The Dark Ones

by Rachel Van Dyken

  "When you close your eyes," she whispered under her breath, "he'll explain himself better."

  "Who?"

  "Cassius."

  "What? Did I miss an important part of this conversation?"

  "You'll see." She smiled. "And then you can make your own judgment, yes?"

  "Um, sure?"

  "Yes, this!" She moved to a large closet and opened the doors. "I think the dress is in here."

  I was still mulling over the fact that Cassius would somehow explain himself to me when a shoe flew by my head, missing my cheek by mere inches. I flinched.

  "Sorry! I forget you're breakable."

  "Very." I paid special attention to flying objects and went over to the closet. "Will Cassius be there tonight?"

  "If Ethan allows it."

  "And he won't try to take me."

  "Not with us there, no."

  "But he'll still try."

  Stephanie's hand hovered over the other shoe. "Every day. Until you no longer exist."

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Ethan

  I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN SOMETHING WAS wrong the minute I got into my new Lexus LFA and drove like hell down the winding road.

  I'd become accustomed to nice things in life. Living as long as I had, I'd learned to take pleasure from hobbies. My interests ranged from collecting fine art to archery. Had I not done something with my time I would have gone absolutely insane.

  My most recent pleasure? Cars. The leather felt smooth against my hot skin; the smell tantalized me. And the speed? Well, the speed was just a bonus. But not now… it seemed everything absolutely paled in comparison to the taste of her.

  Maybe it had been too long — the effects of bloodlust could drive a vampire insane — but it wasn't mindless lust I was feeling for her, just intense desire to be near her, to drink from her, to share my soul with her for no other reason than I'd bonded with her.

  But if I shared more of my blood, if I took more from her, giving her mine in exchange, she'd continue to be able to see my memories, my dreams — everything I'd been keeping close for the past hundred years.

  And the horrible part? She wasn't invested, at least not emotionally, and the last thing I wanted was for her to pity me. The idea made me snort out loud, a human pitying an immortal. The idea was laughable, if it wasn't so damn tragic.

  She'd want to make the pain go away…

  When really I just wanted to start over.

  Cassius wasn't at his usual spot, opting for a more public arena. I hadn't wanted to argue with him yet again over what his presence did to mere mortals. I'd simply sent him a text and agreed to meet in the U District for coffee.

  Cassius hated coffee.

  But he drank it because it made him feel normal.

  I drank it because it took the edge off wanting to rip someone's throat out.

  The car squealed into a nearby parking spot. I hit the alarm and made my way toward Starbucks.

  People stared.

  They couldn't help it.

  Just like they couldn't help but ask for autographs, even though they had no idea who I was — just assumed, by my looks, that I was famous or about to be.

  Years ago, it had been flattering — when I still possessed a heart and didn't think the world was going to come crashing down around me at any second. Years ago, I had been naïve.

  No more.

  Cassius was sitting outside, though it was drizzling. He was covered by the umbrella, sipping at his cappuccino and reading the freaking newspaper, like he didn't already know everything there was to know.

  I dropped my keys onto the table loudly.

  He didn't look up. "Got you a caramel-macchiato thing that tastes like hell. You're welcome."

  Rolling my eyes, I took the cup into my hands and sat down, bringing the hot liquid to my mouth.

  It was bitter.

  It tasted nothing like her.

  I couldn't even pretend that I was enjoying myself. Would nothing take the edge off?

  "So…" Cassius set down the paper, and gazed at me from behind his sunglasses, which kept people from asking why the hell his eyes kept turning white. "That was clever of you."

  "Vampires… we're known for it," I said in a dry tone, leaning back in my chair. "Besides, you owed me, and you know it."

  "I saved your life." Cassius snorted. "I hardly think that puts me in your debt."

  "You had no proof, no right, no—"

  He held up his hand. "Enough. I don't wish to discuss the past."

  He never did.

  I cursed and took another sip of coffee. "What's done is done. Now we wait."

