“I’m not apologizing to you.” I settled resolutely on anger and moved to the leather couch, where I dumped the bottle of wine on the glass coffee table with enough careless force to rattle the glass.
“Then why did you come here?”
“Where else could I go?” I threw my glare over the back of the couch at him. “You burned down my apartment.”
He tilted his head to the side, assessing me, reading everything. The way I sat, my quickness of breath, the race of my heart, how I tucked my hair back behind my ear. I moistened my lips. He’d see it all, searching for any inconsistency. Maybe I was being paranoid, but I doubted it. His curious eyes drank me in, absorbing everything, making my skin crawl.
“I…” I faced forward, feeling the weight of his gaze burn into the back of my head. “I know I can’t get away from you. So, I thought, why bother?” I needed to tone down the tight note of fear in my voice and hide the shake in my hands if this was going to work. “So…I’m ready.”
He was suddenly behind me. I swallowed as his hands rested on my shoulders. His fingers squeezed, and for a moment, I wondered if he might try to strangle me as he had at the marina. What was I doing here? I couldn’t do this.
His thumbs rubbed against my back in undulating circular motions, massaging the tightness from my muscles. I tilted my head back a little, finding his touch bizarrely comforting. “Before you take me home… I wanted to ask something,” I whispered.
“Yes.”
I jumped at his whisper against my ear.
“I wanted us to spend the night together. I mean, like this. We talk. We maybe… y’know. I brought wine.” I was rambling, but that was okay, wasn’t it? It was acceptable to be terrified of him. His hands vanished from my shoulders. I waited. He could break my neck without missing a heartbeat or stab me in the back and I would never see it coming. No, no he wouldn’t. He wanted me alive. If I died, my demon died too. To get to her, he had to keep my human half safe.
He moved around the couch and placed two wine glasses down on the table. I held back my sigh of relief and sunk my trembling hands between my thighs.
“You left me there, Muse.” His level tone made it impossible for me to gauge his mood.
I blinked, my nervous smile flickering across the surface of my tight expression. My skin flushed with a clammy heat. Panic skittered at the edges of my thoughts, desperate to break through.
He caught my hesitation, my confusion. “At the house by the lake.” He poured the wine. The swirl of the alcohol against the clear glass distracted me.
I laced a hand through my hair, tucking it back, out of my eyes. “You did set the hounds on me.”
He handed me a glass, and I eagerly gulped back a few generous mouthfuls. I spluttered a little, lifting a quivering hand to my lips. Akil sat neatly next to me, draping his left arm over the back of the couch toward me and swirling his wine in his right hand. He appeared to be amused by my obvious anxiety and my failed attempts at concealing it. I might even have said he was savoring the moment, deliberately dragging every hesitation out of me, hanging on every stuttered word as though he knew what I was planning. He couldn’t know, but that didn’t stop me from fearing he did.
“The Hellhounds make for unbiased sparring partners, don’t you think?” When I didn’t reply, he said, “It was for your own good.” His hazel eyes never left me, testing me, probing me, delving into my soul.
“How exactly does sending the hounds after me do me good?” My anger flared a little brighter, finding fuel. Anger, I could use. Fear, I could not.
“I wanted to know how strong you are. Think of it as a series of trials. To see if you’re worthy.”
I pinched my lips closed and placed my glass back on the table, unable to look at him. Heat seeped from my skin. Anger smoldered inside me, emotions fueling the summoning of my element, just as Akil had taught me. Channel all of the hatred, all of the abuse, the fury and fear. Funnel every instance of pain into your center, and release it to your demon. He had told me that. Stop fighting it, he’d said. Let her in, and I could do anything.
“You saved me.” I said, surprised by my own words and the tremble of my voice. Tears pooled in my eyes. “You saved me from Damien and every day thereafter. You kept me safe… all this time. Kept Val away from me…” When I faced him, the tears skipped unbidden down my cheeks. “I thought…” I gritted my teeth, forcing the painful truth out. “I thought you loved me.”
“No, you didn’t,” he calmly replied.
