Exquisite Breath of Darkness

by Candice Stauffer

  “You shouldn’t have wanted to protect him from me. And you will stay away from him.”

  Mia knew Joseph was keeping something from her about Eli, and she planned to get it out of him. “It’s a good thing for you I always do exactly what you want me to do. I would hate for you to get all flustered because you didn’t get your way.”

  “I’m serious, Mia. Stay away from him. He’s dangerous.”

  Closing her eyes, she leaned back and allowed her head to rest on top of the pillows as he massaged her feet. “I think you’re wrong.” As always the healing power he sent into her body soothed her to the point she could’ve easily drifted off to sleep. “He was harmless, Joseph. He was just flirting with me. You know he didn’t mean to hurt me. He felt bad. And I noticed you didn’t get as bent out of shape with Eli tonight as you did the other night when Demetri came into the boutique. Why?”

  Sensing his mood suddenly turning very dark, she sat up straight and tried to pull her feet away from him, but it wasn’t happening.

  “Relax. There’s no need for you to get all jumpy.” Holding her feet in a firm but gentle grip, he laughed at her continued attempts to pull her feet away. “You’ve no hope of winning this one.” When she stopped trying to fight him, he said, “Demetri’s power matches and possibly exceeds mine. He could’ve killed you before I got to you. Eli will never be as powerful or as strong as me.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You should know that bragging has always been a very annoying, unattractive trait to me.” Leaning back again, she closed her eyes. “Oh, shit.” She smacked her forehead with her palm. “My license.”

  “I wasn’t bragging. I was giving you facts. And he would’ve done a lot more to you than just flirt if I hadn’t showed up. And he would’ve done it without your consent. Hold out your hand.”

  “Huh?” She knew he was implying Eli would’ve raped her, but she didn’t believe it. Eli might be rough around the edges, but he wasn’t a rapist. No. Joseph was trying to scare her into staying away from Eli. But why?

  “Hold out your hand.”

  The moment she did the license appeared in it. “Show off.”

  “There’s no need to be jealous,” he teased.

  “Me? Jealous of you?” She laughed softly. She planned to figure out why Joseph was intent on keeping her away from Eli, but she’d work on it later. For now, she had other questions that needed answering.

  “Whatever I can do you can do,” Joseph said. “I told you before that my power belongs to you. Use it whenever need it.”

  “Joseph?” She waited for him to look up at her. “Am I like him?”

  “You’re lycan.”

  She just stared at him for a moment, shocked by his quick response. She wasn’t sure why, but she’d expected him to beat around the bush or flat out deny it. “When did you find out?” she asked.

  “The day we met,” he said.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” She was hurt he’d kept it from her. She tried to hide it, but she heard the hurt in her voice and knew he also heard it.

  “I was wrong. I’m sorry. But I didn’t know how you would receive it.”

  “It’s a bad thing, isn’t it?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “Not at all.”

  “Tell me the truth, Joseph. It’s because I’m lycan that you said you wouldn’t have sex with me the other day?”

  “I didn’t say I wouldn’t, I said I couldn’t. You know I’m not human. In the past I’ve always been in perfect control. I learned at a young age to never allow anything to disrupt my emotions. But after meeting you, I’ve learned there are things about me that are at times impossible to control. I was mad. I didn’t trust myself. I would never forgive myself if I hurt you. I was worried I would … I was just mad.”

  “Are you trying to tell me that you were worried you would hurt me because you were mad at me? Because we both know that’s not possible.” She sat up, reached for his hand, and pulled him to her.

  At first he resisted. “I’m not done massaging your feet. I thought you enjoyed it.”

  “I do, but I really need you to hold me.” He moved up the bed, stretched out next her, and then pulled her into his arms. Closing her eyes, she listened to the strong, steady sound of his heart. “You would never hurt me, Joseph.”

  “You’re right.”

  “But you said you were afraid you would hurt me if we’d made love?”

  He took her hand and brought it to his mouth. “Not in the way you’re thinking.” He bit her finger hard enough to make her yelp, and then he drew it into his mouth and sucked on it as he swirled his tongue over it.

  She yanked her hand away from him because it felt too damn good. She wasn’t going to allow him to seduce her into forgetting she had important questions in need of answers. “You don’t make any sense. It bothers me that you kept it from me.” And it did, more than she believed he could ever understand. She didn’t trust people easily, but over the past few months she’d come to fully trust him with her deepest, darkest secrets. “What else have you kept from me, Joseph?”

  He placed his hand over hers resting on his chest. “Nothing.” He kissed the top of her head. “And I didn’t believe you didn’t know. I thought that perhaps you didn’t want to accept it.”

  She knew he was lying about keeping other things from her, but she believed he believed she didn’t know. “You thought I was in denial?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you saying you were humoring me by playing dumb?” She turned her head to look up at him. “That sounds ridiculous even for you.”

  “Yeah.” He lifted his head to kiss her cheek. “I guess it does. But it’s the truth.”

  She rolled over on top of him. With her elbows on his chest and her palms supporting her head, she stared into his eyes. “It’s your lucky day, Joseph. I believe you, so I won’t kick your ass for keeping something of such great importance from me.”

