A Dance With Darkness

by Courtney Allison Moulton

  I felt Bastian’s fingertips caress the nape of my neck, sending a shiver through me. His lips followed, pressing kisses along the path he’d just marked. I closed my eyes and swallowed. “Why are you so harsh with him?”

  Bastian did not skip a beat with either his hands or his lips. “He needs a firm hand.”

  I moved away from him, not out of his reach but far enough so that he knew I would not let it go. “I don’t think he does. He’s afraid of you.”

  Bastian beamed with so much satisfaction that my stomach turned. “You don’t understand our ways, Maddie. The only way to make them follow me is to make them fear me.”

  “Including your only son?”

  He sighed and all of that pompous air rushed out of him. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Can we talk about it later? It’s almost dawn and I’ve been traveling all night.”

  Somehow I didn’t think that weariness alone had made him so sharp to Cadan.

  Bastian took my hand and I allowed him to draw me close. His large hands rubbed my shoulders and his mouth grazed my jawline. “Come to bed,” he whispered, his breath hot against the tender skin below my ear. “Let me show you just how much I missed you.”

  Fire flashed through my belly, but I tightened my teeth and pulled out of his arms again. “I’ve got to go,” I lied. “I have too much to get done today. Please forgive me.”

  A wicked smile spread across his gorgeous face. “I don’t think I can.”

  I backed away toward the door. He kills. Bastian kills and reaps. “I’ll come by tonight, or tomorrow night.”

  “Maddie …”

  “You clearly need to rest after your tiresome journey,” I said. “Good-bye, Bastian.”

  I left my back to him and once I was outside, I spread my wings and jumped into the air and into the Grim. Soon, Bastian’s manor was out of sight. I flew toward London, waiting until my scent would fade and my trail would be lost, and then I turned north toward Nathaniel’s cottage. It wasn’t until the gently smoking chimney came into view that I realized I was afraid of Bastian following me to Nathaniel. I was supposed to trust the man I loved. The doubt pressing on the furthest reaches of my mind sent a shiver through me that was very different from the one Bastian had sent through me earlier.

  7

  “WHAT HAPPENED?”

  My head snapped up from the book I’d been reading and I found Nathaniel staring at me quite expectantly. The dawn had been sprawling across the countryside when I’d arrived and he didn’t question me when I curled up in the spare bedroom to sleep. He always kept a room for me in case I stopped by. It had taken me some time to fall asleep and when I finally had, it was only to wake and doze off over and over until nightfall. I shouldn’t have been surprised that Nathaniel could tell something was wrong, but I hadn’t yet decided on an excuse to tell him. I couldn’t tell him about Bastian, of that I was certain.

  I set down the book. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  His copper eyes flashed as he smiled gently at me. “You’ve been bouncing around for a month, happier than a skylark, and suddenly you come home with a rain cloud looming over your head. I can’t remember the last time I saw you sleep so fitfully. Something is troubling you. Has your lover done something? Would you like me to beat him up?”

  I drew my face completely blank. “Who?”

  He rolled his eyes. “We’ve been friends our entire lives. Did you think I couldn’t tell?”

  No matter what I said now, he’d never believe me. He was too clever and he knew me too well. “I saw a different side of him last night,” I confessed. “It was a side of him I always knew he had, I suppose. I didn’t want to wake from the dream.”

  His smile faded and he nodded, understanding. “Dreams never last if we’re lucky enough to wake up. The real world is where we ought to be, just you and me.”

  Nathaniel was right, though his last words made me wonder if there was more to his meaning. I couldn’t live a lie, but I loved Bastian too much to give up on him that easily. He deserved another chance to prove himself worthy of the love I had for him. “I’d better talk to him,” I said, and stood to gather my things.

  “He deserves the right to explain himself,” Nathaniel said. “As much as I hate to say that if he has hurt you. Are you sure you don’t want me to beat him up?”

  I offered Nathaniel a smile and a kiss on the cheek. I didn’t want to think of the end result of a fight between Nathaniel and Bastian. It was best they didn’t know the other existed, for one of them would certainly be dead as a result of their first encounter. “I won’t be long. Should we patrol London tonight?”

  “It has been quiet lately,” he said. “I fear something’s brewing.”

  “Something always is.”

  It was later in the night when I arrived at Bastian’s manor. The moon was high in the starlit sky and dawn was still several hours away. The windows glowed with candlelight, but all was not calm within. I hurried to the door, overwhelmed by the sense of anxiety in his power. I pushed the heavy door open and called for him. “Bastian? Bastian!”

  I found him in one of the dens standing before a blazing fire. He looked at something he held in his hands, but I did not notice or care to know what it was. I could not stop staring at the splashes of red across his skin and clothing. The scent of blood on him was sickening.

  When I said nothing more, he looked up at me, his eyes blazing and glowing in the dim light. “Do I frighten you?”

  I did not answer yes only because there was something wrong with him. He was not injured—that much I could tell by reading his power—but he seemed drunk or disoriented. Distant. Unhappy. My voice was barely an exhale of breath when I spoke. “What happened?”

