Where Dark Collides: Part 1 (Shades of Dark) (5 page)

The ‘To Let’ sign had only gone up last Monday, and Kial had made some throwaway comment about having outgrown his apartment. A few days later, he’d signed the lease. Last night, he’d moved into the four-bedroom detached next door.

“Yeah,” Beth drawled. “You seem to have that effect on him.”

“”What effect would that be?”

“Spurts of uncharacteristic spontaneity.”

“Firstly, how can you be sure it’s that uncharacteristic?” I linked my arm in Beth’s, dragging her up the driveway.

Three years ago, Kial had rocked up at my parents’ funeral, introducing himself as a distant, distant cousin from Sidney. He’d been so easy to lean on, an instant friend to draw strength from. He was Angeon, part of our world, the bond established before we’d ever met. But Kial was the kind of guy who gave a lot of himself without revealing much, without ever fully letting anyone in.

“Secondly,” I said lightly, “don’t blame me for his crazy.”

“He’s in love with you.”

I blinked. Of all the things I’d been blind-sided by today, this one topped the list. Yeah, even higher up there than Demors’ shape shifting. “What?”

“Oh, come on, you’ve never noticed?” She gave me the ‘
don’t be coy
’ look. “How he follows you with his eyes, with every one of his ninety-nine senses? He’s head over heels, love at first sight, all that bullshit, all the way.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“About the senses? Okay, that might be a slight exaggeration.”

“You are so wrong, I’m not even going to bother arguing.” I rolled my eyes at her. I might not have had a date in three years, but I wasn’t totally oblivious to signals from the opposite sex. “Kial’s never crossed the line.”

“He bought the house next door,” Beth huffed, clearly losing patience. “He came across from Sidney for the funeral, took one look at you, and forgot all about going home.”

“He stayed for the Demors,” I said, arguing despite my sensible intentions. We knew their base was somewhere here, possibly further up north. “If he stayed for me, it was only to help me eradicate them once and for all.”

Beth slid her arm from mine and stalked ahead. “You’re impossible to— Raine!” She came to an abrupt halt. “The window!” Her voice dropped. “Do you think it followed us?”

“No,” I said quickly, taking in the gaping hole that still marred the front of my house. The window company had assured me they’d get here by ten. So much for that. “We had an unexpected visit last night.”

“Demors?”

The way she glared at me, as if the window was all my fault, was precisely why I censured so much of my life from my best friend. As much as I could get away with, anyway. “Who else?”

“So, they know where you live now?”

I shrugged. “It was bound to happen.”

“You promised you wouldn’t be reckless.”

“I’m not!”

“You promised you’d—” She took a deep breath, mangled her lower lip for a long moment. “Okay,” she sighed. “At least Kial’s next door.”

“Now that’s a good omen?”

She threw me a scowl. “You know, maybe I’m wrong and he’s not madly in love with you,” she said, walking again. “Maybe he took one look at you and knew he’d need to stick around to save your ass one day.”

“Hey, I don’t need ass-saving,” I called after, too late to recall when I realised my front door had just swung open.

“I’ve wasted my morning waiting for the window company to show up so you could go shopping.” Kial stood there, a lazy grin kicking in, the ice in his blue eyes melting with humour. “I’d call that ass-saving.”

How much had he heard?

Beth shot her eyes skyward, apparently done with this conversation, and pushed past him to go inside.

“Have you heard from them?” I asked Kial.

“They’re on their way,” he said. “But don’t hold your breath, that was an hour ago.”

I touched his arm as I passed, thanking him with a smile. “I really appreciate you hanging around here.”

“No problem.”

I paused in the hallway, preparing to broach the subject of Demor panthers while he closed the door, my gaze unintentionally searching for the details Beth insisted I’d missed.

Kial was tall, a couple of inches over six feet, toned with lean muscle that graced deadly skill. I’ve watched him fight; hand-to-hand combat with a Demor. His white T-Shirt rippled down the lines of his torso to just below the hip, his jeans worn-through to fit his thighs without being too snug.

Long fingers pushed through his dark blonde hair as he turned to me, his eyes still warm, friendly, his narrow face sculpted with the kind of symmetry that knocked handsome into the ballpark of devastatingly, hauntingly sexy.

