Torment: Dark Paranormal Romance (Eclipse Warlocks Book 1)

by Ellie Cassidy

  My mouth worked faster than my brain, but it finally caught up.

  I stopped in my tracks and shot a scowling look over my shoulder. “It wasn’t him who wants Gideon, it’s the other one, the person you referred to as a demon.”

  “It wasn’t just a reference,” Lex said. “Demons are real.”

  “Sure.” My laugh was utterly humorless. “Like sulfur and brimstone and all that crap.”

  His jaw feathered, the look he sunk into me cold stone sober. “Like Gideon incinerating a man with magic and compelling Callie to forget it happened.”

  “Magic?” I swallowed with difficultly, the automatic denial turning to sand in my mouth.

  So what now? I believe in magic and demons?

  As if reading my special brand of crazy, Lex said, “I know how this all sounds, Sage, but I need you to open your mind, to trust I wouldn’t lie about this. The world around you is not always as it seems.”

  I brought my gaze forward again and continued walking. “I get it.”

  “Do you? Because you’ll have to prove that to Gideon. You’ll have to convince him you’re serious and you can handle it, and that you understand why you can never say anything to anyone. That’s the only way he will allow you to remember.”

  “That won’t be a problem.”

  The problem was, I was already halfway there. Seeing is believing. Still, I couldn’t help wondering if my head shouldn’t have fought the good fight of logic and reason just a little bit harder. Seriously! What was wrong with me?

  I passed through the dusty office—the door was hanging by a thread on its hinges—into the daylight and took a moment to lift my face up to the sun. To breathe. To appreciate the fact I was alive to do so.

  @hawk

  How sad is this?

  Demons are real and I actually took a moment to thank God I’m alive.

  My world is going to shit.

  We didn’t speak more on the drive back to The Stables. I was digesting my new reality and, as it turned out, Lex was digesting its effect on us.

  When we pulled up in the forecourt, he cut the engine and slammed his hands on the wheel, staring out the windshield. “We’re not okay, are we?”

  “No, we’re not.” How could we be, when I’d fallen for half a boy?

  Who was Lex on the other side of the lies and deception? There was no easy way to drop a demon or magic fingers into casual conversation. I got that, but I didn’t know what to do with it.

  I looked at him, drinking in the profile of his square jaw shadowed with golden bristles, the tawny layers of hair I loved running my fingers through. The taste of our last kiss was still fresh in my mind. The musky scent of his body and our love making was all over my bed sheets.

  My heart softened. “But I hope we will be.”

  His chin dipped, his eyes on me. “I’ll tell you everything,” he promised.

  “And if I’m lucky, Gideon will let me remember it.” What came out as a flippant retort dug its hooks in and twisted the doubt and frustrated anger into a physical ache.

  Lex sighed. “Gideon seldom acts without good reason and he’s usually right.”

  “Don’t defend him!” I slammed my way out of the truck, hiked up on the exact thing I feared would drive me and Lex apart.

  “Sage.” He came after me, catching up at the front door.

  I wanted this to work. I just wasn’t sure I could live like this. Scrap that. I knew I couldn’t give up so much control over my life.

  I took a deep breath before facing him. “I can’t live with the constant dread of never knowing what is real and what has been rewritten.”

  “I know.” He cupped my cheek, his troubled gaze searching for something he’d never find.

  I couldn’t compromise on this. “Do you always give in to Gideon?”

  “Of course not.” He turned from me to open the door. “But I don’t often get the choice.”

  “He’s that powerful?”

  “An Eclipse Warlock and the Moon Heir,” Lex said. “He’s that powerful.”

  “Warlock,” I repeated. “That’s a male witch, right?”

  “You’re thinking of natural witches who take power from the elements. Fire. Air. Water. Earth,” he explained, leading the way to the den. “Eclipse Warlocks take their power from the moon and sun and we were made, forged from ancient druid magic and angel blood.”

