She lifted her chin, meeting the gaze of the man who’d once been her best friend, her only friend, the only one who’d stood by her. His gaze was like steel, his jaw hard, his muscles taut. There was no softness in him, just the protectiveness that had always driven him. “I’m not the girl I once was,” she said softly.
He sighed. “I know. I’m sorry you had to become strong.”
“God, I’m not. What woman wants to rely on a man to survive? That’s why I ended up down here in the first place. I like being strong. I like being able to fight for those I love.” Sophie walked over and poked him in the chest. “You don’t get to boss me around anymore, Vlad. You don’t get to tell me that I can’t endanger myself.”
Amusement flickered in his eyes. “I can tell you whatever I want.”
The tension vanished from her body, and she grinned. “I don’t have to listen.”
“You never did.” He sighed and pulled his shirt over his head. “Okay, let’s go do this, but I promise you that if I think you’re in danger, I’m going to haul your ass out of there.”
“And I’ll stab you in the jugular, render you unconscious, and do it without you.”
With a low growl that was half-laughter, he grabbed her wrist and yanked her over to him. She slammed into his chest, but before she could twist away, he slid his fingers into her hair. “I love you, Sophie. I owe you everything, so I will do everything in my power to give you what you want, I swear.”
Her heart ached at the raw honesty in his voice. God, she’d missed him, and his arrogance. “Vlad—”
Before she could answer, he kissed her, a long, sensual kiss that made her almost wish she could be the girl she once was, who’d cared only about her own life, her own future, and her best friend. She wished she could be content to surrender to Vlad’s kiss, and never think about all the hell she’d seen in the last two hundred years.
He pulled back, searching her face. “You didn’t kiss me back.”
She managed a small smile. “If I did, I’m afraid I’d agree to anything you want.”
He raised his brows. “Is that so bad?”
“Yes.” Sophie pulled back, needing to put distance between them, to find her own footing. She didn’t want to be the girl who’d thought marrying Vlad was the only way to ensure her safety. She wanted to be the strong, powerful female she’d become, not the vulnerable girl who hadn’t been able to save herself, or anyone who mattered so long ago. “Can you contact Gabe and tell them to meet us near the Graveyard of the Damned?”
He nodded. “He’ll be thrilled. He’s looking for the physical body of a Calydon, and thinks it’s buried there.” He cocked an eyebrow. “We can get him out the same way we put Rikker and Lucien in. I owe him.”
“Once Rikker and Lucien are gone, I’m happy to help you with anything you want.”
“I like the sound of that.” Before she could stop him, he grabbed her around the waist and gave her a hard, relentless kiss that didn’t cease until she finally melted into him and kissed him back, unable to resist the temptation of his seduction.
He broke the kiss and leaned his forehead against hers. “I can’t let you die,” he whispered.
“I don’t want to,” she admitted softly. God, she didn’t want to. “I’m scared.”
His grip tightened on her waist. “You have to do this?”
“Yes.”
“Then we do it.” He pulled back, and this time, his eyes were narrowed. He looked intense, like a warrior ready to do whatever it took to make things happen. She shivered, stunned by the change that had come over him. He was lethal, hard, and unyielding…everything she needed, everything that her entire soul burned for. She had gotten strong in the last two hundred years, but so had he. He was a warrior now, not a teenager with big dreams, and he was on her side.
Longing pooled in Sophie’s belly, and she took another step back, terrified she was going to walk away from her duty and let Vlad sweep her away, like he’d done before. “We need to go.”
He nodded. “We do.” He held out his hand. “Let’s go.”
For a second, she hesitated, afraid of how much she wanted to slide her hand into his. Would that make her too weak to do what she had to do, if she held onto him, like she had when she was younger, a pampered princess who ran away from her troubles?
Vlad’s jaw tightened, and he dropped his hand.
Her fingers curled to take his, but it was too late. The chance was gone.
