Night Falls on the Wicked (17 page)

She continued, “You have me and Niklas … and he’s really strong. Almost as strong as they are.”

Almost
, Niklas thought with a wry twist of his lips. He fought back a bitter laugh. He was
almost
a monster.

“Trust us, baby. We’re going to get you to your grandmother’s. You’ll be safe there.”

At this promise, Niklas bit back a curse and quietly left the motel room. He strode through the cutting bite of wind, preferring the cold to staying inside the small motel room, listening to Darby make promises she had no right to make.

Still sheltered on the covered walk, he stopped in front of his Hummer. Snow already gathered on the hood. He cast a glance up at the sky, hoping the weather let up and didn’t slow them down
tomorrow. In the night beyond, he could make out the vast snow-covered mountains.

With any luck, they’d reach Edmonton tomorrow … and he knew he’d find Cyprian there. He felt it like he always did. Deep in his blood, in his bones … in the core of him where the beast prowled. He would always be linked to Cyprian. A link that he loathed, a link that he hoped to finally sever. And then, maybe, he would finally be free.

Cyprian was probably holed up somewhere, waiting out the month and assessing who to draw into his web as his newest pack member.

His hand knotted into a fist at his side. He had to reach him first. He was closing in. He could taste it. At last. After all these years. He could let nothing get in his way. Nothing and no one.

His gaze drifted back to the motel room as he considered the two females inside, and then his gaze strayed to his vehicle again. It would be a simple matter to leave them. He could make better time without them as they would only slow him down. He could finish Cyprian off and end Aimee’s curse. He didn’t need the girl with him to accomplish that feat.

But what if Cyprian slipped away? Eluded him one more time? Then the girl would be out there, on the loose, a little monster wreaking havoc—possibly even harming Darby. Unless Darby managed
to stop her. And he doubted Darby possessed the strength or cold-blooded nature to finish her off.

“Thinking about leaving us?”

The sound of Darby’s voice startled him, but he showed no sign of it as he turned to study her. She stood in the open door of the motel. Her hazel eyes wise and knowing as she surveyed him with an arched eyebrow several shades darker than her auburn hair.

He said nothing at first, merely held her stare, annoyed at how close she had hit the nail on the head.

Finally, he retorted, “And end this good time we’re having?”

Color surged in her cheeks. “Go ahead and laugh, but this isn’t a joke to me.”

“Oh, it isn’t a joke to me either,” he bit out, advancing on her. He swiped a hand through the air. “Everything about this is wrong.” He looked her up and down where she stood shivering on the covered walk. “But you don’t want to hear that. You won’t.”

“You think I want to be in this situation? That I enjoy forcing myself on you when you so clearly don’t want to help me?” She stormed away from him, her hair whipping behind her like a fiery banner. She was almost to the door to their room
before she swung back around. “I wish none of this had happened!” She waved wildly to the room where Aimee slept. “That little girl in there is seven years old! I’m twenty-seven. The same age as my mother when I was seven.” Her eyes shone in the dark like polished glass. “That could be me in there! It
was
me!”

“Is that what this is about?” he growled, stepping toward her. He reached for her arm, but she yanked free, shaking her head fiercely.

“No! Yes!” She made a sound, part groan, part sob, and buried her face in her hands. Lifting her face, she glared at him. “I don’t know!”

“Don’t confuse yourself here, Darby.” He pointed to the room where Aimee slept. “You’re not that girl in there. And you’re not your mother either,” he bit out.

“My mother did it for me.”

He shook his head, confused. “Did what?”

She continued, “My mother killed herself, removed herself from my life so I’d be safe. Don’t you understand? If something happened to her … if she gave in to a demon, I’d be the one caught in the crossfire. How long before the demon possessing her turned on me? Seconds? Minutes? She killed herself to protect me!”

Her words hit him like a fist. He’d never known how alike they were. “So you’ve appointed yourself
Aimee’s protector to play out some sort of weird reenactment?”

Darby looked at him bleakly, the tip of her nose turning pink from the cold. “Aimee has no one.”