  Cassius looked so out of place sitting in a small chair, appearing to fit in. His body was too large, his countenance too dangerous. He tilted his head as if listening to the wind. "Her scent is on you."

  "Caught that, did you?"

  "A hundred years."

  "People really need to stop reminding me," I grumbled, no longer interested in my coffee or the conversation we were having. Why the hell I'd agreed to meet with someone I used to call brother was beyond me.

  "You aren't as strong as I am, Ethan. You cannot hope to keep me from her, not when so much is at stake."

  And there it was.

  I hissed out a breath. "I'm afraid your hands are tied."

  "Are they?"

  I stood, placing my palms on the table, towering over everyone. "You'd repeat history for your own selfish reasons? Is that what this is? I'm trying to save lives, Cassius! This has nothing to do with her!"

  "Which is why your eyes," he said calmly, "continue to go black, why your blood boils beneath the skin that covers it, why your heart is in perfect cadence with hers. Yes, I can hear it, even from this far away, though I can't directly find her. Know this… I will."

  "Unless you get her alone, you have no chance." I sat, half-tempted to toss my coffee in his face and tear his throat out for good measure.

  "She'll come to me of her own accord. When you fail — and fail you will — she'll come to me. They always do."

  My body shuddered with the onslaught of past memories. "You brainwashed her."

  "I offered her a solution."

  "You gave her death."

  "I didn't say it was a good solution." Cassius shrugged. "Remember this, I've been damned to earth to help your cause — to help the immortals and humans keep balance. When you fail, it's my head — not yours."

  I rolled my eyes. "It's been over five-hundred years since we've had a visit from one of the archangels. I highly doubt they're going to do it now. There's nothing special about her." That was a lie.

  "I smell your doubt, vampire." Cassius growled my name pushed back the chair and stood. "Have your fun, try to win her affection, but know in the end, it will be me who has to save everyone."

  "Has anyone ever told you that you have a god-complex?"

  "I come by that quite naturally, I assure you." He nodded and walked off, calling behind him, "Do your worst, Ethan, or maybe I should say… try your best?"

  "Ah, so may the best man win and all of that." I laughed. "Yet you forget. Your very essence will kill her."

  "We don't know that for sure." He raised one hand and lifted the opposite shoulder in a seemingly casual shrug. "And I'm willing to take that risk. In order to save us all, I would take that risk every time. I wonder… would you?"

  I swallowed and looked away, knowing he'd hit me at my weakness. Because I'd seen the signs with Ara and had ignored them because I'd thought I loved her, and in the end, I'd still refused to give her up, forcing his hand. Humiliation ate away, pinching my chest.

  "This evening? She'll be in attendance then? Since the mating is… complete?" he asked, toying with his keys.

  "She'll be there."

  His grin was menacing. "Lovely."

  Right.

  He walked off.

  And I stayed, planted in my seat, wondering if history truly was repeating itself, and if she wouldn't have been better off dying by Cass
ius's hands — dying in a blissful state — than living with someone who apparently had no capacity for love… or who, for some reason or another, was unlovable.

  And that was the crux of the matter.

  Regardless of what I'd done, my mate had never loved me back. Had never looked at me with the same adoration as I'd looked at her.

  My love had destroyed her.

  And in the end, I truly had no one to blame but myself, for being selfish enough to have hidden the truth from Cassius until it had been too late — selfish enough to have wanted to keep the child who hadn't even been mine.

  Love, in all my experience, was just that — selfishness wrapped up in a pretty little bow.

  I took one last drink of coffee and stood, just as a few giggling girls walked out of the coffee shop. They stopped. Their hearts, however, picked up speed as they glanced at me and blushed.

  I didn't have time to placate them. Instead, I growled and stomped off in the other direction.

  Stay alert.

  Keep to the plan.

