Darkness Clashes

by Susan Illene

  I nodded. “I will, but Derrick—is this really just about Zoe?”

  “No.” His brown eyes leveled on me. “That’s just the one thing I can’t let go. The others have a lot more against the master and he’s been refusing to hear it.”

  “They don’t feel safe,” I surmised.

  “No, they don’t.”

  “I’ll talk to him,” I promised.

  “You do that.” He looked over his shoulder and addressed the pack. “Everyone except Nadine go now. If you’re gonna try taking down a master vampire’s home you don’t do it without my consent first.”

  There were some grumbles, but most headed for their cars after only a slight hesitation. Only a few men remained, including tattoo guy. They really were determined to take Nik out if they’d choose to defy their alpha. Had they really lost that much faith in the master vampire?

  Derrick left me to stalk up to them.

  “Did you not hear me?” He shoved the tattoo guy. “Get out of here now!”

  “With respect, alpha…” He looked Derrick directly in the eyes.

  He went flying ten feet and landed in a bone-jarring sprawl.

  “Don’t make me tell you again!”

  The two remaining men looked at each other, went over and grabbed the third, and dragged him to their car. They hightailed it out of there a minute later. Derrick walked up to Nadine and spoke to her next. Whatever he said, it made her shoot me a venomous glare.

  He came back toward the house after that. “Are you satisfied?”

  “He’s all yours,” I said, pulling Sable with me to give him space.

  “This ain’t over, Melena.” He gave me a serious look. “People are tired and they want change.”

  Sable growled and I patted her head. “Then they’re going about it the wrong way.”

  Derrick leaned down and took hold of Jessie’s body. He was careful not to jostle him too much, but even then I could tell picking up the two hundred pound man didn’t require much effort. Of course, this was the werewolf who’d beaten Kariann in a fight and she was over six hundred years old.

  “Maybe you should consider.” Derrick stopped next to me after he’d secured Jessie in his arms. “It’s the Master who’s goin’ about it all wrong.”

  I opened my mouth to reply, but he didn’t stick around to listen.

  He stalked off, heading toward his truck where Nadine waited. She’d already lowered the tailgate and helped him lay Jessie in the back. I watched as Derrick took out a knife and dug the bullets from the wounded man’s chest. For a few minutes I didn’t move, waiting to see if his treatment would be enough.

  Derrick murmured reassurances to the man as he worked on him. It was too far away to tell if he used magic, but I’d heard rumors some alphas gained the power to heal through their pack. Not that anyone reliable would confirm it.

  Eventually Jessie stirred, raising his hand toward his alpha. It was oddly touching as Derrick gripped his hand. He helped the man move farther back into the truck bed and put up the tailgate. It’d be a rough ride home, but he’d survive. I let out the breath I’d been holding.

  Derrick glanced over at me, nodded, and got into the driver’s seat. I watched him go with a deep sense of regret. There didn’t seem to be an easy way to resolve this without one—or all of us—losing. Hell, I didn’t even know whose side I was supposed to be on anymore.

  I looked down at Sable. “Go home and change back to being a lynx. Emily and Hunter will be home from school soon and I want you watching over them while I’m here.”

  She let out an odd snuffling noise and ran off. I probably should have made her change forms first since she’d leave tracks, but she really enjoyed being a bigger cat. The odds of the wrong people seeing her were minimal and I’d cover up the paw prints on my way home. It was always something I had to keep in mind since the larger feline breeds weren’t in Alaska.

  Kerbasi stepped up beside me. “I’d hoped for more bloodshed.”

  “You would.”

  Yvonne came out of the house and stood on the other side of me, her relief palpable.

  “Thank goodness you arrived when you did. I wasn’t sure how we were going to fight them off.”