He took another sliding step closer. “And what about you? Who has you?”

Her jaw tightened. “I don’t need anyone.” She shook her head and looked away.

For some reason the words created a pang in his chest. He didn’t know why. Since he’d lost his mother—since he’d lost himself—being alone was all he knew. It had never bothered him. Someone else suffering loneliness had especially never bothered him before. He didn’t need anyone. Why should he care that she didn’t either?

He lightly cupped her cheek, forcing her to look at him again. “Yes, you do.”

“And what do you know about needing somebody?” she whispered. “I don’t exactly see you surrounding yourself with people. When was the last time you had anyone in your life?”

He stared at her, unable to speak. He couldn’t even breathe, he wanted her so badly right then. He dropped his hand from her face.

“That’s what I thought,” she finished. “You’re no different from me. You don’t need anyone either.”

She started to move away then, but he couldn’t
let her go. Not yet. He snatched hold of her, wrapping a hand around the soft skin at the back of her neck. Her eyes widened for the barest second.

“I wouldn’t say that,” he growled, his gaze roving over her face.

And then he kissed her, smothered her gasp with the searing press of his lips on hers. The cold melted away as fire and heat erupted between them.

She held still for only a moment before coming to life and throwing herself into the kiss, pressing her body against him. He forgot everything in the taste of her, in the sensation of her body melting into his.

His hands slid along her cheeks, tugged through her hair, pulling her head back so that he could kiss her arching throat.

She roamed her hands over the back of his shoulders and up his neck, her nails dragging through his short hair.

“God, Darby,” he moaned.

His hands grasped the collar of her button-down flannel shirt. He tugged. A button popped. Then another.

He broke their kiss to stare down at the swells of her breasts nestled in a black bra.

Gooseflesh broke out over her exposed skin from the frigid air, but it didn’t matter, he couldn’t
stop. He cupped one mound, kneading and lifting it within the lacy black cup. He nipped at the top of the plump curve. He drew the pointed tip of one breast into his mouth, laving it with his tongue until the lacy fabric was wet and clinging to the turgid peak. She moaned, her fingers digging into his shoulders.

A car horn blared three times. They jumped apart. Niklas spun around. A car with a pair of giggling women rolled past. One rolled down the window to shout, “Get a room!”

He turned back around just in time to see Darby disappearing inside the room.

With a disgusted sigh, he dragged both hands through his hair and stared out at the lightly falling snow. He waited several moments for his lust to cool. When it became obvious that was never going to happen, he followed her back inside.

A faint glow of blue suffused the room from the television she’d turned on. Darby was in bed, curled up next to Aimee as if nothing had happened between them.

She ran her fingers through the girl’s hair in a languid motion.

He eased down onto his chair. A movie played that he’d never seen before. Not that he spent a lot of time watching TV.

“This is my favorite part.” Darby was whispering as if Aimee were awake and could hear her.

His gaze moved to the television and he watched as a girl in period costume was torn away from a man she called papa.

“You see,” Darby explained, “he doesn’t remember that she’s his daughter because he was hurt in an accident. He can’t remember anything anymore, not even himself. But keep watching …”

Just then the actor on the screen presumably remembered his identity and the identity of his daughter and took off after her through the pouring rain, sweeping her up into his arms. Grand music played in the background.

“And there.” Darby’s satisfied voice floated over the room. “He remembered. And they live happily ever after.”

Darby glanced down, the smile slipping from her face as she eyed Aimee, still sleeping restlessly, her thin chest rising and falling rapidly beneath the bedcovers.

Niklas looked away, feigning interest in the movie and not this woman he was coming to understand. And like. It wasn’t just lust—he liked her.

Her company was torture. On so many levels. He looked out the drab motel curtains that
smelled faintly of mildew and told himself he was checking the conditions of the road and not struggling with every fiber of his being to ignore the woman a few feet away.

A
IMEE SETTLED DOWN AFTER
a while, her breathing easier, less raspy. Darby pressed a hand to her brow and gave a satisfied nod. She even felt less feverish.

