Darkness Descending

by Devyn Quinn

  Studying his face, she arched a brow sardonically. “You don’t look that old.”

  “No cellular degeneration.” His extraordinary genetic structure ensured he wouldn’t fall to the ravages of human frailty. Most wounds that weren’t instantly fatal also healed without leaving a mark. The scars he presently wore were inflicted before he’d crossed over, transformed from a man of flesh and blood into something beyond imagination.

  “Forever young,” she mused.

  Forever damned, he countered silently. At this point in his life, he’d come to regard death not as the enemy, but as a mercy.

  If prophecy were to be believed—and he did believe—the future looming ahead promised only chaos and pain. Civilization would continue to erode, crumbling under the crush of cultic forces.

  Since being cast down, the Telave had spread their disease among mankind. The roots of evil ran deep and fed well.

  Reading his thoughts as clearly as if they were spelled out on his face, Jesse lifted her hand toward his neck. She stroked the vulnerable pulse beneath his skin. It was the first willing touch she’d given him. “At night when I’m alone, the demon whispers in my head. It tells me about all the things I could have.”

  The flesh across his chest and abdomen tightened. “What does it tell you?”

  She dipped her head toward his. Her mouth was just inches from his and close enough that he felt the rasp of her breath scorch his cheek. “That I could walk among the weak humans, tearing their flesh under my nails before glutting myself on the blood of their hearts. They would tremble as I drank of their souls and grew stronger.” Her words were spoken in a low, portentous tone.

  Rather than being horrified, Maddox found himself strangely spellbound by her narrative. He wondered if he would have been so strong had their positions been reversed. Could he have resisted the call of damnation?

  The answer hovered in the darker recesses of his mind.

  No, a distant voice murmured from deep inside his skull. You could not.

  “And you want that power, don’t you?” he asked with genuine curiosity. “To hold their fear in the palm of your hand before you crush them like insects beneath your heel.”

  He fell silent, waiting for her reply.

  Jesse’s gaze grew vague, distant. “I lied when I said I wasn’t lured,” she murmured, pressing the tips of her fingers into his vein. “Every day that passes, I think about what I’d have if only I’d feed its hunger.”

  Maddox’s breath caught. Oh, heaven above. His mind eagerly recalled the painful sensation of fangs sinking into his skin—followed by the exquisite pleasure of warm lips suckling his aching flesh. Instead of being repulsed by this, he’d been intrigued.

  Quashing a shiver, Maddox forced himself to slip out of the shadows webbing his thoughts. “Why don’t you?” he rasped in a voice thickened by whiskey and regret.

  “My sister,” she said softly, her chin quivering with barely suppressed emotion. “If it had just been me, I would have given in a long time ago. But she—she didn’t have a chance.” A single tear trekked down her cheek.

  Maddox caught her trembling hand. “She didn’t deserve to die the way she did.”

  The brief heat of intimacy between them scorched, searing through his skin all the way to the bone.

  But the moment didn’t last.

  Jesse pulled her hand out of his, swiping her palm across her dirt-smudged face. “Promise me something,” she said unexpectedly.

  Still a bit dazed by the momentary surge of heat between them, he nodded. “Anything.”

  The expression on her face turned deadly serious. “If I fall,” she said quietly, her words cutting into his skin like razors, “promise you’ll kill me. Don’t let me become one of those things.”

  Maddox clenched a fist against the desire to immediately reject her tearful plea. When he’d first learned she was infected, he’d believed himself capable of doing the deed without blinking an eye.

  Now he wasn’t so sure.

  Chapter 4

  Jesse slept through hours uncounted without so much as moving a muscle. The cocoon of warmth surrounding her had totally driven away her fears, allowing her a night of untroubled rest. For the first time she felt safe—protected.

  She awoke with a groggy, thick sensation rolling through her mind. The temptation to lower her head to the pillow and slip back into peaceful oblivion might have persisted had she not become aware of the warm male body pressed against hers.

