Hunt the Darkness (Order of the Blade Book 11)

by Stephanie Rowe

  Vlad’s voice penetrated her oasis. “Reform, Soph.”

  For a split second, she felt her body hesitate, unwilling to venture back into the grittiness of the demon world. She could stay in the rock forever, and no one would ever find her…

  “Sophie!” This time, his voice jerked her out of her safe haven.

  She immediately withdrew from the rock, taking her human form again. She was standing in front of Vlad, who was still holding the rock. “It didn’t want to let me go.” She didn’t like that she hadn’t wanted to leave the rock. She’d never had trouble leaving a rock before. It was almost as if it hadn’t wanted to let her go…or that she hadn’t wanted to leave it. Fear gripped her as she looked at the rock. Rocks had always been her salvation, but suddenly, it looked different, almost like a threat. “That has never happened before. I’m not sure I would have come out if you hadn’t called me.”

  Vlad frowned, and turned the rock over in his hands. “Is this stone different from others?”

  “It felt good, but nothing alarming.” Despite the heat from the steam, she was suddenly cold. She hugged herself, but even that didn’t stop the shiver. “What if that’s changing, too? What if something is happening to my connection with the stones?”

  Vlad studied the rock. “There’s no living matter in there. I don’t feel any magic.” He tossed the rock aside, and it landed with a jarring clunk that made Sophie start, as if she’d felt the impact.

  He frowned. “You felt that?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s not usual?”

  “Never.” Sophie shivered again. “Get another rock. Try again. I need to see if it’s just me, or if it’s that particular rock.”

  Vlad picked up another stone, this one smaller, and a much darker shade of gray. It was clearly made of a different mineral than the one they’d just tried. “I’ll call you out if you get stuck.”

  Sophie took a deep breath. “You better.” She met his gaze once, and she saw the steely determination in his eyes, his absolute commitment to make sure she was safe. It should make her feel better, but she knew that all his determination and skills hadn’t been enough before when the demons had taken her.

  As if reading her mind, he scowled. “I’m not a kid anymore, Soph. I’ve spent the last two hundred years rescuing people, and I’m really good at it. There’s no chance I won’t get you out. No. Fucking. Chance.” His voice was hard, low, and focused, his body tense.

  He was no longer a gangly, well-meaning teenager. He’d become a hardened, dangerous warrior, with two hundred years of grit to build on. Tension eased from her body, and she nodded. “Okay.”

  “Okay.” He held up the rock. “Do it.”

  She immediately closed her eyes and focused on the rock. Again, it called to her, a beautiful song of warmth and music that filled her body with a sense of completeness. It summoned her, and she went, effortlessly abandoning her human form and merging with the rock. The droplets of her being settled among all the particles that created the rock, weaving in and out of them. It was perfection, and beauty, and she sighed as her entire soul seemed to settle. She was tired now, sleepy, and she began to relax—

  “Sophie!” Vlad’s shout jerked her out of her peacefulness.

  She focused on him, using him as her anchor to get her out of the rock…but nothing happened. Panic hit her hard, and she started to fight in earnest, trying to separate herself from the rock, but it gripped her more tightly, clouding her mind, making it difficult to concentrate, to remember what she was fighting against…

  “Sophie!” Again, Vlad’s voice penetrated the rock. “Get the hell out of there now.”

  His voice felt distant, and the urgency washed over her, unable to grip her. She shut him out, focusing on merging with the rock, knowing that he couldn’t get her. Sudden fear gripped her, and she realized she was never going to leave that rock.

  Ever. Vlad. Help!

  Chapter 30

  Suddenly, her entire being screamed with pain. She felt as if her very body was being torn apart, ripped out of the rock. She fought against it, trying to stay where she was, but she was dragged ruthlessly from her oasis, pried free with unstoppable force. She held on as long as she could, and then she was torn from the rock and out into the air. For a split second, she hovered in the air, disoriented and confused, trying to get her bearing.

