Shades of Darkness (Redemption Series)

by Price, Melynda

  “Well, what else could he possibly be?”

  “I’m still trying to figure that out. Some think he’s a Nephilim, but that’s impossible. They were all destroyed in the Great Flood.”

  “What’s a Nephilim?”

  “Angelic/human half-breeds. After the Great Fall, some of the fallen angels came to Earth and took mortal wives. They procreated and essentially infected the human race. The young born of these unions were inherently evil, and then evil began to breed evil. Eventually, there was only one pure bloodline left—Noah and his family.”

  “You mean like ‘Noah’s Ark’?”

  “That’s exactly what I mean. A Great Flood was sent to cleanse the world of this abomination.”

  “That’s incredible. You know, I’ve spent my entire life going to church, and this is not the story they told us in Sunday school.”

  He chuckled. “Yeah, well, it’s kind of the dirty little secret of the Bible. It’s in there. You just need to know where to find it. Genesis talks about it briefly, but the book of Enoch goes into much greater detail.”

  “The book of Enoch isn’t in the Bible.”

  “No, it never made it in. The scholars of that time didn’t feel it carried particular relevance to the message of truth and salvation of the world.”

  “Wow. Well, although not exactly heartwarming, that story was certainly intriguing and…oddly disturbing. So, if this hunter can’t be one of those Nephilim, what do you think he is?”

  “Dangerous. It doesn’t matter to me what he is. He’s a threat to you, so he’ll die just like the others.”

  Her grip on his hand tightened, her energy spiked, sending that uncomfortable prickle racing up his spine. “You say it like it’s that easy. What are you going to do? We can’t run forever.”

  “Vegas is the city that never sleeps. The constant commotion will make it harder for the hunter to track you. Once you’re safe, I plan to do some hunting of my own. I warned Rowen back on the boat that if he came after you again, I’d kill him. Apparently, the Dark Court has found his legion to be expendable.”

  “How can you be so confident? It’s like you already know how it’s going to end.”

  “Because I do.” Impulsively, he brushed his thumb over the top of her hand. He told himself it was meant to be a reassuring gesture and not the tender stroke of a lover’s caress. “I’ve lived too long and been through too many wars to be uncertain about how it’s going to end.”

  She smiled, giving him that beautiful grin which always seemed to make his pulse quicken. “What would I ever do without you?”

  ***

  Several hours passed in silence. Olivia stared out the window, watching as they endlessly passed mile marker after mile marker. Each one carried her farther and farther from everything and everyone she loved. Well, not everyone, she thought, glancing over at Liam and then down at his hand, fingers still intertwined with hers. She was glad he hadn’t tried to move it—not only because of the comforting strength his touch gave her, but because of the deep-seated craving her flesh had just to be near him…to touch him.

  She knew she shouldn’t be thinking like this, especially when she had a panicked fiancé waiting for her back home. Speaking of panicked, her parents were probably out of their minds with worry right now. Her mother had been so happy when she’d announced her engagement to Mitch. They’d been so concerned about her after Liam left. “Liam… Do you mind if I called my parents? I’d like to let them know I’m all right.”

  “Sure.” He let go of her hand to dig into his pocket. “Have you thought about what you’re going to tell them?”

  “I’m going to tell them what everyone’s probably thinking—that I ran out on Mitch. It’s the only thing that will make sense to them. They don’t know about my ‘gift.’ I haven’t told anyone but Ashley.”

  Liam looked at her and scowled. He stopped searching for his phone and asked, “You mean Mitch doesn’t know?”

  Why did he sound so surprised? Olivia shook her head. “I never told him,” she replied softly, fidgeting with a loose string at the hem of her shirt.

  “Then he doesn’t know about me, either.” A statement, not a question. And one he didn’t look very pleased about. He didn’t say anything else. His square jaw clamped down so tight, she was surprised his teeth didn’t shatter.

  What in the hell was his problem? “What?” she snapped, wishing she could read his mind, or at least get a good look at his eye color.

  “Nothing.” A cool, emotionless response.

