Rush of Darkness

by Rhyannon Byrd

  “I think it might be easier than you think,” Raine offered. “I haven’t been able to pick up anyone on the top floor, so I think Seton was telling the truth when he said that Westmore’s alone. Which means that if we can get past his security, we’ll have a clear shot at him, as well as the Markers.”

  “I don’t like it,” Seth muttered. “It doesn’t feel right. He’s too paranoid to just be hanging out on his own.”

  Gideon shrugged. “But he doesn’t have much choice, does he? Not when he knows what Raine can do.”

  Ashe spoke up, saying, “We’re going to need to move fast. He’s bound to be growing anxious, considering he hasn’t heard from Seton. If we don’t move tonight, he might try to run, and we can’t risk losing him or the Markers.”

  They talked a bit longer, and decided that the brothers would stay and keep an eye on Westmore, while Seth took Raine to a local bed and breakfast so they could grab a few hours of sleep. Then they would meet up again later and make their plans for the night. After saying goodbye, Raine followed Seth out of the café, using the rear exit to avoid being seen by the Kraven if he was watching the street. Once outside, Seth directed her to a gleaming black Jeep.

  Neither of them said much as he steered the car through the narrow streets, the tension between them so thick it felt heavy in her lungs, like the humid Mediterranean air. When he finally pulled to a stop in front of a small white villa located at the end of a shaded lane and surrounded by a thick, wild garden of flowers, she asked, “Is this the bed-and-breakfast?”

  He cut the engine and ran his tongue over his teeth, staring through the front windshield. “No. This is the safe house where we left Seton and Spark.”

  “I thought we were going to a B and B,” she said, her tone tense. “I don’t want to stay here.” The idea of sleeping under the same roof as Seton made her skin crawl.

  “We’re not staying here, Raine.”

  Panic started to creep through her system. “What’s going on?”

  “Seton told us the truth about Westmore’s location, which means he’s probably told us the truth about the security systems, as well. We’ve gotten what we needed from him.”

  She could tell from his tone that something wasn’t right, and she whispered his name. “Seth?”

  “We won’t be here long, I promise,” he said, getting out of the car. A moment later, he introduced her to Liam, who’d walked out to meet them on the front porch. She could easily see the guy’s resemblance to the Granger brothers, though Liam was a good bit younger, with lighter hair. As they followed Liam inside the villa, he gave Seth an update on Spark and Seton, explaining that they were due for another round of sedatives if he wanted to keep them knocked out. Seth thanked the vampire for keeping an eye on things, then turned to Raine. “I need to go downstairs for a moment. Just wait here with Liam.”

  He didn’t wait for her response, turning and heading down a narrow stairway tucked into a corner of the room. Unfortunately, Raine had never been all that great at following orders, and as soon as Liam stepped out onto the front porch to make a call—no doubt wanting to let the Grangers know that Seth had returned to the safe house—she followed the soldier down the stairs.

  It didn’t take her long to find the room where Seton and Spark were confined. They were both in cuffs, hained to metal chairs that had been placed back-to-back in the center of the floor, so that they couldn’t see each other. Cells lined the sides of the room, dismal but clean. And for the moment, empty. There were no other prisoners but for the two sitting on those chairs.

  Seth stood in front of Seton, his arms crossed as he stared down at the sneering Casus. She hadn’t made a sound, and yet somehow the human knew she was there, lurking in the doorway. “Raine,” he said in a low voice, “go back upstairs.”

  “No.”

  At the sound of her voice, Seton turned his head to the side, his mouth curling with a slow, cruel smile. “Do you want to know something sweet, honey? Westmore told me a little secret before I left. Seems the next time he gets his hands on you, he’s finally going to treat himself to a piece of psychic pie. ’Bout time he had a taste. I know he’s gonna get such a kick outta that little power charge inside you.”

