“I’ve got to go,” I said, gently pulling free of his hold. “I need to get cleaned up and…”
“I know,” he said, brushing his thumb over my cheek, forcing me to look up into his face. “I’ll swing by later, all right?”
A refusal hovered on the tip of my tongue but I couldn’t summon the will to tell him no. Instead, I nodded as he hailed a cab for me and proceeded to bundle me into the backseat.
“It’s going to be all right, Amber,” he said, watching me like a hawk. “We can get through this.”
I gave him a tentative smile and bit my tongue as he shut the door and the car pulled away from the curb.
He was wrong. Things would never be all right ever again. Graham could be a right pain in my ass. He had more rules than I’d had hot dinners and his desire to always stay within the law sometimes made it difficult to work the kinds of cases we found ourselves involved with. But I’d learned to accept, even love, all that about him because as much as he drove me mad, I knew he cared for me. Loved me even.
My power frightened him but not because he was worried I would hurt him but because it might expose me to the wrong kinds of attention. He worried that one day, the knowledge of my being a Shadow Sorceress would fall into the wrong hands and I would go from hunter to hunted in the blink of an eye.
At every turn he’d tried to protect me, sometimes even at his expense.
He’d meant so much to me. Had I told him that?
No… Nic was wrong to think things would ever be all right.
Someone had stepped into my world and ripped out someone I cared about. They had made it personal and this was something I couldn’t ignore. If Jason and the Elite thought I would stand by and let the one responsible get away, then they had another think coming. I couldn’t let that stand.
I would find the one responsible and when I did… I would make them wish for death.
4
I stood beneath the scalding water’s spray until it ran clear. The tears had started up again as soon as I’d seen the rust coloured water swirling around the plug-hole. And yet, I knew the full force of the grief that would come hadn’t hit me yet.
There was a strange numb feeling in the centre of my core that refused to budge.
Switching off the taps, I grabbed the towel hanging on the rail nearby and wrapping it around my body, I stepped out onto the grey mat. The moment I was out from under the heat of the water, my teeth began to chatter. I kept my gaze averted from the bathroom mirror, still unable to meet my own reflection, lest the memory of Fionn snatching me from this realm crawled insidiously back inside my head. He’d given me enough nightmares to last a lifetime.
Exiting the bathroom, I paused in the bedroom, soaking in the silence that surrounded me.
A slight scratching at the front door drew my attention, turning the blood in my veins to ice. Moving to the bed, I pulled open the bedside drawer and tugged my gun free. The familiar weight of it in my hands made me feel a little more confident as I crept out into the hall and stealthily moved toward the front door.
Rising onto my tip-toes I glanced out through the peephole but there was no one in the hallway beyond. Just the constant flickering of the overhead lights that caused the tension headache I had to intensify.
Pulling away from the peephole, I dropped back against the wall and closed my eyes. Now I was imagining things too, great.
An itch started up on my shoulder, making it feel as though the skin on my back was crawling. Before I could jerk away from the wall, the itch turned into a burn as I realised only the lines of the demon mark were affected.
Pain ripped through me and I lost my grip on the gun. My mind only vaguely registering the noise it made as it hit the floor. The agony ratcheted up several more notches. Making me feel like I was being branded… again. As though the demon had planted his hand against my back and seared his demonic seal onto my skin once more.
Stuffing my fist into my mouth, I tried to bite back the scream that threatened to spill out of me.
“Hurts you too, I see,” a familiar male voice cut through the haze of pain surrounding me.
Strong hands grabbed my shoulders and I fought blindly against the one who’d grabbed me. My eyes snapped open and I caught a glimpse of the one manhandling me inside my own apartment.
His bronze hair caught the light in my hallway, giving him russet highlights that any hairdresser would have been proud of. A pair of azure eyes met mine for a moment and while I knew I’d never seen them before, I couldn’t shake the overwhelming sense of familiarity that swept through me.
Strong, sure fingers traced over the demon mark on my shoulder quenching the fire that had erupted beneath my skin.
I slumped against the wall, feeling utterly wrung out.
“Better?” His hands appeared on the wall either side of my head as hot breath tickled across the back of my neck. The deep baritone of his voice slid over my body making me think of things that happened in the dark between lovers.
Turning slowly, I found myself trapped between his chest and the wall. I was standing so close I could have touched him with my body if I’d drawn a deep enough breath.
From the corner of my eyes, I noticed the tawny skin of his arms was covered in fine golden hairs making it look like his creator had taken a paint-brush to his body ornamenting him with pure gold.
“Who are you?” My voice was surprisingly steady.
“Oh, good, we’re not doing the usual tango you human females like to partake in,” he said. I stared at him in confusion and he rolled his eyes. “You know, ‘get out! why are you doing this? What are you doing here? What do you want from me? My boyfriend will be home soon…’ You know,” he said “boring shit.”
His words sent a shiver of fear down my spine.
“At least now, we can get straight down to business.” He leaned in close, his eyes sliding shut as he drew a deep breath in. He was scenting me… Revulsion caused my skin to crawl as the fear I’d felt grew.
“You killed Graham,” I said.
