Hearts of Darkness

by Kira Brady

  “P-please just one more chance—” the kid pleaded.

  “Never. And now he is the most highly accomplished hunter, at the top of his game, my best warrior, a role model for all my children.” Norgard smiled at the circle around him, but his eyes never warmed.

  The young runners gazed back at their master with idolatry in their eyes, the older operatives with loyalty tinged with wariness.

  “Every one of them would give their life for me. Are you not willing to do the same?”

  “No, I . . . I mean yes . . .” The kid scrambled to find the correct answer.

  Norgard said nothing. The silence stretched.

  The kid swallowed. “Yes, I would give my life for you. M-master.”

  “Good. I am asking for it now.”

  “B-but I—”

  Hart wanted to leave. His stomach churned. He didn’t know whether to hope the kid passed the test or hope he didn’t. Slavery or death? The choice was not an easy one to make.

  “Did you or did you not pledge it to me?”

  As realization slowly dawned on the kid, that this was, in fact, the end, a calm acceptance settled over him. Manning up. He stopped groveling and sat up straight. Brushed the tears out of his brown eyes and looked up into Norgard’s face. “I did,” he said. His voice shook, but whose wouldn’t? Most grown men went kicking and screaming to their own death. It took a special kind to accept it as this kid had finally done.

  “Good.” Norgard nodded once in satisfaction.

  The muscled men who had been playing pool when Hart first came in stepped forward. One of them stripped the shirt from the kid’s back and the other held out two golden cuffs.

  Hart was hyperaware of the bands on his own arms. They seemed to burn his skin.

  Norgard shook his long sleeves to uncover his hideous half-Turned hands. His fingers were clawed, his nails black and long. The skin was faintly scaled. He produced a silver knife from the folds of his robe and held it up.

  The kid flinched, but didn’t back away.

  “I accept your offering,” Norgard said. The knife flashed, and a ribbon of blood welled on each of the kid’s biceps. “I accept your sacrifice.” Replacing the knife in his robe, he took the golden cuffs. He clasped one around each arm over the ribbon of blood. “I accept you into my service with the blessing of Tiamat until this mark is repaid.”

  Few lived long enough to see that day. Those who didn’t were forced to serve even after death, trapping them on this side of the Gate. No peace in the grave.

  The gold bands were carved with ancient runes. Slowly, the carvings turned red as they sucked the kid’s blood out of his body. He cried out in pain and fell onto his hands. Beads of blood sprang from his pores.

  The bands began to glow. Norgard raised his hands again and said something in Old Norse. A blinding flash shook the room, and the kid screamed. When Hart could see again, the kid lay on the ground, unconscious. The bands no longer glowed.

  “Take him,” Norgard ordered the two men who had aided in the ceremony. The taller one threw the boy over his shoulder, and they disappeared into the tunnels at the far end of the cave.

  “Back to your work.” Norgard clapped his hands, and the troops scattered. He caught and held Hart’s eyes, commanding him silently to stay.

  Hart knew he wasn’t going to like whatever came next. Inside him, the beast tore at its prison. Its thoughts shot like bullets to ricochet through his skull. An alpha was safety. An alpha was loyalty. Norgard was no alpha, with his poisonous protection. Sweat broke on his skin. Soon, he crooned to the madness inside him. Soon he’d have enough to pay off Norgard. Soon they would be free.

  Norgard wouldn’t make it easy on him. Oh, no. Hart fully expected the fucker would use every devious trick in the book to get Hart to repledge himself. Thank the Lady he’d learned a thing or two in the last fifteen years. He wasn’t a starving kid anymore, desperate for the smallest scrap of affection. The binding magic required a willing sacrifice, and he had no intention of giving his consent this time.

  Death would be better.

  “Walk with me, soldier,” Norgard said, and Hart fell into step beside him. They strolled down the long row of monitors. Norgard closed his eyes and breathed deeply. “I sense it on you. I would have it now.” He held out his palm.

  Hart gave him the necklace.

  Norgard sighed in pleasure. “Ah, much better. I have another treasure I wish you to reclaim for me.”