  Opening sand-filled eyes, Jesse suffered a mildly disconcerting shock as she realized two muscular arms had her bracketed in a tight embrace. But that wasn’t all. One of Maddox’s sleekly muscled legs had worked its way between hers.

  She attempted to shift her body away from his—not the wisest move she could have made. The hard ridge pressed up between her thighs, applying suggestive pressure against her aching sex. Her muscles tightened when an unfamiliar sensation flared deep inside her core. A gasp half of pleasure, half of surprise slipped past her lips.

  Maddox’s arms tightened around her. The brush of his lips against the nape of her neck scorched her skin. “Damn, you feel good,” he murmured in a gravelly voice.

  While instinct would have her jerk out of his hold, Jesse found herself unable to pull away from him. At the moment she was melting, on fire from the flames his touch had accidentally ignited.

  She was tempted to give in to the carnal needs she’d forced herself to suppress since she’d become one of the walking infected.

  Maddox moved the arm overlapping her waist, his hand settling over the aching tautness of one breast.

  An indistinguishable sound scraped through Jesse’s throat when his fingers brushed over the tip of her distended nipple.

  He drew small circles around the hard little bead. The thin material of her T-shirt did nothing to lessen the sensations.

  “How long has it been since someone’s touched you?” The barest hint of his sexy accent misted his sultry baritone.

  The shock of contact sent her senses reeling farther and farther from the bounds of good sense or logic. Her inhibitions abruptly vanished. For a moment there were no restraints between them. She didn’t even care that he’d promised to kill her if she fell victim to the hunger inside. It wasn’t the beast inside seeking to be fed. It was the human being, pleading for the touch of another. She no longer cared what he might do to her in the future. Her only concern was to soothe the pulsing ache in her core.

  Caught in the grip of sensation, Jesse almost choked on a breath. She could barely think through the delicious ribbon of anticipation circling the base of her spine. Her skin felt tight across her bones, so tight that she feared the slightest movement would cause her to shatter like glass.

  “Too long,” she breathed.

  His hand moved to her other breast, rolling the tip between thumb and forefinger. “You were young when you were taken.” Breath coming in ragged spurts, his tone roughened with desire. “Are you a virgin?”

  Jesse closed her eyes and pressed boldly against the hard slab of his body. “No,” she admitted. “I had a boyfriend and we . . .” Her words trailed off. The time when she’d been a normal young woman with normal pursuits felt like another lifetime.

  Maddox slowly guided his leg out from between hers. The arm he’d curled beneath her body circled her waist, dragging her hips back against his. The taut column of his erection pressed against her rear.

  “Don’t think about him.” Hungry lips explored the soft crook between her head and shoulder. “Give yourself to me.”

  Jesse’s throat tightened. “We shouldn’t,” she gasped, quaking through a series of delicious shivers.

  In answer, his hand abandoned her breast. His palm skimmed the flat plane of her belly, searching for the crux between her legs. His fingers slipped through the narrow gap, pressing against the crotch of her jeans.

  Holding back a gasp, Jesse welcomed the exquisite pressure of his hand. The throb between her legs begged
for satisfaction.

  Reaching behind her, she clutched at his hip and parted her aching limbs wider.

  The hard rasp of his stubble scraped tender flesh. “Why not?” The pressure against her sex intensified.

  A surge of wildness rose within her. Pleasure verged on pain before erupting into a violent starburst of unending rapture. “Because I’m one of the untouchables,” she managed to say through the spasms racking her body. “And you’re a slayer.” At that moment he could have thrust a blade through her heart and she would’ve been helpless to stop the threat.

  His answer was a guttural curse. “Damn it, I didn’t want to think about that.” The warmth and heat of him abruptly vanished.

  The last delicious shudder of orgasm slipped through Jesse’s fingers like sand. She was left panting and wanting.

  Fighting to find her senses and her breath, she struggled to sit up. One moment she’d been locked in the grip of ecstasy. The next she’d been flung aside.

  “What just happened here?” she asked.

