Shades of Darkness (Redemption Series)

by Price, Melynda

  As soon as he let her go, she took off, dashing into the fields, those colorful wildflowers falling to the ground in a trail behind her. He stood there a few more seconds, watching her go, praying to a God who must truly despise him, that this would not be the last time he saw his woman and unborn child. Then, with a feral snarl, he took off toward the smoke now billowing high into the gray-hazed sky.

  That was his first mistake—going back. He should have just run with her right then and there. But running was not in his nature. As he neared the village, distant screams echoed above the snapping crackle of a raging fire. When he broke through the brush, he stumbled to an abrupt halt and snarled, “That son of a bitch!”

  Standing there, he vowed Gahn would surely pay for this. The entire village was ablaze as the demons of Hell dragged people from their homes, executing them one right after another. Through the smoky haze, he could see a pile of dead lying heaped in the center of the village—the fuel for the blazing inferno. Oh fuuuck!

  A scream ripped through the air behind him that stopped his heart cold. Helpless, Haden watched the horrific chain of events unravel in slow motion—there was nothing he could do to stop them. Haden spun around to find Anya falling to her knees, her hands fisting into her hair in utter terror. He should have known she’d follow him, her fear for him, for her people, outweighing her sense of self-preservation.

  He wasn’t the only one who heard her scream. Whipping his head back around, he saw a demon lift its head from its victim’s throat, blood dripped from its chin, stringing onto its chest as it locked those coal black eyes on Anya. A sardonic grin spread across its face to reveal a set of crimson coated fangs. Rising to its feet, it bolted toward her, those evil eyes never straying from its target.

  A feral roar ripped from Haden’s chest as he ran toward the demon. He intercepted the vicious beast ten yards from reaching her. Leaping into the air, he tackled the demon, catching it around the waist and throwing it to the ground. He drove his fist into its disfigured face and pulled back his arm to strike it again when the demon threw up its knee, knocking him off of it.

  Haden leapt to his feet as fast as he’d fallen, sparing Anya only the briefest glance to yell, “Run, dammit!” He dove for the demon again, catching it in the ribs with his shoulder as they both fell back to the ground. Throwing his leg over the beast, he moved into full-guard, circled his hands around its throat, and squeezed. The demon clawed at his arms, trying to break Haden’s steel-tight grip. Its claws tore into his flesh, ripping and burning as it scored muscle and tendon.

  The burning pain pulled Haden to consciousness and he opened his eyes to see the look of sheer terror as he straddled the whore beneath him, his hands gripping her throat, choking the life out of her. Her fingernails were buried deep into his arms as she struggled to break his grasp.

  Immediately, his mind cleared and he released his hold on her. Coughing and choking, she rolled away from him, grasping at her throat. She scrambled to the edge of the bed and bent forward trying to pull breath into her air-starved lungs.

  “You shouldn’t have stayed,” he growled as if to tell the whore it was her own damn fault she hadn’t left when the getting was good. If he was capable of remorse, he might have apologized for almost killing her, but the only emotion he was capable of anymore was hatred and rage. “Get out!” he snarled at the woman still struggling to breathe. When she didn’t move, he looked over his shoulder and yelled, “I said ‘get out!’”

  The woman shot off the bed and stumbled across the room. Jerking the door open, she slammed it shut behind her. Goddammit! Adrenaline surged through his veins, the biting tang of sulfur still stinging his nostrils as he lay back down, trying to will the jackhammer in his chest to stop. He already knew how this dream was going to end and he had no desire to relive it again. So there he lay, staring up at the paint-chipped ceiling, waiting for dawn to rise.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “You think her roommate’s home?” Cale asked as they pulled a slow drive-by past Olivia and Ashley’s apartment. The low rumble of the hemi engine wasn’t very inconspicuous, but their question was quickly answered when the curtains brushed aside and Ashley’s reflection peered out the picture window.

  “She’s home,” Rhen grumbled, stating the obvious.

  “Then he’s here, too.” It wasn’t the female they were interested in avoiding. In fact, they both could have a rather enjoyable and creative time with her. It was her guardian that kept them moving down the block. Tangling with Balen was about as risky as loading a bullet in a revolver and spinning the cylinder, right before sticking the barrel in your mouth and pulling the trigger. It just wasn’t a good idea.

  “Want to go to The Wrath?” Cale suggested. “We can come back when she’s gone.”

  “Rowen’s going to be pissed if we don’t get back right away. He already called, breathin’ down my neck. He wants us in Vegas, like yesterday. ”

  “Yeah, well, he’s probably going to be even more pissed if we don’t come back at all ‘cause we’re dead. I say we wait ‘til she leaves in the morning and then hit the place.”

  “All right, but let’s just stop at a bar in town. I don’t want to go all the way into Clear Water. I could use a drink right now.”

  “Fine with me.”

  Cale drove their purloined cherry red convertible into town and headed right for Waterworks. The bar was always hoppin’ with honeys and if they were lucky, maybe they could pick up a sweet piece of ass to whittle away the midnight hours. They walked into Waterworks and sat down at the bar, each ordering a couple of beers. Halfway through their second, Cale glanced to his left and spotted a guy sitting at the end of the bar that looked a lot like a fucked-up version of Olivia’s fiancé. He nudged Rhen with his elbow, and the cranky bastard shot him a scowl that looked fifty shades of lethal. “Hey,” Cale nodded his head to the left. “Isn’t that Mitch over there?”