  And above all — don't allow Genesis in. Because I wouldn't survive it a second time.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Genesis

  I DIDN'T SEE ETHAN THE REST of the day. Stephanie tried to distract me with reality TV. It worked for a while, and then I'd gotten restless again. It wasn't that I was worried about him or anything. I just wanted to know that Cassius hadn't removed Ethan's head from his body. When I'd asked Alex about them fighting, he'd simply rolled his eyes and started talking about the Gathering that evening.

  The women.

  The lights.

  The dancing.

  But mostly the women.

  It was time to go, and Ethan still wasn't there. I fidgeted with my dress, hoping it would please him and hating myself that it was even an issue. Why would I care? He'd rejected me over and over again only to offer me comfort and then reject me again. He made absolutely no sense, and in my current emotional state, I really desperately needed something to make sense.

  Next to Stephanie, I felt like the ugly friend. The one you took with you and forced your brother or cousin to dance with. As if on cue, Alex stepped forward and offered his arm.

  It's not that I needed compliments — I'd lasted my entire life without them. I'd turned them away, knowing that if my number was ever called, I would never feel pretty again, because I'd be in the constant company of immortals.

  Though I'd foolishly thought I'd be a type of teacher.

  It was what I'd lived for, to either live to teach them or continue on with my boring life and find a career I was passionate about.

  "Hey now," Alex whispered in my ear, "hold your head high. They'll smell your fear from a mile away."

  "Fear isn't welcome," I repeated under my breath.

  "Good girl." He patted my hand. "And you look gorgeous."

  "Don't," I snapped. "Just… don't lie, please."

  His eyebrows drew together; he opened his mouth but earned a slap on the shoulder from Mason.

  I hadn't noticed his arrival. Mason was wearing dress pants and a shirt that left absolutely nothing to the imagination. Every muscle was outlined — it was hard not to stare. The man was huge. Had he not shown me compassion, I would be afraid of his size.

  "She rides with me." He started prying my arm away from Alex.

  Alex rolled his eyes. "Why not me?"

  "She's safer with me, and those were Ethan's instructions. Check your phone."

  Alex pulled out his iPhone. "Damn, how am I supposed to make an entrance without little human on my arm?"

  "Name." Mason barked.

  "Calling her human is my term of endearment, like sweetheart or babycakes."

  "Call me babycakes, and I'll scratch your eyes out," my mouth fired off before I could stop it. Closing my eyes in embarrassment, I shook my head. "I'm sorry, I mean."

  Alex barked out a laugh. "You're allowed to have opinions, babycakes."

  I groaned.

  "It's staying," he announced, "because it makes her turn red. Look."

  He was pointing at my cheeks. I was sure they matched my dress. I'd just yelled at an immortal, threatened bodily harm, and he was laughing.

  Mason removed Alex's hand from mine and took my arm. "Let's go, beautiful."

  The attention, the compliments, the nicknames — they were too much. It was the opposite of what I'd expected, meaning, it was like being made fun of. Like I was naked for the class picture. It was embarrassing, being told I was beautiful when I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that I paled in comparison to the ugliest of immortals.

  "Did I say something wrong?" Mason asked once we were in his truck driving toward downtown. "You seem… upset."

  My fingers slowly caressed the rich leather seats. I don't know what I expected him to drive, but a brand new GMC truck didn't really fit the image I'd had of werewolves.

  "Um, no…" I lied. "It's nothing."

  "You seem sad."

  "Just… in shock, still."

  "It will fade," Mason said in a calm voice. "It always does. My own mate, well, she…" His voice cracked. "She had a hard time at first."

  "Was her number called?"

  His eyes were black; it was hard to see where his pupils started and ended as he gazed at me then back at the road. "Yes."

  "And you loved her?"

  "Of course." He said it so quickly I didn't doubt him for one second. "With my entire life, my soul, my existence, I loved her."

  "Loved."

  "She simply…" His voice was hoarse. "She simply didn't wake up one morning. The evening before we'd been talking about children. The next morning she was cold."

