Kiss of Darkness (4 page)

“Don’t make me make it an order.”

He heaved a put-upon sigh, but left without speaking. Mitchell was waiting silently for her and they turned together, the wolf and the woman, and ran into the woods. On the path they were forced to go single file and she followed him. He set a grueling pace, a flat-out run, easily clearing any obstacles in the path with the long stride and leaping abilities of his wolf. A human wouldn’t have been able to keep up, neither would most hybrids, but she’d always seemed to have just a little bit
more
than the rest. More strength, more speed, more cunning. More power. It was why she’d risen so fast in the ranks.

She almost tripped over a log and turned her focus to the run, to the waning night. With her demon-enhanced vision the obstacles were easy to avoid if she was paying attention to what was in front of her. She forced all the worries from her mind. Her fate and Gia’s and Dupree’s. The people in her quadrant she was responsible for. That damned nightwalker.

The forest was quiet, the only sound filling the early morning her labored breathing, the crunch of her boots over dead leaves and dried sticks. A transitory peace settled over her.

They ran until the sky began to lighten, until a deep stitch took root in her side. Despite knowing she should call a halt, she kept running. Kept pushing. Soon she would feel the nightwalker pacing in her mind again, caged in some secret place only he knew of.

She’d tried several times to find his access to her mind to block it with no success. He maintained a sort of general presence in her head. He mostly left her alone during the night, but as soon as the sun rose, he was there, the way he couldn’t be during the day. She hoped he would leave her alone this morning, that he wouldn’t promise decadent erotic things he refused to follow through on. But she wasn’t holding her breath. He seemed to revel in bringing her to a fevered pitch, always leaving her unfulfilled.

The invasions had been brief at first. She’d been able to repel him, to close her mind off to him. She knew now that was only because he’d allowed it. Apparently his first unguarded trip into her mind had left a path open she couldn’t close. He took full advantage of it. If his goal was to drive her crazy faster than the demon was, he was succeeding beyond anyone’s wildest dreams.

She was getting distracted again and jerked at the sound of crashing in the trees ahead of her, leaping over the boar that barreled across the path just in time. She should have felt its presence long before she heard it. It was time to call it quits. Her mind kept wandering and exhaustion finally began to slow her down.

The second time she tripped, Mitchell turned in the direction of his den. She should have stopped and teleported home, but she wasn’t quite ready to isolate herself, to leave herself open to the nightwalker. And maybe Mitchell had finally discovered who the nightwalker was. She’d sensed he’d wanted to talk earlier but had held back because Gia and Dupree were with her.

His lope slowed as they wended their way back into his territory eventually ending at the house. She slowed to a walk when they reached the yard, hand holding her side, and let him run ahead. She looked up at the place. More a mansion really. It was three stories, brick, with big wrap-around porches on every level and stairs crisscrossing the back. Beautiful but so different from the drab military-style compound she called home.

She approached the outside stairs and climbed, unsure if it was physical or mental weariness that slowed her steps. At the top, she walked around to the front and found the French doors leading into his suite open. Stepping inside, she turned and closed them, staring out at the sun as it crested the horizon. She was drained, her body sore after hours of use, but the demon’s lust still raged through her. Lust for power, blood, sex. It didn’t matter what she fed it as long as she fed it, and the damned thing reared its ugly head and made sure she knew it didn’t feel appeased.

The easiest way to do that would be to turn around and attack Mitchell. To draw blood or screw him wouldn’t make much difference to the demon, but it did to her. What was left of her anyway.

“Winter.”

It was a shame, too. She swiveled to face the sexy, and very naked, alpha lupine stretched across his couch. Their brief affair ended years ago and she wondered how she’d feel if she gave in to temptation and jumped him. For old time’s sake if nothing else. But Mitchell’s pursuit had been more habit than desire for years. If she were going to take another man into her bed before the end, it would be born of desire not ennui. The idea left her cold and shaking her head. She turned back to the windows, tilted her face back as the sun’s warm rays shone through the glass and heated her skin.