  “We?” My heart skipped one too many beats. The lightheaded rush dropped me onto the nearest couch. “You’re also one of these…Eclipse Warlocks?”

  “There are two castes. Moon and Sun.” He spoke carefully, choosing his words as he perched on the padded leather arm of the couch across from me, arms folded, legs stretched out. “Gideon and I are Moon but I don’t have any power worth mentioning. I haven’t invoked. I haven’t activated my magic and I don’t intend to.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  What wasn’t he telling me? I looked into his eyes, looked and looked, but couldn’t see it.

  This was another thing I feared. Lex had grown up in a world of secrets. How much would his definition of telling me everything differ from mine? And where was the line I’d one day draw in the sand?

  I sank back into the couch, chewing on my lower lip, studying Lex, my heart already heavier with future doubts.

  This wasn’t going to work.

  Not like this.

  If I really wanted to give us a chance, I had to fully commit to the gray edges of our relationship.

  Trust Lex implicitly.

  Know, in my heart, we were one and he’d always share the secrets that truly mattered.

  And as I sat there, drawn into the deep of his emotion-filled eyes, I chose to cast aside the doubt and fear and give him my all.

  I chose Lex.

  “So, druid magic and angel blood.” I wrapped my head around that rather easily, thanks to my love of fantasy fiction. “Like a Nephilim, right? You’re half angel?”

  “Uh, no, but the druid who created the Moon and Sun was,” he said. “We only have traces of angel blood that binds and ignites the magic. The history of our origin was either lost or never written, but the stories were passed mouth to mouth.”

  Lex slid off the couch arm to sit properly across from me, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. “This comes from one of the first scripts taught to kids at an early age. It’s simplified, but explains it best.”

  In the beginning,

  the Druid Merdicus was born of flesh and angel.

  Destined to live out his days amongst mortal man.

  He wept when man wept.

  Lost when man lost.

  I stopped him there. “There’s a lot of men in this story.”

  The ghost of a grin reshaped the serious line of Lex’s mouth. “Our scripts come from hundreds of years BC so forgive the sexism although to be fair, ‘man’ in this context is mortal man, as in humankind.”

  “Sure.” My nose crunched. “Are there any Eclipse Witches?”

  “No, but there have always been female Eclipse Warlocks and they’d crisp your toes if you tried to call them a witch.” Amusement lit his eyes. “I guess we were gender fluid a long time before the term was invented.”

  “Ha ha, but it’s not just gender,” I pointed out. “Aren’t witches supposed to be good and warlocks evil, like in league with the devil or something?”

  “I guess we are, in a way,” he said. “The devil was a fallen angel after all. And if you’ll let me finish my story, you’ll see we were created to fight demons. We’re the good guys here.”

  I snorted. “Now say it like you mean it.”

  He looked at me.

  “Fine.” I flourished a hand to wave him on. “Finish.”

  God and his angels abandoned our earth.

  Demons walked freely.

  Merdicus could suffer no more.

  He drew on the angel from his blood.

  He drew on the magic from his bones.

&
nbsp; On the dawn of the eclipse,

  he forged an army of warriors to go hence

  and purge the demons from our world.

  Short and not so sweet.

  But I got the drift and it wasn’t good. Lex and Gideon were warriors on a mission. Touched by freaking angels. Forged in ancient magic. Dark magic? I didn’t rule that out, but this whole thing about their higher calling worried me a whole lot more. Because everyone knows how that always works out.

  Lex had a lot more to say, especially about Gideon. He wasn’t just your average garden variety Eclipse Warlock, he was the Moon Heir.

  I laughed out loud at that. “Sorry, I have this mental image of Gideon howling up at a full moon.”

  “We’re not werewolves.”

  Suddenly it wasn’t all that funny anymore. “Are there werewolves?”

  His mouth twitched. “No werewolves. No vampires. Not that I’m aware of.”

  “Just mortals vamped up on angel blood and druid magic,” I said dryly. “So what makes Gideon so special?”

  “His family has ruled our coven for generations.”

  “So it’s a hereditary title.”

