Torment: Dark Paranormal Romance (Eclipse Warlocks Book 1)

by Ellie Cassidy

If I had to run, I would, but not without Lex.

  I hadn’t spoken to him again.

  I couldn’t do this over the phone.

  The door opened and he stood there, his hair a mess of waves, his tawny eyes washing over me as a smile cracked the tightness in his jaw.

  “Sage,” he breathed out, stepping forward to fold himself around me. His mouth met mine, crashed, a lingering close-mouthed kiss that was urgent and desperate without demanding passion and hunger. “You have no idea…”

  His musky scent wrapped me, warm and familiar. His heart thundered, a drum tattooing his love against my breast.

  We stayed like that for a long while, breathing each other in, holding close what the world around us was so desperate to tear asunder.

  I pulled away first, needing to look at him properly in the hallway light. Our arms stayed loosely linked around each other. I smiled. “You’re really okay.”

  “Of course I am.” He drew in a slow breath, looking at me as if I’d been the one last seen flat on my back and unconscious. A frown developed, his gaze going past me. “Where is Arran?”

  “He didn’t return with me.”

  “He let you go.” Lex stepped backward, dragging me with him inside the house.

  I went with some reluctance, wanting nothing more than to grab his hand and run in the opposite direction. Not yet. He wouldn’t leave Gideon, not even for me. Not without the full truth.

  I glanced around as he walked me another step into the hallway. “Where is Gideon?”

  “The den.” His arms unlinked so he could take my hand, our fingers clasped and woven. “What did Arran want with you?” He bent a look on me. “If he did anything—”

  “He didn’t,” I said quickly.

  We were at the archway by the den. I smiled at Lex and slipped my hand from his as we walked through.

  I had to stay strong a little longer.

  Just until I could get Lex to my place and tell him everything. Then we’d make our plans.

  My step flattened at the sight of Gideon convalescing on the couch. Convalescing. I never thought I’d ever get to use that word in the same sentence as Gideon Crest.

  Okay, so he wasn’t propped in pillows and blankets. He was wearing stone-gray sweats and a white t-shirt, his legs stretched out over the couch and his back propped against the armrest.

  But he looked terrible. His hair clamped to his forehead, his cheeks hollowed and ashen and glistening with what looked like feverish sweat.

  His eyes were on me as I approached. Sunken. Midnight black without the dust of starlight. “You don’t write. You don’t call.”

  His voice didn’t have the bite to pull it off.

  “You look half dead,” I said, planting myself a couple of feet from him.

  “I’ll live.”

  Pity.

  Seeing him like this gave me pause. That nest of knots in my stomach wormed, but this felt right and sure. Gideon was a wreck. If ever there was a time to run, it was now. We’d be across the ocean and far gone before he could stir himself off that couch.

  “Arran told me,” I said. “I know.”

  “This should be interesting.” He shuffled lower to drop the back of his head of the armrest.

  “Told you what?” Lex asked, coming to stand with me.

  He didn’t know. He couldn’t. But he was about to find out what a sadistic bastard the guy he called a friend was. The guy he loved like a brother. Another reason why this was the right moment, the sure way. Now Lex could see and hear and feel with me. He wouldn’t even attempt to make excuses or find reasons to forgive.

  It would be hard on him.

  Impossible.

  I hated Gideon even more for what this would do to Lex.

  I touched Lex’s arm, then let my hand fall again and speared Gideon with a hard, cold look.

  “Arran told me what I am,” I said, the words rumbling out like a train afraid to stop between stations. “An Eclipse. You hunted me down just like warlocks have been hunting Eclipses for centuries, weeding them out, forcing them to scatter and flee in fear. You came to Shadow Horn to trap me like an animal. To Reap me. To use me. Just to make yourself more powerful.”

  A noise escaped Lex’s throat.

  “It’s true,” I said, glancing up at him. “And he made you a part of this when he brought you along.”

  “Sage, that’s not—”

  “It is,” I insisted gently, knowing how this must be destroying him. “Lex, I’m sorry, but it is.”

