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

by DaCosta, Pippa

  I speared my hands into his hair and snarled a warning. “Stop playing games.”

  His soft hazel eyes glistened with unspoken promises. His smile spoke of the wicked things his mind had conjured. He cupped my behind and lifted me against him before lowering me onto the bed. He prowled up my body, timeless wisdom burning in his eyes, but no power. His eyes had never been more honest. With the fire gone, he was just a man. I peered up at him through half-closed lashes, drenched with need. As Akil towered over me, the vision of male perfection, ageless, netherworldy, I saw a weakness in him I’d never witnessed before: a knowledge in his eyes coupled with a fraction of regret, not for me, but for himself. He noticed my expression change, but before I could voice what I thought I’d seen, he nudged my knees apart and plunged into me, arching my back and stealing a ragged groan of ecstasy from the depths of my ruined soul.

  * * *

  I woke entwined in Akil’s arms, captured against the unyielding strength of his body. Sunlight streamed in through the wall of windows. Akil’s steady breath betrayed him as awake, as did the press of his erection against my leg. I purred and stretched beneath the sheets, deliciously languid and broken. Peeling open heavy eyelids, I stilled. Akil’s glare brought an abrupt end to my dreamy post-sex state. He stared down at me, head propped on his hand, face stern and eyes cold.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “The Prince of Envy is dead. By your hand.”

  “How do you know that?”

  He tapped his temple. “I hear them, my brethren. Their reach rarely extends beyond the veil, but the death of one of their own has them grieving. Their voices are distracting. It is part of the reason I spend my time here, away from their whispers.” So he had Prince FM playing in his head. It didn’t escape my attention how he’d referred to the princes as them not we. He didn’t include himself among them. Why? “They are furious,” he added with a scowl.

  “What makes you think I killed him?”

  The corner of his lips—lips I’d nipped and teased last night—curled up. “Because I know you. When I last saw both you and Levi, he’d trapped you in a cage. Once Stefan’s ice thawed, Levi was quite adamant he would draw you out, using Dawn as bait. Your apparent-death didn’t change his plans for the half blood girl. He was a fool, blinded by prejudice and thankfully quite ignorant of the power of half bloods. Are you going to deny your involvement in his demise? I’d like to listen to you try.”

  I quickly darted my gaze away and dropped my head back on the pillow. If he looked into my eyes, he’d see the lie. “Yeah, that was me.”

  “How?”

  “It doesn’t matter—”

  He gripped my jaw and tried to pull me to face him, but I growled and jerked my chin free.

  Muttering a demon curse, Akil rose from the bed. “Your timing is somewhat imprudent.” Liquid sunlight flowed over the smooth skin of his back. I propped my head up, brazenly admiring how his muscles flexed and rolled.

  I could still taste him on my lips, still feel the throb of his touch on my skin. “Levi deserved it. He had Dawn in a cage. He’d toyed with her like she was worthless.” My voice fractured, prompting me to clear my throat. I’d been a demon plaything. Memories bubbled but didn’t surface.

  He turned to face me, his expression a hard mask of disapproval. I arched an eyebrow and allowed the sight of his nakedness to fend off the reality I’d been trying to hard to forget. I didn’t take much effort to recall where on his body I’d teased my tongue, or dragged my nails down his honeyed skin. “Don’t go.”

  Even as I said the words, he flicked his wrist and clothed himself in tailored suit and amethyst colored shirt. “You don’t kill a Prince of Hell and walk away, Muse.”

  I sighed, mourning the loss of his body. “That’s exactly what I did.” Flinging the sheet back, I trailed a fingernail down the valley of my waist to crest my hip. His gaze wandered before he remembered himself and shot me a scowl. “Oh, c’mon.” I scoffed. “They call me the Mother of Destruction. I was living up to expectations.”

  His eyes narrowed. “The Mother of Destruction? Who told you that?”

  “Levi. Right before I kicked his not-so-immortal ass into the underworld.”

