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

by DaCosta, Pippa

  None of that was particularly surprising. Typically demon, Akil acted only in his best interests. But his admission that he’d felt something for me wasn’t typical. He should have brushed my death off like a spec of dust on his impeccable attire, yet grief had ravaged him. He was chaos eternal, incapable of feeling much of anything besides hunger. But clearly he did feel. I wasn’t comfortable with that revelation, and neither was he. Chaos demons were deadly enough without adding emotion to the mix.

  The terrifying part was how he’d just left me. The finality of his words. The peculiar way he’d bowed out, as though saying farewell, as though his part in this game was over. New titles are born. Old titles die. He’d given me the truth, and yet he’d left me with a gut-churning sense of unease. As usual with Akil, his answers revealed more questions. Questions I wasn’t sure I wanted the answers to. The way he’d looked at me: pride, acceptance, lust, love? Maybe even a little fear? A Prince of Hell feared me. What kind of monster did that make me?

  With a growl, I shoved all thoughts of Akil into the broiling mass of emotion walled up in my head. I’d deal with it all later, after I’d drowned myself in a bottle of wine and forgotten everything for a little while. Damn Akil and his Machiavellian ways. The dark coiled around my heart gave a tight squeeze in agreement, briefly clenching my chest and shortening my breath. I snarled back at it and grumbled a few colorful words as I worked the correct key into the lock and shoved inside, too preoccupied to notice the door wasn’t locked.

  My grumbling curses froze on my lips when I looked up and saw Stefan leaning against my kitchen counter, open tub of Ben & Jerry’s in one hand, spoon in the other, eyebrow raised, licking ice cream from his lips. My heart stuttered, my mouth fell open, and I knew I was dreaming. He could not be there, all smart-ass smiles and dazzling blue eyes.

  “There’s no Ben & Jerry’s in the netherworld. It’s a crime.” His gravely demon brogue instantly roused my demon half. She gave herself a mental shake, her visceral hungers and curious anxiety merging with mine.

  I dropped the file. Papers spewed across the floor. My keys slipped from my hand and clattered beside my feet. I gawked at him, drinking in the wonderful sight of Stefan in my kitchen. His scuffed red leather coat had darkened to the color of dried blood. The cool blue shirt and loose, low-slung jeans seemed unremarkable beside the sword sheathed at his hip. When I noticed his crooked half smile that said ‘you know what, it’s gonna be okay,’ it was too much. The emotional steel rods I’d driven through myself while facing off with Akil turned to liquid and drained away. My knees buckled. His arms swept around me before my addled brain could register the fact he’d moved. A cool snap of power arced between us and wrenched my breath away. He held me close, body pressed against mine. Wide-eyed, I stared with abandon and found myself falling into his brilliant gaze.

  He chuckled softly, the demon turning the laughter wicked. “I’ve always wanted to catch a swooning woman. I just never thought it’d be you.”

  I barely registered his words as I reached a trembling hand up and touched his face with my fingertips then slipped them lightly down his jawline. He felt real. Not a ghost, but solid, warm, and very much alive. A spritz of energy fizzled up my fingers. I slid the tip of my finger across his lips. His mouth twitched around a smile. He was really here. I wanted to blurt out how I’d ached deep in my bones to see him one more time, how I’d wanted him back but dared not dream I’d see him again, and even if I did, how I was afraid of what he might have become. But my voice had abandoned me. I couldn’t say a single word.

  He raised an eyebrow. “You could have let me know you weren’t dead.”

  I slid both hands over his face, committing the slightly abrasive texture beneath my fingers to memory. There were more fine lines than I remembered. My thumb brushed the corner of his lips, lips I wanted to kiss. But I was so afraid that if I did, the spell would be broken, and he’d be gone again. After losing him for the second time, and then losing Dawn, I’d come to understand that hope didn’t belong to the likes of me. If Stefan couldn’t beat his demon and I couldn’t save a lost little half blood girl despite all my shallow promises, then what chance did I have?

  But Stefan had beaten his demon. He must have. He was here and looking back at me with mild curiosity. The hope I’d given up on sparked back to life. I clutched at his coat, knuckles whitening.