She didn’t know how to be with him anymore. He made her want to be small and fragile, depending on him to keep her safe, to hide from life the way she once had. But she didn’t want to be that girl anymore. She liked being strong. She liked being the protector of these other women. She liked feeling like she could make a difference, and save herself…but being with Vlad made her want to fall into the girl she’d once been.
Vlad paused in the doorway, his brow furrowing. “Soph—”
“I’m coming.” She cut him off, not wanting him to ask questions she couldn’t answer for herself. As she squeezed past him, her arm brushed against his stomach. Desire and longing rushed through her, the desire that came directly from the depths of her soul. She glanced up at him, and her heart softened when she saw the pain in his eyes.
So much had passed between them. So much time. So much loss. So much growth.
Was there a way to bridge the gap? She didn’t know.
He smiled. “I’ll always love you, Soph.”
She nodded. “Me, too.”
But as they walked out, side by side, she wasn’t sure if it was enough anymore.
Chapter 29
The silence hung between them as Vlad and Sophie marched across the barren, acrid lava fields toward the Graveyard of the Damned.
Sophie had been on these fields hundreds of times with only demons for company, and yet, she’d never felt as alone as she did right now, with Vlad beside her. Gone was the attentiveness and the camaraderie. He was focused and vigilant, constantly scanning their surroundings for danger, but she could feel the coolness radiating from him. He’d put distance between them, distance she should be glad of, because it gave her the space to claim her independence. She was glad, but at the same time…she missed him. She didn’t want him to be a controlling, inflexible male who decided where she was going to live, but she needed the friendship and bond that had been such a part of her life for so long. “Vlad?”
“What?” He was close behind her, covering her back while she led the way.
“Were you always so much slower than me? I don’t remember you being such a slug.” She was intentionally ribbing him, trying to rebuild the friendship they had once had, needing that connection with him.
He was silent for a long moment. “What?”
“Slow.” She looked back over her shoulder. “You used to be able to keep up with me, but now I have to hold back so you don’t get left behind.” She raised her brows. “It must be all that muscle weighing you down, huh?”
He stared at her for so long that her heart began to close up. Then, with a completely stoic expression, he said, “I’m letting you win to protect your fragile princess ego.”
She smiled then, her heart unfurling. “My princess ego isn’t nearly as fragile as your male ego.” She gestured at the heavy whiskers on his cheeks. “That unshaven look is all about trying to increase your manliness, isn’t it? Just so you know, real men can be clean shaven and still be super hot.”
His eyebrows shot up. “My ego is completely intact. I don’t shave because I know that if you were to see my face in all its glory, you would be so overwhelmed with my handsomeness that you wouldn’t be able to function.”
A laugh burst out of her. “You’re not so hot, you know.”
“So you’ve always claimed, but we both know you’re lying to yourself.” He caught up to her, a small smile curving up one corner of his mouth. “You, on the other hand, are just as ravishing as ever. It’s irritating and distracting.”
; She giggled. “Only because you have no self-discipline. You should be man enough to be able to focus even if a thousand women ran naked and screaming past you.”
His eyes darkened. “Sweetheart, a thousand women could be doing naked yoga all around me, and it wouldn’t distract me in the slightest. You, however, are a different story.” He caught her wrist and pulled her back toward him. “All it takes is one glimpse of you, and I can’t even think.”
She caught her breath, her heart pounding as he slid his hands through her hair. “Don’t blame me for your lack of discipline—”
“It’s all your fault,” he whispered, as he bent his head. “One taste of you, and I’m completely lost.” He brushed his lips over hers, a feathery-light kiss that made butterflies take flight in her stomach.
She wrapped her fingers around his wrists, her breath shuddering. “If you’re so vulnerable to my awesomeness, then you probably shouldn’t kiss me—”
“Probably not,” he agreed, and then he angled his head and claimed her mouth.