  “Yes and no,” Lex said. “Our leaders are chosen on the strength of their magic. The angel blood binds the magic to our essence, however, and it’s passed down the same way we inherit any genetic traits from our parents. The line of rule could stay in a family for generations before a stronger challenger comes along.”

  Which didn’t explain what made one warlock stronger than another in the first place, but Lex moved on to the two castes and I left it.

  The Moon drew on energy from the moon and their power waned and ebbed with the lunar cycles. The Sun drew on energy from the sun and their power waned and ebbed between midday and midnight.

  So similar.

  So different.

  Mortal enemies for some reason I couldn’t fathom, especially since they both appeared to share the same cause: vanquishing demons.

  Thankfully we never got around to the whole demon thing. There was only so much I could take in one day.

  15

  GIDEON

  Callie was safely home, minus the traumatic scars of her ordeal. A little memory loss wasn’t such a bad thing.

  Not that Sage would agree.

  My eyes went to the bolted-iron front door and the mess that waited for me behind it.

  She didn’t need her memories and I didn’t need Lex’s damn remorse. I should kick his butt into gear and give him an ultimatum: Reap the girl or I will. That was definitely one way to resolve the dilemma of Sage Daniels.

  I had a decision to make and it was an easy one.

  Then why are you reluctant to walk inside your own fucking house?

  I bit down on my back teeth. Callie had been taken care of. I’d just spent the last ten minutes bringing down the Cloak. Which meant I was fresh out of honest excuses.

  I looked around, a long, hard sweep over the wild fields to the road that cut through and into town.

  Unless you count the demon.

  I always counted the demon, but another aimless drive around Shadow Horn and surrounding areas was an exercise in futility. The demon was keeping a low profile and there was nothing to be done until he played his hand.

  Plastering on a smile that would put the devil to shame, I reverted to my usual tactics. I marched inside to confront the problem with a clear head and a stone cold heart. In my line of work, that really was the best for all concerned.

  Lex was alone in the den.

  “Where is Sage?”

  He took one look at me and blew out a heavy breath. “You’ve decided to wipe her memories. What happened to finishing our discussion?”

  “Don’t worry, you’ll get your discussion straight after,” I informed him. “The first topic on the table will be a Reaping.”

  His face blanked, shut me out. “You’re a cold hearted bastard.”

  “Someone has to be.” I shrugged off the tension tightening in my muscles. “Where is she?”

  He pushed to his feet. “The kitchen.”

  “We’ll do this without you, if you don’t mind.”

  “Like hell you will.”

  I gathered up a fistful of magic and held it out in warning. I wasn’t kidding around.

  He glared at my fist.

  I waited. We both knew I could have him hog-tied in translucent blue vines within the blink of an eye.

  “Fuck.” He sank down onto the couch again.

  “Stay here and don’t do anything stupid,” I issued on my way out. “I’m not in the mood.”

  I found Sage seated at the head of the kitchen table, hands wrapped around a mug of coffee. Her phone was buzzing, vibrating on the table beside her. She took a look and swiped the call away.

  I let the doors swing closed behind me. “Avoiding someone?”

  “My boss, Sandy.” She sucked in her plump lower lip, watching and thinking as I slid into the adjacent chair. “I don’t suppose you could compel him to suddenly remember he gave me the day off?”

  “Not over the phone, no.”

  “Good to know.”

  I planted an elbow on the angled corner of the table between us and squared a look on her. “Was that a test?”

  I was close enough to catch a trace of her vanilla scent—not purposefully, but it was something I’d become aware of, how often I found myself drawn in until I was within a breath of her.

  She pulled back a little, reclaiming a fraction of her personal space. “Just figuring stuff out.”

  “Well now you know.” My gaze drifted to her mouth. She was still chewing on that bottom lip. Nervous? My gaze lifted slowly, too damn reluctantly. “Compulsion doesn’t work over the airwaves.”

