Untouchable Darkness (23 page)

Was far from it.

The woman was worried for her safety. But he was so happy, the man proposing, that this was it, she thought, he was going to stop beating her. He was going to stop, because he loved her.

The man smiled brightly, his thoughts were of killing her… finally, he breathed a sigh of relief…
she’ll be mine and nobody else’s, I’ll kill her before I let her touch anyone else. Mine. Mine. Mine.

As they embraced, bruises spread across her arms, her teeth fell out, blood spewed from her mouth, and the man began strangling her, and then, wrapped something around her neck, only to shoot himself in the head after.

With a startled gasp, Stephanie clung to me.

I pushed the darkness away, ignoring the tug to look further, and hugged her tighter instead.

“It’s getting worse!” She looked around at the people walking by, bumping into us, with each bump she was given a vision of the horror of their lives, of what they were capable of. “Stop! It needs to stop!”

“Shhh.” I held her as tight as I could and linked my thoughts to hers, pressing the darkness away. But it pressed back. Stronger than I’d realized. I tried again only to have it laugh in my face. “Cling to the happy… the light.”

“There is no happy,” she sobbed. “Everything is dark.”

“I’m light,” I whispered in her ear. “Look at me.”

She opened her eyes and then slowly, the black slid away from her irises, returning them to a milky white and then bright blue. “What just happened?”

“That…” I led her away from the crowd. “Is Darkness. It’s why it’s so tempting. Why let that couple live… when their certain future is doom?”

Cassius

“I
T’S MY JOB TO
keep the peace.” Stephanie shuddered in my arms then jerked away from me as black spread throughout her white eyes. “We should destroy them all.”

“And then what?” I asked. “To what end?”

“Peace.” Her voice took on a gravelly edge that I recognized.

Was it so long ago that I’d lost Eva? That I’d allowed Darkness to consume me? That I’d wanted nothing more than to jump into the black hole and allow it to embrace every part of my soul I still possessed? For a few minutes, it had felt right. But Ethan, Mason, and Alex had not allowed it.

Luckily, Ethan’s words had made sense at the time, enough sense that I used my strength to push away from Darkness and allow myself to mourn.

Mourn the life I felt like I should have had.

The life Darkness said I deserved.

But Darkness, didn’t just call for the death of humanity, it also called for the death of Angels and immortals alike.

Darkness was within everyone.

It lays dormant, until it sees the perfect opportunity to offer a better suggestion to your circumstances.

Darkness is in humans.

It’s in immortals.

It’s in the very air we breathe.

But the worst type of darkness is the kind we keep in our hearts… we treasure it, hold it dear, allow it to help us justify our actions, and when it’s too late, we blame it for everything while it points its finger back at us and laughs.

Sighing, I reached out and pressed my fingers against her lip allowing the frost of my fingertips to cool her hot body down.

With a gasp she sucked in one finger, then two, then jerked my body against hers our mouths fused in a battle of dominance as I spread my cold around her.

Darkness was always hot.

Comforting, to a Dark One, until it burned that Dark One alive.

“Come back,” I whispered, my lips pressed against hers as I called to her light…”Come back to me.”

Stephanie slumped against my body her breathing erratic as her fingers dug into the muscles in my back.

“I think I want to be done training for the day.” Her voice was scratchy, like she’d just spent the last few minutes screaming at the top of her lungs, and who knew? Maybe she had. Maybe she was yelling at Darkness, maybe that’s what it took to pull away.

“It will get easier,” I promised. “It just takes time.” Still trembling, I held her as tight as I could, swearing to myself I’d die before I let anything happen to her, and in a thought of true irony—to save her from the darkness, from herself, I’d allow her to kill me.

If that’s what it took.

I’d accept my fate.

Gladly.

“You know how Ethan gave Genesis lessons about immortals and our history?” Stephanie asked, changing the subject as we walked hand in hand down the sidewalk.

“Yes.”

She stopped. “I think it’s my turn.”

“Hell.” I released her hand. “I’m not sure that’s the best idea.”

“You don’t even know what I’m asking!”

“Yes, I do.” My laugh was completely without humor. “You want to know what the darkness really is, you want to know Dark Ones history 101.”

She nodded.

“Hell.”

“You said that already.”

“Steph…”

“Please?” She reached for my hand, gripping it. “If I just understood it, I could fight it.”

I wrapped my arms around her waist and whispered. “Lie.”

“Huh?”

“You lied to yourself.”

“We can do that?”

“We’re half human, we can do anything they can.”

“Can Angels lie?”

“They could,” I said slowly, then rolled my eyes. “Damn it, you’re going to get it out of me one way or another aren’t you?”

“My next offer was some sort of mind blowing sexual experience… with snow.”

I chuckled despite myself and the tense topic. “Snow, huh?”

“Lots of snow. You like snow.”

“Who told you that?”

“Genesis.” Stephanie shrugged. “I may have let it slip that I could dream walk and she said in your guys dreams you always had snow surrounding you. You said it was comforting.”

“Home.” Emotion clogged my throat. “Always brings comfort.”

“Home?” Stephanie repeated. “What do you mean home?”

“Where I was born. It always brings comfort. Snow… represents where I was born.”