“Fuck you, Akil. Of course I did. Maybe not in the beginning. But… what we had… the way you—” Dammit, the words wouldn’t come. I shot to my feet and walked a few strides away from him, heels clicking on the marble tiles. “When we were—when we are together, I feel as though there is nothing else in this world. Nothing else matters, just you. You let me think that. All these years, you played me.” He set his glass down and moved around the couch. I couldn’t stand to look at him. Hand on my hip, I bowed my head, hiding my face behind my hair.
“You. Left. Me.”
I recognized his anger and felt a quiver of terror ripple through my already tense muscles. I straightened. He came toward me, lips pulled tight in a grimace. I fought the urge to turn and run. Planting my feet firmly, I stood my ground, summoning a little more of my element.
“You left me, Muse,” he hissed. “You walked away.” He stood too close against me. His power reached out to embrace me.
“Don’t pull that shit, Akil. So, I walked away? Big deal. It’s not like you couldn’t find me. This isn’t about me leaving you; it’s about you playing me from the first time you saw me.” He lifted a hand to touch my face, but I batted it away. “You must have thought it was your lucky day. Here was some lesser demon with a half-blood as a pet. Beaten, abused, one wing missing. I bet that ticked all your boxes, didn’t it?”
This time, he lifted a hand to strike me, but stopped short as our eyes met. He would see the fury broiling in my irises.
“Go on,” I sneered. “Do it. You’re no better than he was. You’ve been working me, biding your time, watching me squirm like a worm on a hook, ready for you to take the last bite. You make me sick.”
He stepped back, his perfect face set in a frown. “I did all of that for you.”
I laughed. The maniacal sound of it reverberated around the room. “Is that what you tell yourself? Did you kill Sam for me?”
Akil’s lips twitched in a snarl. “Sam was nothing. An obstacle. A distraction. He didn’t deserve you.”
“He was a good man, and you murdered him in cold blood.” I called the warmth of the room into me. The lights flickered. My demon purred her pleasure at the flood of heat shoring up my rage. “If I could kill you for that alone, I would.”
His threatening snarl turned into a smile. He stepped closer, and this time, I did move back, but he didn’t stop. He was on me, shoving me back against the windows hard enough to startle a cry out of me. His hand splayed aggressively across my cheek then dragged down my neck. I tried to turn my face away. Disgust turned my stomach over. He knew what I felt, saw it on my face, and with another snarl, he pinned both my wrists back against the glass. I didn’t struggle. There was little point, but I did call more of the fire element out of the building, sucking the power of the city into my flesh, bolstering my rage and lust for revenge.
He chuckled into my ear. “I find it amusing that you think you can say these things to me and escape my wrath.”
“Why?” I hissed. “Because it’s the truth?”
“The truth…” He seemed to taste the words, let them play on his lips. “Do you even know what the truth is?”
He stood so close against me that the heat between us shimmered. We teetered on the edge of losing control. I couldn’t, not yet. If I could get my arm free and pluck the injector from my pocket, it would all be over.
His lips brushed mine. I clamped my mouth shut, trying to pull away. I couldn’t help the pull of hunger for him. My ele
ment sought his great well of energy. My demon wanted him, but I could damn well fight her. The human part of me held the reins, and neither she nor Akil were going to win.
He released my right arm. Now was the time. I could just…
He sunk his hand into the right pocket of my jacket. There was no hesitation. He knew what was in there, and sure enough, he lifted out the jet-injector. Horror doused my anger and spilled a cooling wash of doubt over the inferno within me. He knew. All along. He knew I’d come here to trap him.
His crooked smile and arched eyebrow confirmed it.
Turning the injector over in his hand, he admired the compact device for a few moments as though intrigued, then slammed it against the window beside my head, cracking the glass. When he lifted his hand away, the injector—what was left of it—fell away in pieces that tinkled against the marble floor.
He met my horrified stare, and I knew my time was up. He would kill me now.
“You think I don’t know about the Institute?” he hissed through bared teeth. “That I didn’t know what you came here to do?” He leaned in closer, pressing his entire body up against me. The intense heat rippled an aura of power around him. “You dress yourself like a whore and believe I can be fooled by such petty things?” He buried his face in my hair and took a deep breath. “I can smell him on you.” He nuzzled my cheek. “Your half-blood savior.”
