Untouchable Darkness (12 page)

How the hell was I supposed to do that while training her? I’d be helping her access the darkest parts of her soul. I’d be hurting her, she’d be hurting me. It was a nightmare.

“Sure.” My humanity won out, blurting the answer before my brain could catch up. “Sure I can do that. But I refuse to let you go into any of their compounds by yourself. You take either Ethan or Mason with you.”

“Not Alex?” she teased.

I rolled my eyes. “Sirens are all about love, not war. You know this.”

She nodded. “I know it firsthand.”

I had a hard time focusing on the words coming out of her mouth, especially when her eyes were so bright, so inviting. I looked away. “You’ll always have that part of you, Stephanie.”

“The Siren part?”

I smirked. “Don’t all women?”

“Funny.”

“I mean it.” I frowned as a piece of her hair fell across her face, shielding those gorgeous eyes I was so obsessed with. Without thinking, I brushed her hair back with my fingertips, her mouth opened with a little gasp. “It was easy, casting a Siren’s glamour, because you were so beautiful it wouldn’t take much convincing for other immortals to buy into it.”

Was it so wrong? To hide her away for hundreds of years? To keep the truth of her heritage hidden from her, until now? At the time I was protecting her. Thinking Sariel would kill her. Dark Ones were still an abomination, regardless of our parentage.

She gulped and looked down, her chest rose and fell, though she didn’t need oxygen, she was sucking it in like she was about to pass out.

“I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “For suppressing your powers. I did it—” The words hung up in my throat.
Out of love. Out of devotion. Out of fear.
“I did it to protect you.”

She glanced up. “I know, Cassius. I’m not upset, not anymore. I just wish…”

“What?” I stepped closer, our bodies nearly touched. “What do you wish?”

“Why did you always walk away from me?”

I licked my lips and leaned in until our mouths almost touched. “Walking away—when all I wanted to do was walk toward you—had to be the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But everything I did—every decision made—was in order for you to flourish, to survive, to become something great.”

She let out a little laugh. “Wow, I must be such a disappointment then. I can’t control any of my emotions, and I’m one hissy fit away from freezing your ass or killing people I love by simply willing it.”

“You won’t,” I vowed. “I mean you won’t kill your family. And you are the furthest thing from a disappointment.”

She shrugged.

“Look at me.”

Slowly, Stephanie lifted her head, her eyes filled with shame.

“You’re perfect,” I whispered reverently. “And I wouldn’t want you any other way.”

“So you want me now?” she asked with an intriguing lilt in her voice. A smile gently curved her lips. I could tell she said it in a lighthearted way, but it didn’t matter. I knew that. My heart skipped a beat anyway.

“More than you’ll ever know.”

My answer surprised her. She took a step back, her eyebrows knit together like she was trying to figure out my answer.

Twenty-eight days. My mind reminded me. With a flourish I jerked her body against mine and kissed her.

She melted against my body.

And my body—loved it. Drank her in like she was my salvation. My only reason for existing. I moaned, unable to control the sounds coming from my mouth, the physical reaction from my body as she deepened the kiss, as I tasted every inch of her mouth.

“Ahem,” someone said from the door.

Stephanie jerked away from me.

Was she ashamed? Or embarrassed?

Irritated, I barked out, “What?”

“Attack.” Ethan moved into the room, followed by Mason. “At Belltown. We need to go investigate. It looks like a few Demons got into it with a few Vampires, though nobody’s talking.”

Stephanie placed her hand on my chest. “We go, he goes.”

“Agreed,” Ethan snapped. “We’ll need his expertise, though if I tell you both to run, you run, got it?”

I rolled my eyes.

“Don’t.” Ethan hissed in my direction his eyes going green with fury. “You’re both important, the last thing we need is one of you dying. A dead council member? A dead king? It would start an all-out war.”

“We may already be there.” My skin tingled with awareness, something wasn’t right. I just didn’t know what, and I wasn’t sure how I could help other than appear to look in control.

Ethan cleared his throat and pointed at my body. “You’ll need a glamour spell to hide your pasty human skin.”

“My skin isn’t pasty!” I said defensively while Stephanie placed a hand against my chest.

“I can do it.” Mason stepped forward an excited grin on his face.

“Like hell you will!” I yelled. “The last time you performed a glamour, you turned Alex into a woman!”

“On purpose.” Mason sniffled.

I rolled my eyes. “You were supposed to make him appear feminine, big difference.”

“I’ll do it.” Ethan crossed the room at lightning speed then slammed me into the wall, his incisors nicked the inside of my right wrist. Eyes green, he murmured. “What I see others see. What I know. Others know.” He reached behind him. “Stephanie, come here.”

I doubted Stephanie had ever seen a glamour performed as it was usually male immortals who did it—and the only ones capable were Mason, myself, and Ethan—compliments of our age and the hierarchy of the council.

Eva had been the only woman capable of it.

But she was gone. Long gone.

Once Stephanie reached my side, Ethan leaned over and bit her finger then squeezed it over my wrist. Three drops of blue blood splashed into my cut and healed it immediately. The veins in my wrists turned an Angel blue as cold spread throughout my body.

It was a familiar feeling. One I missed.

I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the wall as ice over took my entire body. I convulsed, once, twice, and then opened my eyes.

The room was brighter, the air sweeter. I was still human, but the Angel blood fused with my cells enough to make me see better, my sense of smell more acute. It also took away the aches and pains in my body.

“Well done, Ethan.” Mason clapped twice. “He looks possessed again.”