She didn’t have to wonder. She knew. There was a craving in her she couldn’t name, but also couldn’t deny. A craving for a nightwalker that somehow went beyond sex.

Hearing Mitchell move, she watched his reflection in the glass as he stood and reached for a pair of jeans. When she’d come in, he’d still been in wolf form but he’d shifted quickly. The better to tease her with an offer he knew she would refuse. Now he dressed silently and padded over to join her, staring at the world outside.

“How long?”

They’d been good friends a long time, part of the beginning of the uneasy truce that linked the three long-lived races together. Hers was the first ending, the first hybrid degeneration he’d seen so close at hand. She shrugged, not wanting to further worry him, but also as unwilling to give up the secrets of her race as he was his own.

“A year maybe.” There was no way she’d survive another year, but he didn’t need to know that.

“You have to mate,” he growled.

She turned to face him, refusing to feel any sadness, any remorse. She’d had a good long fight, couldn’t have asked for better. Most of it had been exhilarating, fun. Even joyful.

“There isn’t anyone for me. Mitchell, we can talk about this forever. It won’t change anything.”

“It doesn’t work the same way for you, Winter.” He put his hands on her shoulders, shook her once. “Not like us and the nightwalkers. There’s no destiny involved for you. You can take anyone for a mate.”

Could she? That’s what everyone believed, but she wasn’t so sure. Even if it was true, she had no intention of tying someone to her permanently unless she was in love and loved wildly in return. Was that too much to ask? Maybe. Probably. She hadn’t met anyone in the last sixty years who appealed to her like that. Whenever she thought she might be close, memories of David intruded. She didn’t anticipate meeting anyone in the next few weeks who could change that.

Mitchell huffed his exasperation, released her and stalked across the room. He didn’t understand her reticence to do something that would save her. She didn’t either really, except that it just didn’t
feel
right.

What’s wrong?

The damned nightwalker was back. Maybe if she ignored him, he’d go away. Yeah right.

“There has to be a way,” Mitchell muttered, still pacing the room.

“There’s not. Unless my one and only true love suddenly shows up.”

He threw his hands up in the air. “Great. Sarcasm’s gonna help. Burying your head in the sand is not the answer.”

Winter?

Shit. Couldn’t he just leave her alone? Ignoring the small voice in her head that whispered she didn’t really want that, she took a deep breath and answered, hoping to get rid of him long enough to find out if Mitchell had discovered the nightwalker’s identity.

I’m fine. Go away.

Did she speak out loud? She must have. Mitchell stopped moving and cocked an eyebrow, mouthing
is that him?
She felt the presence back away, but not withdraw. He was eavesdropping.

“Did you find out who he is yet?”

She didn’t bother keeping the snarl from her voice. In the first couple of weeks after the nightwalker had saved her in the woods, she’d tried to find out who he was. He refused to answer her question telepathically and she got more desperate, more obsessed with each refusal. When Gia and Dupree started to question her keen interest in the nightwalker, wondering if he’d somehow gained control of her mind, she’d stopped their search and asked Mitchell to take over. So far he hadn’t had any better luck. But this time a bright, feral grin flashed across his face and her stomach knotted into a hard ball. He’d found something.

“Well?”

“His name is Marcus.”

“And?”

Mitchell shrugged. “The guy’s a mystery. He may be the nightwalker Lord. He may just be a soldier.”

“If he was the nightwalker Lord, wouldn’t you know him?” He hadn’t been holding out on her, had he?

“I haven’t been to an Alliance meeting yet, remember?”

It was a gentle reminder. He must have sensed her suspicion. And he was right, she should have remembered. Alliance meetings were held once a year usually, and Mitchell had only become alpha a half year ago. Only race leaders and their immediate seconds attended those meetings. Before the power shift that had put him in charge, he hadn’t been invited. He went on without missing a beat. If she had any sense she’d go straight to Benjamin, her commander. He’d know who the Lord was. But she didn’t have much sense when it came to the nightwalker. She’d handle him in her own way, without running to her boss for help.