  “Speechless?” His words sounded like a purr. “What is the world coming to?”

  My mouth moved. I tried to snatch at the words in my head. My tongue tried to wrap around the necessary sounds, but my brain appeared to have detached itself from my vocal cords. All I could do was swallow and blink like a dumbstruck fool.

  He lowered his gaze. Fair lashes shuttered his eyes. His smile faded, and a jolt of panic snapped through me. He was going to say he had to go. He would say the words. I knew it. This wonderful moment was already ending. I couldn’t let him go, not again.

  I pulled him into a raw, desperate kiss, exposing my soul as my lips met his. I didn’t care that he stilled against me, that his arm stiffened as though he would push me off him in the next breath. I needed to feel him, to taste how real he was. When his lips parted and his responding hunger molded with mine, I very nearly came undone. My legs were all but useless, but it didn’t matter. Stefan held me him like we’d never been apart, as though we’d never part again. I drove my fingers into his hair and pulled him so close I might gladly drown in him. Vaguely, I registered the clatter of the spoon against the floor. He slid his hand down the curve of my back and cradled me against him, hauling me in close enough that the heat of his body warmed the cold in mine.

  He broke the kiss, only to roam his lips across my cheek. “You’re crying.” His cool breath tickled across the tracks of my tears.

  I really was. “Please, don’t stop. Don’t say... anything.” I couldn’t bear to hear why he’d returned and why now, knowing it wouldn’t be good. I never got a break. My world was one disaster after another—the Mother of freakin’ Destruction—and this would be no different. Half bloods don’t get happy endings. But I refused to hear it. I was not letting him go. I would not hear the terrible things he had to say. Instead, I wanted to forget it all: the horror of my own failure to save a little girl and the wretched realization of my own capabilities. Forget that I was cursed. Forget Akil’s prophetic words...

  “This is a mistake,” he whispered.

  “Don’t.” I growled, the sound borrowed from my demon.

  His sharp breath hissed, and his entire body tightened with restraint. He fought even now, struggled with his own demon. I could see regret in his evasive gaze and the guarded expression on his face. He didn’t want this. He would push me away. I fluttered my eyes closed, knowing in the next few seconds he would say something pertinent, and we’d pull apart. But for now—this singular moment—it was perfect. If I could have trapped time in a glass jar and kept it forever, I would have.

  “I’m sorry.” He captured my mouth once more, driving his tongue in deep. A demonic growl resounded through him, possessive and wild. Elemental energy simmered around us. A tantalizing quiver of chaos energy skipped across my flesh, sprinkling goose bumps in its wake. Stefan’s hunger mirrored mine. He teased in his maddening way. Our bodies moved as one, thrust together as though inseparable. He tasted like ice cream and chaos. Sweet, delicious, and wonderfully alive. I purred my pleasure, demon and woman, both hungry. The chilling touch of his element coiled around us, igniting the fire slumbering inside me. My demon stretched beneath my skin, basking in the power he radiated.

  He pulled away all too soon, withdrawing carefully, his gaze skittish and head bowed away from me. I let him go, even though every part of my muddled mind screamed for him to stay. Slumping against the counter, I touched my lips and tasted the chaos sprinkled there, fizzing like popping candy. Stefan moved away, turning his back on me, shoulders bowed. He didn’t need to say a thing. His body said it for him. He didn’t want this.

&n
bsp; “Do you have any idea how difficult it is for an ice demon to light a campfire in the netherworld?” he asked, cool, and calm, as though we hadn’t just tried to devour one another.

  “Huh?” The residue of arousal tingled across my skin. I licked my swollen lips and blinked rapidly. Muddled thoughts reeled about my head. Why was he talking about campfires? I swept a hand back through my hair and swallowed hard. Holy hell, he was really there... Not demon, not dead.