  “Sophie. Come back to me.” Vlad’s gentle voice penetrated her mind, and suddenly he came into focus. He was standing in front of her, his index finger extended toward her. She felt the warmth of his energy surge through her, and he began to bring the particles of her body together, reconnecting them.

  Vlad. She immediately focused on his touch, using his energy to rebuild her body. Working together, it took only a moment, and then she was standing in front of him again, her body solid, corporeal, and aching. Her legs trembled, and suddenly they gave out.

  Vlad caught her instantly, sweeping her up into his arms. “Shit, Sophie. What the hell just happened? Could you hear me when you were in there?”

  She rested her head on his shoulder, every muscle in her body shaking. “I heard you yell a couple times, but it was really far away. I couldn’t really process it.”

  “I had to pull you out of there.”

  “I know. I felt it.” She closed her eyes, trying to finish rebuilding her body, but her mind felt sluggish, as if it didn’t want to rebuild her. “I never would have left that time. It was like a drug, trapping me.” She began to shiver again, a bone deep shuddering she couldn’t stop. “This has never happened to me. Ever. The rocks are a part of me, but never a trap.” She looked over Vlad’s shoulder at the vast expanse of rocks surrounding them, and fear shuddered through her. Suddenly, every rock was a potential death trap. Without Vlad pulling her out, she would still be in there, with no way out. “It’s like they’re trying to trap me.” But even as she said it, she realized that wasn’t true. She was hiding in them, like she used to when she was little.

  Dismay filled her at the realization. After all this time, she was still the terrified little girl who would always choose to hide instead of fight?

  Vlad swore. “We need to get you out of here.” He turned and started walking again, moving fast, and keeping her in his arms, making sure not to brush even her arm against any rocks. He was heading in the opposite direction, away from the Graveyard of the Damned.

  Alarm raced through her. “You mean out of the demon realm? No!” She hit his arm, trying to get him to let go of her. “Stop it! You don’t get to make that decision!”

  He didn’t even slow down, or appear to notice her struggle. “It’s not safe for you, Sophie. Something’s happening to you, and there’s no way for you to stay safe. You have to leave.”

  Irritation flooded her, a need to find her strength again. She pushed against him. “Put me down.”

  He kept walking. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to touch any rocks right now.”

  “Put me down! I’m not going to be carried like some weak victim!” She shoved at his chest. “I can’t be so weak that I can’t even walk, Vlad.”

  Swearing, he stopped, searching her face. “I barely got you out of there, Soph. I don’t know if I can do it again.”

  “We’ll stop it before it gets that far. I let myself merge with the rock. Standing on it is different. I’ll be fine.”

  He didn’t stop walking. “What if you’re wrong? What if I put you down, and you get sucked into the rocks, and I can’t get you out? What then?”

  The raw terror in his voice made her heart turn over. “Vlad.” She touched his face. “Listen to me.” She spoke gently, trying to get past his fear.

  He stopped walking and closed his eyes, his arms still tight around her. “What?”

  “We’ll never make it back there before they find us. You can’t protect me by spiriting me away from the threat. It didn’t work last time, and it won’t work now. We need to know what I’m capable of. We need to know how b
ad it is. Put me down, and let’s deal with this now.” She didn’t want to be afraid anymore. She didn’t want to hide. She couldn’t be that girl she’d once been. Not anymore. She realized suddenly that all her dissolving over the years to hide from the demons had been just another form of being a victim, hiding, unwilling to fight for herself.

  God. She was weak. All this time, she’d thought she was strong, and she wasn’t. “Please,” she whispered. “I don’t want to run away anymore.” Her fear would have trapped her in that rock forever. Forever. She couldn’t live like that anymore. She just couldn’t. Hiding had become the enemy, not her salvation. She didn’t want to live in fear. She wanted to feel strong, powerful, and brave.

  For a long moment, he didn’t move. His muscles trembled where they held her, and his jaw ticked. Finally, he opened his eyes. His eyes were blazing with emotion, but he said nothing.