  “Liar...” she accused defensively.

  “I don’t lie, Olivia.”

  The lack of inflection in his voice infuriated her. Always so calm and collected. She wished, just once, he’d get good and mad—mad enough to tell her what was really on his mind. She certainly deserved his rage, and he obviously had something to say.

  “Well, you’re omitting your thoughts. That’s close enough! Why don’t you just say it, Liam?”

  Suddenly, he turned and leveled her with a look that threw off amethyst sparks like the Fourth of July. The furious blaze sent her heart leaping into her throat. He never looked at her like this. Despite the flare of his temper, she’d never seen him look more beautiful—or dangerous.

  “All right... I will,” he verily growled. “I find it interesting that the man you claim to love, the man you were willing to devote the rest of your life to, doesn’t even know the first thing about you. You see in another dimension, Olivia! Don’t you think that’s something you should have mentioned to him before getting married? Honestly, it isn’t even fair to him. He’s not in love with you, he doesn’t even know you. He’s in love with an illusion of you.”

  Olivia gasped in total shock and utter outrage. “That’s not fair! Take it back!” she hissed.

  “I can’t,” Liam quipped, meeting her glare dead on. “I don’t lie.”

  “Oh, you’ve made that abundantly clear! I can’t believe you just said that to me!”

  “And I can’t believe you never told him about me! What were you trying to do, Olivia? Pretend I didn’t exist, that what we had wasn’t real?”

  “What good would it have done, Liam? It’s not like talking about it would have brought you back! How can he compete with a ghost?”

  Liam stomped on the brakes and jerked the wheel, sending the Camaro fishtailing to a screeching halt alongside the freeway. A plume of dust engulfed them. “A ghost?” he snarled. With lightning speed, he reached out and grabbed her wrist, slamming her hand against his chest.

  Her palm connected with flesh-covered steel. The heat of his body, the flare of his temper, sent a jolt of electricity sizzling through her veins that traveled all the way to her toes.

  “Does this feel like a ghost to you?” he demanded.

  The rapid fire of his heartbeat slammed against her hand. His chest heaved with sawing breaths. Instantly, her anger diffused into a completely different emotion that awakened butterflies in the pit of her stomach, making her chest ache with longing.

  “No. No, it doesn’t,” she whispered softly, her voice cracking with regret. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called you that.”

  Just as abruptly, he released her wrist, but she didn’t let go. Keeping her hand pressed against his peck, she glided it across his chest in a caress she couldn’t resist indulging in. A strangled groan rasped in his throat. This time, his jaw clenched for an entirely different reason. His hands fisted, as if he didn’t trust himself not to touch her.

  “I don’t know why I never told him,” she confessed, not ready to stop exploring. She knew this chest. As her fingers traced over the different muscular planes, she could picture the scars, knowing right where they were and how far they traveled.

  Except the first time she’d discovered them with kisses, tasted them with her tongue… “I guess, maybe it was because it hurt too much to talk about you,” she whispered. “And I thought, maybe, if he looked in my eyes when I told him about you, he’d see something
in me that he’d never seen before. And then he’d know the truth...”

  Liam lifted his head and pinned her with a sapphire-marbled glare. “What truth is that, Olivia?”

  She hardly recognized his raspy voice, so raw and pained—tears stung her eyes. “That I love you more...” she answered simply.

  Liam let out a breath she didn’t realized he’d been holding, his heartbeat crashing against her hand. Reaching up, he gently drew the back of his hand down her cheek and whispered, “You don’t know how much I’ve missed you.”

  Even that simple touch was enough to ignite a fire in the pit of Olivia’s stomach. She closed her eyes and slowly inhaled, drawing his intoxicating scent deep into her lungs.

  Olivia reached up and wrapped her fingers around his wrist, holding his hand against her cheek, afraid that any second he’d pull it away. For a brief moment, when his thumb brushed across her bottom lip, she thought he’d kiss her, hoped he’d pull her into his arms as if three years and a world of heartache hadn’t passed between them.

