Darkness Unleashed

by McKenzie Hunter

  “It was fun. Did you have fun?” I asked.

  “Of course. In my final days I will remember the day I painted ‘Love’ on a canvas while drinking cheap, overpriced wine. Yes, the memory will stay with me forever.”

  “Your sarcasm is neither warranted nor appreciated,” I shot back, grinning, and playfully jabbed him with my elbow.

  He ran his tongue over his lips. “You liked it, that’s what matters.” He paused for a moment. “We can store them in my garage”—he looked back at the canvases—“which is a better fate than they deserve. Once we have all your things in my house, we’ll find a place for them. I’m assuming there won’t be too many of them.”

  “What?” I spluttered. “‘Once we have all my things’?”

  Ethan continued to speed down the road, but his eyes drifted in my direction and his brow furrowed. “Yes. I assumed you would move into my house. It’s bigger. The forest behind it is larger—more space for us to shift and roam.”

  He kept speaking, and I really wanted him to stop. I hadn’t thought about our living arrangements and wasn’t ready to discuss them. Ethan brought the conversation to an abrupt stop as he pulled into my driveway. “Your vampire is here.” His voice had become rigid and cool, a contrast from his playful tone.

  Quell walked out from the shadows, his face expressionless and his eyes hollow. When I got out of the car, he tentatively advanced in my direction. Ethan had eased to my side and taken hold of my hand. Quell didn’t need to breathe, but he sucked in a breath anyway as his eyes trailed from my face and down my arm to Ethan’s fingers interlinked with mine.

  I gave Ethan’s hand a squeeze. “Will you give us a minute?” I asked him softly.

  Ethan hesitated, giving Quell a hard look, before barely nodding in agreement. Quell and I watched as he disappeared into the house.

  “Will you walk with me?” Quell requested quietly. He didn’t wait for an answer—he strolled into the woods, into the thick bosky area, until the many trees that surrounded my home obscured us. When he stopped, I left several feet between us. For several minutes, his midnight-colored, sorrow-drenched eyes remained fixed on me.

  They were so hard to hold. Even thinking fondly of when they’d once been an odd vibrant green didn’t make it any easier. And the long, weighted silence that existed between us was becoming increasingly difficult to bear. Closing the distance I had put between us, I gently touched his hand, hoping it would urge him to speak.

  The silence continued, cold, uncomfortable, and onerous.

  Closing the distance, he swallowed up any space I’d left between us, his movement nothing more than a blur. Leisurely, his finger trailed down my arm until it met the bare skin of my fingers, which he stroked absently for several moments. Then he stopped all movement and stared past me, the heaviness of his mood displayed solemnly on his face.

  “Michaela’s dead,” he finally said. The air carried his soft words and they continued to echo.

  I was angry with myself for feeling guilty about killing Michaela. There should never have been any guilt because her death had been deserved. For years, she had terrorized me and my pack for the sheer pleasure of it. She was undeserving of my remorse, and if it weren’t for Quell standing in front of me, I doubted I would’ve had any of those feelings. But I wasn’t remorseful that she was dead. I felt bad because I knew it had hurt him, and that was the last thing I’d wanted to do.

  Quell and I shared a tragic existence, one that couldn’t be easily dismissed. He turned from me and walked away. I followed him through the crowded, lush forest on a path that had been made by Steven and me constantly taking the same way whenever we went into the woods. Most of the time, it was my paws that trampled down the coarse grass. Quell walked slowly, his hands by his side, his long fingers periodically stroking mine nonchalantly. I was aware of the coolness that pressed against my skin every time he touched me.

  We’d been walking in silence for several minutes when the mood changed. It wasn’t heavy, but an acceptable resolve that seemed fitting as we stood in the deep verdant area, surrounded by trees, in a somnolent quiet—an easy silence that existed between us.

  When he turned to face me, his eyes still looked sorrowful and withdrawn. I remembered the time I’d forced him to feed from me because I hadn’t been able to let him die. I glanced over at the large leaves that extended from the poplars, reminded of how vibrant and green his eyes used to be. That color was evocative of the plant the Hidacus, which he’d fed from instead of humans. He’d abjectly refused blood from humans, whom he’d considered unworthy of the humanity they possessed.