  “But you can compel someone to fictitiously remember as well as forget hard facts.” Her brow quirked as our eyes met again, her tone edgy, “How is Callie?”

  It was more of an accusation than a question. I answered anyway. “Safely home.”

  “And blissfully unaware.”

  “Emphasis on the blissful.”

  “Said the spider to the unsuspecting fly.” The disapproval on her tongue cut the air like a blade.

  I settled back in my chair with a chuckle, leaving my arm stretched on the table, my fingers drumming as I studied her. I shouldn’t be amused.

  She seemed to concur. Her expression darkened. “Lex told me everything. Angel blood and druid magic. Demons. Powerful abilities. Your world is like a shadow and what hides there is too unimaginable, too dangerous to be exposed. I get it, but let’s not pretend it doesn’t hurt when you steal a slice of someone’s mind.”

  “It’s not like I take all the happy memories and leave nightmares in their place,” I scoffed.

  “Good or bad, our memories shape us,” she shot back. “They define who we were, who we are, and who we will be. Every time you rewrite a piece from the past, you have no idea how it will ripple into that person’s future. You don’t know that you’re not creating a nightmare somewhere down the line.”

  Annoyance rubbed me the wrong way. Made the wrong words come out my mouth. “Okay, give it your best shot.” Dammit. I shouldn’t be encouraging her. “Convince me why you deserve to keep your memories.”

  “You don’t think I could?”

  “Let’s see,” I smirked.

  “Let’s not.”

  I was surprised. And disappointed. “You’re giving up that easily?”

  “I’m fighting for something else.” She brought her mug to her lips and sipped, her gaze falling away from me. “There’s a difference.”

  “Explain.”

  “You wouldn’t approve.” When she looked at me again, her brow was furrowed, her eyes crinkled. “You don’t like me very much, do you?”

  My fingers drummed as I studied her. I should end this conversation right here. Agree with her and get on with why I was here. A sigh unfolded in my chest. “I like you just fine.”

  She didn’t believe me. Her
eyes crinkled deeper, her mouth hardening a fraction. “Well, you certainly don’t like the idea of me and Lex and don’t bother denying it.”

  “It’s complicated.”

  Her laugh was abrupt. “I suppose I’ll have to get used to that word if I plan on sticking around.”

  She said it like she planned to stick around of her own free will. Not that I had any intention of letting her go, but she didn’t know that. Clearly she didn’t know the half of it. “Lex definitely didn’t tell you everything.”

  “Of course he bloody didn’t.” She sipped on her coffee, staring at me. “I doubt he ever will. As difficult as that is for me, I’ve come to terms with it. I don’t have a choice. Not if I want to be with Lex.”

  Warmth fed into her eyes, as if her thoughts had gone somewhere far more pleasant than this kitchen table for a moment.

  “I can accept the fuzzy boundaries. I can learn to accept them,” she corrected. “I trust Lex. I trust in everything he chooses to say and everything he chooses not to.”

  “That’s a lot of blind trust.”

  “I’m taking a leap of faith here.” Her gaze held mine, clear and steady. “I can live without knowing all Lex’s secrets. I can’t live without knowing mine. So this is the only way I can fight for me and Lex.”

  “You’ve lost me.” How did she intend to fight? She wouldn’t be dumb enough to try and take me out of the equation. Would she?

  “The only thing worse than losing control is knowing I’ve lost it. It goes against everything I am.” She inhaled, released the breath slowly. “I can’t live like that. Never knowing which parts of my past belong to me and which belong to you.”

  The irony coughed a laugh from me. “You want me to compel you to forget? You’re asking for the blissfully unaware version of life?”

  “I don’t want it,” she said with a burst of heated frustration. “If you’d been listening, you’d know exactly how much I don’t want it. But I can’t forget you can compel me any damn time you choose unless you compel me to forget it.” Her mouth twisted. “Yeah, that’s how screwed up this is. So go ahead, compel the shit out of me. You have my permission. That’s how much I care for Lex. And he cares just as deeply for me, whether you like it or not.”