  “In that case,” he said, grinning and winking, “I lied, and you should spank me for it. It’s the only way I’ll ever learn to behave.”

  “I know you’re telling me the truth about the werewolf thing, but I know you’re keeping something from me. As tempting as it is, I don’t think I’ll reward you for keeping secrets from me with a spanking.” Frowning, she stared at him for a moment. “The werewolf thing is weird, but I’m not completely shocked. I’ve always know something was off with me,” she said. “Even without the morphine in my body, I feel edgy sometimes. I always feel something volatile and unpredictable inside me when I’m afraid or mad.” She smiled. “Or, as I’ve recently learned, when overly excited. But I’d always believed it had something to do with the treatment I received for this cancer when I was a child.”

  “Why would you assume it had something to do with the treatment?”

  “I lost track of a lot of time while I was at the hospital.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I’ve no real memory of it other than the last few months I was there. I was told that I was in a coma. But I never really believed it.”

  “Why?”

  She started to get up off him, but he wrapped his strong arms around her and held her. “It’s nothing.” She was saying too much, revealing too much to him. He didn’t need to know what had happened to her. She didn’t want anyone to know. It was embarrassing.

  “If it has anything to do with you it means everything to me.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Well then, there’ll be no harm in telling me what happened.”

  “Fine. I’ll show you. Let me up.” She moved off him and the bed. She hesitated for a few seconds and then turned her back to him as she lifted her shirt. “For years I had horrible nightmares of turning into a monstrous animal and being operated on while I was awake.” She paused. “I assume the scar is proof that it was more than a nightmare.”

  * * *

  Joseph moved to the edge of the bed. For a long moment he stared at her back, and then h
e looped his finger in her belt and pulled. “Come a little closer, Mia.” He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He’d seen the same scars before, but never on a living person. It wasn’t a single scar. Her back had two scars creating the Christian cross. Heart sinking, he started to trace the scars with his fingers. “Why didn’t you tell me? Wait.” He lifted his head to look up at her. “Why haven’t I seen any of this in your memories?”

  “Why didn’t you confront me about being in denial?” she asked.

  “For that, I was wrong. I apologize. Tell me why I haven’t seen it.”

  “You’re not as clever at sneaking around in my head as you think.” She glanced over her shoulder at him. “I’m perfectly capable of keeping certain things from you.”

  That brought his eyebrows up. “Really?

  “Yes. No. I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I got over it. I forgot about it. I guess I just haven’t had any reason to think about it in a very long time.”

  “Do you have the same doctor now?” He planned to kill the son of a bitch slowly, painfully.

  “No. Of course not. I was a child the last time I saw him. In fact, I haven’t seen him since I ran away from the last group home I was placed in when I was fifteen.”

  “Do you remember the doctor’s name?” Joseph asked.

  “No.”

  “Do you remember anything about the hospital?”

  “It was dark and cold.” As she talked Joseph merged his mind deeply with her so while she was recalling it he would see it all in detail. “I remember a lot of pain. Also, there was a priest of some sort. I didn’t like him at all. He was a cruel man. During the last few months I was there he read scriptures and performed exorcism rituals while I was strapped to a hospital bed. Other people were there. I couldn’t see them because of bright lights. I know it wasn’t a normal hospital, Joseph.”

  “Why?” He knew why. He asked to coax her into continuing to recall the memory. He wanted as much detail from her as possible. Hopefully, he was wrong. But if he was right he wanted to make sure there were no survivors when he went after the people responsible for torturing her.

  “It looked like an underground laboratory. There weren’t any windows. And there were bars instead of doors. The walls were stone. Rough stone. You’re going to think this is crazy, but I always thought it was a cave.”

  Joseph’s heart sank. His assumption was right. She had been a victim of the religious brutality that had nearly annihilated her kind hundreds of years ago. She’d been severely tortured. It was why she’d never connected with her wolf and why he’d never been able to make any progress defeating the cancer. It wasn’t cancer. They’d attempted to destroy the lycan in her.

  “What’s wrong? It was such a long time ago, Joseph.” She lowered her shirt. “Why do you look sad?”

  “You don’t have cancer, Mia.”

  Her swallow was audible. “Then shouldn’t you be just a little bit happy?” The anguish in her voice ripped at him.

  “I should’ve known.” It was the worst revelation he’d ever had. Coming to terms with it was tearing his heart to shreds. “I don’t know why I didn’t consider this before. I should’ve realized what was happening. You’re dying because your wolf is dying. They used poison to try to separate your wolf from you, but it’s not possible to kill one and not the other. You’re one with your wolf, just as I am one with my dragon. My people joined with yours and stopped the practice hundreds of years before you were born. It shouldn’t have happened during your lifetime.”

  “There’s no cure, is there?” Her voice cracked.

  “I will find one,” he promised.

  “Didn’t you look for a cure before?” she prompted.

  He wasn’t going to tell her about the many failed attempts. “I will find it because you need it.”