  I turned my gaze from the road and looked at her. “You’re going to need to get those wards finished soon. I’ve only bought us a little time.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Yvonne and I stepped inside the dimly-lit foyer, passing through the ward. It tingled against my skin, but not as much as the one at the werewolf bar a few days ago. Kerbasi hadn’t been added to the “approved” list yet, but he muscled past it with a mere grunt of effort. To deter him, it would have to be strengthened to a level where he squealed with pain and bled from the nose and ears while fighting it. Unfortunately, the mystics didn’t have that kind of power.

  Almost as if he knew what I was thinking, he shot me a dirty look.

  “I’m hungry. I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me,” he said, heading down the hallway.

  Oh, right. I’d slept through lunch and kept him locked out of the house. At least one of us would get to eat.

  “We’ll continue working on the ward.” Yvonne patted me on the arm. “You should go talk to Master Nikolas.”

  I left the mystics and entered the dark living room. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust. Once they did, I found Nik and Kariann wrapped in blankets, sitting in chairs at the far corner of the room. Both of them had swords in their laps. It was good to know at least two vamps wouldn’t have gone down without a fight. I sensed the others in the house still slept, unaware of the danger that had come close to them. It was good to not be a vampire.

  “You guys just missed all the fun,” I said, walking up to hover over them.

  “You have my gratitude.” Nik’s voice came out gruff. “I did not anticipate Derrick turning into a coward who’d attack when the sun was up.”

  “From the way it sounded to me I don’t think this was his plan.” I settled onto the sofa across from Kariann, who was even more bleary-eyed than Nik. “I convinced him to take his wolves away, but he said you’d be hearing from him soon.”

  “Good. It’s about time we settled this.”

  Maybe it was time to settle a few things.

  I looked at Kariann. “Could you give me a few minutes alone with Nik?”

  She glanced over at her master, who nodded his head. Her expression held curiosity, but she wrapped the blanket around herself and got up with only a slight hesitation. I waited until she’d left the room and moved far enough away she wouldn’t overhear anything. Then I took a deep breath before speaking.

  “Nik, there’s something I’ve got to ask you.”

  He lifted brow. “What?”

  I clenched my hands. This was harder than I thought. I wanted to believe the best of him, but this was something I couldn’t ignore any longer. Derrick hadn’t lied when he’d said Nik had seen the problems coming and did nothing to stop them.

  “Did you know Variola and Zoe wanted to search the area for the portal to Purgatory before they took over?”

  He stiffened. “Did Derrick tell you that?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Just answer the question.”

  Nik turned his gaze toward the empty fireplace and remained silent for so long I almost said something.

  “I knew,” he finally admitted, eyes still averted. “But for obvious reasons I couldn’t allow them to get near it.”

  “Okay, but why keep it a secret? This was something the rest of us needed to know.”

  The fact that he hadn’t said anything bothered me. Until a few months ago, I couldn’t figure out why Zoe and her minions kept targeting Alaska. It wasn’t until she took over Fairbanks that I finally figured out her true intentions. Knowing that would have been useful when trying to protect the place. Instead Nik had kept it quiet and let us all fight blind.

  The master vampire sighed and finally met my gaze. “When Variola came to me, she sounded almost fanatical
about finding the portal. I denied her, knowing no good could come of it. There was no way to know she’d usurp my territory as a result.”

  And put him under a sleep spell for five years until I brought him out of it. In all that time she and her powerful witch friends had never found it, but there was a good reason for that. It was invisible and undetectable even to a sensor unless opened with a special device.

  Zoe—who’d been guiding Variola’s actions—apparently realized that and deployed new methods to get what she wanted. Summoning a demon prince in Juneau had been particularly interesting. She must have thought he could find and open it, though I hadn’t been able to get her to talk much about that.

  “When did Zoe contact you about the portal?” I asked.

  His jaw twitched. “What makes you think she did?”

  “Don’t bullshit me, Nik.”

  “I do not have to answer to you.” His tone came out forceful.

  I gave him a hard look. “If you want me to stay on your side, you do. Micah and I told you she would be hunting for me, yet you said nothing?”

