Darkness Unleashed

by Alexandra Ivy

  Lifting the dagger, she drew a thin line over his heart, watching the blood drip down his chest.

  “Actually, there’s not a cur to be found,” she mocked.

  He shuddered, although she hadn’t truly hurt him. Yet.

  “It’s a trap. They’ll be here any minute.”

  She pressed the dagger deeper. “Not in time to keep me from carving out your heart.”

  “Wait.” He struggled to breathe, his eyes wild with delicious fear. “Let’s not be hasty, Regan.”

  “Hasty?” Fury made her blood boil. “I’ve waited thirty years to kill you. It’s all I dreamed of night after night.”

  “How can you say that? I’ve been like a father to you.” He squealed as the dagger slid deeper. “Okay, maybe not a father, but don’t forget I saved you from that ditch. You could have died if it weren’t for me.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Ditch, eh?”

  “Maybe it was more of a culvert.”

  “You worthless piece of shit, I’ve talked to Gaynor,” she hissed. “I know the curs gave me to you in Chicago.”

  Terror flashed through the pale green eyes before Culligan was frantically attempting to cover his ass.

  “Gaynor? You can’t believe a word he says. He deliberately tricked me into coming to Hannibal.” His face tightened. “Treacherous bastard.”

  “I’d believe that treacherous bastard if he told me the sky was green before I would believe a word that came from your filthy mouth.”

  He glanced down at the dagger stuck directly over his heart, licking his lips.

  “Right, I get it. You’re angry. I didn’t treat you as well as I should have. That doesn’t mean we can’t come to an…understanding.”

  Her sharp laugh echoed through the small shed. “Understanding?”

  “Anything. Just tell me what you want.”

  A few days ago what she wanted was this imp dead. Slowly, painfully, and by her hand.

  Now she had to accept that there were more important things.

  Jagr.

  And the truth of her past.

  “What I want is answers,” she rasped.

  “Fine. Whatever.”

  “Tell me how you got your nasty hands on me when I was a baby.”

  “I told you I found you in a…” He screamed as Regan pushed the dagger a hair’s breadth from his heart. “Shit.”

  “One more lie, and you’re dead,” she warned. “You didn’t find me in a ditch.”

  Cowering with a fear that warmed Regan’s vengeful soul, Culligan gave up on his lame story.

  “Okay, okay.” He sucked in a careful breath. “I was in Chicago, minding my own business, I might add, when I was approached by a cur who claimed he had some hot cargo he needed to unload in a hurry.”

  “I was the hot cargo?”

  “You and your sisters,” he clarified. “The curs had blundered and attracted the attention of the local social services agency. The humans had already taken one of the babies, but the curs managed to slip away with the other three.”

  Regan stiffened. Well, that little tidbit would please Darcy. According to Salvatore, her sister had never been able to discover how she’d ended up in the hands of humans. And of course, she now knew how Culligan had managed to get a pureblooded Were in his power, if not how the curs had gotten a hold of her and her sisters in the first place.

  “They tried to hush it all up, but the rumors hit the streets, and the curs were afraid that the word might reach the ears of the Weres. They needed to get rid of the evidence before they were caught red-handed.”

  “What happened to my sisters?” she demanded, astonished to discover that the answer actually mattered.

  What happened to the lone wolf who didn’t give a crap about her family? The one who would rather have her eyes clawed out than be invited to Thanksgiving dinner?

  Jagr happened, a soft voice whispered in the back of her mind.

  He’d made her…soft. Damn him.

  Unaware of her inner conflict, Culligan gave another glance at the knife stuck in his chest.

  “One stayed with the humans, and one they smuggled to curs out of state. They gave you to me, and the other…I don’t know.”

  Her teeth clenched. “The curs have one of my sisters?”

  “I haven’t seen her, but they claim to have one. They’re supposedly doing some kind of experiments on her.”

  The air was squeezed from her lungs. “What kind of experiments?”