  Akil snaked his arms crossed. A muscle jumped in his jaw as he ground his teeth. “You have no idea what you’ve done.” Ah, but his lips fought a smile. “You killed a member of the Dark Court. A member of the Court hasn’t fallen for a millennium. Not since the Queen...” His eyes glazed over for a few seconds. He shook his head and focused on me. “They aren’t going to let this go unpunished, Muse.” I’d seen Akil angry, and the expression on his face wasn’t anger. The slant of his voice suggested pride. Being demon and a being of chaos, I imagined my crimes were tantamount to heroism in the netherworld. Chaos followed me wherever I went.

  “I killed Enforcers too. I don’t suppose Adam’ll let that go unpunished either.”

  Akil’s expression ticked, surprise widening his eyes before he shut it down. He spat out an ancient word that could only be a demon curse. “Your return and my… lapse.” A curious rumble emanated from the back of his throat, not quite a growl. “This is… unexpected. When David Ryder told me how you’d died, I believed him. How is it possible he lied?” He growled, the surprise back in his eyes. “The Enforcer looked me in the eyes and lied. To me.”

  A taste of your own medicine. “No, he didn’t lie. He believed I was dead. Everyone did.”

  Akil closed his eyes and sucked in a shuddering breath. He opened them again. “Why didn’t you come to me?”

  Because I no longer needed him. I sighed. This whole mess wasn’t going away, despite my best attempts to pretend it was. “I thought you were in the netherworld. Were you here? All this time?” Had he been mourning me? Was that why he’d been virtually comatose when I’d found him?

  He tilted his head curiously, perhaps really seeing me for the first time, taking in my bottle-blond hair, slim frame, and no doubt putting that image together with the black-hearted demon who killed a prince and set a dozen Enforcers ablaze.

  I squirmed a little under his penetrating gaze. “What was I meant to do? I‘ve got demons queuing up to slit my throat. Val, Levi, not to mention the vile bastard rooting around my soul. I had to keep that little girl safe, the girl you dumped on me, by the way. When you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, right?” My fake bravado was almost enough to paint over the cracks in my fragile emotional state. Although the way Akil’s gaze penetrated, I wondered if he could see right through those cracks into my swirling darkness. He couldn’t know the gut-wrenching fear I was harboring for my waning humanity, could he?

  “Where is the half-blood girl?”

  “In the room down the hall.”

  A faint smile crept across his lips, and his attention wandered again. This time, I felt the skim of his gaze like the touch of his hands. He knew it. The hungry look in his eyes told me he’d like nothing better than to relive the erotic memories we shared. “You are a vision of temptation.”

  I returned his smile. I’d felt something in him as we’d lain together as man and woman. In all the years I’d slept with Akil, we had never reveled in one another like we had in those hours. Sex had always been a raw act, a physical need, not an emotional one. I’d never woken nestled protectively in his arms as I had moments ago. He’d never told he wanted to love me the way a man does a woman. Last night was different on so many levels, and some of those levels terrified me. He had said he wanted to ‘love’ me and then corrected himself by adding ‘make love to me’. I wasn’t naive enough to believe he loved me. I’d been down that road before, but he felt something. His reverent touch had confirmed as much, and considering where I’d come from and who I was, my heart just about shattered with pride at being the tiny, insignificant half blood standing beside a Prince of Hell. My demon purred in agreement, I allowed the verbal equivalent to ripple at the back of my throat and watched Akil’s gaze splinter with fire.

  He no
dded at my unspoken words as though sensing my thoughts. “There are matters I must tend to. The Dark Court asks after me. If the rumors are to be believed, the Mother of Destruction is not dead.”

  “Will you tell them I’m sprawled naked in your bed?” I purred.

  His smile twitched. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I am the master of half-truths. I can manipulate the Court. I’ve been doing it for years.” He grinned, baring sharp white teeth before vanishing in a burst of static.

  It didn’t escape my attention that he hadn’t answered my question.

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Time alone with my thoughts was the last thing I needed. It wasn’t long before the anesthetic effects of sex with Akil wore off, and I was faced with some cold, hard facts. Fear of what I’d become gnawed my bones. My demon stalked happily around my head while guilt, remorse, and disgust churned my gut. I found a bottle of red wine in the cellar and sat at the breakfast table, glowering at the corked bottle and the empty glass beside it. I should have been stronger. I knew that. My demon was my responsibility. I was meant to be something better than this weak-willed woman I seemed to be, and yet I sought out means to forget what I was slowly becoming. A monster.