  His face rigid with emotion, he loosened his grip on her arms, allowing her to slide down his body toward the rocks. Her feet touched, and he held her still, the toes of her boots brushing the rocks. “You good?”

  She nodded. “Yep.”

  Slowly, he released her, but still kept his hand on her waist. “Still okay?”

  “Yes.” She could feel the call of the rocks through the soles of her boots even though she wasn’t even reaching out to them. It wasn’t a siren call, but she could feel their presence, as if they were alive. She’d always been able to initiate that connection, but she’d also been able to turn it off…but she couldn’t anymore. “But stay close.”

  “You got it.” Grimly, he put his hand on her back as they began to walk again, this time back toward the Graveyard of the Damned. Her back was warm where he was touching her, and she knew he was sending energy through her body, strengthening her cells and her physical being, giving her a shield of sorts. “I’ve changed my mind, Soph. I don’t think you should use dissolution into rocks to escape from demons.”

  She managed a strangled laugh. “You think? I don’t know. It seems to be going pretty well, and all.”

  He shot her an amused look. “Yeah, true, but I feel like it might hurt a demon’s ego not to be able to catch you. It’s kind of mean, you know?”

  Her arm brushed against a rock, and her entire body tingled. She quickly jumped to the side, pressing herself more tightly against Vlad and his radiating energy. “Well, I wouldn’t want to impinge upon any demon ego, so maybe I’ll lay off the rock bonding for a while.”

  “Excellent. So glad our demon etiquette is on the same page.”

  Their tense humorous exchange faded as they walked, until the only sound was the thudding of their boots on the rocky terrain…until Vlad suddenly stopped. She sensed it at the same moment he did, and together they turned, looking out across the lava fields. In the far distance, she saw shadows moving, a line of heavily muscled males steadily winding their way down the trail. “Demons,” she whispered. “They’re out for the hunt.”

  Chapter 31

  Vlad swore and moved her back from the edge, into the shadows. “If we can see them, they can see us.”

  She shivered at the thought. “There’s a pathway through the cliffs up ahead. We can cut through there and get on the other side…” As she said it, she realized that the crevice was narrow. There was no way for her to squeeze through it without touching the sides. She wasn’t sure she wanted to do that right now. She was so used to weaving in and out of rocks without thought, that without that ability, suddenly, she didn’t even know which way to go anymore. “Too narrow. I don’t want to be that close to the rocks.”

  “I agree. We’ll go around.” Vlad tugged her further back into the shadows. “Let’s go.”

  Sophie bit her lip, staying close to Vlad as they moved through the shadows, hugging the base of a high cliff. “We’re not that far from Gabe and Maria,” she said, “but we need to go around the rim of the lava fields. I don’t know how we can do it without being seen.”

  “I can redirect their attention if necessary.”

  “For how long?”

  “We’ll see.”

  Sophie swallowed, her heart starting to pound. She felt as if all their escape routes were closing in around them, one by one.

  Vlad gently squeezed her wrist. “Soph. You do realize that you have to leave the demon world, don’t you?”

  She sighed. “Vlad, this is an old topic now. I can’t—”

  “You have to.”

  She glanced over her shoulder at the demons. There were at least twenty of them, steadily marching across the lava fields. She could hear their low chant now, the one they always did when marching. That had been her life for so long, marching with the demons every night to search for the stone that would free them. It hadn’t felt so terrible, but now that she remembered her past and had Vlad back, the darkness of life in the demon realm felt glaring and almost overwhelming. She couldn’t deny that she didn’t want to live this life anymore. She wanted to go back to a place where the sun warmed her skin, and people had a chance to be free. She wanted a second chance at a life with Vlad. “A part of me wants to leave,” she said quietly. “But I will never be happy knowing that I abandoned Maria and the other women. I can’t live with that.”

  Vlad swore. “I get that, Soph, but you literally have no way to stay safe here, even if we take down Lucien and Rikker. There will always be more demons.”

