Darkest Before Dawn: A Muse Urban Fantasy (The Veil Series Book 3)

by DaCosta, Pippa

  I felt his appraisal like a cool breeze across my hot demon skin, and an electric sizzle of power strummed through me, fluttering desire low in my abdomen. If he didn’t notice the physical change in my demon body, he’d sense it. “Maybe I’ll teach you sometime if you teach me how to control fire like you control ice.”

  He shook crushed ice from his hair. “I’d like to.” His eyes turned serious as he reached a hand up and placed it carefully over my heart. His all-demon cool blue touch fizzled against my fire-veined skin. He sucked in a breath and toned down his own power, then gently eased his element through me, into the darkness slumbering at my core. I knew what he sensed as soon as I saw his handsome face cut into a scowl: Damien, my unwanted hitchhiker.

  Stefan shrugged his demon off in one graceful roll of his shoulders. He was just Stefan again. Fully clothed, virtually normal but for the cerulean glare. I dropped my head back on the frozen earth and closed my eyes. My demon sauntered off to the back of my mind, dumping me back into human flesh. My clothes scratched against my skin, heavy and restricting. A small part of me pined for the freedom again. Just let go...

  “It’s the soul-lock you feel. When I stabbed and burned Damien, he didn’t die. He made himself a new home in me.” The words made it sound so simple. Nightmarish memories broiled.

  Eyes still closed, I concentrated on the warmth of Stefan’s hand resting on my chest. “I... didn’t realize,” he said. “That day was...” He didn’t need to say it. I knew exactly what that day had been. I relived it constantly in my dreams.

  “He lives in me. Every breath, every heartbeat, I share with him.” I hadn’t told anyone. Damien was my dirty secret. When I finally opened my eyes, I found Stefan watching me with a curious muddle of emotions on his face. Confusion, definitely. There was sympathy too.

  “That’s why you need Akil,” he said softly.

  “Yeah, Akil can fix me. But it’s not that simple. I don’t trust him. Part of me thinks he would take Damien’s place. He’s never said he wouldn’t.” The words began to flow easier now. It felt good to finally breath life into the fears I’d harbored for so long, as though sharing the horror relieved some of the burden. Is this what it felt like to have a friend? Someone I could share my secrets with? Someone who would listen without demanding something of me in return?

  “You’re right. Akil will take Damien’s place if you let him. He’s all demon. He wants you. He wouldn’t let a little thing like free will get in his way.” Stefan put on an alarmingly similar portrayal of Akil, right down to the netherworldly accent, “It’s too late, Muse. It is done, you must get over it.”

  I laughed and punched Stefan on the shoulder. This really wasn’t funny, and yet, with Stefan, I almost felt as though it could be. He chuckled dryly, but his light laughter faded as his gaze fell to his hand resting over my heart. An unhurried quiet fell over us. His hand rose and fell with the rhythm of my breathing, and I recalled when we’d last lain that close, lost in one another, as though nothing could ever tear us apart. How wrong I’d been.

  “Muse...” His breath hitched. He looked away. “Those things I said that day at the statue—I was out of line.” When he faced me, renewed fierceness burned in his eyes. “I was afraid, and angry... I wasn’t thinking clearly. I still can’t think straight. Since I’ve been back, I can’t focus... The demon rides me the whole time. I...” He licked his lips and closed his eyes, exhaling a weary sigh.

  The insults he’d hurled at me by the Washington statue had stung, not least because his words had cut close to the truth. I closed my hand around his. When he opened his eyes, the sadness on his face struck me like a physical blow. I understood. I always had. Fear clamped around my heart. Fear for him. For us. I tightened my grip on his hand. It would be okay. Together, we were stronger. I opened my mouth to tell him as much when a floodlight washed over us from above. A helicopter swooped low. The downdraft whipped up snow and ice, virtually blinding me. Stefan hissed and tore his hand from mine.

  “DEMONS. STAY WHERE YOU ARE. YOU WILL NOT BE HARMED.”

  His wings flared wide. He rose to his feet with leisurely grace and walked into the helicopter’s downdraft. The wind tore at his coat, but he stood proud, wings held high against the maelstrom. A dozen red laser spots danced on his coat. Black-clad Enforcers spilled from the trees. Stefan flashed me a smile, but it wasn’t the light-hearted grin I loved. That smile was hungry and filled with sharp teeth. The sight of it spilled liquid ice into my veins. Before I could draw breath to warn the Enforcers, he dropped into a crouch, spread his wings, and snarled.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “He killed seven Enforcers.” Adam sat behind his desk, hands steepled in front of him. Jenna and Ryder flanked me. “Impaled two.”