  “Try impossible.” His coat buckles rattled as he reached down and scooped up the ice cream tub, placing it on the side. “Which is a problem when trying to cook demon meat. You don’t wanna know what raw Sasori demons taste like. Also, don’t eat the dark meat. It’s poisonous. I found that out the hard way.” He leaned back, hands braced against the countertop either side of him. “You’d think after a few years there, I’d have learned a few things about surviving in the netherworld.” A glint of light reflected off an elaborate fractal-etched rapier at his waist. Seeing him armed with a sword reminded me of how my brother likes to appear tooled up and ready for battle. “I’m craving food, real food, like ice cream. And coffee. And French fries.” He ground out a restrained groan and raked a hand through his hair. “But mostly ice cream.” The heated look in his eyes when he finally met my gaze told me food wasn’t the only thing he craved, so why push me away?

  “I don’t think those things are classed as real food,” I said in a quiet voice, bumbling along with the bizarre conversation while my thoughts still spun, and my body burned to have him close. His kiss hadn’t been a half-hearted response to my advances. It could have gone further. I wanted it to. But apparently, he didn’t. Like an idiot, I’d forced myself on him.

  I averted my gaze and busied myself scooping up the contents of the file from the floor. Your father is the Prince of Lust... You and Akil deserve each other... I could guess why he’d stopped things before they spiraled out of control. His words from months ago still wounded me, even after all this time. It shouldn’t matter. Coming from anyone else, those words wouldn’t have mattered.

  I dumped the file on the coffee table, aware that a quiet tension simmered between us. He still threw off power—nothing like the embrace I’d felt minutes before when he’d been pressed against me, but enough to distract my demon.

  Facing him, I flicked my hair out of my eyes and planted a hand on my hip, grateful for the kitchen counter between us. I didn’t trust myself not to pounce on him and couldn’t bear it if he pushed me away again. Who was I kidding? Stefan wasn’t meant for the likes of me: the Mother of Destruction. He was better in every way. A shining star. I’d already ruined his life, killed his sister, and condemned him to hell. The longer he stayed with me, the more I’d destroy him.

  “I think you should go.” I couldn’t meet his eyes. He’d see the truth there. I wanted him in every way a woman wants a man. My demon wanted him in ways I couldn’t even wrap my thoughts around. The intensity of my own desire terrified me. Was it lust? Was that all it was? My father’s legacy living in me? No. If it had been just lust, I could have escaped it. Lust was simple. Yes, it was madness, but it was an uncomplicated madness. This need to have Stefan close, to bury myself in his embrace, to hide in his arms and snowflake kisses, it wasn’t demanding, or selfish, and it definitely wasn’t simple. I wanted to share everything with him, to spend precious time with him, time when demons weren’t trying to kill us, and the Institute wasn’t watching. Just the two of us. I couldn’t escape these feelings, and that made them all the more terrifying because clearly he didn’t feel the same.

  “Is that what you want?” he asked. “You come back from the dead, kiss me like the world’s ending, and then tell me to leave?” He managed to sound amused.

  I bit my lip and nodded. “It’s not safe here... with me.”

  He wove around the kitchen counter and stopped in front of me, a wall of red leather and cool temptation. Light glinted off the sword’s guard and I realized I’d seen it before. Kira-Kira. His mother’s sword. I flicked my gaze up through my lashes and immediately lost my thoughts under the intensity of his eyes. The cool touch of power was back, prodding at my demon, taunting her with its proximity.

  “I came back to warn you.” Severity hardened his voice and dragged it down to a deep demon growl.

  A knot of dread tightened in my gut. “How long have you known I was alive?” I didn’t want to hear his warnings. Whatever it was, it would ruin everything. I knew it as certainly as I knew he would leave me again. He stood so close, and yet there was a chasm between us. He was already gone. We just hadn’t said the words yet.

  “A few weeks—netherworld time. I wasn’t going to come at all. But the Princes…”

  “Why?” My emotions bled through that one word. “Why weren’t you going to come? I needed you. Everything is falling apart. I’m... I’m out of control, or I’m terribly in control. I can’t tell which. I nearly killed Adam. I could have. I wanted to. You’ve no idea how I ached to see that bastard burn. And before, there was... Something happened... I thought I’d killed people.”