  “I miss you,” he admitted softly, his voice carried lightly in the wind.

  “I miss you, too,” I said it, and I meant it. I felt a pang of guilt and betrayal about missing another man when I had Ethan. But the relationship I had with Quell was so different from what I had with anyone else. It transcended romance and friendship. It was odd, unexplainable, and something I treasured. Its nebulous existence was difficult for most people to understand.

  “Ethan said you have a donor now. How is that going?” I asked, aware of the way his gaze trailed along my features and down the curve of my jaw to the lines of my neck, where it stayed. I saw the thirst, something he’d denied himself. It was inexplicably who he was, no matter how much he denied his urges. At the end of the day, he was a vampire, and he had bloodlust. He required blood to survive. Although he approached it with a detachment that seemed clinical at best, he enjoyed taking human blood.

  “Had. I had a donor,” he murmured and then turned to walk away. I grabbed his arm, stopping him. I turned him to face me.

  “What do you mean, had?” I asked with repressed fear and agitation. I remembered the time he’d gone through bloodlust and killed several people. Not just people. Women who’d looked strangely like me.

  He continued to move. “I sent her away.”

  “How long ago?”

  “About a week and a half ago.”

  “Why?” I asked, rooted in place, allowing him to increase the distance between us. But there was more than just space between us. I knew he’d figured out I was responsible for Michaela’s death. Confession felt better than accusation, so I blurted out, “I killed Michaela.”

  “I know.” His shoulders sagged into the sigh. “That’s why I’m here,” he admitted.

  “For what, retribution? Revenge?”

  Quell’s eyes widened, then he frowned. “Of course not,” he said. And in a blink, he was in front of me, with a stake in hand. He studied me for a few minutes before placing it in my hands and grasping them between his. He lifted the stake to his chest. “I’m ready for you to do the same to me.”

  Wincing at his request, I let his words replay in my head in a loop as if they’d somehow change, hopeful I’d missed something or he’d misspoken. “What?”

  “I’m ready for you to do the same to me,” he repeated.

  I knew what he was talking about, but I needed him to say it. I needed him to vocalize that he was asking me to take his life. Perhaps if he heard how ridiculous it sounded, he’d recant.

  Without missing a beat, or even reconsidering his words, he said them again; voice flat. “You’ve taken the life of my creator, and now I am asking you to do the same for me.”

  Anger rose out of my confusion. I gawked at him, disgusted. “What is wrong with you?”

  He shook his head and looked stunned by my anger, as if he’d thought I would have willingly accepted taking his life for no other reason than he’d requested it. As if it were some odd circle I needed to complete or some peculiar task I had been committed to by killing Michaela.

  “Why does everything have to be so dramatic with you!” I shouted. I spun around, the stake still clenched in my hand, and walked so fast back toward the house I was nearly jogging.

  “Sky?” he said my name again, entreating me with a gentle timbre as he requested understanding. “This is inevitable. It’s been a long time coming
.”

  I hadn’t realized how much progress I’d made toward the house and was just several feet away when I sensed Ethan’s presence in the darkness. Cloaked by it, he stayed out of sight. Once again, the gentle lilt of my name crossed Quell’s lips. It didn’t sound nearly as ominous or cruel as his request. It implored forgiveness, though I wasn’t willing to give it. I was so angry I couldn’t tamp it down. And as much as I wanted to ignore that little tug of guilt that lingered, it emerged as well. I did what most people did in a situation like this—I lashed out. I spun around and pulled my lips back, exposing my teeth. “What do you want me to say? That I’m sorry?”

  “No, I want you to honor my request.”