  Squirming in my seat, I averted my eyes, focusing over Adam’s shoulder. “You were going to kill him.”

  “That was not our intention.” Adam’s broad shoulders slouched. His bloodshot eyes spoke of the same level of weariness I felt in my bones. “We hoped to capture him.”

  “All the more reason for him to lash out.”

  “He murdered his colleagues in cold blood.”

  I didn’t need reminding. Not only had I been there to witness Stefan’s actions first hand, I’d been at the debriefing where a dozen monitors replayed the fantastical footage of a fire and ice demon throwing down in a winter wonderland in the center of Boston. I’d squirmed in my seat then too. Witnessing my demon half deliver the elaborate display of power in a room filled with Enforcers stamped a fat target on the back of my head. I’d felt their gazes burn into me. Adam had glowered at me—not the footage—during the entire meeting.

  A kid had filmed the entire showdown on his cellphone. If that wasn’t enough, I now sat in front of Adam’s desk, hemmed in by two people who quite possibly had me on their hit lists. Jenna and Ryder hadn’t said a word. Ryder wouldn’t meet my eyes.

  “What were you and Stefan discussing prior to my squad’s arrival?” Adam asked.

  I blinked and dragged my thoughts back into the room. He meant the part on the home movie where Stefan lay over me, hand on my chest. It had looked intimate on screen, and it was, but not in the way they’d all assumed.

  Adam sat very still, radiating calm authority. The only time I’d seen him rattled was when I’d brought up the subject of Stefan’s mother. He looked at me with those fatherly eyes, and I almost wished I could tell him all about my conversation with Stefan and how my sick bastard of an owner coiled around my heart even now. Adam looked like he’d listen—right before he’d shoot me up with PC34 and toss me in a cell.

  “Sex,” I said, hoping to disarm him.

  His expression tightened. “After the vast amounts of energies the two of you had summoned, you wouldn’t be talking about sex, you’d be having it.”

  My plan backfired. I cringed. A flush of heat warmed my face.

  Adam removed his glasses. He pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled a deep sigh. “I owe you an apology.”

  That got my attention. “Huh?”

  He slid his glasses back on and leaned back in his seat. “You have more control than I’ve given you credit for. I underestimated you, Muse.”

  Yah think? I frowned. He had to be going somewhere with this uncharacteristic praise.

  “The fact is,” he continued, “half bloods are all about one thing: control. Stefan has lost all control. He is no longer viable and must be destroyed.”

  “What?” I glanced at Ryder and Jenna. Both stared through stoic masks straight at Adam. They knew this was coming, and they didn’t care. “You don’t mean that. He thought you were going to hurt us. He didn’t mean to kill anyone. He just reacted.” Nobody in this room was listening to me. “He’s your son, Adam. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

  “I lost Stefan when he stepped through the veil eight months ago.”

  A snarl curled my lip. “You lost Stefan the moment you decided to turn him into a weapon. How old was he when you
abandoned him to the Institute scientists? Did he even know a normal life before then? Did he ever have a father who loved him?”

  Ryder flicked his keen eyes to me. Yeah, that’s right. I know all about Stefan’s past and more.

  “That monster you toyed with in the park, Muse, wasn’t my son,” Adam replied, as cool as ice.

  “He was the real Stefan, you ignorant bastard, and if you cared at all you’d realize that.”

  “Stefan wouldn’t have killed innocent men and women doing their jobs, trying to protect the people of Boston.” Adam cut his gaze to Ryder. “Ryder? Jenna? Would you disagree?”

  “No,” Ryder drawled. “He nearly killed me escaping the lake house.”

  This was a witch-hunt. “But he didn’t kill you. He could have, and he didn’t. He came for me.”

  Ryder twisted in the seat, jaw set and stare rigid. “Muse, that thing in the park ain’t Stefan no more.” His voice quivered with unreserved anger. “He’s unstable. He killed good people back there.”

  “I’d have done the same, backed into a corner like that.”

  Ryder gave me a dry look. “No. You wouldn’t. And you know it.”