  Resolution flooded her. “There has to be a way. We could figure it out—”

  Vlad stopped and turned to face her. His eyes were dark and tormented, his muscles tense. “Sophie. I would do anything for you. You know that, right?”

  She nodded, tension gripping her. Was he going to tell her he couldn’t stay in the demon world with her? Was he going to leave without her? She lifted her chin, trying to steel herself against the words she knew were coming, but tears still burned in her eyes. As important as Maria and the women were to her, she didn’t know if she could handle losing Vlad again. He’d been a part of her soul since she was a baby.

  She knew suddenly why she’d forgotten about her previous life when she’d fallen into the demon world. It hadn’t been because of her parents’ betrayal. It was because she’d been unable to cope with the loss of Vlad. Losing Vlad again would be like severing her own heart in half and throwing the good part away. Don’t make me choose, she whispered silently, desperately.

  He took her hands, his touch warm around her fingers. “Soph.”

  She took a shaky breath and looked at him. Her throat was tight, and she felt like darkness was crushing down on her, because she knew she wouldn’t leave with him. As much as she loved him, as much as every piece of her soul cried out with longing to leave this hellhole and go to the earth realm with him, she knew she could never abandon Maria and the others. She would let him go. “What?”

  He brought her hands to his mouth and pressed a tender kiss to each of her palms. “Since the day we met, I’ve loved you. I loved you when you got angry. I loved you when you were scared. I loved you when you were brave. And I loved you when I thought I’d lost you.” His dark eyes fixed on hers. “For the last two hundred years, since I lost you, I’ve been a bitter, angry bastard trying to survive one minute at a time. I forgot what it felt like to smile, or to care about anything, even whether I lived another day.”

  She couldn’t keep the tears from sliding down her cheeks. How could she live without this? Without him? When she hadn’t remembered what she was missing, it had been easy. But now?

  He wrapped his hands around hers, sandwiching her hands between his. “Finding you has brought light back into my life, and back into my soul. I can hear my heart beating again, and I can feel my own life force again, instead of stumbling around numbly. You know why that is?”

  She shrugged, emotions strung too tight to talk.

  “Because I am deeply, passionately, completely in love with you.” His face softened. “I’ve always loved you, but it was a different kind of love than it is now. Back then, it wa
s between kids, best friends. Now, it’s the kind of love that makes this matter.” He pressed a kiss to her wedding ring. “You’re my woman, not just my best friend, though it’s that, too. I love you, Soph, and I’ll love you until the last breath I take.”

  His beautiful, heartfelt words made her want to fall into his arms and cry until she had no more tears left to fall. It was all she could do to make herself simply stand there, and wait for him to finish, to break her heart.

  “But—”

  The “but.” She’d known it was coming, but just hearing that word made a sharp stab of pain pierce her heart.

  Danger glittered in his eyes. “That also means I am fiercely protective of you. I failed you once, and I won’t fail you again.”

  She tensed at the look on his face, and she knew what he was saying. “You’re planning to force me to leave?”

  Regret flickered across his face. “If you stay here, you won’t survive, and we both know it. You won’t do Maria and those women any good if you die. Staying doesn’t fix that problem.”

  She lifted her chin. “I will not leave—”

  “You will.”

  Anger surged through her. They’d had this discussion before, but she could feel the difference. He wasn’t being theoretical. He meant it, one hundred percent. He wasn’t going to give her an option. “You don’t get it, Vlad. I’m not a sheltered teenager anymore afraid to go against the rules. You don’t get to decide my life. No one does. Only me.” She had to make him understand that she couldn’t run away anymore. She had to face that which scared her, or she would crumble in fear for the rest of her life.

  His eyes narrowed, but he didn’t back down. “When I married you, I gave you an oath to keep you safe, and I will do that.”

  “I don’t want to be safe,” she retorted. “I want to live! I want to matter!”

  “You do matter. To me.”