  I poured the wine. Akil was no different from the wine in that glass. He could offer me temporary reprieve, but it didn’t solve any of the problems. In fact, he complicated matters with his dark words and even darker needs. I needed help, the kind that wouldn’t come from drinking myself silly or sleeping with the sweet-talking Prince of Hell. If I was the Mother of Destruction, I was surely running headlong down the path of self-destruction with no means of escape.

  I huffed out a breath and spread my hands on the countertop. Stefan was the only person who could possibly understand how much I terrified myself. Shit, the things he must have been thinking after killing those Enforcers. We were both so terribly damaged that our only hope had to be found in one another. If only he’d agreed to run away with me where nobody could hurt us and we couldn’t hurt anyone. We could have fled, escaped all of this, but to what end? Dawn would have been trapped in a cage. I could never have left her. What ifs weren’t going to change anything. Stefan was gone and, in likelihood, had turned full-demon by now. The same fate awaited me if I didn’t get a grip.

  Was this Dawn’s future? There had to be a way out for her. She was powerful beyond anything I’d ever witnessed before. She wielded an element I didn’t even begin to understand and did so with deadly efficiency. Had it not been for Ryder’s intervention, she might have killed me. That was a sobering thought. Akil had said she was powerful, but Dawn was something else. No wonder the princes squabbled over her. She could kill an immortal. That made her demon kryptonite. But that erroneous accolade now rested on my shoulders. I trailed my gaze down the dark hallway, knowing I should check in on her... but finding myself hesitating. She’d have questions, and my answers weren’t going to be happy ones.

  There were two other half bloods out there somewhere, subjects in the Institute’s Operation Typhon. Were they just as damaged? Were they strong? Did they beat the system? Had they needed help like I did?

  I picked up the wine glass and admired the swirl of burgundy liquid. I’d tried to help Stefan once. Half bloods don’t get happy endings. I’d destroyed any hope I’d had with him, despite my best efforts. Was I just delaying Dawn’s inevitable destruction? No, I had to believe the little girl asleep down the hall could have a good life. It was too late for Stefan and me but not for her.

  I tasted the wine, let it roll around my tongue, and swallowed. The Mother of Destruction... What did it mean?

  An alarm chimed somewhere, alerting me to movement outside. I checked the CCTV feed on the little flat-screen TV in the kitchen and saw Jenna striding toward the back door. The Lambo was the only car in the drive, evidently Akil’s. I sighed. They’d found me.

  I answered the door before she had chance to ring the bell. Glass of wine in hand, bed-hair, and dressed in some old ill-fitting old clothes of mine, I must have looked as bedraggled and bemused as I felt.

  She arched an eyebrow. “I thought I might find you here.”

  I raked my gaze over her. Her jacket bunched around a sidearm at her hip. I leaned out and checked the driveway and then the pale blue wash of sky. “No backup?”

  “Just me. May I come in?”

  I couldn’t summon my demon inside the house. She knew that. In a straight up fistfight, she’d probably win. I was fast. I had some tricks up my sleeves. Ryder taught me well, but I didn’t have her years of training. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Is Akil here?”

  I leaned against the doorjamb and sipped my drink. “What do you want?”

  “To talk with you.”

  I wondered if Akil had stashed any whiskey in the house. “How many did I kill?” I echoed the very same words Stefan had asked me.

  “None, miraculously. But it was a close thing. Two are in the hospital. Their burns won’t kill them, but...” she shrugged a shoulder.

  I clutched the doorjamb as my vision wavered with relief. “Are you here to take me in peacefully? Avoid a firefight? Is that it?”

  “No. I er...” She moistened her lips and looked away. “The Institute doesn’t know I’m here, okay. Something’s happened. I need your help.”

  I laughed. “Believe me, I am the last person on this earth you want helping you.” I stepped back, giving her room to step inside. “If you knew what was good for you, you’d turn around and walk away. Get as far away from me as possible.”