  We stared at each other, neither of us blinking. This had been before Micah went missing and I’d freed Lucas from Purgatory. I wasn’t immortal yet back then and much more vulnerable. Nik had known Zoe was a threat and that we were keeping an eye out for her.

  “There are things you are better off not knowing,” he eventually answered.

  Now he was starting to sound like me about Derrick, but it couldn’t be that bad. Not to mention I’d risked my life helping him get his city back. Twice. I deserved an explanation for him keeping things from me.

  “Explain it anyway.”

  He got up to pace. “If you’ll recall, I went on a trip to Portland last spring. I bumped into her there at a small gathering.”

  A minute went by where he didn’t say anything else.

  “Go on.” At this rate I was never going to get an answer out of him.

  “She wanted to know when Micah wasn’t around because she wanted to meet with you. It had to do with you helping her find the portal, but I refused.”

  “Did she tell you why she was looking for it?” I asked.

  “Yes. She even managed to shed a tear or two while speaking of her daughter, but it made no difference.” He didn’t meet my eyes. “I knew I must keep her away from you.”

  There was more to it than that.

  I stood up. “And yet you didn’t tell me you saw her? Why?

  It couldn’t have been because you feared she’d kill me. I bet she even swore she wouldn’t if you cooperated. No, you must have thought I’d consider helping her. Maybe you even suspected Lucas was in Purgatory and knew I’d make a deal with the devil herself if it meant I could get him out. You have a lot of nerve keeping something like that from me.”

  I wasn’t supposed to talk about Purgatory, but Zoe spilled that secret months ago and Nik had apparently been aware of it for even longer. What really concerned me was however remote the chance, I might have been able to get Lucas out sooner and—at least temporarily—avoided her threats to my life.

  Every day he’d been there he’d been tortured unmercifully. Every night I’d experienced his suffering through my dreams and would have done anything—ANYTHING—to save him. Nik couldn’t begin to fathom how bad it was during that time. Every day Lucas was there I’d died a little inside.

  “Melena.” He took me by the shoulders. “You could have been killed going there and we couldn’t trust Zoe to keep her promise. I was trying to protect you.”

  “Except keeping your meeting with her a secret didn’t protect me.” I stepped away, forcing him to let go. “She still sent one of her minions after me and if I hadn’t just been turned immortal by Lucas I’d be dead.”

  We were both breathing hard as we stared at each other.

  “You can’t really mean to tell me you would have helped her find the portal?” he asked.

  “Lucas was still there. I can’t say for sure what I might have done.” Though now I knew it was impossible to find without an archangel’s help. Most people, including Nik, thought I’d used my abilities to find it.

  “Then my decision worked out for the best anyway. You got what you wanted and Zoe remains ignorant of its location.” His expression was implacable.

  “That’s not even the whole point. You’re hiding important things from people who need to know and not listening to anyone.” I pointed toward the front of the house. “Those guys out there don’t trust you anymore and feel like you’ve failed them—repeatedly.”

  “It is my right as the master of this territory to decide what is best for the people within it. I do not have to hold myself accountable to anyone.”

  In that moment I no longer had any idea what was the right thing to do. If Nik wouldn’t listen, then how could I hope to help him stay in power? I wasn’t the type to switch sides just because things got tough, but neither could I decide who would be the better leader for Fairbanks—Nik or Derrick. At this point the only reason I stuck by Nik was out of loyalty and because he’d help me keep Zoe from the alpha.

  “You’re being a…” I began, but was interrupted by a shriek at the door.

  Felisha had arrived sometime during our argument.

  “I’m so sorry,” Yvonne said from the foyer. “Give me a moment and you’ll be able to enter.”

  The ward pulsed against my mind as the mystic recalibrated it for Felisha to get through without getting zapped again. It had gotten a little stronger in the last fifteen minutes, but resetting spells also weakened them until they could be strengthened again. They’d be working all night to get them back to their previous level.