  “Do I look like a scientist?” The petulant words became a screech of agony as she twisted the knife. “Ow. Damn you, it’s something about making the curs more powerful. That’s all I know, I swear.”

  So the suspicion that the mysterious Caine was obsessed with creating the cur version of Frankenstein wasn’t as farfetched as it seemed. Christ. Was the man a nut job? Who knew what could happen if he started screwing with the ancient magic that turned a human to a cur.

  Of course, had Salvatore been any different? He’d deliberately altered the DNA of her and her sisters to produce females who wouldn’t shift. And he did it so they could become some sort of broodmares to resurrect the fading Weres.

  Damn arrogant men and their God complexes.

  In a perfect world, women would be in charge.

  “If the curs have my sister, then what do they want with me?” she gritted.

  “My only guess is that you’re the backup in case your sister kicks the bucket before they’re done experimenting with her.”

  “Bastards.”

  Culligan shivered. “You have no idea. Release me, Regan, and I can help.”

  “You know where they’re holding my sister captive?”

  “I…” His ready lie faltered on his lips as her eyes narrowed in warning. “No, not…exactly, but…”

  “Worthless,” she muttered, abruptly realizing that was the perfect word to describe this sorry excuse for a demon.

  Culligan was a weak, greedy fool who offered nothing to the world.

  He didn’t even make a decent villain.

  Her grip tightened on the handle of the dagger, her bitter, choking thirst for revenge somehow lessened by the thought. It was as if she’d just hauled the boogeyman out of the closet, and discovered he was nothing more than a spineless slug.

  Culligan quivered as she unwittingly dug the knife deeper. “Dammit, watch that thing.”

  In answer, Regan leaned forward, her expression ruthless. She’d pressed her luck far enough. It was time to get the information she’d come for.

  “This is my last question. And believe me when I tell you, your life depends on your answer.” The tip of the blade rested against his throbbing heart. “Where’s Jagr?”

  “What? Who?”

  “The vampire who…who Darcy sent to Hannibal.” She struggled to hide her aching dread. Culligan would only try to use it to his advantage. “Gaynor took him through a portal. Where would he go?”

  Culligan glared, although he was smart enough not to struggle. “How the hell would I know? In case you missed the memo, I’ve been a little tied up since coming to Hannibal.”

  Without warning, Regan yanked the knife from the imp’s chest and pressed it to his most precious jewels.

  “Gaynor’s been your friend for centuries. You have to know something.”

  Panic flashed through the green eyes. As expected, the idiot was far more afraid of being castrated than killed.

  “Are you a complete psycho?”

  “That’s what thirty years of torture will do to a perfectly nice girl.” Her voice could have rivaled Jagr’s for ice. “Now start talking, or lose it.”

  Sweat poured down his body as he struggled to find his voice. “All I can tell you is that in the past, Gaynor always had an underground lair with a cell he could use to trap lesser demons.”

  She frowned. “Why would he trap demons?”

  “You can make a fortune in ransom if you find demons with clans or families who are willing to pay to get them back.�
��

  “Christ.” She shook her head in disgust. There should be an open season on imps. “Would this cell be strong enough to hold a vampire?”

  Culligan shrugged. “If he has it properly hexed.”

  “Where would it be?”

  A cunning expression slid over the lean features. The jackass intended to try and con her. Or at least he intended to until she dug the knife into one of his danglies.

  “Arrg.”

  His eyes crossed, and Regan waited to see if he would pass out. When he didn’t, she leaned close enough to touch nose to nose.

  “Where would it be?”

  “It would be close to his business…” The words came out in small, pained gasps. “That tea shop he’s running.”

  Regan froze, a sick sensation clutching her stomach. “How can you be certain?”

  “Gaynor might be able to conjure a portal, but he barely has any more strength than I do. He can’t travel over a few hundred feet if he has a passenger. If he took your vampire, he couldn’t have gone far.”

  “If he was there, why wouldn’t I sense him?”

  “The hexes would block any scent.”

  “Damn.”