I glanced at my reflection in the mirror across the room. My eyes were white, my skin glowing, even my hair was shinier. Everything about me looked the same.

But I was different.

And I wondered in that moment, if this was the beginning of the end. If I would ever be a Dark One again, or if I’d die trying to give Stephanie back the precious gift she should have never given me in the first place.

Maybe she would be my downfall after all.

The words echoed in my head.

“Let her live and she will hurt you,” Sariel warned.

“She’s innocent!” I screamed. “She’s done nothing wrong.”

Sariel smiled sadly. “But she will. Believe me. She will. Remember what your love did to you last time.”

“Time’s wasting.” Mason’s eyes turned black. “We need to hunt.”

Stephanie reached for my hand. I squeezed it once, intent on letting it go, but decided to hold it a bit longer, because she felt good and because I knew I needed to start appreciating every minute I had with her.

Because something told me—they would add up—and my time wouldn’t just be over—but nonexistent.

Cassius

Greece 79 AD

I
FOLLOWED HER SCENT
. I would stop her at all costs if things got out of hand. She’d promised.

She’d lied.

Again.

I wanted to turn a blind eye, mainly because whenever Eva was near, the world didn’t feel as dark or desperate.

The way she laughed and smiled through her immortal life was a thing of beauty, and I hated being the one responsible for dampening that light.

“Shh, I’ll return one day.” She whispered to the little child. His face was wet with tears. “Just be good for your mama, alright?”

He wrapped his tiny arms around her neck then kissed her cheek. “I love you.”

The air filled with sadness, drenched with such a hollow emptiness that I sucked in a breath.

Vampires weren’t supposed to be so emotional.

Leave it to a child to bring out the worst of human weaknesses in all of us. God forbid I ever felt such weakness.

“I love you too, John.”

Eva set the boy on his feet. He reached up and captured one of her dark curls between his fingers dropped it, and then turned on his heel and walked off.

“He’s precious,” she said aloud, already sensing my presence. “It was his birthday, I couldn’t allow him to think I didn’t care anymore.”

I crossed my arms. “Eva, there will always be something. A birthday, a holiday… You must leave him for good.”

“I want children.” Eva hung her head as I approached her from behind. “I’ve always wanted children.”

I could taste her desperation in the air as tension swirled between us. I’d known for a while Eva felt strongly for me, the way I felt for her.

But a union between a Dark One and a Vampire would do nothing but present us with hurt feelings when a bond failed to take place. We could not mate with one another.

And children were an impossibility.

“I can’t give you that,” I whispered, setting my hand on her shoulders. She gripped my fingertips. I shuddered from her warm touch.

Eva turned, her eyes green and beautiful as they gazed up into my cold depths. “We could adopt.”

I smiled at that. “Humans adopt. And you and I… will never be.”

“Immortality.” She wrapped her arms around my neck. I never allowed such liberties. “Not for the faint of heart, hmm Cassius?”

“No.” The temptation to kiss her was too strong to deny any longer, my mouth descended, fusing with hers, creating a hum of energy between us as her blood heated out of control, my touch cooled her as fangs descended past her top lips.

Our tongues twisted in a fight for dominance as I lifted her into my arms. The last thing we needed was to be seen in a forbidden embrace, not only was she a council member, but she was a Vampire, not mine.

She would end up with a snotty-nosed human.

One who would get her pregnant.

One who would love her like I never could.

Slowly, I pulled away from her, my hands pressing against her wrists as I lowered her arms to her sides.

“One day…” Her voice was filled with sadness. “…I’ll be mated to someone and you’ll forget all about me.”

“I highly doubt I’ll ever forget your taste, Eva.”

The air charged with a thick flowery scent. Eva’s eyes widened just as a voice said from behind me. “What have you done?”

Slowly, I turned.

Sariel’s eyes were white, his hair a blazing rainbow of blue and black streaks. His feathers protruded then shuddered as if they tasted the wrongness in the air. “Survivors?”

He shoved past me and Eva and pressed his fingertips against the door of the house.

“Two survivors. How many more? And why aren’t they destroyed?”

I couldn’t lie.

It wasn’t in my makeup as a Dark One to want to lie to my creator—to my father.

“I saved them,” I admitted while I grabbed Eva and shoved her behind me. “I saved twelve.”

“Twelve!” Sariel roared as the ground shook beneath our feet. “You were to destroy them all! Every. Last. One.”

“I did not.”

Sariel’s wings turned purple, the color of angelic royalty. He was about to pass judgment. “Then, you will die. Blood must always be spilled, you know this.”

I nodded, unable to conjure up any guilt over doing something that gave Eva happiness no matter how temporary.

I took a step forward.

“No!” Eva shouted. “It was me!”

“Eva!” I hissed out her name and shoved her body into the nearest wall, she stumbled back and glared. “Stay out of this.”

“You will not DIE because of me!” Her eyes glowed green as her fangs elongated past her bottom lip. Her gaze snapped to Sariel. “If you want a life. Take mine. I asked Cassius to save them. It is I who is at fault.”

“Very well.” Sariel nodded.

“You cannot be serious!” I charged Sariel fists clenched. “She’s a council member! She’s been around for centuries! You cannot simply eliminate her for one bad choice!”

“Oh?” Sariel’s head tilted to the side as he pulled a purple feather from his wings and held it out in front of him, the edge was black. The color of the Angel of Death. He meant to truly kill her, to make her no more. “We live by the rules, we die by the rules, Cassius. She broke the rules. She dies.”