  Even as they were talking, Joseph was coming up with a plan. It didn’t take long before he knew what he needed to do. It was simple—he needed to go back in time to take the very same poison she had been forced to take. His dragon, much stronger and more developed than her wolf, could fight it and possibly create a cure. It hadn’t been tried before because of the possible consequences. But with her life at stake, the consequences meant nothing to him. Nothing meant anything without her, and this was the best possible way to save her.

  “There is none.” He felt her need to touch him, to comfort him an instant before he turned around. She reached out and pulled him close to cradle his head against her belly. She massaged his scalp with the tips of her fingers. “It’s okay. It really is okay, Joseph. I’ve accepted it.”

  “No.” The thought of her giving up brought him to his feet. “It’s the pain.” He framed her face between his hands and bent his head to press his lips against her forehead. “It’s wearing you down.” He pushed her down onto the bed and followed her. “You should start taking the morphine more regularly again.”

  “But I … Joseph, you know I can’t.” She laughed out loud. “You know better than anyone else how it affects me.”

  “It makes you a little feisty.” Using his elbow to prop his head up, he looked down at her. “Feisty is a good thing. Feisty is fun.” He traced her lips with the pad of his finger.

  “Stop it.” She swatted his hand. “You’re tickling me.”

  Laughing softly, he continued to tickle her lips with his finger. She bit his finger and held it there between her teeth as she smiled up at him. “I like feisty.” He growled the words. “A lot. And you should know that I consider biting to be very stimulating foreplay.”

  She released his finger. “I tried to shoot you.” Yawning, she covered her mouth.

  He rolled onto his back and gathered her into his arms. Caressing her arm and shoulder, he started to swamp her mind and body with fatigue so she would sleep. “But you didn’t.” She turned her head to look up at him. He looked down at her and smiled as if her not blowing his brains out was some type of victory.

  She laughed. “Why didn’t I shoot you?” He knew she’d laughed because the question would take the smile right off his face. And it did.

  “It doesn’t matter.” Using his hand, he guided her to rest her head on his chest. He continued to fill her mind and body with fatigue, hoping to gently force her into a deep state of sleep. He had lot to do, and he couldn’t take her with him when he did it. He hated leaving her alone, though it would only be for a short time. She had habit of getting into trouble, but he didn’t have a choice. The best way to ensure her safety while he was away was to make sure she was asleep the entire time.

  “There were no bullets in the gun. I could’ve killed you.” She yawned again. “And I can’t even remember why I was mad. I mean, I remember you were being annoying. Luckily, I’m used to it now. Well … it could’ve been because you allowed me to believe you were a vampire.”

  “A bullet can’t kill me. I was helping you with the clasp on your bracelet. And I never told you I was a vampire. It’s not my fault you decided to assume the worst of me.”

  “You made it easy.”

  “You have a good point. That’s why I think you should take the morphine regardless of how feisty it makes you. When I’m around you usually direct your anger on me.” He smiled. “And I’m not easily killed.”

  “It doesn’t matter if you’re not easy to kill. I’m not taking morphine at all anymore. What about Emily? I need to get her away from Mary. I won’t be able to do it if my head isn’t clear.”

  “Not just you. We will get her away from Mary.” It was a fact he wasn’t going to argue. “Well then, since you’re refusing to be rational, you will just have to spend more time with me.”

  “No way. People are already starting to talk.” She paused for a few seconds, and he knew she was drifting off. “I try to take a breath, but I can’t. I know I need to take a breath before it’s too late. I feel desperate and afraid. The more I struggle to take a breath the more desperate and afraid I get. And then you give me …”

  He knew she
’d fallen asleep, so he used their mental link in hopes of getting her to continue the conversation. What do I give to you, Mia?

  Your breath.

  When? He waited for her to respond for a few moments, but she didn’t. When do I give my breath to you, Mia?

  I feel like I’m drifting away, like I’m flying. It feels good. I have no pain. I’m free. And then I realize I can’t breathe. I’m dying. I try, but I can’t wake up. I can’t breathe. I see you holding me. You want me to come back to you. I want to come back to you, but I know it’s too late. So do you. Your sadness runs as deep as mine. I reach out to you. I need to touch you, but I start to move further away from you. No matter what I do, no matter how hard I fight to get closer to you, I just keep moving further and further away from you until you give your breath to me.

  He was taken aback. She couldn’t possibly know about a male demon’s ability to give the gift of perfect immortality to his mate. He figured she’d unconsciously retrieved the information from his mind. If that was the case, their connection was much stronger and deeper than he thought. If she’d been his true mate, the inner knowledge would’ve ensured her ability to receive his immortal breath without fear.

  As he had done in the past he had to fight the urge to give his breath to her at that moment. The temptation was almost more than he could handle, but even though he would follow her, he wouldn’t be the cause of her dying. I will never allow anything to take you away from me. You will remain asleep until I return and wake you up. He held her in his arms for an hour as he created a deadly hedge around the bedroom to keep her protected during his absence. He also sorted through her painful childhood memories until he found the path that would take him to her toward the end of the time she was being poisoned as a child.