  Regan straightened abruptly, stepping away from Culligan as she cursed her stupidity. What an idiot she was. If she hadn’t been in such a panic to find Jagr, then maybe she wouldn’t have overlooked the most obvious.

  God, he might have been right beneath her feet while she was creeping around the tea shop…

  She gave a sharp shake of her head.

  Dammit, she’d wasted enough time.

  She had to get to Jagr.

  Whirling on her heel, she headed for the door, intent on returning to the tea shop. Even if she couldn’t move Jagr until night fell, she needed to find him.

  To be near him.

  How frightening was that?

  Regan was stepping from the shed when a voice behind her abruptly reminded her that Culligan was still chained to the wall.

  “Hey, wait, where are you going? You can’t leave me here.”

  Turning, she regarded him with a hint of surprise. In her hurry to reach Jagr, she’d simply forgotten him.

  The imp who’d made her life a misery for thirty years.

  The imp who she’d pledged to torture and kill.

  It no doubt revealed some deep, earth-shattering change in her psyche, but she didn’t have time to care.

  “Actually, I can,” she retorted, consoling whatever thirst for revenge that might linger with the knowledge the curs seemed to be doing a bang-up job of making Culligan miserable.

  As if reading her mind, Culligan struggled frantically against the shackles that held him.

  “They’ll kill me. Do you want that on your conscience?”

  She slowly lifted her brows. “Frankly, Culligan, I don’t give a damn.”

  As exit lines went, it was pretty damned excellent, and Regan couldn’t halt a smug smile as she stepped out of the shed and slammed the door behind her.

  Later she might regret not slicing him open and using his entrails as fish bait, but for now she was content to leave his torture in the hands of the curs.

  The smile and contentment lasted all of two seconds.

  Just long enough for the familiar male cur to step from the trees.

  Duncan.

  For an odd, timeless moment they simply stared at one another in shock. Then without warning, he lifted his arm to throw something directly at her face.

  Regan instinctively ducked, expecting a knife or sword to lodge itself in the door behind her.

  Instead, there was a brilliant explosion, and she had only a second to acknowledge that she’d failed Jagr when the world went black.

  The sun was painting the horizon with its last fading rays when Regan struggled to shake the painful cobwebs out of her head.

  Freaking hell. She felt as if she’d been hit by a cement truck.

  At last, ignoring the bursts of agony in the back of her head, she forced open her reluctant eyes. Well…shit. She should have kept them closed.

  Not that pretending this was all a horrible nightmare would change the fact that she was currently tied to a tree with chains that held enough silver to sap her strength and leave raw burns on her skin. Or that she’d been moved from the cabin to one of the small islands covered in trees and underbrush that dotted the middle of the river.

  Still fuzzy, Regan watched as Duncan stepped out of the canvas tent stuck in the center of the small clearing.

  She swallowed her instinctive growl.

  Damn the bastard. It was bad enough he’d given her a headache from hell and tied her to a tree like some sort of animal, but she’d been in la-la land the entire afternoon.

  She was never going to get to Jagr at this rate.

  The handsome cur came to a halt directly before her, looking considerably worse for the wear with his long hair hanging in tangles around his lean face and his black pants marred with dirt. His shirt was missing altogether.

  She scowled in frustration, ridiculously pleased when he took a wary step backward.

  “What did you do to me?” she rasped.

  With an effort, the cur managed a brittle hint of his former arrogance.

  “Just a little spell bomb I borrowed from Sadie’s pet witch before I ripped out her throat.”

  Regan blinked, strangely shocked by the blunt confession. “You killed the witch?”

  “The amulets hold a spell to mask the scent of anyone wearing it.” Duncan grimaced. “Unfortunately, it also holds an added spell, so the witch can track it from anywhere in the world. Sadie’s nasty way of keeping control of her pack. No witch, no GPS.”

  “Christ, you couldn’t just take it off?”

  “And announce my scent to every Were and vampire who has flocked to Hannibal? Not bloody likely. Without the witch, I have all the benefits of the amulet, without any of the unpleasant side effects.”