  He held my stare, his expression guarded, bordering on resigned. When he brushed my bangs from my eyes, an electric shower of sparks shivered beneath that lightest of touches. “But you didn’t do either.”

  He was too close. All I could think about was the cold burn of desire and the overwhelming need to hold him. “It doesn’t matter,” I said quietly, “because when I believed I was a killer, I didn’t care. I accepted it. I never would have believed I was capable...” My humanity was failing me. Damien’s touch had already poisoned too much. I was drowning in the dark. I just didn’t have the good grace to go under one last time. “Dawn’s dead. I couldn’t save her, just like Ryder said. In the end, she thanked him, right before he killed her.” I searched his gaze for any sign of judgment, but all I saw was hard acceptance. “I know why you left. The same fate awaits me. But I can’t run back to the netherworld. Not now. Not ever. There’s nowhere for me to go, nowhere to run. There’s no way out. I’m trapped against a wall. Ryder should have put a bullet between my eyes. I see it on his face when he looks at me. He knows the truth, Stefan. He’s just waiting for me to fuck up. We don’t get happy endings. I am destruction. Akil’s weapon...” I paused, sucked in a breath, and said, “And I feel... nothing.”

  Stefan’s expression finally registered a change and darkened. “Akil’s weapon?” He tried to capture my gaze, but I flicked it away. “What do you me—”

  “You’re right.” I ground out the words while biting back a knot of emotion. “This—us was wrong. It was a mistake, just like you said. Every time I’m with you, bad shit happens.” I remembered his words and repeated them back to him, “I’m sorry we met.” The longer he stayed, the more I’d ruin him. I’d drag him down into the darkness inside of me and drown us both. I suddenly knew with absolutely clarity that I could never be a part of Stefan’s life, not if he was going to survive. He sure as hell could beat this madness. He had the tenacity, the instincts, and the passion. But the likes of him weren’t for me, not the Mother of Destruction. I’d ruined everything. I’d promised Dawn freedom and got her killed. Stefan’s sister, sweet Nica, had died because of me. Stefan lost his whole world, because of me. Ryder’d had to execute a young girl because I’d failed to do the right thing. Destruction was my name. Holy hell, the demons knew me better than I did. Maybe Akil was right. I really was the monster he thought me to be. “You need to go.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.” He turned away and picked up the Operation Tyhon file. “Wanna know why?”

  I didn’t imagine the drop in temperature or the trickle of power dancing against my skin. He appeared to be controlled, but the leeching touch of his power said otherwise. If I reached an element touch out to him, I feared what I’d find. My humanity—what was left of it—tingled a warning, raising the hairs on the back of my neck.

  He flicked open the file, eyes narrowing as he skimmed the contents. “I have debts t
hat need paying. Wrongs to right. My father, for one. The Prince of Greed is another. Your brother. The Institute...”

  His words sounded dangerously like revenge woven together with a thread of something I regularly coveted: madness. “The Boston Institute is gone,” I said carefully.

  His smile cut deeper. “Not while Adam lives.”

  “Stefan, this doesn’t sound like you.” My breath misted in the air. I hugged myself, bracing my hands against my upper arms.

  “Doesn’t it?” He lifted his head and pierced me with his ice-born glare. “I thought I’d killed you. When I realized what I’d done...” He dropped the file onto the table, gaze locked on me. “When I watched you die in Ryder’s arms, it destroyed me.”

  There was that word again. Just a word. But it spilled fear into my veins and seemed to pull a cold blast of air into the room around me. Shivers quivered through my exhausted body. “But you’re here. I’m here. What you thought you did doesn’t matter. The past is irrelevant.” I inwardly winced, realizing I’d paraphrased Akil’s words. The past is irrelevant. The Institute is insignificant. It occurred to me that Akil had taken out the Institute just as half the netherworld demons decided to make Boston their new home. That couldn’t be a coincidence. Was Stefan’s presence here also just bad timing, or was he in some way connected to the change in the netherworld and the influx of demons?

  “You told me once we’re the products of our past...” Stefan said with a wistful air of sadness.