Azure eyes snapped open, pinning me in place with their unreadable stare.
“I promise you this, Amber, I did not kill him…”
There wasn’t a hint of deceit in his words, not that it meant much. There were plenty of creatures out there capable of lying convincingly enough. He knows my name…
I contemplated dropping to the ground and grabbing my gun but I knew no matter how fast I might be, he would be faster. He had after all gotten inside the apartment without me knowing. And he’d done something to the demon mark so I knew he definitely wasn’t human. No, sudden moves would probably only get me killed.
“How do you know my name?”
“I know quite a bit more than just your name,” he said, reaching out to wrap a damp strand of my hair around his fingers.
“Back away,” I said, keeping my voice steady, fighting the panic his proximity created.
“But we work so much better up close and personal,” he said, his voice dropping low and sensual, tightening things low in my body. My breath caught in the back of my throat.
What the fuck was wrong with me?
“I have a way of sliding under your skin, don’t you think?” He trailed a finger over my shoulder, moving down the front of my chest to the top of the towel.
“Get your hands off me,” I said, searching for the power that resided in my core. Instead of the well of untapped energy I’d grown accustomed to finding there, I hit a solid wall of nothingness that stole the strength from my legs and threatened to spill me onto the floor. He’d stolen my power when he’d screwed with the demon mark, I was certain of it. It was the only explanation that made sense.
“I’ve been much closer than this.” He continued to speak, not noticing or not caring about the full blown panic that now screamed inside my head.
“You and I make quite the team, don’t you think?”
I struck him square in the chest with the palm of my hand. It wasn’t much
but it was enough to give me a little room to think and breathe. Not that I wasted time doing either of those things. Instead, I let my training take over, body sliding into auto-pilot as I dropped to the ground and snatched the gun up from where I’d let it fall.
I dived across the floor, landing in a crouch that allowed me to bring the Glock up in a two-handed grip. I levelled it at the man who’d broken in.
He hadn’t moved. Pushing up through my heels, I straightened, keeping the gun trained on him. He simply stood there, staring at me with a slightly bemused expression on his arrogantly handsome face.
“Who are you?”
He moved then, his body a blur as he closed the distance between us. The sound of the gun going off in the cramped confines of my apartment was enough to make my ears ring. I squeezed the trigger until the gun was empty, firing point blank into the chest and face of the one moving toward me. He crumpled to the ground, dropping in front of me like a stone. The dull thud of his body as it hit the floor sent a frisson of relief coursing in my veins.
I nudged at the body with my foot but there was no movement. The tension sliding out of my shoulders as I released the breath I’d been holding.
Backing up, I headed for my bedroom and the phone I had in there. If I wasn’t the one to call this in, one of my neighbours would and the last thing I needed was a bunch of human cops kicking the door in.
The body on the floor remained where it had fallen and I felt the knot of fear in my stomach slowly unfurl. Ducking into the bedroom, I made it as far as the bedside locker. Reloading the gun took only a moment and I snatched the cell phone from its resting place on the pile of books next to the bed. Hurrying back to the hall, my stomach dropped. The body was gone.
“Shit, shit, shit,” I muttered under my breath. This was just like every god-damned horror movie ever made. Girl thinks she’s killed the intruder and goes for help, only to return to find the body gone.
Awareness prickled along the back of my neck and I swung around, coming face to the face with the man I’d gunned down.
His hand clamped down over the gun, ripping it from my grip in a show of raw power, he tossed it aside as though it were nothing but a toy. I twisted away from him, bringing my hands up into a defensive position but the stranger moved with me as though he knew every one of my moves.
I tried to bat his hand aside but he fought through my defence, his hand wrapping around my throat, he walked me backwards until my spine hit the wall.
His expression never changed, a bemused smile playing on his full lips, blue eyes unfathomable.
Lashing out at him, I tried to land a punch square in his face but with his free hand he caught my arm and slammed it against the wall, pain ricocheting up through my shoulder and down my body.
“You really don’t know me?” There was no mistaking the curiosity in his voice as he pinned me to the wall.
My response to his question was little more than a choked mumble, the hold on my throat too tight for me to talk around.
“You humans have such short memories,” he mused, his fingers sliding up over the skin of my arm. He found a scar on the inside of my elbow and paused to explore it. His touch was feather light, more a caress than anything else and the feel of his fingers on my skin caused my breath to quicken.
Suddenly, his fingers closed over my arm, jarring me as he squeezed hard enough to make the bones groan in protest. It hadn’t been that long since I’d broken my arm and despite it healing, it still ached whenever the weather turned cold and rain fell.
A constant reminder of the rain soaked battle in the graveyard against Lily and…
Shock sliced through my core as I met the eyes of the man standing before me.
“You’re weak and pathetic. Far too weak to harness the gift I bring…”
The moment the words left his mouth I was transported back to that night in the cemetery. The ugly face of the demon a sharp contrast to the man who stood before me now. But as I stared into his soulless eyes, I knew they were one and the same.
“How?” The word croaked out past my lips.
The demon released me, my head spinning as I sucked in a deep breath and rubbed my throat. Getting choked twice in one night was a little much, even by my standards.