Stephanie leaned in, sniffing the air. “Truth. So, Cassius…” She patted my stomach, I’d seen human couples do that before in teasing and never understood the need for such trivial flirting with one’s hands… until her hands were on me, until I was part of the couple, and every single glance and caress my way was like breathing for the first time, after being without air for an eternity. “Where were you born? Siberia?”

“Da.” I confirmed in Russian and then pressed my fingertips to her wrist.

Stephanie

“W
HERE ARE WE?”
I gasped, rubbing my arms, they weren’t necessarily chilled, but they felt colder than ever before. The sun was just starting to set, casting a beautiful orange glow across a small city.

It reminded me of Christmas.

And the movie Frozen. The one that Genesis had forced Mason to watch only to ask him later if he could morph into a reindeer instead of a wolf for Halloween.

He’d said he’d attempt it. Ethan and Alex still made fun of him for his promise, but that was Mason. He lived to make others happy—maybe it was because he wasn’t capable of happiness himself.

“Mason,” Cassius said, interrupting my thoughts, “has a bright future.”

“And Alex?” I couldn’t help but ask.

“Once you can control your power you’ll be able to comb through futures at ease,” Cassius explained. “And Alex has… an intriguing few months ahead of him.”

“Hmm.” I liked the sound of that.

The wind picked up just as the sun made its final descent behind the snow covered mountains blanketing everything but the few street lights in darkness.

“I forgot how quiet it was here.” Cassius mused, grabbing my hand in his. We were both still in our street clothes. Jeans and T-shirts.

He quickly tugged me into the first store on the main street and pulled out a fur coat, hat, and pants that looked two sizes too big for my legs. Boots were tossed in my direction, and then he was at the counter speaking in a harsh language I’d never heard him speak before.

Could it be that Cassius really
was
… Russian?

The man at the desk laughed loudly then pulled out a shot glass and a bottle of vodka. He poured one for himself, took it, then poured one for Cassius.

Without breaking his laugh, Cassius tossed the alcohol back and slammed the shot glass back onto the table.

They shook hands.

While I stood there open-mouthed like I’d just seen a miracle occur. Cassius, almost appeared normal. Almost.

And then he smiled, and I was reminded all over again why he was so beautiful, so effortlessly gorgeous that it hurt to look at his face for too long of a stretch. His beauty was like a constantly changing painting, I always noticed something different about his face, his bright blue eyes, how dark his lashes were ,the angle of his jaw, the shape of his sculpted lips—there was always something interesting something unique, different, and I was immortal, I was used to seeing pretty things.

I self-consciously tugged at my dark hair. Had my appearance altered much since the glamour wore off? Humans didn’t seem to stare at me any differently, maybe longer, but they were born with a natural fear of things they didn’t understand—and immortality was something they would never be able to comprehend, meaning, they usually gave us a wide berth, even if they were interested.

Sensual lips pressed together in a wicked smirk as Cassius held out his hand. “Do you like the boots?”

“I’m wearing Mason.” I stared down at the furry boots and laughed. “I think he’d be pissed if he saw these.”

“They don’t hunt those types of wolves up here,” Cassius promised. “Even Mason’s kind stay away from the bitter cold of Oymyakon.”

“Siberia…” I shivered again even though the cold was normal for my typically frigid body. “So you
were
serious.”

Cassius smiled even wider, maybe being home was good for him.

“So…” I spread my free arm out as we walked down the abandoned icy streets. “This is where young Cassius grew up.”

Cassius’s face darkened for a brief moment before he grabbed my hand and started whistling.

The tune wasn’t familiar, but its haunting melody had me shivering as he continued to whistle and the wind picked up. I wrapped my jacket tighter around myself and ducked into his body.

I’d always hated the wind. When I was little it had reminded me of anger, of cold, and now that I was a Dark One and didn’t really get cold in the same way, I still hated it because it was still angry.

Wind was nature’s temper tantrum.

At least it had always felt that way.

“Wind…” Cassius stopped whistling. “…is a warning of things to come.”

I frowned. “In nature or in life?”

The wind dipped and roared down the street as we made our way toward a small dark house.

“Both.” Cassius began whistling again, and the wind howled right along with him. By the time we made it to the house it had started to snow, the wind causing near white out conditions.

“Be afraid,” Cassius whispered. “Of the beauty of the heavens.”

“What?”

“Humans are afraid of what they do not understand, but the minute they come into contact with the very thing that brings them fear, and aren’t burned or harmed in any way, bravery takes over… they touch.” He winced. “They explore.” His body trembled. “And they fall.”

It seemed liked he was talking in riddles.

He pushed the door open.

A fire was lit in the hearth taking the chill away from my body immediately.

Stepping into the house was like stepping back in time.

A woman rocked back and forth in an old rackety chair, facing the fire, her small hands knit furiously at what looked like a child’s sweater. “I knew you would eventually come.”

Cassius hung his head, then pressed his hand to my back, pushing me toward the woman.

With a sigh, the woman stood, the fur blanket fell from her shoulders and she faced me.

“What…” I shook my blurry confused head. “What are you?”

I didn’t sense that she was human… but there was something about her blood as I sniffed the air.