With a relieved sigh, Darby carefully rose from the bed and grabbed her things. Deliberately not looking to the man who sat like a marble statue in the chair by the window … the man who had kissed her outside the motel room and left her confused. And hungry for more.

She slipped into the bathroom again.

Stripping off her clothes, she hesitated in the small space, shivering in her bra and panties, examining herself, trying to see herself as Niklas might. She winced, heat crawling up her face.

She couldn’t help herself. She stared at the door. The flimsy particleboard. It was all that separated her and Niklas. Her belly tightened and her breasts ached, remembering his touch there. She shook her head and snatched her toothbrush from her small cosmetic bag.

After brushing her teeth—more vigorously than usual—and changing into a pair of pajama bottoms
and top, she reemerged. He’d turned out the lights. It startled her for a moment, walking out into a darkened room, and she paused, her eyes adjusting.

The only light flowed through the tiny part in the curtains that let in an orange glow of the motel’s perimeter lights. She made out his dark shape still in a chair by the window. She felt his eyes on her.

“You’re not coming to bed?” She winced at the intimate sound of the question. For some reason the idea of him sitting in that chair in the dark as she slept made her uneasy. She’d have preferred he got into his bed and slept, too.

“I’ll get some sleep in a while.”

She nodded as if she understood or approved this. It was just a thoughtless movement because she didn’t really know what to say to him. Or what to think. Or how to act. He was doing this great thing for them—he could have ignored her pleas and finished Aimee off. And she couldn’t have really blamed him. His logic was correct. Which told her that some part of him had to be following his heart.

She slid into bed beside Aimee. Instantly, the girl’s baking heat reached out to envelop her. She lightly grazed the child’s arm. She was feverish again. Her skin burned and was slippery-wet with perspiration.

“You sure this fever will break?” She couldn’t stop the worry from entering her voice.

“It will,” he replied in that flat voice. “Initiation lasts a few days, but it will break. And she’ll be a lycan when it’s done.”

Her jaw clenched at the reminder. He got it in every chance. Like she could ever forget. “She won’t be a lycan until moonrise.”

“Let’s just say she won’t be human anymore once the fever breaks.”

She exhaled. She could handle that. What was Darby after all? A witch. What was he? Something
similar to
a lycan.

Neither were normal human beings. And they still deserved a chance, a hope for life. They were still struggling through each and every day. Like them, Aimee deserved a chance, too. And Darby was going to make sure she got it. She wondered why Niklas didn’t see it that way, too.

D
arby woke in the middle of the night. She wasn’t certain what roused her, but her every nerve was stretched taut. She’d woken like this before … seemingly with no explanation to find there was a very real, very valid reason for her state of high alert. That reason was usually in the form of a late-night guest.

The demons never stayed too long when that happened. It was too cold, after all, for them to last beyond a few minutes. But they made the most of their time, tormenting her in an attempt to get her to submit. As a child they would send her sobbing in terror into her mother’s room.

She squinted through the gloom, trying to see if a shadow worked its way toward her in the dark, slithering over the walls and floor. Goose bumps broke out over her flesh as her gaze scanned the room, darting around wildly, searching for any hint of something that shouldn’t be there.

She clutched the three charms resting against
her chest and muttered a prayer low under her breath.

“What’s wrong?”

She jerked at the low voice. Her gaze darted toward the bed across from her. Apparently, he did sleep. Or at least he relocated himself to the bed.

Niklas’s eyes gleamed at her through the scant distance between their two beds. He slept shirtless. Her throat constricted at the sight of bare skin. Even in the gloom she could see the hard curve of his shoulder, the warm-looking male flesh, several shades lighter than the darker bedspread.

Her breathing grew tight and raspy, like she’d run a short distance at high speed, sprinting the last half mile on one of her runs. She couldn’t help wondering what else he had on under those covers. Or didn’t.

“What’s wrong?” he repeated.

She inhaled slowly and evenly through her nose. “Nothing,” she replied, her gaze once again darting around the room. Suddenly it seemed like a very good idea to look anywhere other than at him, so close, in that bed.