But you and I made love,” I said, my confusion growing. “Couldn’t you have recharged then?”

“I could have, but I didn’t.” His fingers tightened around mine. Pain rippled, but I didn’t say anything. He could have crushed my hand and I don’t think I would have said anything. My gaze—and my attention—was on his face. A face that did not reveal his emotions, even though the turbulent force of them ran like quicksilver through my being. “I erroneously believed it was better for the mission and us both that I hold myself apart, and not take what I needed.”

“But why?” I hesitated, then said, “It increases the risk of assimilation, doesn’t it?”

“Yes. And at the time, I feared that more than I feared not being able to heal you.”

“And now?” I asked, my gaze searching his, seeking an admission, wanting to hear that he cared even though it was obvious that he did. More than he should, more than was wise.

“And now,” he said softly, “I know there is a fate far worse than remaining a dark angel for time eternal.”

Tears stung my eyes. While it was an admission I’d ached to hear, it was nevertheless a dangerous one for us both. We both had dreams of a future once this quest was ended, and what now lay acknowledged between us was as dangerous to those dreams as the quest itself.

“So where does that leave us?” I asked.

“I don’t know. The only thing I
do
know is that I could not ever relive the horror of the last five days. Fighting to protect your body while you were battling for your life on the astral plane was bad enough, but being able to do little more than watch you weaken from wounds I should have been able to heal . . .” He paused and took a deep breath. “Not again. Not
ever
again.”

Just for a moment, the control vanished, and emotions were there for all to see, so deep and dark and raw that it made my heart ache.

I tugged him toward me, wrapped my free arm around his neck, and just held him. The press of his body felt so real and right that tears trickled down my cheeks. Because it might be real, but it
wasn’t
right. Not really.

“I’m willing to risk assimilation if it helps us both,” I whispered. “But the decision has to be yours. You’re the only one who truly understands the consequences either way.”

He didn’t say anything immediately; then he sighed and pulled away. His gaze, when it caught mine, was troubled.

“Then we take the risk,” he said. “And may fate be gentle on us both.”

Don’t miss the next exciting novel in the Dark Angels series,

Darkness Unmasked

Coming from Signet Select in June 2013

The office phone rang with a sharpness that jolted me instantly awake. I jerked upright, peeled a wayward bit of paper from my nose, and stared at the phone blankly. Then the caller ID registered and I groaned. The call was coming from Madeline Hunter, the bitch who was not only in charge of the Directorate of Other Races, but a leading member of the high vampire council. She was also the very last person in this world—or the next—whom I wanted to hear from right now.

Unfortunately, given that she was now my boss, she was not someone I could—or should—ignore.

I hit the vid-phone’s answer button and in a less than polite voice said, “What?”

She paused, and something flashed in her green eyes. A darkness that spoke of anger. But all she said was, “I have a task for you.”

A curse rose up my throat but I somehow managed to leash it. “What sort of task?”

Even as I asked the question, I knew. There was only one reason for her to be ringing me, and that was to track down an escapee from hell. She had not only the Directorate at her command, but a stable full of Cazadors—who were the high council’s elite killing force—and they dealt with all manner of murderers and madmen on an everyday basis.

I even had one following me around astrally, reporting my every move back to Hunter. Trust was not high on her list of good traits.

Not that I think she had all that many good traits.

“A close friend of mine was murdered last night.” Her voice held very little emotion, and she was all the scarier because of it. “I want you to investigate.”

Hunter had friends. Imagine that. I scrubbed a hand across my eyes and said somewhat wearily, “Look, as much as I absolutely adore working for you, the reality is the Directorate is far better equipped to handle
this
sort of murderer.”

“The Directorate hasn’t your experience with the denizens of hell,” she snapped. “Nor do they have a reaper at their beck and call.”

So I’d been right—it
was
an escapee from hell. Not great news, but I guess it
was
my fault that these things were about in the world. It might have become my task to find the three lost keys that controlled the gates to heaven and hell, but the only one I’d managed to find so far had almost immediately been stolen from me. As a result, the first gate to hell had been permanently opened by person or persons unknown, and the stronger demons were now coming through. Not in great numbers, not yet, but that was only thanks to the fact that the remaining gates were still shut.

Of course, given the choice, I’d rather
not
find the other keys. After all, if no one knew where they were, they couldn’t be used to either permanently open or close the gates. But it wasn’t like I had a choice, not any more. It was either find them or die. Or there was the choice given to me by my father, who was one of the Raziq, the rogue Aedh priests who’d helped create the keys, and also the man responsible for having them stolen: Watch my friends die.

“Azriel isn’t at my beck and call,” I said, unable to hide the annoyance in my voice. “He just wants the keys, the same as you and the council.”

Not to mention the Raziq and my goddamn father.

“
This
takes priority over finding the keys.”

I snorted. “Since when?”

That darkness in her eyes got stronger. “Since I walked into my lover’s house and discovered his corpse.”

I stared at her for a moment, seeing little in the way of true emotion in either her expression or voice. And yet her need for revenge, to rend and tear, was so strong that even through the vid-phone I could almost taste it. That sort of fury, I thought with a shiver, was not something I ever wanted aimed my way.