  A guttural sound tore from Seth’s throat that reminded her of a Lycan, and he slammed his fist into the Casus’s face, splitting tissue, the monster’s blood flowing hot and free. But it didn’t shut him up. Seton spit out two teeth, then grinned. “You can do whatever you want to me, human. But it won’t change the fact that she’ll be the last girl I fucked when I die.” He slid Raine a sharp smile. “And when I come back again, she’ll be the first.”

  “Not if we do this right,” Seth growled, slanting a dark look toward Raine. He came toward her, holding out his hand as he said, “Give me the Marker.”

  Her eyes went huge as she stared back at him, hardly believing what he’d said.

  His deep voice vibrated with command. “Now, Raine.”

  Her fingers felt numb as she took the cross from her pocket and placed it in his outstretched hand. She couldn’t believe he was actually going to use the Marker to destroy the Casus, her lungs tight as she watched him palm the metallic cross in his right hand and head back toward Seton. She could believe even less that she wasn’t arguing with him about the right being hers. Yes, she’d needed to be the one meting out punishment for all that Rietta had suffered at the hands of these sadistic bastards, but…it felt somehow right that McConnell was working with her. Helping her to carry the load.

  But will it change me? Will I weaken if I share this with him? she thought with a frown, suddenly wanting to reach out and snatch the Marker back from him. But it was too late. His muscular arm was already glowing, his veins bulging beneath the golden sheen of his skin as he gripped the Marker in a tight hold.

  Wearing a fierce look of determination, he grabbed the back of Seton’s chair and pulled it away from the one that held Spark, giving him room to get behind the Casus. Fisting his left hand in Seton’s hair, he wrenched the Casus’s head forward, exposing the base of his skull as he snarled, “You’re going to hell, you son of a bitch.”

  Though he didn’t try to fight for his escape, Seton’s ice-blue eyes burned with hatred as he stared across the room at Raine. “And once Calder gets his hands on you, hunter—well, let’s just say that you’ll be joining me there.”

  “What do you mean?” Raine demanded. Seton’s words had been more than just an idle threat. It sounded like they actually had a plan for Seth. But before the Casus could answer her question, Seth slammed his hand into the back of Seton’s neck, jerking a guttural cry from the monster’s throat. Within seconds, Seth’s arm was engulfed in flames, those flames spreading rapidly through the Casus’s body.

  When Seton had been reduced to nothing more than a smoldering pile of ash, Seth took a step back, his body drenched with sweat, every muscle coiled and ready for battle, his expression one of grim intent as he turned his attention to Spark. The assassin blinked as he moved in front of her, and it was the only time Raine had ever seen the female’s face drained of color, her green eyes wide with fear.

  “Don’t,” Spark whispered, shaking her head.

  Seth ground his jaw as he pocketed the Marker…then drew his gun. Raine tried to read the look in his eyes, but they were hidden by his lowered lashes.

  “Please!” Spark gasped, straining against her bonds. “I’m begging you, don’t! I don’t want to go to hell!”

  “It’s where you belong,” he muttered, releasing the gun’s safety.

  “That’s not true.” The assassin’s voice cracked as she stared up at him. “You don’t…you don’t know what made me this way. You don’t know what was done to me. Why I became what I am.”

  “Excuses at this point are pointless, Spark. You could have helped Raine when she was in Westmore’s compound, but you didn’t. You were willing to let them rape her again…and again, rather than disobey your fucking orders!”

  “A
nd why should I have helped her?” she cried, her voice choked with tears. “No one ever helped me!”

  “You were raped?” Raine asked, stepping into the room. Seth glared at her, his look warning her to stay back, but she ignored him.

  Spark lowered her head, quivering, looking smaller than she ever had before. More fragile. Breakable. Then she gave a stiff, jerky nod.

  If Raine had thought the information would soften Seth’s resolve, she’d have been wrong. “Your past doesn’t excuse the choices you’ve made, Spark.”

  “Doesn’t it?” the assassin whispered, glaring up at him, her pale face streaked with tears. “I’ve been intimate with you, McConnell. And I’ve read your file at the Collective headquarters. You know something about being tortured, don’t you? Know how it can fuck with your mind.”