Panic chased away all rational thought. I tried to push against him, but he barely moved. I moved to strike him with my free hand, but he slammed my wrist back against the cracked glass, holding me there like a sacrifice.
“Let me go,” I growled, kicking out, but he jammed a knee between my legs. His body smothered mine. “Akil. Please.” My voice trembled. “You didn’t leave me any other choice. I can’t go back home. I won’t. I’d rather die.”
“As you wish.” He released my left arm and clamped a hand around my neck, constricting my throat. I wheezed in what air I could and clawed at his hand, but nothing even came close to stopping him. I thrashed, throwing my head from side to side, chest heaving. My demon rushed through my skin, flooding into muscle, but he responded in kind. Fire blazed in his eyes.
“Akil!” Nica yelled.
He turned his head and received a face full of mace. He roared, flinging himself away from me as he clawed at his face.
Slumped over on my hands and knees, I gulped in precious air, choking and coughing it back up again. Stars dashed my vision. Incoherent thoughts reeled around my head. Nica snatched my hand and dragged me to my feet, pulling me stumbling after her, down the hall before veering into Akil’s study.
“Not here…” I wheezed. No exit.
Too late. As I stole a glance out the door, I saw Akil’s silhouette bearing down on us. We were trapped.
Nica backed up against the wall of books. “Oh Jesus, he’s going to kill us.” She pressed herself back into the books as if hoping they could somehow swallow her up.
I crossed the room and snatched a very familiar katana from its brackets. The same sword he’d killed Sam with. He must have brought it back from Stefan’s lakeside house. I plucked a lighter short sword from a bracket and tossed it at Nica. She caught it, but from the look of utter terror on her face, I could see I wasn’t going to be getting any backup.
“Stay behind me.” I stepped in front of her as Akil rounded the doorway. He stopped a few strides into the room, regarding us both as we readied for the inevitable attack. He blinked slowly before looking away. A muscle pulsed in his jaw. When he faced me, sizzling embers danced in his dark eyes. He could call his true form at any time. If he did, Nica and I would be toast.
“Don’t do this.” All I could manage was a croaking growl, but it was enough. “You don’t need to do this.”
“I’ll admit, this is not what I wanted.” He took a few languid steps toward us, drawing out the inevitable.
I heard Nica whimper from behind me and raised the sword in both hands, sending a surge of element through my arms and down the blade. Flames licked up the steel, twisting unnaturally around the sword as my element embraced it. The blade would cut human flesh, while my element would slice through ethereal flesh.
“There’s still hope for you, Muse.” He reached the desk and danced his fingertips across its surface, leaving sizzling singe marks in the wood. “Give me that bitch, and I’ll let you live.”
“You’re a liar.”
“I’m the liar?” He slid his powerful stare over my shoulder to Nica. “She thought she could come into my home, my business, and my life and lie to me.” His human image shimmered before settling again as anger undermined his control. “The insolence of the Institute astounds me.”
I flexed my grip on the sword, never taking my eyes off him. “Blame them, not her.”
“Oh, I do.” He grinned.
My thoughts fragmented, vision blurring at the same time as Akil’s human form rippled. I flung every drop of power inside of me into play and summoned my demon. She came eagerly, enveloping me in a burst of heat. My lone wing burst from my back. Its leathery flesh flapped in the air.
Akil laughed as I spread my stance. His molten eyes drilled into mine. Lips parting, he said softly, “There you are.”
A snarl rippled across my lips. My blackened talons clenched around the flaming sword. “You think you know me.” My wing flexed. “You don’t.”
A cool trickle of air teased into the room, like the promise of frost on a winter morning, and then Stefan sauntered into the room without breaking stride. He’d retrieved his leather coat and looked exactly as he had the night he’d entered my workshop and turned my world upside down.
“Akil,” he said with an obscene tone of authority that both bemused and startled me. “This isn’t part of the deal.”
Akil slung a glare over his shoulder at Stefan, not at all concerned about his arrival. In fact, Stefan stopped next to Akil and stood beside him with as much confidence as I’d ever seen him wield.