I don’t know; maybe if he weren’t my cousin, however many times removed, I’d burn into his touch instead of using those broad shoulders for comfort.

But he was.

Maybe if he ever turned an ounce of charm on me, my knees would buckle and I’d be lost.

But he hadn’t.

A smile tipped his mouth, teasing, challenging. “What?”

Not a flirtatious innuendo on the horizon.

I shook my head, returning the smile for a moment, then grew serious. “Have you heard anything about Demors shape shifting again?”

“Panther form?” He prodded me in the back to start walking. “They were stripped—”

“—after The Terror, yes I know.” The perfect opportunity for his hand to linger in a sensual caress, or just linger, But no, he
prodded.
Beth was so wrong, it was laughable. “But have there been any rumours, reported sightings, anything like that?”

He looked at me, his eyes creasing. “What’s going on?”

I guess that meant no.

“I have to show you something. Beth…?” I called out.

“In here!” Her voice led us to the kitchen.

She was bent over the sink, sleeve pushed up, her arm under the running water.

I didn’t think the scars would scrub away, but I’d be doing the same in her position.

Tossing my bag near Beth’s pile on the pine table, I slumped onto one of the rickety chairs around the table and waved Kial in her direction. “Take a look at Beth’s arm.”

He crossed the kitchen in slow strides.

When he reached her, Beth turned off the faucet and flipped her arm over under his nose.

He grabbed her wrist, pushing her arm back to a distance he could look at without going cross-eyed. “A cat?”

As soon as the words left his mouth, he put two and two together. It was there in the sudden tension at his jaw. The grit underlying his tone. “How long ago?”

“Fifteen…twenty minutes,” I said, although I wasn’t sure why it mattered. Beth’s arm had healed. The problem was the scars.

Kial took another close look before dropping Beth’s arm.

His gaze shot to me. “You saw it?”

“We both did.” I watched his face register the unthinkable, cold hard truth. But not that unthinkable or unimaginable, clearly, since we were all thinking it, imagining the worst.

I wondered, briefly, at how fluidly we’d all accepted a possibility that was
fact impossible
, but then Kial was talking again and I was listening.

“The scratches will fade and then disappear as your body fights off the residual poison,” he told Beth. “Panther claws don’t just cut, they infect.”

I stared at him. “How can you know all that?”

“How can you not?” he countered. “Why do you think Demors can’t procreate without drawing from their panther power? It is the essence of their being, the core of their strength. Take another look at your history books, Raine, read between the propaganda.”

I met Beth’s eyes. Neither of us were about to admit we’d scarcely taken a first look.

“Angeons weren’t always superior, mightier.” His gaze rested on me, and I couldn’t be sure, but was there a touch of judgement there? “There’d never have been an ageless war if Demoran could have been defeated as easily as you take down Demors. When they were stripped of their panther form, they were also stripped of nine-tenths of their power.”

“And now at least one of them has got it back,” Beth said dully, “and it wants me dead.”

Kial shifted, propped himself against the counter, folding his arms as his gaze shifted from me to Beth. “If he’d wanted you dead, you’d be dead.”

The finality of that statement sent a shudder down my spine. I was complacent—although not reckless, I wasn’t admitting to that—when it came to taking on Demors. But the way Kial spoke, all the vigilance, diligence, preparedness and training in the world wouldn’t make a jot of difference.
If he’d wanted you dead, you’d be dead.

“Thanks,” Beth grumbled. “I feel so much better now.”

I pulled myself together. Demors had already taken my mom and dad; they weren’t getting anyone else. If a Demor wanted me or mine dead, they were out of luck. This wasn’t arrogance speaking; this wasn’t me feeling superior, mightier or complacent. This was simply about what I could and could not accept. I refused to curl into a ball and accept a blanket statement like that. If a Demor wanted anyone I loved dead, they’d have to go through a hundred miles of serious crap, and me, before the sentence ended.

“Is there anything in those history books about reversing the curses and restoring what the Guardians stripped from us?” I asked, promising myself then and there a rigid study session. When the ancient past bleeds into the present, it’s time to dust off the leather-bound volumes. “Or about the Guardians changing their minds?”

“The Guardians never change their minds,” Kial said, his tone flat and definitive.

“Naturally.” Beth left his side to join me, pulling out a chair and propping her elbows on the table. She smirked. “That would mean admitting they were wrong.”