“The only thing everyone I talked to agreed on was he lives like a monk. He hasn’t been linked with a woman in over a century.”

She arched an eyebrow. So this Marcus was tormenting her because he was sexually frustrated? She found it hard to believe. He was so sensual. Not just his looks, but in the way he moved, the arrogant power of his mind, the whispered dark offerings in the middle of the day when she was trying to sleep. He was not the kind of man who’d be alone except by choice. And she was the one he’d turned all that magnetism on? Her heart started to race and the ever-present demon lifted its head, sniffed the air looking for the threat. She struggled to force it into a box in the corner of her mind, though she knew it wouldn’t stay quiet for very long.

“Do we know where he lives?”

In a fit of pique, she’d demanded they meet a few weeks ago. She figured if he wasn’t going to leave her alone, he could at least relieve the tension that was a permanent strum through her body. He’d helped cause it after all, but he refused, claimed she wasn’t ready yet. What the hell was that about? She couldn’t get much more ready.

Mitchell shrugged. “If he is the nightwalker Lord, you know where his mansion is.”

“Fuck,” she muttered. She did know where the nightwalker Lord’s house was reputed to be, but even she couldn’t get through that kind of security. She would have to track him down somewhere outside of it. Give him a piece of her mind. And then some. Being so sexually wound up was not helping in her fight against the demon. She refused to acknowledge she might have an ulterior motive. So what if she wanted a taste of what he promised but held back? Her phone beeped a new message before she could get derailed with that train of thought. She glanced at the window, groaned and almost ignored it when she saw it was from Dupree, her mother hen. But duty couldn’t be ignored. She opened the message.

Chapter Five

The message couldn’t be right. She went cold, temporarily frozen, and stared at the screen.

Commander’s compound attacked. We’ll meet you there.

Benjamin’s place. The commander’s compound was the chapterhouse for the Order in this region. It was passed from commander to commander, the great stone house generally considered the safest of all the hybrids’ compounds. Its protections were substantial. An attack on it would be massively stupid, an invitation to get slaughtered, and the demons were a lot of things, but not suicidal.

“I have to go,” she told Mitchell and opened the door. She’d teleport closer to Benjamin’s mansion from the patio; she needed a breath of fresh air first. He tilted his head to one side, curiosity clear on his face, but he didn’t question her. He would have known by the way she shut down that the message had to do with the Order. They didn’t interfere in each other’s business that way. Inter-species friendship only went so far.

Stepping over the threshold, she pulled the door shut and, closing her eyes, took a deep breath. The morning sun was warm on her face, the air filled with the smells of early summer. Pine. Gardenias and honeysuckle. She fixed the position in her mind, imagined the area where she wanted to land, the road, the trees, the wall blocking sight of the mansion from the road. Then she pushed herself outward, willed herself there. It was disorienting, moving through space, and she felt the usual loss of equilibrium until her feet were on solid ground again and she opened her eyes.

Winter stood on the road in front of the wall. She sensed life inside and, after a quick probe, realized the scientists and technicians from their private lab were already on the scene. The gates hung open, and even from the outside she could smell the blood, the death that permeated the grounds and house. Steeling herself, dread dogging her heels, she moved forward, eyes unbelieving as her gaze swept the lawn.

Everything else was forgotten in the horror she saw. There were…pieces of people, people she knew, people she
cared
about scattered across the drive and lawn. Her last meal heaved in her stomach and she stomped on the urge to rush to the bushes at her side and vomit. This wasn’t the place for that weakness. There would be time enough later.

She felt the nightwalker—no, Marcus—brush against her mind and put up the strongest mental block she could build, feeding it with her rage. She couldn’t be sure if his withdrawal was voluntary or if she’d actually succeeded with the shield, and it didn’t matter. Part of her talent was being able to project feelings and no one needed to share this rage. The shield would be enough protection if her control over that gift slipped.

She picked her way through the carnage and around the technicians busy mapping the scene. The door opened as she reached the steps and Dupree stepped out. Anger rushed through her. She shook as she spoke, the rage making her voice guttural.