  “I don’t think I can,” she said quietly.

  She’d come all this way to talk to me? It didn’t ring true, but I was beyond caring. I checked the tree line again, expecting to see Enforcers spilling from the forest. The fresh morning air was sweet on my tongue, the pine-scented breeze cool. I listened hard but heard only the undercurrent of the breeze. “Fine.” I closed the door and showed her to the kitchen. “I’m having breakfast.” I lifted my glass. “Want some?”

  “Muse...”

  I shrugged at her motherly tone of disapproval. “Yeah, I’m a wreck. I know it. You don’t have to beat around the bush.”

  “What happened to you?” She tucked her hands into her pockets and squared her shoulders.

  “The same old shit. Don’t worry about me. I’ll survive. I always do. What did you come all this way for?” I leaned against the breakfast table.

  Jenna settled against the countertop, gaze evasive, body restless. “Do you remember when your brother tracked me to the mall in Salem then brought me here?”

  I tapped my nails on the table. “Yes.” It wouldn’t be long before Val showed up again. If the Dark Court suspected I was alive, Val would soon hear about it. He wasn’t a prince, but he was well connected.

  “He er...” She swallowed and bowed her head. “When you tried to save me from him, after he... Y’know, when you were unconscious...” She shifted her stance and sighed. “Damn. Listen, I’m not easy, you understand? I don’t usually...”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Spit it out, Jenna.”

  “That day. Before he took your little girl and while you were out cold, Val... Ah, damn, he worked me over with whatever magic he has. Okay? I mean, he really went to town on me. Dammit, this is harder than I thought...”

  “He got to you.” I recalled how my brother had crowded Jenna against the car, smothering her with his netherworldy presence.

  She sighed. Tears glistened in her eyes when she looked up. Until that moment, I’d never really felt much of anything for Jenna. She was the infallible Enforcer, Stefan’s ‘friend,’ the type of woman I wanted to be. Driven, passionate, committed, perfect. Now, as I looked at her, I saw another life torn apart by demons and felt a tangible weariness drag me down. When would it end?

  “My god, Muse,” she whispered, “it was... wrong, but I wanted it. I still do. He –” Her throat moved as she swallowed. “He comes to me. He’s been coming to me since that day. Jesus..
.” She chewed her lip. “He asks me things about you, the Institute, and I tell him because I can’t bear for him to leave me without...” She swiped at a tear. “...without him screwing me.”

  “Oh, Jenna...” The bastard. “I’m so sorry.”

  She gave her head a few sharp shakes. “I thought maybe I could deal with it on my own and stop him somehow, but he’s too strong.”

  I retrieved a glass from the cupboard and poured her a generous helping of wine.

  Her hand trembled as she took it. “He came to me last night.” Her focus wavered, memories clouding her eyes. “I can’t help telling him things. The way I am with him, I’m not fully aware of what I’m doing... until afterward.”

  Lust was a madness. I knew it well. “What did he say?”

  “He said Dawn was missing and that the Prince of Envy was dead. He knew in his blood it was you, and he asked me if you were alive. I told him.” She gulped back a few mouthfuls of wine and wiped the back of her hand across her lips. “I’m so sorry. I had to find you. This was the only place I could think you’d go.”

  I spat out a curse. “What did you tell him about the Institute?”

  She sobbed. “Everything. And what I didn’t know, I found the answers to because I wanted to please him.” She groaned. “It makes me sick, knowing what I’ve done, and I still want him. How can that be possible?”

  “It’s not you. It’s his power. He’s the Prince of Lust’s first-born son. You didn’t stand a chance, Jenna.”

  “He asked about Operation Typhon and half bloods, Muse.” She saw me tense. “I didn’t know what it was to begin with. I asked Ryder. He said it was a breeding program for demons. Something about creating weapons. He’s the weapons guy. He should know, right? But he clammed up. I asked Adam. He denied it existed.”

  The fact that Ryder knew about Operation Typhon didn’t entirely surprise me. His name had been all over the file I’d got a glimpse of. I trusted Ryder more than I trusted myself, but Jenna’s words had me rethinking my opinion of my old friend.