  He gazed back down at the thing in his hand. After a moment, he held it up, wagging its sharp point in the air. It was a small dagger made of an old, dark metal and old, dark wood. “I’ve got it.”

  I shook my head. An ill feeling spun through my belly, making my limbs weak and heavy. “Got what? What is that?”

  He crossed the room toward me very slowly and only seemed to grow more uncoordinated with each step. The scent of blood nauseated me more and more. He was drenched in it as if he’d been in a thunderstorm that rained blood instead of water. “This,” he said quietly. “The blade of Belial.”

  I swallowed hard, shoving my fear back down my throat, but it would not stay there. “The demon? How did you get that?”

  “Death,” he said, and his poison-blue eyes recaptured mine. “I am Death.”

  “What have you done?”

  Bastian fell to his knees before me, dropping the dagger to the floor, and he gathered up the folds of my dress in his hands. He buried his face in the fabric and his body gave a horrid shudder. This was not the man I knew. This was a broken creature, crippled by guilt and regret. I lifted a hand, my lips trembling, and I touched his hair. He pressed into my hand and we stayed like that until his body grew tense and froze. He released my dress and pushed himself to his feet. He didn’t look at me as he picked up the dark dagger.

  “Please,” he said suddenly, shattering the silence between us. “Don’t ever ask me what I did to get this.”

  “I don’t think this is something we can pretend never happened,” I said. The tremble had spread to my fingertips.

  “There were no humans involved. That should satisfy you.”

  I stared at him, aghast. “It doesn’t matter who you hurt. You hurt people—many, by the look of you. Why would you do such a thing for something so small?”

  He lifted the dagger. “This is not small. I have been searching for this demonic relic for two hundred years. Its greatest purpose will not be fulfilled for a very long time, but for now, I am going to kill Evantia with it.”

  “But I thought you worked for her.”

  “I am more powerful than Evantia, but she doesn’t know this. I have long had further ambitions. When I kill her, I will assume control of England and every demonic reaper withi
n a thousand miles.”

  “You did terrible things tonight just for power?” I asked him. “You would kill for it?”

  “We all kill for something.” He gave me a tired, pointed look. “You kill to protect. I kill to control.”

  “And look where it has gotten you,” I said, biting back a snarl. “You’re so proud of yourself. Look at all you’ve accomplished.”

  The look he gave me was cruel and scathing, sending a strike of fear through my entire length, but in the next moment he exhaled and softened. He reached for me and I shied away from him, causing horror to fill his eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, but could not. He tried again and his voice was tiny and broken. “I am so sorry. I am not proud. But I had to do it.”

  “You really believe that you have no choice?” I asked him. “Everyone has a choice, no matter who or what you are. I am angelic. You are demonic. And I chose to love you. I can choose not to love you, but I won’t. Not yet. Because I believe you know what is right and wrong and that you have done wrong tonight. If you know that, then I have faith in you. I believe you could one day understand that you can choose to walk away from all of this. You’re happy when you’re with me, aren’t you? And tonight, in the aftermath of whatever you’ve done, you are not happy. Bastian, you can be happy if you choose to.”

  “Forever is a long time to keep fighting.” His eyes had grown so bright, like burning stars. His entire body trembled as he fought with himself, whatever that internal war was. He lifted a hand to reach for me again, but he stopped himself when he noticed the blood. “I have to go wash.”

  I said nothing and watched him exit the room, leaving me by myself with the crackling firelight. I would stay with him tonight, because he was in too fragile a state to be left alone. I believed I may have gotten through to him, but I feared the breakthrough was only temporary. I went into his room and climbed atop the thick blankets of his bed. I curled against the headboard and waited. He returned, wearing the same haunted look as before. He moved toward the bed in the dark and sat down beside me, unable to look at me. Guilt ravaged his heart and I wished I could help him.

  “May I tell you a secret?” he asked, his voice a sliver through the darkness.

  “Of course.”

  “Antares—”

  “Did you kill her tonight?” The question was the first thought in my mind and I hadn’t even hesitated in asking it. Antares was the western cardinal lord, one of four lords of all the Grigori angels, imprisoned on Earth for rebelling against Heaven and left here for so long they became elemental.

  “No,” he said. “She’s my grandmother.”

  I fell silent, considering this. A reaper’s demonic or angelic heritage was determined by his mother’s side, but if Bastian’s grandmother truly was the Watcher of the West, it meant his father had to be angelic. His closeness to Antares’s bloodline explained how he was so powerful. The angelic reapers were the offspring of the Grigori angels, while the demonic reapers were the offspring of the Fallen angels imprisoned in Hell. In the rebellion against Heaven, the truly wicked followers of Lucifer became fallen, but the Grigori could be redeemed, and instead of being sent to Hell, they were chained to Earth in punishment for their crimes. During the war, the Grigori had been led by four generals, the most powerful of their kind: Antares, Aldebaran, Regulus, and Fomalhaut. The birth of any reaper was rare, but to be a direct offspring of a Grigori lord guaranteed potentially limitless strength. To be a reaper of both angelic and demonic heritage … I didn’t know what that meant.