  But he didn’t move—didn’t press that mouth she longed to taste against her own and kiss her as he once had when she belonged to him and no other—but then, that was the problem, wasn’t it? She did belong to another.

  The draft of passing cars kept knocking against the Camaro, interrupting a moment she wished would last forever. “We have to keep moving,” he whispered, slowly pulling his hand out of her grasp.

  “I love your eyes,” she whispered, reluctantly pulling her hand from his chest. “I always know what you’re feeling, even when your actions contradict them.”

  “Well, I don’t love them,” he replied with a frustrated growl. “I don’t especially appreciate feeling emotionally vulnerable.”

  “Welcome to my world. You can feel everything I feel. You know how much I love you, how much I want you. My emotions are an open book to you.”

  He turned to face her. “Do you think that just because you can’t sense it, that I don’t feel the same way?”

  Olivia shrugged. “I think…that I’ve hurt you, probably more than I realize. And I think you’ve put up walls. I won’t lie by telling you that doesn’t hurt.”

  Liam muttered a curse and scrubbed his face with his hands before jacking them through his hair. “What am I supposed to do, Olivia? You’re engaged to marry another man—”

  “And if I wasn’t?”

  “But you are, and to ask me a ‘what if’ fallacy isn’t fair to me or you. The rules haven’t changed. If I took you, I’d lose you. And don’t begrudge our connection, because that’s what has kept you alive all these years. I’m here to do a job, and keeping you alive is my only priority. If I let myself get caught up in the past, I could get sloppy and potentially make a fatal mistake. Nothing matters except your safety. Not my feelings for you, not our past, and not your future with Mitch.”

  Olivia didn’t respond. She was too busy choking back tears clogging her throat, and she’d be damned if she was going to sit here and cry in front of him.

  Liam pulled back onto the freeway, taking his frustration out on the accelerator as he sent the Camaro racing up to eighty, and then some.

  Guilt consumed her. She felt horrible at how easily her heart betrayed Mitch, and right on its heels was her traitorous body. Whether Liam wanted her or not, it didn’t matter. She was quickly coming to the realization that she still belonged to him. Mind, body, and spirit, she belonged to him.

  Shifting his weight in the seat, he lifted his lean hips and shoved his hand into his pocket to dig out his cell phone. “You should call your parents,” he grumbled, handing her the phone. He didn’t bother to cast even a glance her way. His walls were up like Jericho, not that she blamed him.

  Olivia took the phone, mumbled a “thank you,” and dialed her mother’s number. It rang twice before Kim answered. “Hello?”

  “Hey, Mom.”

  “Olivia? Oh, Olivia, are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. I just wanted to call and tell you—”

  “What happened to you, sweetheart? Where are you?”

  “Put her on speaker,” her father whispered.

  “No, Mom, please don’t. Look, I just called to tell you I’m safe. I just… I just need a little space right now, that’s all.”

  “What? What do you mean, ‘a little space?’ Olivia, this isn’t like you. What’s going on?”

  “Can I talk to her?”

  Holy hell, was that Mitch in the background? What was he doing with her parents? Olivia’s heart slammed inside her chest. She wasn’t ready to talk to him yet—not right now—not so soon. She hadn’t figured out what she was going to say to him yet. “Is that Mitch? Is he there with you?” Lord, please let her ears be deceiving her.

  Liam tensed at the mention of Mitch’s name but his neutral expression remained stoically unchanged. Heaven forbid he’d lose control of that apathetic pose.

  “We’re actually at Mitch’s right now. Ashley’s here, too. We’re all worried about you, sweetheart. Mitch wants to talk to you. Olivia, where are you?”

  “Umm… It’s complicated, Mom, but I’m safe. I’m with Liam.”

  Dead silence.

  “You’re what?”

  Olivia was pretty sure her mother’s voice had just reached an undiscovered octave.

  “Oh, Olivia, you can’t be serious! You ran out on your own wedding without as much as a word to anyone! We’ve been worried sick! Mitch is worried sick! How could you possibly do something so selfish?”