“So you do remember?”
“How could I forget? You branded me with your mark,” I said, straightening up.
“A mark that has saved your life more times than you can count,” he said, crossing the living room and dropping onto the couch. “Ingrate.” The word was muttered below his breath but I still heard him.
I opened my mouth but he raised his hand. “Don’t start with the questions,” he said, dismissively. “You were doing so well and that shit gets boring real fast.”
“So you said,” I said dryly, “but that doesn’t change the fact that I have questions that deserve answers.”
His laughter grated against my skin like nails on a chalkboard. “I owe you nothing,” he said, “you summoned me here and I’ve repaid you by not killing you.”
“So why don’t you then?”
“Then we both go back to Hell,” he said with a derisive snort. “I thought you were supposed to be smart?”
“So why not take the demon mark back?”
The question clearly caught him by surprise if his reaction was anything to go by. He cocked his head to the side, his gaze appraising as he looked me up and down.
“There’s a lot you don’t know about my kind, isn’t there?”
“The only thing I need to know about your kind,” I said, “is that you can be killed.”
His gaze slid away from my face, before he climbed to his feet once more and roamed the room. Was he looking for something?
“What do you want?”
“You seem sad,” he said suddenly, changing the subject so abruptly I found myself doubting if I’d even spoken aloud at all. “Your scent is of one who has suffered a deep loss. I would ask if the Saga scum was dead but we both know that is not it…”
His words instantly conjured my memories of Graham. The look in his eyes as he pinned me on the floor and proceeded to choke the life from me. The feel of his fingers digging into my throat. The knowledge that in that moment he had wanted me dead…
“He is closer than I thought,” the demon said, suddenly breaking through my thoughts.
“Who is?”
“The one hunting us,” he said cryptically. He paused in the door to the kitchen and threw a glance over his shoulder at me. “Do you have anything worth eating in this flea-pit?”
Ten minutes later, dressed in a pair of sweatpants and a loose jumper, I stood in the kitchen watching the demon demolish the last of a loaf of bread and a chunk of mouldy cheese I’d found in the fridge. He ate like someone worried it would be a long time before his next meal. His movements furtive, shoulders tense, eyes constantly scanning the area as though someone would wrestle him to the ground for the piece of bread he was ripping into.
“I don’t understand why you don’t have anything more substantial in this place,” he said, “there’s so much to enjoy in this world, yet you somehow manage to make it a chore instead of a pleasure.”
“I haven’t really had the time to get groceries,” I said, turning to the sink and filling a glass of water. I took a small sip as I contemplated my next move. I really only had one avenue open to me, confrontation. Especially if I wanted him out of here as quickly as possible.
“Are you going to tell me who is hunting us?” It sounded weird to use the word ‘us’ when referring to something I’d summoned from Hell and had vowed to send back there one day.
The demon paused and scanned me all over. “Not yet,” he said, “you don’t even know my name.”
Blowing out a frustrated breath, I pushed up and away from the sink. Drawing myself up to my full height I stood in front of him. Not that it mattered; he still towered over me.
“Fine. What’s your name?”
He grinned at me. “
Alastor.”
“So, Alastor, are you going to tell me everything?”
He shook his head.
“Right, if you’re not going to tell me, then you can get the Hell out of here.”
He cocked an eyebrow at me. “Pun intended?”
“You know what I mean.” Frustration crowded in on my mind, ratcheting up the tension headache I’d been nursing all evening.
“Look,” he said, his voice infuriatingly calm. “I don’t like being here anymore than you like having me here.” He levelled his gaze at me. “I don’t like you. In fact, I detest you. But you’ve got my mark so that makes you my problem and I think leaving now would be the wrong thing.”
“No one asked you to be here,” I said, “the door is right there, anytime you want to leave. I’m certainly not going to stand in your way.” I snatched the last chunk of cheese he was holding from his hands.
“Somebody’s got their knickers in a twist,” he said.
I contemplated throwing the lump of cheese at his head but something told me he’d only catch it and finish eating it. Too much like playing into his hands and I was too tired for the games he seemed to enjoy playing.
“I might not like you, or even trust you enough to tell you everything but I can’t afford to have anything happen to you either.” He sighed as though it were the worst possible complication in the world. “And anyway, it’s just a theory right now, I’ve got no proof.”
“Wow, a demon who does his due diligence.” I didn’t bother to keep the sarcasm from my voice. “And I think you’ll find, I’m more than capable of taking care of myself.”
The demon smiled, a wide grin that reminded me of the same smile he’d shared when I’d summoned him to earth. Of course, then his mouth had been filled with rows of razor sharp teeth made for ripping and tearing flesh from bones.
“How can you look human,” I said. “You’re a full blood, you should be…” I trailed off suddenly unable to think of the words to describe how a full blood demon should look.
“When you’ve got enough juice in the tank the way I do, you can look however you want,” Alastor said, snatching the piece of cheese back from my hands and popping it straight into his mouth. He swallowed without chewing and before I could stop him, he’d stolen my glass of water from my other hand and proceeded to drain the contents in two large gulps.
Embrace of Darkness Page 3