  As soon as Yvonne fixed the ward, the fairy rushed through the foyer and came straight toward Nik. Worry was written all over her delicate face.

  “I heard what happened,” Felisha said, stopping a few feet from him. “Are you okay?”

  There was a time when she would have jumped into his arms. Josslyn had certainly changed that.

  Nik’s eyebrows drew together. “How did you find out?”

  “I told her,” Kerbasi spoke up from behind us. “Here’s your cell phone.”

  He held it out to me and I stared at it. “When did you get that?”

  “I took it from your pocket when I dropped you off on the roof.”

  That little bastard. “And you chose to call Felisha with it?”

  “I knew she’d want to know.” He had an innocent look on his face, but I wasn’t fooled. The guardian wanted to find out what would happen if Felisha and Josslyn ran into each other. We’d managed to keep them apart so far.

  “You and I are going to have a long talk later.” I snatched my phone from his hand and stuffed it into my pocket.

  Who knew he’d figure out how to use the damn thing? It took me three weeks to teach him how to use the TV remote. I hadn’t gotten around to lessons with the phone yet for the very reason he might abuse it.

  “I’m fine.” Nik was reassuring Felisha.

  She’d ended up in his arms after all. A wellspring of emotion ran between them ranging from concern to affection to regret. Her fingers clutched at his back tightly and she had her head buried in his chest. He stroked her hair.

  “Nik, I know I shouldn’t say this but…”

  “Shhh,” he quieted her.

  I decided to leave the two of them alone and jerked Kerbasi’s arm to take him with me. The less we got involved with that love triangle mess, the better. Nik had a weakness for women that would be his ruin one day. If I had to pick which one he cared for the most, though, Felisha would have been it. Josslyn just happened to come along at the right time and pulled him away before the fairy could come to her senses.

  Kerbasi cringed as we went past the ward and headed outside. The mystics were working on the downstairs windows now. Yvonne’s face was tight with concentration as she pushed magic into the one in front of her.

  “I’m not sure how much more we can do before we’ll
need to take a break,” she said in a hoarse voice. Her face was pale, too.

  Looking at the other mystics, they weren’t much better off. Wards were best handled when there wasn’t immediate danger involved and the designers could take their time.

  “Is there any way other people could add their strength to them like at the fae city?” I asked.

  Yvonne nodded. “It would require bridging our magic, but it would help.”

  “Maybe after the other vampires are awake you can give it a try.” I looked over at Diane and Patrick, whose hands were shaking as they worked at their assigned windows. “For now, take a break and rest for a few minutes.”

  “But we haven’t covered all the entrances yet,” Yvonne argued.

  A bright flash of light appeared ten feet away, momentarily blinding us. After my vision returned I found Lucas standing on the lawn, wearing a shirt splattered with blood. My heart rate picked up as I moved toward to him. His golden eyes came to rest on mine and there was concern there. He must have just gotten my voicemail message and stopped in the middle of whatever he was doing.

  The news about his brother came rushing back to me—along with how Lucas was being manipulated by Micah and Ariel. The betrayal sank deep into my gut, twisting it until I almost couldn’t breathe. Somehow I had to put it aside and hide it. He was here now and that was all that mattered.

  “What have you been doing?” I asked, giving him a full once over. There were no wounds on him and he was clean everywhere except his shirt.

  “Interrogating a potential witness. What happened here?” He nodded at the pool of fresh blood still on the driveway. He’d flashed to a position just a few steps from it.

  “Werewolf trouble, but they’re gone now. Any luck in Chicago?”

  “I suspect…” He glanced down at his shirt. “That if my last suspect had anything to say he’d have told me before I finished cutting him into pieces.”

  The twist in my gut tightened further and it took all my control to hide my feelings. Lucas was out there searching for a brother who didn’t want to be found. People were being tortured and killed over it. How could Micah not suffer the same guilt I was feeling?