  Olivia held the phone a few inches from her ear as her mother tried to yell some sense into her. The grim line of Liam’s mouth tightened. No doubt, he heard every word of the ass-chewing she was receiving. Finally, he glanced over at her, and she was surprised to see concern etched on his face.

  “I’m sorry, Mom. But it’s a bit more complicated than that—”

  “That’s what you keep saying, ‘it’s complicated.’ And that’s what you said when Liam left you. Help me to understand, honey, why would you throw this all away for him?”

  Liam looked back at the road and sighed. There was no question he’d just heard that, too.

  “Please, Kim, let me talk to her,” Mitch piped in.

  “Mitch wants to talk to you.”

  “What? Wait! No, Mom. I—”

  “Olivia?”

  Shit… “Hey, Mitch.”

  “Liv, sweetheart, why don’t you come home? We’ll figure this out together. I know the truth, Olivia. And I know you’re not alone.”

  Shit…shit…shit… Olivia’s heart raced with dread. She did not want to do this—not here, not now—not in front of Liam. How in the hell did he find out? Careful to keep all emotion from her voice, she replied as calmly as possible, “Then you know it’s not that simple. I can’t just come back, Mitch. It’s not safe for you or my parents to be around me right now. How did you find out?”

  “Ashley. And I can take care of myself. I can take care of you, too. Just come home, Olivia.”

  It didn’t sound like a request as much as an order. His tone piqued her already frayed nerves. Her voice took on an edge of cool civility. “I already told you, I can’t do that. And I’m sorry you had to find out this way, Mitch. I should have told you everything before. Please believe me when I say that I never meant to hurt you.”

  “Uh-huh. It would have been nice to know I had some competition.”

  “Mitch… Please don’t do this.” He had every right to be hurt and angry, but she just couldn’t do this right now. The guilt of her betrayal smothered her like a suffocating fog. Anxiously, she glanced over at Liam and saw the muscles of his jaw clenched. She knew he could hear everything Mitch was saying, not only because of his acutely heightened senses, but because Mitch was yelling at her.

  “I’m serious, Liv. I want you to come home so we can work this out. If you don’t come back, you’re making your choice,” he threatened.

  “What choice is that?” Olivia snapped. “If you think I ac
tually have a say in this, then you obviously don’t know as much as you think you do! Do you know who Liam is? Did Ashley tell you what he is?” she demanded. It felt awkward talking about him when he was sitting right beside her.

  “Oh, I know all about him, Olivia, no thanks to you! And don’t you dare act like you don’t have a choice in this, because I also know about your little ‘free will’ clause. You’re to be my wife and your safety is my concern, not his! Tell him to bring you back!”

  “I don’t have to tell him, Mitch. He can hear you!”

  “Oh really…? Then he can hear this, too… She’s not yours, you son of a bitch! Bring my wife back!”

  Liam snatched the phone out of Olivia’s hand so fast, she didn’t see him move.

  “She’s not your wife, you ignorant prick! And your selfish stupidity is going to get you both killed,” Liam growled, slamming the phone shut. At his mental command, the automatic window lowered, and he threw the phone out of the car.

  Olivia stared at him in disbelief and then glanced into the rearview mirror, watching as his cell phone bounced down the freeway, shattering into pieces. Her jaw dropped. She was absolutely speechless. Okaay… That was a bit…unnecessary.

  Liam glanced over at her, still wearing his amethyst glaring, badass scowl. “What?” he snapped.

  Yikes! Mitch had really pushed his buttons.

  Chapter Nine

  “He hung up on me! That son of a bitch hung up on me!” Mitch said in disbelief, handing the phone back to Kim.

  “She’s with Liam?” Roger asked, sounding utterly dumbfounded. He turned to Kim. “Are you telling me Olivia bailed on her wedding to take off with Liam? Impossible. There’s got to be more to it. She wouldn’t just leave like that. He’s been gone for three years!”

  “I don’t know what she’s thinking, Roger. I just wish she would come home so we could talk about this.”

  Mitch turned abruptly and stormed out the front door, snarling something foul under his breath. The door slammed behind him with a wall-rattling bang.