Night Falls on the Wicked (20 page)

“No!” Darby snapped. “Don’t listen to him. There’s no evidence this is true. It’s a myth.”

“There are many myths,” Darius countered, that slow smile there again. “Myths of lycans, witches, demons …”

Angry color flooded Darby’s face at this well-made point. “Well,
your
theory is truly myth.”

“I believe the answer lies in finding Tresa.”

“Leave her be,” she insisted, spacing out her words.

“I can’t do that.” He motioned a hand, encompassing himself it seemed, or maybe the world at large. “She’s responsible for all this and for whomever you’re hiding in that room that you’re trying to shield from me.”

Darby stiffened and scooted to position herself closer to the door, the fear once again all over her face that he would go after Aimee.

“Well,” Darius pronounced in that eerily polite way. “As delightful as this has been, I must be on
my way. Sorry to barge in on you both.” He looked at Darby. “And I’m sorry if I frightened you.”

Niklas returned to himself then, asking himself if he was really going to let this lycan leave. Lycans deserved death. This was a rabid animal that needed killing.

His hand moved to his weapon. Darby’s hand met his there, her chilled fingers covering his, stopping him. She shook her head swiftly at him.

Her presumption nearly pushed him over the edge … until he reminded himself he never fell off any edges. He never lost control. Could never take such a risk. Never would.

The lycan was almost out the door when Darby rushed over to him and boldly laid her hand on his arm. Something burned up inside Niklas at the sight. He had to force himself not to move, not to react.

“Please reconsider,” she pleaded. “Leave Tresa alone. If you’re truly the reformed lycan you claim to be, then leave her be. You can’t risk humanity.”

He smiled again and there was a touch of sadness there—if such a thing were possible for a lycan. “My existence is a risk to humanity.”

“So that makes it okay to risk mankind even more?” Niklas couldn’t stop his disgusted snort. If this lycan could decide not to kill and feed, then
he could decide to leave one witch alone. Especially if doing so was the
right
thing to do.

At that moment, the temptation to put a silver bullet into the bastard hit him harder than ever. Darby’s hand dropped from the lycan’s arm and some of the killing hunger pumping through him abated.

The lycan lifted his gaze to Niklas, and it was so knowing, so smug—as if he knew that every fiber inside Niklas was urging him to violence. Clearly, Darius knew—he felt Niklas’s rage, tasted it on the air. He knew. And not just because he was a lycan, but because he’d lured Darby in … because she’d touched Darius without fear—with an open heart.

With a final nod, Darius left.

Darby closed the door after him, hugging herself as if she were suddenly cold, bereft without the lycan’s presence. Niklas’s blood burned hotter, if that was possible.

“Don’t ever do that again,” he warned.

“Do what?” She blinked at him.

“Stop me from doing what I know I should do.”

Her eyes narrowed with understanding, darkening, more brown than green at that moment. “Meaning kill Darius?” She spoke his name like they were friends or something.

“For starters.” He nodded. “And don’t ever
place yourself in danger like that. He was a lycan, a killer, but you seemed to have a hard time remembering that.” He shook his head. “You
touched
him. I told you to hold silent. But what do you do? You insinuated yourself closer to a lycan.”

“He wasn’t a killer.”

“I seem to recall him saying that he was. Did you not hear that little announcement?”

“Yes. I recall. I also recall he said he
was
a killer.
Was
.”

He swiped a hand through the air. “Semantics. He’s a lycan. Lycans kill. He did. He will again. It’s not a switch he can shut off.”

“You’re a lycan,” she flung at him, her words as sharp and well aimed as an arrow. “Are you a killer, too? Should I trust my life and Aimee’s life to you?”

“I’m very much aware of what I am. A fact I battle every day. But I have control.” He didn’t shift. He resisted the pull of every moon. Unlike other lycans, he could shift whenever he wished. If he wished. And he didn’t. He never would.

“And so, apparently does that guy. He didn’t try to kill us.” She waved an arm toward the door. “Can’t you give him a break?”

“Why do you have to argue with everything I say?”