  “I will not be a performer in your fucking production of angst and self-deprecation.” I closed my eyes and inhaled the air, hoping it would cleanse the memories and soothe my fiery anger. It didn’t. Rage blazed in me and rode me hard, along with the guilt. I forgot all the cruel things Michaela had done, all the havoc she’d wreaked, and only remembered that I’d killed the one person who linked Quell to the vampires. His creator, the person he’d loved unconditionally. I searched my emotions. Everything had melded together, and I couldn’t sort them out. Anger. Frustration. Sorrow. Confusion. For several moments, we stood in silence. His flat, despondent eyes seized my emotions in a manner I couldn’t understand. I stared at him.

  “She was cruel, and so are you. If you want to end your life, there are several ways you could do it. Instead, you came here and made me a participant in your self-loathing pity party. Don’t bring me into this. Don’t ask me to understand the screwed-up relationship you had with Michaela. And don’t you fucking dare ask me to assist you in ending a life you don’t feel worthy of living now that she’s gone. I thought you were better than this. You want to die—I’m sure there’s a line of people willing to do it.”

  “What you perceive as cruelty is nothing more than my final request for kindness.”

  I didn’t want his soft, gentle explanation. I wanted him to be angry and emotionally uncontrolled the way I was so it would be easier for me to deal with everything. I’d lost this battle because this was exactly what Michaela had wanted. If she couldn’t have him, no one else could, either, even as a friend. She’d wanted him in a perpetual state of sorrow, and she’d accomplished that. I looked at his grief-stricken eyes and felt lost. Helpless. I didn’t know what to do.

  “If only I could get the same kindness you request from me from you,” I growled back. Ethan had emerged from the darkness and was just inches from me. I spiked the stake into the ground, embedding it in the soil near Ethan’s feet.

  He looked at it, then at me, and allowed his gaze to travel in Quell’s direction before he knelt to pick it up.

  I growled and bared my teeth. They were clenched so tightly my jaw ached. “Don’t you dare pick that up.” I was fully aware that what I was reluctant and unable to do, Ethan was fully capable of. My scowl relaxed as he looked at me with defiance. I knew it was hard for him to deny a challenge, and I’d just challenged him. That beastly part of him that denied subjugation was defiant. The predator flashed, but he reined it in as he stood and took several steps away from the stake.

  I slowly backed away and Quell moved in my direction. I heard a hard thump, and I assumed it was Ethan’s palm hitting Quell’s chest to stop him because I heard Ethan say, “Let her go.”

  I was glad Ethan had stopped him. I was in a bad place where I couldn’t talk to him and be civil or kind. The cool air breezing across my skin wasn’t enough; I still felt like I was suffocating. Damn you, Quell.

  Once I started walking, there wasn’t any doubt where I would end up. I strode past the long stretch of forest, a vast area that gave me the space I needed to keep the necessary distance from my neighbor. I enjoyed my privacy, but this was one of the times when I wished David lived closer. Next door would be great. The sun had long set, and the moonlight lit the path up to his darkened home. Please be up, I thought as I knocked on his door.

  David answered the door with a nearly full wineglass in hand. He assessed my appearance, and his smile faded. His lips turned down into a frown. “Aw, what is it, pumpkin spice?” he said, stepping aside to let me in.

  Really. But it was better than being called kitten or a cream-filled pastry, so I dealt with it.

  I walked in. Trent, his partner, was sitting on the sofa. As usual, I was underdressed in my V-neck t-shirt and dark blue jeans. They both had on slacks and pristine, crisp button-down shirts. And as usual, they had bowl-sized wineglasses in hand.

  “What’s the matter, sweetie?” David asked.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” I mumbled, walking into his outstretched arms. He wrapped them around me and held me tight. Relaxed, I appreciated the warmth of his hug and rested my head against his chest. Then I felt the heavy heat and weight of another body. Trent’s arms encircled me, his face pressed against my back.

  “Did I make it weird? This is weird. I think I just made it weird,” he mumbled into my shirt.

  “So. Very. Weird,” I agreed, my words muffled as I pressed my face deeper into David’s shirt.

  “You want me to move?” he asked.

  “No.”

  We stayed in the bizarre three-person hug for several minutes before untangling from it.