  “When the angelic found out about me,” Bastian continued, “they killed my father. He let them kill him. A son of Antares, he was a most ancient creature, already thousands of years old even when I was young. He could have annihilated his persecutors, but he refused to kill his own kind even to defend himself. In his selflessness, he left my mother unprotected. They killed her too, because he loved her, because she was demonic. Never again to this day, four hundred years later, have I felt even a pale shadow of the fury that had ignited in my heart. I had inherited my father’s strength, but none of his selflessness. I killed all who were responsible. I am Death.”

  I was silent, overwhelmed by the horror of the tragedy that was his origin. Nothing wicked should ever come from love, only hope and peace. But that was not the way of the world we lived in. “Are you afraid if anyone finds out about you and me, they will kill us?” I asked.

  “No,” Bastian said hollowly. “I would allow no one to kill either of us. When my death comes—and all things must end, even the ageless, even the world—it will not come by my enemies. They are always trying to kill me and I never let down my guard. If anything, love would be my undoing, because I would least expect it. I imagine the one to destroy me would have first loved me. The irony would be fitting.”

  I reached out and brushed my fingertips over his cheek. He closed his eyes at my touch and some of the tension in his body seemed to wash away. “Does anyone else know about your heritage? Where you come from?”

  “No one knows,” Bastian continued. “But I fear Evantia is suspicious. She was alive when it happened and she may have heard rumors. No one can ever know that I am half-angelic. You are the only one alive who knows. I killed the rest.”

  His words sent a chill up my spine. “Does Cadan know who he is descended from?” I asked. “Does he know what he is?”

  “No.”

  “Why not? He deserves to know.”

  Bastian gazed absently down at his hands, avoiding eye contact with me. He was quiet.

  “Don’t you trust him?” I asked. “If there is anyone you can trust, it would be your son.”

  He looked at me then, his cerulean eyes questioning. “Can I trust you?”

  I cupped his face with my hand and turned him to me. “You know you can. May I tell you a secret now?”

  “Anything.”

  “Aldebaran is my grandfather,” I said.

  The ghost of a smile passed over his beautiful lips. “That explains a lot.”

  “You may be afraid of what your angelic lineage means, but don’t be. It’s where the goodness in you comes from.”

  He shook his head, pulling away from me. “I have no goodness in me.”

  “You do,” I urged him. “If there was no goodness in you then you wouldn’t feel guilt for what you’ve done.”

  “I don’t want to feel the guilt anymore,” he said softly.

  I watched him carefully, unsure if he meant that he wanted to do the right thing, or that he wanted to do what he wanted without feeling remorse. I knew there was hope for him to abandon the demonic. He could if he wanted to, but it would be hard. There were conflicting natures within him, tempting him to yield to either his demonic or angelic side. But I believed in him. I believed he could do the right thing.

  8

  THE MOMENT I WOKE UP, I WAS SICK IN THE WASHbowl by the bed. After the fright Bastian gave me last night, I’d slept poorly and my entire body ached. It seemed as if the stress only grew worse, because now I was sick with it. I couldn’t stop thinking of the state I’d found him in. The smell of blood still made me ill. Simply thinking about it made me throw up again.

  Bastian had already gone and I was alone in the room, but not in the house. I sensed the presence that I now recognized as Cadan. I wouldn’t mistake him for his father again. He was coming out of one of the studies when I descended the staircase. He looked up at me, concern furrowing his brow, watching how tightly I gripped the railing to keep my balance.

  “Are you well?” he asked, and took my hand to help me down the remaining couple of steps.

  I smiled gratefully at him. “I’m a little shaky this evening. Where is Bastian?”

  “He’s just gone out,” Cadan replied. “He should return soon.”

  “Why are you here and he is not?” I didn’t like the idea of Bastian instructing Cadan to stay here and guard me, and I hoped that was not the case.

  He opened his mouth and shut it quickly. He lick
ed his lips and tried again. “I made a mistake,” he said, his tone bitter. “Bastian is cleaning up my mess.”

  Despite myself, I became afraid for him. Bastian had already proven himself to have a short temper when it came to Cadan. “What mess?”

  He didn’t get the chance to answer. A terrible, wrathful power surged through the manor right before the front door blasted open. The pressure hit us both, knocking the wind from our chests and our bodies off balance. I gave Cadan a fearful look, but his own expression was stone hard.

  “Let me talk to him,” I said. “Whatever happened, it’s not the end of the world. It can be fixed and I’ll help you.”

  His face became tired and sorrowful. He didn’t believe me, but I would try regardless. Bastian had shown his willingness to listen to me. I couldn’t make him do anything he didn’t want to do, but I could possibly convince him to at least calm down.

  Things were knocked around and slammed about in Bastian’s rage, making the walls shake. He stormed down the hall toward us, his eyes blazing and his white wings still unfurled behind him, and I began to doubt my ability to talk him down from his fury. His fist was tight around the straps of a large leather satchel and he held it up as he gestured to Cadan.

  “As you can see,” Bastian snarled, “what you’ve claimed to be impossible is in reality not. I asked you to do one thing and still you failed me. Your mistakes have cost us all dearly, but luckily I am here to correct your grave error.”

  “What mistake?” I asked. “What has he done to make you so angry?”