“Well, someone did something somewhere,” I pointed out grimly, seriously rethinking my ardent support of the Guardians.

Kial’s brow furrowed as he gave that some thought. “The Graces break the rules all the time.” He shrugged, as if it wasn’t a big deal. “Why should the Fates be any different?”

If I had a Grace or Fate in front of me right now, I’d smack their smug face. Actually, make that a Guardian, too. Maybe they didn’t have a direct hand in this catastrophe, but they’d already proved they didn’t mind stepping down when they felt the urge. Now would be an excellent time to have another urge.

“Wow,” Beth said to Kial, “aren’t you just the fountain of ethereal knowledge.” Her cheeks squeezed between her palms, she looked as grumpy as she sounded. “Where do we toss our coin in and grab a proper answer?”

Kial looked at me. “What’s eating her today?”

I went with, “A three-hundred pound black cat with really big claws?”

Snarky, but I wouldn’t mind a straight answer or two, either.

“What kind of rules do the Graces break?” I grilled him. “And seriously, where do you learn this stuff?”

These weren’t the mocking, rhetorical questions of Beth’s variety. This wasn’t the first time Kial had mentioned the Graces. I had my suspicions, but they were watery vague. Normally, I didn’t press Kial when he let the occasional oddball comment drop. But today was different. If my world was going to upend, I needed a freshly minted map.

He cocked a brow at my demand for him to show and tell. The smirk grazing in his expression told me,
‘Not today, perhaps tomorrow, probably never.’

The doorbell chimed, limiting my come-back options to, “That’d better be the window company.”

“I’ll get it.” Kial pushed away from the counter, knuckling the underneath of my chin as he passed me on the way out. “
That
face will only chase them away.”

I cleared my scowl.
Yeah, he’s totally smitten with me.
I twisted my head to get another look at Beth’s arm. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Besides my insides shrivelling at the thought of bits of Demor crawling inside me…?” She brought her gaze back from the doorway, and Kial’s departing back, as she spoke. “I’m fine, really.”

“Beth, I’m sorry, if you hadn’t been with me—”

“Don’t you dare make this your fight.” Her eyes glittered with stubbornness (as physically weak as Beth was, she was no coward). “Demors are shape shifting again and that has nothing to do with your vendetta.”

Yeah, I didn’t buy that. “I’m the one who’s been poking them, stirring up the hornet’s nest.”

She reached out, her hand folding over mine on top of the table. “Don’t take offence, sweetie, but that panther faded in and out lightening quick. To use Kial’s words, if he’d wanted
you
dead, you’d be dead. This one was after me.”

I still wasn’t convinced. But this was my guilt to bear, and I wouldn’t offload it onto Beth. I thought of my parents, of their mangled bodies, and my throat closed tight.

“He can’t have you,” I said, my voice gruff, hitching. I leaned in, our foreheads almost touching. “I won’t allow it.”

She met the determined, resolute look in my eyes, and gave a slow nod. “I know.”

Beth was good that way. She knew when an argument would make things worse rather than better.

The muted sounds of soft-soled footfalls on hardwood drew my head back.

Beth’s gaze flashed over my shoulder. A second later, an, “Oh,” rolled off her lips.

“Raine,” came Kial’s curt announcement, “you have a visitor.”

I swung around as I pushed to my feet, expecting trouble. It had been that kind of day. What I got was Roman La Mar, standing in my kitchen.

If he’d shaved, it was not evident. A shadow darkened his jaw and stretched into the hollows. Dark grey, designer-cut trousers shaped sleek, muscled thigh. The cotton-thin, navy sweater he wore as a shirt crept up a chest carved in rippled stone to end in a high V at his throat.

“I’m interrupting,” he said in that deep, honey blended rumble, jade eyes boring into me without a hint of apology.

“No, not at— We were just—”
Why had he…?
I couldn’t complete a sentence, could scarcely complete a thought.
What was he doing here?
I was guessing it wasn’t for the coffee he’d run out on this morning.

Instead of helping me out, a grin cracked that granite jaw.

Kial put his shoulder to the wall, legs crossed loosely at the ankle, his thumbs hooked into the belt of his jeans. “I tried to tell him now wasn’t convenient for a social call,” he drawled, ice flowing over a hot stream. “Apparently I was too nice about it.”