His mouth on hers was like instant fire. Maybe it was because the silence between them had hurt so much and made her miss him. Maybe it was because they were venturing deeper into the lava fields, and her adrenaline was racing. Maybe it was simply because their brief banter had touched a part of her that hadn’t been alive in so long, the light-hearted, happy heart that he’d kept alive during her childhood. Maybe it was because he’d never left her heart in all those years, and it had taken a burning lava field to make her remember.
“Sophie.” He whispered her name into the kiss, his fingers tightening in her hair. His touch was sensual and warm, familiar, and, at the same time, wildly new.
“Kiss me, Vlad. Kiss me like I’ve always wanted you to.” She didn’t even know what she meant by that, but as soon as she said it, Vlad groaned low in his throat, and deepened the kiss. It was sensual, intimate, and intoxicating, so hot that fire seemed to sear her veins.
She melted into him, her breasts pressed across the hardness of his chest. His arms wrapped around her, enfolding her in the strength and size of his body as he deepened the kiss. His tongue slid across hers, tempting, teasing, seducing.
Heat poured through her belly, and she couldn’t keep herself from whimpering as her fingers gripped the front of his shirt, trying to hold him closer, as if somehow, if she held tightly enough, she could keep him from ever leaving her again…
The moment she thought about losing him, she tensed, terrified at the depth of her desire to never have to live without him again. The need for him ran so deeply in her soul, that he was entangled hopelessly inside her, which meant he could trap her if she wasn’t strong enough to stay on her own path. But she wanted him. She didn’t want to be alone again…but she had so much to do here with Maria and the other women.
“God, I want to rip your clothes off again.” With a low growl, Vlad nipped the side of her neck playfully, jerking her away from her thoughts. “How much time do we have until we have to meet Gabe and Maria? Enough to throw you down on some rocks and show you exactly how intact my male ego is?”
She burst out laughing, unable to resist his playful tone. “I love rocks, but being thrown down on them so you can prove your virility isn’t exactly my greatest romantic fantasy. They’re kinda hard, and all.”
“Hard?” He raised his brows. “You don’t like hard? ‘Cause I got hard.”
She smacked him in the chest, still laughing. “How can you make me laugh right now? We’re on our way to the Graveyard of the Damned, for heaven’s sake. It’s not a time for laughing or kissing.”
His smile faded. “It’s always the right time for laughing and kissing. We both know that.”
She draped her arms over his shoulders, cocking an eyebrow at him. “Is it, really? How do you figure that?” She couldn’t believe how good it felt to be playful with him again. Being with him made her think of the bubbling streams they’d played in, of the laughter, of the secrets they’d shared, not the hell that was her actual life.
“You want to know why right now is the best time to laugh?” He studied her, twirling a lock of her hair around his index finger. “The way I see it, when you’ve been through hell for centuries, when something good happens, you hold onto it with everything you have.” His smile faded. “We both know that this could end at any second. We’ve lived that. So, we take what we can get.”
Some of her happiness faded at the reminder of how fleeting the moment was. “It will end.”
“It will, yes,” he agreed, “but maybe we can make the next moment worth living, too.” He kissed her forehead. “And then the one after that, and the one after that, finding the meaning in each one.”
She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, breathing in the sensation of his lips on her forehead. “When did you become so philosophical?”
“When I had to figure out a way to make myself face every day for the last two hundred years since you died.”
Her heart turned over, and she opened her eyes to look at him. His eyes were intense blue, the same blue from their youth. “I’m sorry you suffered like that.”
He shrugged. “It makes me appreciate this moment in a way I never could have.”
She smiled. “Me, too, I guess.”
He smiled back at her, and her heart skipped. She traced her fingers over his lips. “When you smile like that, you look like the boy I once knew.”
His eyebrows went up. “What do I look like when I’m not smiling?”
“A man twisted by his pain.”
His expression cooled. “Yeah, well, you always knew me well.” A loud explosion made them both start, and they spun toward the lava fields. In the distance, a spiral of steam was rising, shooting out of the rocks.