  I made my way to the sofa, and minutes after I had made myself comfortable, David handed me a large glass of wine and placed a tray of cupcakes in front of me.

  “You definitely know how to make a day better,” I said and took a long drink. I wished it really would’ve made me feel better, but it didn’t. The cloud of despair hung heavily around me. Quell wanted me to kill him. For so many years, I’d underestimated his connection with Michaela. And I would probably die never really knowing or understanding the attachment he had to her solely because she was the one who’d created him. He was the very person who had given up on humanity, which made it hard to understand how he could cling to someone who’d brazenly chosen to do everything possible to be inhumane.

  I gave David and Trent a faint smile, aware they were looking at me, waiting for me to talk. I just couldn’t gather the right words to say that someone had just asked me to kill them. To assist them in their own suicide.

  “Can we talk about it later?” I asked.

  They weren’t subtle about hiding their relief. They had been plunged into the otherworld and were privy to information others didn’t have. They had been introduced to a realm of darkness, violence, supernatural politics, and posturing. I didn’t blame them for wanting to distance themselves from it, to be blissfully ignorant of the many things I had to deal with, to hold on to that innocent part of them. I relaxed back in the sofa, wine in hand, shooting them derisive looks as they became engrossed in a show with surgically enhanced bodies, extensions flinging through the air, and long manicured fingers pointing at other women as they made their mean remarks.

  “Oh, sweetie, you turn into a wolf once a month. Don’t judge us,” Trent said as he took a sip from his glass and gave me a playful grin.

  I wrinkled my nose. “I’m judging. And you can’t stop me.”

  He shrugged and made a dramatic gesture as though he were flinging long hair back as well. “And you can’t make me care.”

  I laughed because he knew I was a closeted lover of these things. And watching them with David and Trent made them even more entertaining. I let the shows enthrall me and the wine make me hazy enough to let the image of Quell’s face slip away. Being tipsy from wine and a chocolate rush had put me in a better mood, a calmer frame of mind.

  “I’ve decided I’m going to stay here forever,” I informed them as I placed my glass on the table in front of me. I knew David would eventually refill it again. We both made faces at the five empty bottles sitting on the table.

  “Like you can stay away from him,” David teased. I wasn’t sure who he was more enamored with, Ethan or Steven.

  “Eh, I’ll visit him periodically
.”

  He and Trent gave each other a look and then directed said look at me. “I’m sure you will,” David said with a miscreant grin. “And I don’t blame you.”

  “Not for that! I actually enjoy talking to him and being around him—you know that, right?”

  “Among other things, I’m sure.”

  I ignored them and tried to focus on the TV, but in my peripheral vision, I could see the looks they kept giving me. And just when another spat started on the TV, with heads rolling so hard their extensions smacked them in their faces, manicured fingers being pushed in another woman’s face, and enough scathing names being spat to garner our attention again, someone knocked on the door. It wasn’t someone; we all knew who it was. Ethan.

  They hesitated before answering, waiting for me to give them the okay. I nodded once. David opened the door, and before Ethan could ask, he said, “She’s here.”

  “I know,” Ethan said.

  That ability was something I’d always been curious about. When I’d first met him, he’d seemed to have the gift of always being able to find me, and I’d attributed it to were-animals being good hunters. But I’d had no idea why I could always find him, even before we were mated. Something had happened after we’d performed that spell together to remove his dark elf magic. Somehow, we’d become linked. Ever since then, I could feel a magical nudge in his direction. A magical connection that always led me to him. The more I found out about Ethan, the more complicated I realized our connection might be. Best-case scenario, we were linked by that spell. Worst-case—by the Faerie spirit shades we each hosted. Just thinking about it filled me with a sense of dread; not because he was a host as well, but because of the person he hosted. I’d nearly forgotten about it—not really forgotten, but stored it away with all the other things that were too difficult to think about. Ethan hosted a spirit shade that was so horrid and despicable that his own kind had forced him to live life as a shade. I wondered why they hadn’t killed him. What did he possess—what type of magic did they want to preserve or what information did he have that made him an asset they refused to kill?