  Rolling onto his back, Maddox raked his hands through his thick hair. Skin flushed, his chest heaved. “I don’t know.” He moaned and pressed his hands against his face. “Blame the whiskey . . .” His voice, barely audible, was tinged with embarrassment.

  Struggling to get a hold on her own traitorous emotions, Jesse stared at him. It didn’t help that his erection continued to strain against his jeans. He was big, damn it, and woe be to the woman who wasn’t well prepared. If he fucked as well as he fought, it’d be one hell of a ride.

  “That’s hardly an ex-excuse for trying to m-m-molest me,” she stammered.

  The silence between them grew tense and awkward.

  Maddox groaned and lowered his hands. “I didn’t notice you trying to fight your way out of it.”

  Jesse quickly cut her gaze away from his hips. Given another few minutes, they’d surely have gone all the way.

  She blew out a breath. He was right. She hadn’t fought. Truth be told, she’d wanted him. Bad.

  And still did.

  Her body trembled with pride, anger . . . and desire. It would be hard to ignore him. Harder yet to forget the feel of his hard frame pressed against hers.

  Forcing herself to calm down, Jesse lifted a hand to silence him. “Just forget it, okay? We were both groggy and stressed, and things just got out of hand.”

  Maddox silently, infuriatingly stared at her with an unreadable expression. “Is that all it was?” he asked quietly. “Or was there something more?”

  Jesse felt a trickle of sweat work its way down her spine. The closed apartment was suddenly unbearably stuffy, and she was burning up. Her skin felt tight, as though she were suffocating.

  Shaking her head, she scooted toward the edge of the bed. “It was nothing,” she said. “Nothing at all.”

  Too bad she didn’t believe her own words. Put on your big-girl panties and suck it up, she warned herself.

  “Didn’t feel like nothing to me,” he mumbled through clenched teeth.

  She eyed the length of his gorgeous body. “You were the one who pulled back.”

  His brows furrowed with frustration. “I’d never live it down, sleeping with you.”

  She speared his vanishing erection with a sarcastic glare. “As if you were supposed to run and tell all your killer buddies you’d just knocked off a piece of tail. Ever thought about keeping whom you screw to yourself?”

  Pushing himself into a sitting position, Maddox sighed in exasperation. The final remnant of his desire had disappeared. “It’s not like that.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “Take my word for it when I say it was the booze.” He rose, more than a little unsteady on his feet. “I had too damn much to drink last night, that’s all.” Skirting the nearby table, he strode toward the bathroom. The door slammed behind him.

  A few minutes later she heard the sound of water running. Jesse shook her head. Despite her attraction to Maddox, she felt it would be a mistake to get emotionally tangled up with him. At any given moment he might change his mind about helping her, especially if the rest of his crew lashed out against her presence.

  That he could just as easily take her life as preserve it was a warning she should heed. I should leave now, she told herself. New Orleans was a big city, with a lot of places to hide. It would be easy to keep low and stay out of sight. But it wouldn’t be easy to continue her quest to take down the ravenous cult.

  One of the reasons Jesse had returned was to find the bitch who’d damned both her and her twin to death. She was tired of running. Tired of hiding. Tired of being afraid. The limbo of being trapped between human and demon was beginning to wear away at her spirit. She’d decided death would be preferable to continuing on. At one point she’d even considered taking her own life—she had even lain on a stretch of lonely railroad tracks, waiting for the train to perform a gruesome beheading.

  But when the fast-moving locomotive had begun to bear down, she’d lost her nerve. Heart thudding a mile a minute, she’d scampered off the tracks. Landing in a nearby trench of trash, weeds, and stagnant water, she’d sobbed like a child.

  Alone. Forsaken. Forgotten.

  It was then she’d discovered her purpose.

  It would be better to die fighting, to take as many of the creatures out as she could before she inevitably perished herself. Maybe then she could earn back her pride—and her twin’s forgiveness.

  Truth be told, she needed Maddox—needed his connections, his arsenal, and his backup. She needed to learn everything he had to teach; what these things were, their vulnerabilities, and where they nested.