  His final job. Hart held his breath.

  “I want my child,” Norgard said.

  That was impossible.

  “You mistake me,” Norgard said. “I don’t require you to pass beyond the Gate and return my stolen heir. Even if the child had been born, it would take one greater than you to return him to me.”

  “Then what—”

  “The living sister. I wish her to be the mother of my child. Deliver her, and you will earn your freedom.”

  Hart froze. He wished his hearing were poor, wished Norgard had asked for something else. Anything else. He should be disappointed in himself. After all these years, he thought there was nothing that he wouldn’t stoop to do for his freedom. But Kayla . . .

  “What am I to do with you?” Norgard asked. His voice was deceptively calm, but a thin wisp of smoke escaped out of one nostril. “You’ve been loyal, and yet here, so close to your freedom, you fail me.”

  Hart found himself thinking of ways to get out of it. He could tell her to run tonight. If she got far enough away . . . but no, he’d be sent to hunt her down.

  Norgard examined his sharp nails. “We both know you have no choice in the matter. I want her returned to me. Whole and unsullied.”

  Ah, fuck. Deep inside Hart, the beast growled. Possessive rage boiled up, and he ruthlessly tamped it down. He couldn’t afford to say no.

  “Perhaps you’re not eager to leave my service,” Norgard suggested. “You can always repledge.”

  “No, I got it,” Hart promised. He had no choice. His soul—dark and tainted as it was—craved the solitude of the wilderness. Freedom was all that mattered. It had to be.

  Norgard glanced at his pocket watch. “It’s almost midnight. You have twelve hours.”

  Hart nodded. Maybe, if he sent Grace to whisk Kayla away, he could give her a twelve-hour head start before the slave magic forced him to comply. He was saved from further questioning by a piercing whistle from a runner monitoring the lair’s entrance.

  “Reaper at the front gate!” the runner shouted. “She’s down! I repeat: The Reaper is down!”

  Inside Hart’s head, the beast sent up a long, low howl that reverberated across the bones of his skull. If Grace was injured, there was no hope left. Oscar was needed here to patch Grace up. There was no one else Hart trusted to send after Kayla.

  The room burst into a flurry of activity.

  “Report,” Norgard demanded. “How injured? Can she walk?”

  “Blood, sir, lots of it,” the kid yelled back. “She’s crawling down the tunnel.”

  Norgard’s eyes, usually devoid of emotion, sparked in excitement. Hart had to swallow the bile that rose in his throat. Two operatives ran past carrying a stretcher. Runners cleared boxes out of the way, creating a path from the entrance to the private tunnels that branched off on the other side of the cave. Someone pulled out the medic kit, just in case. From the video feed, it looked too late to use it.

  Hart turned away. Poor, driven Grace. For such a skinny little girl, she took big risks. She knew the price of failure. Norgard might demand a high price from his male operatives for his healing blood, but from Grace he took it all. Her innocence. Her dignity. Her soul.

  Why did Hart let himself care? He didn’t. He couldn’t. There was nothing he could do to help her.

  But damn it, he didn’t have to watch.

  Chapter 10

  Morning dawned red and hazy. There was a bite to the spring air, almost like a crowd full of disapproving ghosts. Hart didn’t pull out his De
adglass to see if it was true. Some things were better off not knowing. That was Kayla’s problem. She wouldn’t let things go. She didn’t understand that sometimes self-preservation had to win out over morbid curiosity. And now look at what she’d gotten herself into.

  Hart kicked the wheel of his Mercedes. The car didn’t want to start this morning, even after a gentle push. It was almost like the car knew with her female intuition what he was about to do—and disapproved. Fuck it, he was a cold-blooded bastard and didn’t give a damn about anyone’s feelings.

  He yanked open the hood and breathed the heavy perfume of oil and diesel. He sprayed starter fluid into the intake manifold, hoping it would be enough to start her under ghostly conditions. One last job. This was it. He could feel the hated golden bands burning through his upper arms. Soon, so soon he could taste it, the blood price would be satisfied. All he had to do was deliver the package to Norgard, and he’d be a new man. A free man.