  My gaze swung to Gideon. “Tell him. Or are you too much of a coward to look him in the eye and admit you’d planned this all along, to Reap the girl he loves?”

  Gideon held my gaze steady. His jaw grim. I was almost sorry he was so weak and pathetically sick.

  I wanted the smirk.

  I wanted the careless, arrogant comeback.

  I wanted Lex to see all the way into Gideon’s cruel, blackened heart.

  “Look at him,” I hissed. “Look at him and admit what you were going to do behind his back. My magic—my void of magic is linked to my life force. Arran told me everything.” Not everything. He’d refused to elaborate, but it wasn’t much of a leap. “Tell Lex how you planned to Reap me, to take my soul and eternally damn me.”

  “Reaping an Eclipse doesn’t take the soul,” Lex said at my side.

  My eyes flashed to him.

  But of course he knew about Eclipses. He just hadn’t known I was one.

  “It takes something,” I said, not entirely convinced he was right about the soul but it didn’t matter. “Something I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want to lose.”

  The crumpled look on Lex’s face confirmed it.

  I crunched a hand through my hair, pulling at the roots. “It’s not only what Arran said, Lex. I’ve had time to think about it and there’s no way it’s just a coincidence that Gideon’s here in Shadow Horn.”

  “Sage.” Lex took my hand in his, tried to tug me down to the facing couch. “We need to talk.”

  “Shut up, Lex, this isn’t about you,” Gideon said.

  “Of course it is.” He looked at Gideon. “It always has been.”

  “Sage, look at me, you’re right,” Gideon said to me. “I admit it. I hunted you down. I came here to Reap you. What the hell else would I be doing here?”

  I didn’t look at him. I was looking to see the truth and horror reveal itself on Lex’s face.

  He patted the spot beside him. “Please sit.”

  “I don’t want to sit, Lex.”

  Gideon sighed. “Don’t be a damn fool.”

  I sent him a glare over my shoulder. “I’m not the damn fool here.”

  “I wasn’t talking to you.”

  Something else was going on here, something more, something worse. Something Lex wanted to tell me about Eclipses and Gideon didn’t want me to know.

  I folded my arms and set my gaze on Lex. “What is it?”

  His mouth worked. He scrubbed his jaw, looking at me with such uncertainty, a chill tickled my spine.

  “Just tell me,” I said softly.

  “I know you’re an Eclipse,” he sighed. “Not at first, but I’ve known long enough.”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “I love you.” He sat forward, cast his eyes down.

  The silence dragged, as if those three words explained everything. As if the flow of blood in my veins wasn’t starting to thunder.

  His eyes lifted, troubled and guilty. “I’m sorry. I would never let anything happen to you, you must believe me. All this time, I thought I could keep you safe.”

  “That’s the truth,” Gideon said at my back. “Lex is the reason you haven’t yet been Reaped. He’s been trying to stop me since he found out.”

  I turned to him. “Trying to stop you?”

  That, right there, was the hole I fell through. Gideon was too goddamn powerful for anyone to stop and Lex knew it. If he’d known all this time, then he’d known it was only a matter of days or we
eks before Gideon got whatever Gideon wanted.

  He should have told me.

  He should have warned me.

  He should have taken me and run, not left that job to Arran Macleod.

  Gideon just looked at me.

  I stepped back, and back, and back, until I was looking at both of them and neither of them with the same look.

  Lex lurched up from the couch.

  I put a hand out to ward him off, seeing him without really seeing him as I backed up another step and another, the bend in my knees trembling.

  My heart thickened in my throat.

  Gideon, I could accept that.

  I never expected anything from him.

  But Lex….

  My heart crashed and burned.

  I loved Lex.

  I’d loved him with all of me.

  Wetness blurred my vision and I spun about on my stupid, trembling knees and fled.

  I’d expected everything from Lex.

  ** Thank you for reading and I hope you’re enjoying the story this far. Don’t forget to look out for the 2nd book in the Eclipse Warlocks series, Destruct. **

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