  Everything she thought she knew had been wrong. The Telave were nothing like vampires of lore and legend.

  They were demons, empowered with the darkest evil emanating from the pits of hell itself; body thieves who fed on flesh and blood; the legion of the devil himself. If allowed to continue to spread—and who really knew what their true numbers might be?—they would take mankind to the brink of extinction.

  Storming into the bathroom and slamming the door behind him wasn’t the most mature thing Maddox had ever done. At this point he didn’t care. Putting some distance between himself and Jesse Burke was all that mattered right now.

  But playing on the edge, dancing with danger had always been his style. He had been born to parents of little means, but the New World offered unlimited opportunities for a man willing to work hard.

  He’d soon discovered the strange new land was also a dangerous one. Not only were the native people resentful of losing their property and livelihood to the European invaders, but the Europeans themselves were also locked against one another in a battle to control the rippling plains and lush valleys teeming with precious resources.

  The wars he’d seen were many; the conflicts fierce. A lot of blood, sweat, and tears were shed as a new nation rose from the ashes of colonialism.

  Yet even as the new country was undergoing its difficult birth, nocturnal beasts haunting the shadows, just out of human perception, were also crossing the wide, deep waters. Creeping ashore in the night, the dark ones insinuated themselves among the native peoples. Countless victims fell to the disease the Telave had unleashed. Yet more people willingly sold their souls to join the unholy legion, the prey becoming the predator. Poisonous roots took hold and grew. The power of Xaphan’s unholy kings and queens became entrenched as the collective grew and spread.

  I could have been one of them, he thought.

  Maddox had come so damn close to joining their side. Had it not been for Serafina, a Creole huntress with snapping black eyes and a body made for sin, he might have gone back and offered his soul to experience again the bittersweet pain of a vampire’s forbidden kiss. He could thank the Enlightened One that Serafina had been stronger than he was. In time she would become more than a wise teacher and leader. She was his lover and his mate, the goodness in his soul.

  Without Serafina, he would have turned against his o
wn kind. He wouldn’t have been the first.

  I still miss her . . . Her brutal murder at the hands of the Telave continued to hang like a millstone around his neck, threatening to drag him down into an endless pool of despair. He’d never forgive himself for leaving her defenseless. Never.

  Maddox lifted his head, staring at the image reflected in the cracked mirror hung above the sink. His eyes were bloodshot, their corners deeply lined with the stress of the centuries he’d thus far endured. He’d stopped aging at twenty-seven, but he looked much older. His hard, rugged life had exacted its toll.

  “Have a care, Maddox,” an inner voice warned. “You’re a step away from the edge, and there’s no rope to grab.”

  Giving Serafina no further consideration, he concentrated on cleaning himself up. Fifteen minutes later, he was squeaky clean and freshly shaved. It suddenly occurred to him that his clean clothes were in the other room where Jesse waited.

  “Shit.” Maddox considered his dilemma. He had no shame in showing off his nude body. As for Jesse . . . Well, she was surely a grown woman who’d seen a naked man before.

  A wicked thought occurred to him as he tucked his damp towel around his waist. If she hasn’t, she’s about to get an eyeful.

  Opening the door, he sailed back into the adjoining room.

  “Hi,” he said by way of a greeting. Jesse was still sitting on the bed.

  “Hey, yourself,” Jesse responded, her eyes saucer wide. She quickly averted her gaze.

  Fighting to suppress a small smile, Maddox sauntered toward a couple of battered trunks shoved into one corner of the room. He dug around, coming up with a bundle of fresh clothing. Giving the towel a brazen flick, he revealed himself down to the last bare inch.

  He didn’t have to turn around to know Jesse was watching him. His heightened senses picked up the quickening of her breath. “Oh my,” she murmured in a voice human ears couldn’t have possibly detected. He could almost feel the heat behind her gaze sliding over his naked flesh.

  He turned and smiled. “Like what you see?”