  How could something so ridiculously easy be so hard?

  He slammed the hood down and climbed half in the driver’s side door to give the car another try. This time she rolled down the steep hill, and her engine coughed to life. He gave her a loving pat, pulled himself the rest of the way into the car, and slammed the door.

  The city rolled awake around him, blurry-eyed against the unusual cloud-free sky. A day like today should be stormy to match his mood, but the Lady was ornery. She liked rainy weddings and sunny funerals.

  It should take him no more than an hour to complete this last job. By ten o’clock he would be cruising the open road with not a care in the world. Freedom wouldn’t cure the moon madness, but he’d be his own man.

  He pulled up in front of Desiree’s apartment. His knock on the door was greeted by a vision wrapped in a white fluffy towel. Kayla’s gorgeous chocolate hair was piled high on her head, leaving her long neck and shoulders blessedly naked all the way down to the damnably small towel. The rise of her beautiful breasts spilled over the top, taunting, seducing. The towel hit high on her creamy thighs. The muscles in her smooth legs were strong, powerful and graceful like a gazelle. The beast saw those curves and lunged forward, yanking at the Aether to force the Change, one thought ringing in his ears: Mine.

  This job might be the end of him.

  “Did you forget something?” she asked.

  He licked his lips.

  She opened the door, just like that. Let the big bad Wolf into her house without a thought to her own safety.

  He should throw her over his shoulder and make tail for Norgard before he did something incredibly stupid. But the beast had control of his brain.

  He strolled past her into the living room. The door shut firmly behind him. The walls of the little apartment seemed closer than last time. The air thinner. The couch larger. Her scent teased his nostrils. He could hear her blood rapidly pulsing in her veins, like she’d been running. Or was terrified. Or aroused.

  All three called to the Wolf inside him. His canines descended.

  She came up behind him and boldly wrapped her arms around his waist, obviously having decided to finish what they started the day before.

  He swallowed. “Lady be.”

  Her firm breasts pressed against his back. He wasn’t strong enough to resist this.

  “Now that you’re feeling better . . .” Her soft voice wavered, and he knew she was nervous.

  So why couldn’t she back off?

  Her small hands explored beneath the edge of his shirt. Her touch on his abs was the sweetest torture.

  Don’t touch me, he wanted to say.

  “Lower,” slipped out instead.

  Her fingers slid beneath the waistband of his jeans, and he let out a groan. With his eyes closed, the world shrank to nothing but her touch, the press of her hand shyly exploring him, her scent, lilac shampoo and soap. He wanted to taste her, to roll his tongue over her folds and spread her fragrance on his lips. Inside him, the beast howled in anticipation.

  Before he knew what he was doing, she was in his arms. The towel dropped to the floor, and there was nothing to prevent him from looking his fill, devouring her lush body with his eyes. He needed more.

  He wanted to dive into her smooth skin and drown every sense with her essence. They stumbled to the couch, touching and tasting, licking and biting. He blocked out everything but the pleasure of tactile sensation.

  “You’re wearing too many clothes,” she gasped.

  He didn’t have time to take them off. If he stopped, the real world would come crashing back in. He couldn’t let that happen. All they had was this one precious moment, and he didn’t want to waste a heartbeat of it.

  He pressed his mouth to hers to silence her. Her lips parted beneath his assault. Her tongue slipped against his hesitantly, then grew bolder as she learned what made him moan. Just like the woman—empowered by knowledge, selfless in her mission to help others.

  He didn’t deserve her kindness.

  She protested when he tore his mouth away. He traced his tongue down her throat, paused at her rapid pulse, and explored farther to her deliciously puckered nipple. Lady, but she tasted good. He blew on the wet tip, and she moaned, so responsive to his every touch.

  He slid a hand down her smooth stomach and over her furred mound to the center of her pleasure. Her legs parted for him, and her scent shot straight to his head like a bullet. It was overpowering, pleasure and pain. His balls grew tight in response.