Yet, despite knowing it wasn’t sensible, I couldn’t help saying, “I’m betting the rest of the council wouldn’t actually agree with that assessment.”

I think if she could have jumped through the phone line and throttled me, she would have. As it was, she bared her teeth, her canines elongating just a little, and said in a soft voice, “You should not be worried about what the rest of the council is thinking right now.”

The only time I’d stop worrying about the rest of the council was when she achieved her goal of supreme control over the lot of them. Until then, they were as big a threat to me as she was.

But I wasn’t stupid enough to actually come out and say
that
to her. “Hunting for your friend’s killer is going to steal precious time away from the search for—”

“And,” she cut in coolly, “just where, exactly, is your search for the keys?”

Nowhere—that’s where. My father might have given me clues for the next key’s location, but deciphering
those
was another matter entirely. We figured it was somewhere in the middle of Victoria’s famous golden triangle, but given that
that
particular region encompassed more than nine thousand square kilometers of land, it left us with a vast area to explore. It was fucking frustrating, but all Azriel and I could do was keep on searching and hope that sooner or later fate gave us a goddamn break.

“It’s probably in the same place as your search for my mother’s killer.”

The minute the words left my mouth, I regretted them. Hunter really
wasn’t
someone I needed to antagonize, and yet it was her damn promise to help find my mother’s killer that had made me agree to work for her and the council in the first place. And while I’d kept my end of the bargain, she hadn’t.

For several very long seconds, she didn’t reply. She simply stared at me, her expression remote and her eyes colder than the Antarctic. Then she said, her voice so soft it was barely audible, “Tread warily, Risa, dearest.”

I gulped. I couldn’t help it. Death glared at me through the phone’s screen, and she scared the hell out of me.

I took a slow, deep breath, but it really didn’t help ease the sense of dread or the sudden desire to just give it all the fuck away. To let fate deal her cards and accept whatever might come my way—be that death at Hunter’s hand or someone else’s.

I was sick of it. Sick of the threats, sick of the fighting, sick of a search that seemed to have no end and no possibility of our winning.

Death is not a solution of any kind,
Azriel said, his mind voice sharp.

I looked up from the phone’s screen. He appeared in front of my desk, the heat of his presence playing gently through my being, a sensation as intimate as the caress of fingers against skin. Longing shivered through me.

Reapers, like the Aedh, weren’t actually flesh beings—although they could certainly attain that form whenever they wished—but rather beings made of energy who lived on the gray fields, the area that divided earth from heaven and hell. Or the light and dark portals, as they preferred to call them.

Although I had no idea whether his reaper form would be considered handsome—or even how reapers defined handsome—his human form certainly was. His face was chiseled, almost classical in its beauty, but possessed the hard edge of a man who’d fought many battles. His body held a similar hardness, though his build was more that of an athlete than of a weight lifter. Stylized black tats that resembled the left half of a wing swept around his ribs from underneath his arm, the tips brushing across the left side of his neck.

Only it wasn’t a tat. It was a Dušan—a darker, more stylized brother to the one that resided on my left arm—and had been designed to protect us when we walked the gray fields. We had no idea who’d sent them to us, but Azriel suspected it was my father, who apparently was one of the few left in this world—or the next—who had the power to make them.

Of course, Azriel wasn’t
just
a reaper, but something far more. He was one of the Mijai, the dark angels who hunted and killed the things that broke free from hell. And they had more than their fair share of work now that the first gate had been opened.

If you ask me, death is looking more and more like the perfect solution when it comes to the keys
. My mental voice sounded as weary as my physical one. I wasn’t actually telepathic—not in any way, shape, or form—but that didn’t matter when it came to my reaper. He could hear my thoughts as clearly as the spoken word.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t always a two-way street. Most of the time I heard his thoughts only when it was a deliberate act on his part.
If I’m not here to find the damn things, then the world and my friends remain safe.

He crossed his arms, an action that only emphasized the muscles in his arms and shoulders.
Death is no solution.
Not for you. Not now.

And what the hell is that supposed to mean?

His gaze met mine, his blue eyes—one as vivid and bright as a sapphire, the other as dark as a storm-driven sea—giving little away.
It means exactly what it says
.

Great. More riddles. Another thing I really needed right now. I returned my attention to Hunter’s deathlike stare. “How did your friend die?”

“He was restrained, then drained.”

“Drained? As in a vampire style, all-the-blood-from-the-body draining or something else?”

She hesitated, and for just a second I saw something close to grief in her eyes. Whoever her friend was, they’d been a lot closer than mere lovers.

“Have you ever seen the husk of a fly after a spider has finished with it?” she said. “That’s what he looked like. There was nothing left but the dried remains of outer skin.
Everything
else had been sucked away.”

I stared at her for a moment, wondering whether I’d heard her right, then swallowed heavily and said, “Everything? As in, blood, bone—”

“Blood, bone, muscle, intestines, brain.
Everything
.” Her voice was suddenly fierce. “As I said,
all
that remained was the shell of hardened outer skin.”

A shudder ran through me. I did
not
want to meet, let alone chase, something that could do
that
to a body.

“How can human skin be hardened into a shell? Or the entire innards of a body sucked away? It had to be one
hell
of a wound.”