  Maybe Ryder was right. Maybe I wouldn’t have. What did that mean? Stefan had killed the Enforcers in an instant. After he’d smiled at me, a wave of fragmented ice burst from him, instantly freezing anything it came into contact with. The helicopter had pitched and plummeted into the harbor. The sounds of twisted metal were only matched by screams of agony from the fallen. His ice hadn’t touched me. He knew exactly who to target. I’d watched, numbed by shock, and then he’d vanished, leaving behind a landscape of blood-stained snow.

  They believed him out of control. What they didn’t know—what nobody but me knew—was that he’d never been more in control. He knew exactly what he was doing. He was free.

  I lifted my gaze to Adam and narrowed my sights on him. “Subject Alpha is no longer viable, huh? Put him down like a lab-rat, and then what? Buy another half blood for Operation Typhon? They’re worthless anyway, right? Or maybe summon Yukki-Onna and screw her again. Keep her locked up here while she gives birth to your demon spawn.”

  Adam ground his teeth behind tight lips. He swallowed and spoke his next words with precise care. “Ryder, Jenna, you’re dismissed. I want your written conclusion on my desk in an hour. Ryder, you will lead the team tasked with Stefan’s termination.”

  The two Enforcers stood and left the office. Neither acknowledged me. I leaned forward in my chair. “Don’t want them to know about your dirty little secret?” Adam wasn’t squeaky clean in all of this. I wasn’t going to let him sit back in that damn chair and order the death of his son like he was a saint, doing the heroic thing.

  “Operation Typhon was a failed experiment. It was never approved.”

  I smiled. “Mm, so what happened? You went ahead anyway? Unofficial-like?”

  He leaned in his chair and rested a hand on his desk, rubbing his fingers together as he considered his words carefully. “Who gave you this information?” He asked like he was enquiring how my day went, as though the answer was irrelevant. I knew that tone. It meant I was cutting close to the truth.

  “There are two others like Stefan and me...”

  Adam flinched. A smiled slashed across his lips. “What else do you know?”

  “You named me Subject Beta while I was still an infant. You tried to buy me from some nameless demon, but my brother stopped the deal. You told me my employment was inevitable. You’ve been watching me, monitoring me, even when I was with Akil. I saw the pictures. You must have been waiting for Akil to tire of me or for me to get away from him before you made your move.” I paused, giving him time to deny it. He looked back at me, reserved, calculating. I was right. Hate burned like bile in my throat. “I had five years on my own. What stopped you from recruiting me then?”

  “You’d learned a great deal from Akil. Things I couldn’t teach you, especially as Stefan was becoming difficult. I couldn’t trust my son to teach you what was required. You weren’t ready. We’d seen no evidence of your power. At that time, Stefan was our only benchmark. We didn’t know if you possessed the same level of power as he did. So I continued to monitor you closely.”

  My heart fluttered. Everything Akil had told me was true. “How closely?”

  “You were untested, raw and naive, and still very much under Akil’s protection.” He paused, steeled his gaze, and said, “I sent in a handler.” He leaned forward. “The man you knew as Sam Harwood worked for me. His real name was Jason Bywater. Akil learned of my plans and killed him in front of Stefan as a warning to me, I suppose. Stefan knew nothing about Sam’s real motives, but he reported the incident to me. I had hoped Sam—Jason would stay in place for several years. He was a good operative...”

  As Adam’s voice trailed off. The bottom fell out of my world. I was sitting there, bolstered by the facts, all geared up for a verbal fight, ready to pry the truth out of Adam, but he’d just slapped me down and wrenched my happy little five-year-folly out from under me. Sam, my friend, a big part of the only normal life I’d ever had, was a lie. Sam wasn’t even called Sam. The guy I’d shared beers with, movie nights, weekends away—his whispered promises, gentle touches, and easy laughs were all lies. A jagged shard of emotional pain sliced through me. I had to get out of Adam’s office before I killed him. My fingers itched. My demon snarled. I slowly, carefully, rose to my feet. Violent tremors twitched through me. The urge to burn Adam from the inside out very nearly tore my control out from under me. I could taste ashes on my tongue and feel the burn in my fingers. “You were right...” I growled, sounding more demon with each breath. “Be grateful I have control, Adam, because at this very moment, my instincts are screaming at me to boil your insides.”