  He managed to blank his expression—but not before Raine caught a glimpse of the pain that stabbed through him, and he seemed to pale beneath the flush of anger burning along the crests of his cheekbones. He popped his jaw, his nostrils flaring as he drew in a slow, deep breath, his gaze locked on some distant point on the floor. She swallowed, needing to help him…to know what he was hiding, but she couldn’t read him now any more than she could before. So she shifted her attention to someone she could read…and focused on Spark.

  It took a moment to push her way through the as sassin’s anger and fear, but Raine finally managed to seek out those memories that she’d always purposefully avoided, knowing how badly it would hurt to see Seth and this woman together. But in that moment determination drove her, and she sought out those things she needed to know…searching until she found them. There was no order to the chaos. Just violent blasts of images and words. She saw the cruel, brutal scarring that covered his groin, her heart breaking as she found the information Spark had discovered in his file. He’d been tortured by the rogue Deschanel who had attacked his family, the scarring caused by fangs that had torn into his sexual organs again…and again.

  It was impossible to imagine how painful the horrific experience must have been for him. Raine felt herself swaying and had to reach out, bracing her hand against the wall, her stomach churning as she tried to process the gruesome images Spark had seen in the file. Photos of the young McConnell that had been taken at the scene of the attack. Others after he’d reached the hospital and the Collective doctors had fought to put his broken body back together again.

  God, no wonder the man couldn’t stand the sight of her fangs.

  And she couldn’t help but remember the way he’d dimmed the lights in that hotel room in Berlin. How he’d kept her from grabbing his cock. He hadn’t wanted her to know.

  Spark finally spoke again, breaking the stifling silence. “I’m no different than you, McConnell. And considering your little girlfriend is on the hunt for blood, I’m no different than her, either.”

  He exhaled a rough breath, then slowly brought his gaze back to the assassin. “What happened to you was wrong, if you’re even telling the truth. But it doesn’t matter. You couldn’t be more different from Raine if you tried. She only hurts those who destroyed an innocent life. You hurt those who were innocent.”

  “And you didn’t?”

  “I hope I didn’t. But if I did, at least I acted thinking I was meting out justice. You actually did it for fun. You let your hatred consume you. You let it win, Spark.”

  “Don’t me call that,” she spat, struggling harder against her bonds. “My name is Elizabeth!”

  He didn’t respond as he lifted the gun, and Raine shouted, “Seth—don’t!”

  He slanted her a shuttered look. “She deserves to die.”

  “She deserves to be punished—but I don’t want her blood on your hands. Just…lock her up. Let the Watchmen decide what to do with her.”

  “She deserves more than that, damn it.”

  “I’m begging you, Seth. Please. For me.”

  He looked back at Spark, and she and Raine both flinched, thinking he would pull the trigger. But he didn’t. Instead, he slowly lowered the gun to his side.

  “Oh, God. Thank you,” the assassin whispered, every ounce of her cocky arrogance gone.

  “Don’t thank me,” he muttered. “Thank Raine. I did this for her.” Then he turned and walked past her, out of the room, and Raine quickly followed him. He told a wide-eyed Liam to put Spark in a cell, then headed outside. A burst of lightning cracked in the distance as they stepped onto the porch, a violent storm blowing in, and he stopped to reach into his pocket, pulling out the Marker. Without a word, he handed the cross back to her.

  “He could have given us more information,” she said softly, staring at his stark profile. “Why did you kill him, Seth?”

  “Because he hurt you.”

  She shivered as he walked down the porch steps, realizing he wasn’t going to say anything more. That those four little words were the entire sum of his justification. It felt so…odd, the way they could have such an impact.

  Even stranger that he seemed to be saying something more.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  THE SOLDIER HAD KILLED for her. Brutally. Without mercy or hesitation.

  Raine figured she should have been horrified by such a primitive act, but that would have been a human reaction. And she wasn’t human. She was a Desch-lacea, and as such, she recognized both the purpose and meaning in what Seth had done.