“It happens all the time,” she said. “It’s not a big deal, unless you’re standing right over the spot. The heat would incinerate us almost instantly, but if you’re listening carefully, you can hear the air beneath the rock right before it explodes.”
He looked over at her. “How much time have you spent down here?”
She shrugged, and gestured to the lava fields. “Somewhere in there is the key to freeing demons from their realm. The magic was trapped in a stone, and every night, Rikker and his team take me down there to hunt for the jewel that will free them. I love going down there and being so close to all the jewels…” Her voice faded as she recalled her last hunt, when Rikker had felt her hair.
Vlad glanced at her. “What is it?”
“I was just remembering that the last time we were down there, Rikker was able to touch me. Barely, for a split second, but it still happened.” She shivered at the memory, at the moment she’d realized she was no longer safe. “Was it you? Was it your arrival that changed me?”
“I don’t know.” He frowned, running his fingers through his hair as he scanned the lava fields. “But I’ll tell you that I don’t like that you’ve lost your defenses. We need to get it back.”
“I didn’t know how to make it happen before, and I don’t know why it stopped.” Suddenly restless, she began to walk again, the heat from the lava burning through the bottoms of her boots. She was sweating now, her hair damp from the steam rising thicker and thicker around them. The talk about Rikker had been a visceral reminder of the danger she was in. They didn’t have time to kiss. They had to get to the Graveyard of the Damned by the time Rikker and Lucien tracked her down. “I’m not going to lie, though, I wish I could still dissolve to get away from them. It made me safe.”
“Didn’t you dissolve on purpose when you merged with the rock that was blocking your underground safe house?” He fell in beside her, their boots crunching on the gravelly rock as they walked.
“Yes, but that’s different. It’s not really a dissolution, so much as a merging with the rocks.” She glanced across the landscape, noting the position of the light. The lava would stop flowing soon, and the nightly search for the jewels would begin. The demons would be appearing soon. “When the
demons tried to touch me, I just dissolved on my own. I didn’t even have to see them coming. My body did it automatically.” She glanced at Vlad’s hand, remembering how good it felt to be touched by him. Would she trade being able to touch him, with the safety of dissolving? God, she didn’t know. Being touched by him was a gift that made her soul cry out, but was it worth her life? Her freedom?
“So, rocks can make you dissolve?” Vlad leapt up on a rock beside her as they moved swiftly north, heading toward the rendezvous point where they were going to meet up with Gabe and Maria.
“Yes.” Sophie frowned, thinking about his question. “Actually, Rikker and Lucien both used jewels to keep me corporeal as well…” She looked at Vlad. “Do you think the minerals are the key, somehow?”
“Sounds like it.” He stopped and faced her. “Can you dissolve right now? Not to go into a rock, but just to dissolve?”
She closed her eyes and concentrated on her ring finger, where the dissolution always began, but there wasn’t so much as a tingle. She sighed and opened her eyes. “No, but I’ve never been able to do so. When demons tried to touch me, it was pure instinct.”
Vlad walked a short distance away and picked up a rock. “This time, I want you to focus on getting into this rock as quickly as possible. If you can dissolve by directing your energy toward a rock, even if you’re not touching it, then at least it’s a way to escape if they come after you.”
Hope leapt through her. If she could still escape the demons like that, it would change everything. “Oh, good idea.” She nodded and closed her eyes. Instinctively, she reached out for the rock on a metaphysical level, connecting with its energy. The warmth of the stone surrounded her, pouring strength and energy into her. She opened herself to it, picturing her body merging with it, as she always did when she was hunting in the Graveyard of the Damned with Rikker. She felt the particles of her body separate, and she sped through the air, streaking toward the rock.
She plunged into it, pouring warmth into the stone, and accepting the same from the rock. It felt so good to be merged with the stone, to feel the strength of the solid mineral fusing with her cells.
Hunt the Darkness (Order of the Blade Book 11) Page 27