  He didn’t move, just sat behind his desk and observed with clinical detachment. “There’s a war coming, Muse. My actions were justifiable in the grander scheme of things. You need to decide whose side you’re on.”

  “I’d rather side with the demons than you.” In that moment, I envied Stefan his freedom to kill.

  I strode from Adam’s office. Rage boiled the blood in my veins. The Institute buzzed around me: hallways filled with people devoted to protecting humans from the demon incursion. Phones shrilled too loudly. Snippets of conversations drifted by as I broke into a jog. I had to get away. I barged by several people and heard them hiss in pain. Elemental heat rolled off me. I had to get out.

  “Muse.” Ryder blocked my path.

  I snapped my head up and tried to veer around him. He caught my arm and hissed, releasing me with a flurry of curses.

  “Don’t come near me.” My head swirled. The demon roared. I staggered and ran.

  “Muse! I have to stop him. Don’t get in my way.”

  I burst from the warehouse building, trailing fire in my wake and almost cried with relief when my demon stepped into my skin. The sweet release she offered robbed me of the flood of emotion breaking over my mental barricade. Sprinting, hard and fast, I ran away from the Institute and their treachery. My five years of freedom was just another cage. An illusion. When would it be over? When did I get the chance to live my life as I wanted? When could I be free of demons and people like Adam, and Levi, and Val, my father, Damien, the netherworld, every-fucking-thing that wanted to kill me or screw me over? I just wanted the truth. Was that too much to ask? Did I not deserve it?

  Sobs bubbled from my lips. I laughed a vicious peel of laughter. Dripping liquid fire, I ran harder. The dark inside bloomed, wrapping oil-slick tendrils of power through muscle and flesh, tightening, consuming, feeding. I staggered and fell against a car. Flames spilled across the hood and arced over the roof. The fire hungered, and seeking freedom, it roared higher. I danced back and admired the firelight licking the air. A cruel smile twisted my lips. The fire was free. I could taste its joy and sense its unfettered lust. It was free, and it called to me to join it. Burn it. Burn them all. A shout shattered my reverie.
Backing up, I swept my heated gaze over the crowd surrounding me. I read the fear and disgust in their animated expressions and agitated states. But I couldn’t hear them over the roar of the flames. Half-crazed whispers filtered through raging inferno. Burn them. Their hatred will know terror. A flick of my wrist, and the fire would respond. They wouldn’t escape. I could kill them all in an instant.

  “Get away!” I snarled. Fire dripped from my fingertips.

  I reached for the veil, unable to stop myself. I ached to feel the power coursing through my veins. I was a coward, seeking peace in oblivion, and I’d kill anyone who attempted to stop me.

  I closed my eyes and dropped to my knees. The road bubbled around me. Reason told me to get up and get out of there. Enforcers would be here soon, and I’d kill them. I couldn’t stop myself. I didn’t want to. Suffocating madness embraced me. Laughter boiled inside my head and bubbled from my lips. Yes, this was what I needed. Why fight the inevitable? It was time to let go.

  I fell forward onto my hands. Rivulets of flame spilled from my fingers, seeking fuel. Camera flashes jabbed at my vision like bee stings. Whispers, curses. A glass bottle smattered beside me. “Demon!” I snapped my head up, locked the vocal stranger in my sights, and lunged.

  Akil scooped me up and flung me over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. A guttural roar tore from my lips. I let loose a flurry of talons and teeth, biting, kicking, snarling. My wing thrashed. The air tightened suddenly, squeezing from my lungs. Static energy washed over me, and in the next breath we were in the open-plan expanse of Akil’s Battery Wharf apartment where I’d seen Carol-Anne’s body.

  He dropped me on my feet. A barrage of words spilled from him: something about control. I locked my hand into a fist, drew my arm back, and punched him in the face hard enough to feel bone crack beneath my knuckles. He grunted and reeled back. I threw a ribbon of fire at him. He spat blood and snarled while my obedient flames coiled around his waist and then disappeared as though absorbed by his clothes. Fire wouldn’t work on him, but I was beyond rational thought. I lunged, hit him square in the chest, and slammed him against the granite bar. He huffed a foreign curse. I was on him. I sunk my teeth into his throat and tasted hot, spiced blood. All my thoughts focused into a pinpoint of all-consuming rage. I was a machine with a single purpose.