  She was hot and wet. His beast wanted to dive in teeth first. How had he thought he could resist this?

  “Tell me what you like, babe,” he whispered.

  “You,” she said. “I like you.”

  He growled, more Wolf than man, and moved from her breast down her body, stopping to pay homage to the delicate curve of her stomach and dip into her navel. The closer he came to her core, the closer the Wolf came to the surface. His skin tightened until he thought he would burst out of it. Sweat broke down his spine with the effort to rein in the beast.

  The first taste of her on his tongue almost made him explode in his boxers. She wasn’t even touching him. His dick throbbed with the need to bury itself where his tongue lodged. Instead, he licked harder, faster. He played with her nerve endings like a fine instrument and drank up every moan, every heated sob.

  His vision began to blur with the effort of holding himself back.

  Her hands fisted in his hair, driving him on. He loved it. Loved the sounds she made and her uninhibited response to him. Loved the way she trusted him with her body.

  His zipper was in his hand before that last thought hit his brain.

  She trusted him.

  Horror coursed through Hart. Shame hit him squarely in the chest, propelling him off the couch and across the room. He pressed his back against the far wall, breathing deeply, trying desperately to keep the beast from bursting out of his skin and claiming what it wanted. The Lady help him. He didn’t even realize his arms were burning beneath the gold slave bands until he had a clean breath free from her drugging scent.

  Kayla sat up tentatively. She pulled the towel over her, suddenly shy. “What’s wrong?”

  What wasn’t wrong? How could he tell her what he had done or what he intended to do? He couldn’t explain the choice he had to make: her freedom for his. He’d made his choice when he’d first pledged himself to Norgard. Now, half a lifetime later, the blood on his hands made him unfit for anything else.

  She couldn’t understand. She was a healer. He was a killer, and he would always be a killer. Poisoned from birth, unable to control his beast, his very presence pulled death from the woodwork like a leech siphoned blood. The black spot was his calling card. Everyone who got close to him died.

  He shouldn’t feel guilty. He’d warned her to stay away from him, warned her not to trust him. She hadn’t listened, had she? Got roughed up and kept coming back for more. Stupid. Innocent.

  “Hart?” Her beautiful chocolate eyes were huge and hurting.

  “Get
dressed,” he said. “We’ve got an appointment with an informant. He’s got answers for you about your sister. Everything you want to know.”

  “Shouldn’t we talk about this? About us?”

  “This was a mistake. It won’t happen again.” He zipped his jeans and fixed the buttons on his shirt, anything to keep from looking at her. He didn’t deserve to breathe the same air.

  Still, she trusted him. She rose and went to the bedroom. When she emerged, mercifully clothed in jeans and a concealing red sweater, she had her game face on. That was the woman he knew: strong, tough—nothing could knock her down for long.

  He hated to be the one to shatter her illusions.

  She walked gingerly, as if her jeans abraded sensitive skin, and he realized he had worked her up and left her high and dry. She had to be hurting something fierce.

  He really was a bastard.

  “Who is this informant?” she asked as they took the stairs down to the parking lot.

  “Someone who knew your sister really well.” Intimately, but he didn’t want to dwell on that point. He couldn’t think of where he was bringing her. He’d perfected the art of living in the moment, and he drew on that skill now. One foot in front of the other, step by step.

  Stiffly, she climbed into the passenger seat. The scent of her arousal was suffocating in the small space. He quickly rolled down the windows, but it didn’t help. If he’d been free, nothing on earth could have prevented him from pulling her into his arms and ravishing her on the side of the road. Lady be damned. Damned, tarred, quartered, feathered, gutted, and lit on fire.

  Hart drove west toward Puget Sound. Crows clung to the trees overhead, watching but not interfering. Sticking his head out the window, he welcomed the harsh salt wind scraping against his face. He gunned the engine. Inside him, the beast whined.

  He’d thought he had no conscience left, but each block closer to his freedom dropped another lead weight in his gut. It hurt. Regret, apprehension, guilt, grief—what the hell? He hardly knew the woman, but somehow she’d managed to get under his skin in a short period of time.