I straightened, feeling a deep scowl cut into my features. A horrific idea planted itself firmly in my thoughts, Nica’s words coming back to me. Stefan’s working for Akil.
I pinned my stare on Stefan, hoping to see something like regret or sadness on his face. I searched those winter-sky eyes for any sign he was playing both sides: a wink, a twitch, anything. Any. Damn. Thing. But there was nothing for me in those eyes. He glared back at me, as cold and hard as glacial ice. Dread twisted a knot in my gut, turning my stomach over and tugging my strength out from under me. “Stefan…?”
Akil fought back a smile. “I admire your work, half-blood.” He acknowledged Stefan with an appreciative nod. “And I upheld my end of the bargain. Nica is safe. In fact, the sooner you get her out of my sight, the better. Muse and I have much to discuss.”
Nica gave me a wide berth and skirted the room, moving around to stand behind her brother. At least she had the decency to look sorry. She had tried to warn me.
I must have been quite a sight: a one-winged half-demon–half-human with her emotions raw on her face for all to see. I couldn’t find my voice, let alone consider how I was going to get away. Stefan was working for Akil. Not in a “let’s pretend I’m an assassin” way, but more of a “lying the entire time” kind of way.
“How long?” I rasped.
Stefan blinked, but otherwise stood motionless. “Since the explosion at your workshop.”
Oh god. I staggered, my element briefly stuttering like a dying flame, its fuel burning out. “You set the explosion,” I whispered. I even glanced at him to see if he’d deny it. Nothing. His skin held a delicate shimmer, like a touch of frost on the ground in the morning. I’d once thought him glorious. I’d seen him fight off Hellhounds for me. Watched Akil stab him…
“Akil never misses.” I muttered. I should have known. Akil had plunged the very sword I was holding right through Sam’s chest. He wouldn’t have missed. It had all been an act. I lifted my head, and a growl bubbled up from my depths at the two of them,
dark and light, standing together in their victory over me. I lifted my hand, dragging with it the latent heat energy in the room to gather together in a tight ball of white-hot heat in the palm of my hand. It pulsated, cracked, and fizzled. I flung the sphere at Stefan, but he easily sidestepped its arc, and it sailed past and splashed against the wall.
Nica backed up. “Muse—no!”
I breathed in energy, summoning every degree of heat from the building. It swept in from all sides, mostly from below, funneling through my legs and spooling at my heart.
Ice sparkled all over Stefan as though he were powdered with diamond dust. He ordered Nica to leave and moved away from Akil. He held out a hand, briefly halting the proceedings, and checked Akil’s mildly amused expression, asking for permission. As though Akil owned me. It was the last straw. I sprang for Stefan, bursting forward, intent on plunging the sword right through him, but he batted the katana aside. I barreled on, slamming into him, driving him back against the wall beside the fireplace. Fire flowed from me, spilling over him. Its licking tendrils spat and hissed against his coating of ice. He snarled down at me, and with both hands, he shoved me back.
“You wanna test me?” I lifted a hand, talons glinting like daggers, and called upon the veil. “Because that’s what this is. A trial, right? You’ve been testing me, preparing me for Akil.” I laughed, and my demon laughed. Our voices mingled.
“Wait.” He shoved away from the wall, ice-wings cracking and snapping behind him.
The veil was there. I could see it, like a layer of flesh pulsating between worlds. I could slice it open and reach beyond, thrusting a world’s worth of energy into my demon.
“I…” He bowed his head, as though he might finally have an explanation for me, but it was a ruse. He summoned a shard of ice and launched it at my face. I jerked an arm up, gasping as the dagger of ice plunged into my arm before boiling into nothing but steam.
Stefan plowed into me, slamming me down against Akil’s desk. He drove his arm under my chin, forcing my head back. Ice cracked against spluttering fire. Steam and sparks hissed in the air. Ice cracked off his demon visage, quickly replaced by more as his demon repaired its shield in seconds. He snarled down at me, driving his arm harder against my throat.
[The Veil 01.0] Beyond the Veil Page 20