She expelled a heavy breath. “What do you
want from me?” She stepped forward to poke him in the chest with the sharp tip of her finger. “You want me to be a woman who meekly obeys your every whim? Well, sorry, but that’s not me.”

“I don’t
want
you at all,” he reminded her. “You’re the one who insisted on tagging along with me. That being the case, I would think you’d do what I say or risk getting left behind on your ass.”

She looked pissed now. Her features screwed tight. “You made a promise.”

“As did you. I told you that it was my way or nothing. Do you recall that you agreed to follow my lead and do as I say?”

She blinked several times but said nothing. Her bottom lip jutted defiantly. She remembered. Her answer was in her silence.

At last, she nodded—two hard jerks of her head. He sighed and dragged a hand through his hair. “Look. It’s late. We should just get some rest.”

A knock sounded at the door. He motioned for her to stay where she was and looked through the peephole. A waiter stood there. Niklas opened the door, letting the waiter carry in the tray of food. He’d forgotten he even ordered anything. Signing off on the bill, he turned to find Darby gone.

He moved to the bedroom she shared with the girl. “Darby?” he asked quietly.

Her shadow hovered near the bed where Aimee slept. “I’m not hungry,” she whispered quietly, dropping a hand on the nightstand and tugging off one of her shoes.

“You need to eat,” he insisted, hating the guilt he felt for coming down so hard on her.

“Is that a command?” she returned, her words a deliberate dig on his reminder that she needed to do as he said.

“No. It’s not.” Turning, he left the room, feeling hollow inside, lonelier than he’d ever felt. Strange, he’d never felt
alone
before. Now that he was with Darby, he felt …

He felt.

A
n hour later, Darby couldn’t deny she was hungry. Not too eager to run into Niklas again after the childish way she’d acted, she pressed her ear to the door to listen for the television. No sounds carried from the other side.

She should have just eaten when she had the chance, when the food was hot, instead of being so stubborn. Because he was right. She’d agreed to do as he said, to follow his lead. That had been the understanding when they first began this together.

She pulled open the door and peered out. The room was empty. The city skyline suffused the room with a dim glow. She moved to the tray and lifted the lid. Her burger and fries were still there, untouched.

Sinking onto the couch, she took a generous bite from her cheeseburger. It was cold but still satisfying to her growling stomach. She bit into a fry, then dropped it. That was one thing she couldn’t eat cold. She took another bite of the burger and
practically moaned. That was better than the first taste.

“So you were hungry.”

She jumped where she sat and struggled to swallow her bite. Covering her mouth with her fingers, she said accusingly, “You scared me.”

“How could I sleep with you out here moaning over your dinner?”

“You didn’t hear me.” She took a sip from the glass of water on the tray. He smiled and she knew he was teasing. She smiled back and took another bite. “Did you eat?”

“Yeah.”

She inhaled through her nose, finished chewing and took another sip before saying, “I’m sorry. You were right. I promised to follow your lead and then I—”

“I didn’t come out here for an apology.”

“No?” She plucked at the burger bun, tearing bits of bread between her fingers.

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“Why not?”

His eyes gleamed at her in the near dark, and she felt herself leaning closer, remembering their kiss, want to relive it again. Wanting to
live
. It had been too long. Too long feeling dead inside.

He didn’t move but his eyes lowered to her mouth. Her food was suddenly forgotten, replaced
with a new kind of hunger. She dropped her hand to his thigh, his muscles tightened beneath her hand, and she loved that. Loved that she did that to him.

She angled herself so that her lips were a hair’s breadth from his. She didn’t know where her courage came from—maybe the fact that she might never have a chance like this with him again. Who knew what the month would bring them? She only knew she wasn’t going to back down now. This could be her only shot.

The blood pounded so hard in her ears, she could hardly hear her words. “You don’t have to sleep.” Her fingers slid up his hard-muscled thigh. “Neither of us does.” She looked up at him from beneath her lashes. “Not yet.”

He released a ragged breath, not moving an inch as she closed her hand over the hard length of him, her palm pressing down on the erection straining against his pants. Air escaped between her teeth in a loud hiss as she tested the shape of him with her fingertips.

Warm fingers circled her wrist. Her gaze flew to his face, thinking he would stop her now. She drank in the sight of his strained face.