  Her lips twisted. “Who says there’s no honor among thieves?”

  “You should be thanking me, luv.” His gaze deliberately dropped to the pocket where she had hidden the amulet she’d stolen from Culligan. Obviously he’d searched her before tying her up. “Besides, I lost any claim to honor when I threw my lot in with Caine thirty years ago. I should have known better, but the man does have a way with words. He’s kissed the blarney stone, as my mum would say, and he convinced me that his crazy ideas were actually possible.”

  “Caine.” Her eyes narrowed in fury as she futilely struggled against the burning chains. “You were with the cur who stole us. You bastard. How did he get his hands on four pureblooded children?”

  Shock rippled over his face. “How did you…” He cut off his words as he shoved his hands through his tangled hair. “Never mind. Caine has never been willing to admit how he got a hold of you and your sisters. All I know is that he showed up at the Illinois hunting grounds with the four of you, claiming that he’d been given a prophecy that the blood of the Weres would make us whole.”

  Ah, yes, the cornerstone of every great cult. Some mysterious prophecy…the promise of greatness…yadda yadda.

  “A prophecy from whom?” she demanded.

  Duncan shrugged. “That’s one of those questions no one had the balls to ask. Or maybe we just didn’t want to ask. He promised power, immortality. The opportunity to go from the bottom of the dung heap to the top.” The cur snorted in self-disgust. “Blimey, I should have known he was full of shit when he took us to Chicago and nearly got us arrested.”

  His story confirmed what she’d learned from Gaynor and Culligan, but it didn’t explain how or why the cur had managed to steal four pureblooded Weres.

  Regan turned her mind away from the past. She might never discover how Caine had gotten his filthy hands on her, and for the moment it didn’t really matter. All she truly cared about was finding some means of getting free so she could get to Jagr.

  “If he’s so full of shit, then why have you kidnapped me?” she s
napped.

  His expression tightened with annoyance. “I didn’t intend to kidnap you. I went back to the cabin to capture Sadie. Of course, the bitch is never around when I actually need her.”

  Capture Sadie?

  Okay, that made about zero sense.

  “I thought the two of you were packmates?”

  “She’s as psychotic as Caine, and I’m not taking the fall for either of them.”

  Regan shook her head. Obviously the spell bomb had left her as thick as a stump. She didn’t have a clue what he was yammering about.

  And in truth, she didn’t really care.

  Within minutes the sun would disappear. She had to get to Jagr.

  “So if you wanted Sadie, why did you kidnap me?”

  Yanking his hands through his hair yet again, Duncan paced the small clearing.

  “I have to hope you’ll do.”

  “Do for what?”

  The cur halted, sucking in a deep breath before slowly turning to stab her with a hard, ruthless gaze.

  “I want to negotiate a deal.”

  “A deal with Caine?”

  “No, Salvatore.”

  Yep. Definitely thick as a stump.

  “You…want to negotiate with Salvatore?” she at last managed to sputter. “Why?”

  Resignation chased away the brittle arrogance, offering the first genuine glimpse of the cur.

  “Because I’m weary of this suicide mission. Not to mention being Sadie’s whipping boy,” he confessed, his voice harsh. “I’m willing to trade everything I know about Caine and his plot against the lair if I can get a promise the Weres will offer me protection.”

  Regan suddenly didn’t doubt his sincerity, just his sanity.

  “Have you ever met Salvatore?” she demanded. “He’s not the forgive and forget type. I doubt a bit of gossip about Caine is going to change that.”

  Duncan’s eyes snapped with fury. “Fine, if he doesn’t care about Caine, then what about your sister?”

  Against her will, Regan’s heart halted, easily revealing to the cur’s sensitive ears just how much the information about her sister meant to her. Damn, she knew that the unwelcome emotions would be a pain in the ass.

  She gritted her teeth. “You know where Caine’s holding her?”

  He paused, as if considering a lie, then with obvious reluctance, confessed the truth.