  "Mason…" I reached across the seat and grabbed his hand. "I'm so sorry."

  He clenched my hand in his and brought it to his lips; his rough kiss across my knuckles warmed me from the inside out.

  "It's not your fault."

  "But…" My mind whirled. "I could change that? I could make it so that doesn't happen anymore?"

  He was quiet for a while. "Possibly, but there's no way to know."

  "So I live past a certain year, and what? We're home free?"

  The truck pulled up to one of the hotels in downtown Seattle. It was newer, a boutique hotel right on the water. "Ethan wouldn't like me discussing such things with you. I'll allow him to explain."

  "But—"

  "That's all I'll say," he growled. "Now, let's go show you off to your mate."

  The mate who hadn't even driven me to the Gathering?

  The mate who hadn't spoken to me all day?

  The same mate who'd looked like he wanted to shake me to death earlier that morning?

  Great.

  I choked back the fear at being in a room with possibly hundreds of immortals —in a room with Cassius himself — and followed Mason out of the truck.

  He grabbed my hand again. I ducked against him, allowing his body to shield me.

  He handed his keys to the valet, who eyed me up and down like I was a piece of candy.

  Mason growled at the valet, who jolted out of his stare-down and ran toward the truck. "Idiots, all of the demons."

  "Wh-what?"

  "Demons." He shrugged. "Even hell won't take 'em, so they toil here for us until it's time for judgment."

  "And then?"

  "Hell welcomes them back with open arms."

  I shivered.

  "Are you cold?"

  No, just completely freaked out. My studies had said nothing about demons. Nothing.

  What other immortals hadn't I been told about?

  I was almost afraid to ask.

  Mason walked me through the doors of the hotel. Music sounded from somewhere in the lobby, or maybe it was the restaurant. The music grew louder as we walked toward it in silence.

  When we stopped, it was in front of a black door.

  Mason nodded to a tall man wearing head-to-toe black. He had an earpiece in his ear and examined the iPad in his hands. He turned the iPad t
oward Mason, who placed his hand on the screen.

  It flashed green.

  And the door opened.

  I think, in my head I'd built the Gathering up to be something like I'd seen in horror movies — an orgy, blood-drinking, people in little to no clothing.

  Instead… it was like I'd just walked onto a Hollywood movie set. Heads turned, both male and female, and they were flawless. My fingers dug into Mason's arm.

  It wasn't fear.

  More like awe. It had been hard enough to keep my jaw tight when I'd entered the throne room. This was a bazillion times worse.

  Every woman in that room was perfectly proportioned — tall, exotic, beautiful. There was no imperfection — at all.

  The men, if I could call them that, since most of them were most likely immortal, were all pretty large in size and seemed more curious than anything. I noticed a few smiles in my direction.

  A few sneers — from the women.

  And in the far, far corner of the room, there were a group of people who looked like me, who looked normal, not like they belonged on the cover of a magazine.

  "Humans," Mason whispered. "Over in the corner, most likely gossiping about their mates."

  "What?"

  On closer inspection, the humans looked… different. I couldn't really put my finger on it, but their skin was brighter than mine. Their eyes too. They just appeared extremely healthy.

  There were both men and women, which I hadn't expected. Not that men's numbers had never been called. I just hadn't really thought about it much.

  The room was decorated in blacks and silvers; long tables lined the walls, piled high with food and champagne.

  The curious stares continued, so I clung to Mason like he was my lifeline; that was, until Alex came up beside me and offered a glass of champagne. "They stare because they're curious."

  "They always stare at new humans?" I took a sip of the champagne, but it tasted off. I couldn't put my finger on it, but it seemed almost bitter on my tongue.

  "No." Alex grinned. "Only you. Because of you who are, and well… you know… the fact that Ethan's your mate and Cassius started a pissing contest over you."

  "Alex…" Mason rolled his eyes. "Stop."