He didn’t remove her hand from him. His grip on her shifted, guided her hand to move. Up and down. Up and down. His gaze scorched her, blistering her very soul as he worked her over him.

He swelled beneath her touch, doubling in size. Desire pooled low in her belly. She squeezed her thighs tightly together, attempting to relieve the growing ache between her legs.

“See what you do to me?” he asked, dragging her palm over him, faster, harder, the stiff feel of him making her breath come harsh and swift. God, she wanted him. Hard and swift. She wanted him to fling her back on the couch and take her … to let that animal part of himself go.

She longed to feel him without the clothes between them. She wanted to feel the texture of him, test the pulsing heat of him in the palm of her hand. No barriers.

Unbuttoning the top of his pants, she drew the zipper all the way down and slipped her hand inside. She closed her fingers over the naked length of him. Silk on steel in her hand. She ran her thumb over the satin-smooth tip of him. His groan tore through her, filled her with a heady delight.

“Niklas,” she whispered, scanning his face, the square jaw, the hard lines and shadowed hollows. The throat that worked in speechless wonder at what she was doing to him.

His eyes blazed down at her, the fire there unmistakable. An answering flare burned through her blood, her soul, filling the emptiness, the lonely ache that had been there for too long now.

Lowering her head, she tasted him with her tongue in a deep lick. He shuddered beneath her and she licked him again, swirling her tongue around the head of him. She did this several times, feeling him tense and tighten beneath her like a winding coil. At last, she took him fully in her mouth, slid her lips down the length of him. He released a low cry, his hips thrusting to meet her plunging mouth.

She reveled in his groans, in the sensation of his hands tangling in her hair. He was hers. Totally at her mercy.

“Stop,” he cried out brokenly, his strong hands clamping down on her arms and pulling her to him. He lifted her onto his lap and swallowed her sound of protest with his mouth.

He drank long and deep from her lips, obliterating her senses. His hands gripped her head, angling her for the onslaught of his lips. Then his hands moved, covered every inch of her until she was panting and moaning and rubbing herself against him, desperate to end the agony of wanting him.

His mouth kissed a fiery path down her throat, teeth dragging and nipping at her skin. He buried both hands in her hair, pulling her head back again for his ravaging mouth.

A deep ache tugged in her belly, throbbing and squeezing for relief.

She jerked with sudden memory. She’d seen
this, lived this
before. This was her vision. She had predicted this happening.

“Darby,” he rasped, the softness of his lips against hers a direct contrast to the rough, guttural sound of his voice. “I didn’t want this … I tried.”

She shook her head, not understanding, not able to make sense of his words. The taste of him made her head whirl, spicy warmth in her mouth. Her shaking hands pulled his sweater over his head and caressed his sculpted chest.

Words were beyond her. There was only him. And the delicious way he made her feel. She didn’t want to wonder if what they were doing was right or wrong. She didn’t want to think about tomorrow … or the month’s end. She wanted only to savor.

Her palms skimmed his firm chest, curving over warm flesh, velvet skin stretched tight over muscle and sinew. Incredibly, it seemed he was hers now. His body, at any rate.

He took her bottom lip between his teeth, nipping gently and murmuring against her mouth, “I don’t care what I said.” His hoarse voice stoked the heat in her belly into a nest of writhing flames. Pulling back, his hands skated up her arms. “I want you.”

Relief rippled through her at his words. Because it would kill her to stop now.

His shining eyes burned fire in the room’s dim glow, searing a path directly to her heart. “Tell me you want this.”

Darby closed the one-inch distance separating their lips and kissed him with everything she had, letting him know exactly what she wanted from him. “There,” she said, coming up for air.

He growled and hauled her against him, showering fierce kisses over every inch of her face before his mouth fell on hers in a savage kiss.

He lifted her in one sweep and carried her into his bedroom and dropped her on the bed. Still standing, he shrugged free from the rest of his clothes and stood before her as she had never seen any man. She’d never been with a man who looked like this. He was magnificent. All hard lines, curving muscles and shadowed hollows that made her mouth tingle, eager to taste.