  He’d also listened to her plea to spare the assassin, which seemed equally poignant, and Raine’s determination to keep her distance from him was unraveling like a spool of thread. God, how could she stay away when all she wanted was to be close to him?

  They’d made the drive to the quaint bed-and-breakfast he’d chosen in silence, but even now, he kept stealing glances at her from the other side of the suite’s bedroom, as if trying to gauge her mood. He probably thought she was upset by the things Seton had said about her, but that wasn’t the reason she felt twisted with worry. Yeah, the Casus’s words had been disturbing and unpleasant, to say the least—but she was more upset by what Seton had said about Seth…and by what she’d seen in Spark’s memories. By what Spark had read in Seth’s file. The things that had been done to him when he was only a boy.

  “Can we talk now?” she asked him, unable to take the heavy silence a moment more.

  He pulled a hand down his weary face, seeming to give the question some thought. Eventually, he muttered, “I’m still pissed about last night, Raine. I don’t think you’d much enjoy my conversation at the moment.”

  Compelled to see this through, she said, “Then let’s talk about last night.”

  He eyed her with a shrewd, measuring gaze, then gave one of those Lycan-like nods. “Okay. Just out of morbid curiosity, how did you plan to handle things with Seton back in Berlin if I couldn’t find you? Did you plan on using your talons to slit your wrists? Enrage him to the point that he lost control and killed you himself?”

  She turned and walked to one of the room’s windows, which had been left open, a set of rustic wooden shutters with tilted slats allowing a cool breeze to flow into the room, along with the warm, rich scents of the flower-filled garden. “I wouldn’t have needed to do either of those things. There are different levels of trances that an Alacea can slip into. If I’d wanted to, I could have simply put myself into one of the deepest levels. Without another Alacea there to bring me back, I wouldn’t have survived.” She pushed her hands into the pockets of her cargo pants and turned to face him. “But despite what I said to you on the night you found me, I wouldn’t have killed myself, Seth. Not when Westmore is still breathing…and the Markers are still in his possession.”

  “It’s interesting you should bring that up,” he rasped, “since I’ve been thinking about it.”

  “Thinking about what?”

  “About how you planned to kill Westmore and get those Markers. I mean, you can’t read him or Seton, so it’s not like you could track them, the way you’ve been tracking the other Casus. If we hadn’t managed to capture
Seton and get him to talk, I think there’s only one way you could have planned to get to them. You were going to let them capture you, weren’t you?”

  “I could have,” she murmured, admitting nothing. “But what would I have done about the Markers?”

  “Kellan told me that some of his homemade tracking chips have gone missing. If I looked through your things, I think I’d find them.”

  The guy was good, she’d give him that. But she didn’t like how easily he could get into her head, and she lifted her brow with a cynical arch. “Is this the part where you call me stupid and suicidal again?”

  He shoved both hands through his short hair, his shoulders and arms thick with bunched muscle. “I’m not going to yell at you.” They were tight, controlled words, as if he was making an effort to sound calm. “I just…I don’t understand why you’re so willing to throw your life away. I know you went through hell, that you miss your sister, but…Christ, Raine, you survived. Why can’t you just take a step back and let me help you?”

  “I am letting you help me.”

  He stared at her through narrowed eyes, his gaze searching, his tension evident in the grim lines of his expression. “I want you to stop taking stupid risks with your life.”

  “I don’t consider them stupid, Seth. I see them as necessary.” A slight smile touched her lips, her voice softer as she said, “And despite how pissed I was at you when you claimed that Oath from me, I appreciate the fact that you’re with me now.”

  “You’re just never going to stop, are you?” He gave a tired sigh and slumped back against the antique armoire that stood behind him, a high four-poster bed looming off to her left. “I swear I’ve never known a woman who’s as crazy as you are, Raine. Or who’s as brave.”

  As soon as the husky words left his mouth, she could feel the color bleed out of her face. “Please, don’t say that.”

  “Why not?” he muttered, rolling his shoulder. “It might drive me bat shit, but it’s true.”