  Rhen peered around Cale to get a better look at the guy, and then turned back to his beer, lifting it to his lips. After swallowing down the amber ale, he answered, “Yeah, that’s him.”

  “You know what?” Cale said with a wicked grin. “I just thought of something that would totally fuck with Liam’s head.”

  Rhen chuckled, clearly liking the idea. “What’s that?”

  “What do you say we tell Mitch where Olivia is? Hell, we could even offer to bring him to her. Can you imagine the drama it will cause when Mitch shows up in Vegas? The distraction will give us a sure advantage. We’ll take out Liam, then the ‘seer,’ and then we can do Mitch—just for fun.”

  “You know what?” Rhen said, smiling wickedly. “I like it.”

  “Thought you would.” Cale grabbed the two beers and slid off the stool. “Come on,” he said, walking over to Mitch.

  The guy was half in the bag and a third of a bottle into his new best friend, Jack Daniel’s, when Cale and Rhen approached. Each of them slid onto an empty stool on either side of the guy. Jeez, he looked like shit—nothing at all like the clean-shaven, arrogant prick they’d seen at the church. Oh, he still looked like an asshole, but an unkept, self-pitting one now. “Hey, Mitch, isn’t it?” Cale asked. “You mind if we sit?”

  “Kinda late to ask, considering you’re already here. Do I know you?” he slurred, looking from Cale to Rhen. “If you don’t mind me saying, you don’t exactly look like my people.”

  “We were at your almost wedding.”

  “Friends of the bride,” Rhen interjected with a sardonic chuckle.

  “You might recognize us from there,” Cale finished.

  “No offense and all, but you don’t strike me as friends of Olivia’s, and I know I didn’t invite you. Care to try again?”

  Okay… The guy may be trashed, but apparently, he still had a few brain cells working. “Okay, we aren’t friends—exactly. But we have a mutual acquaintance, one you may be interested in meeting.” Cale let the hook hang in the air, knowing it was only a matter of time before Mitch woul
d bite.

  “Oh yeah? And who might this ‘acquaintance’ be?” Mitch asked, draining his glass and setting it on the table with a loud clunk.

  “Does the name ‘Liam’ ring any bells to you?” Rhen asked.

  Mitch dropped all pretenses of civility and glowered at Cale. “What about him?” he growled.

  “Whoa, well, I can see you’re no fan,” Cale laughed, sending Rhen a triumphant grin. This was going to be too easy.

  “He has my wife!” Mitch snapped.

  “Fiancée,” Rhen corrected. “If you had actually married, he never would have been able to take her. What if we told you that we knew where Olivia was?”

  “Then I’d ask you where that would be.”

  “And if we offered to bring you to her?” Cale was nearly giddy, imaging the look on Liam’s face when Mitch showed up on their doorstep.

  “I’d say when do we leave?”

  “Bright and early tomorrow morning. We’ll pick you up at your place,” he answered, giving Mitch a friendly slap on the back as he slid off the stool and walked away with Rhen.

  “How you gonna do that? I haven’t told you where I live,” Mitch called after them.

  “I’ll Google you. Just be ready to go.”

  ***

  The phone was ringing when Ashley stepped out of the shower. She quickly grabbed a towel and dashed into the bedroom, leaving a trail of soggy footprints behind. Each time the phone rang, her heart leapt inside her chest, hoping it was Olivia calling to clue her in on what the hell was happening.

  At least the call today had indeed confirmed she was with Liam. But Olivia had also said she couldn’t come home, which meant she was in danger. Her efforts to help explain that to Mitch hadn’t gone well. He was upset she’d left him, not that she could blame the guy. But he clearly wasn’t dealing with this well. And nothing she could do or say was going to make this any easier for him. In the last twenty-four hours, it seemed he’d been on a mission to self-destruct. If they hadn’t been friends before this, she’d have walked away without so much as a sayonara. But they were friends—good friends—and she truly felt bad he’d gotten caught up in the Liam/Olivia drama, because if Liam truly was back, there was absolutely no question who she’d pick.

  Ashley snatched up the phone on its fifth and final ring. “Hello?”

  “Hey, Ashhh.”

  “Mitch? Is that you?” She couldn’t be sure, because the guy on the other end sounded completely wasted.

  “Yeah. I beat a hide.”

  “You what?”

  “I neeeed a riiide.”

  Having him enunciate it didn’t really help much. “Did you say you need a ride?”

  “Yeees! Dammit!”

  “Then why didn’t you just say so?” she snapped. Ashley sighed and glanced at the alarm clock on her nightstand. “It’s almost one a.m., Mitch. Where are you?”

  “Wwwaterwwworks.”

  “All right. Fine. I’ll pick you up in fifteen minutes. I just gotta get dressed first. Do me a favor while you’re waiting and drink a cup of coffee, will ya? You need to sober the hell up.”

  “Den wasa point in drinkin’ a bottle a Jaack?”

  Did he say a bottle of Jack? Holy shit, this guy needed to get a grip before he killed himself. “I’ll be right there, Mitch.” Ashley hung up without waiting for a response. She probably wouldn’t have understood it, anyway.

  Mitch was sitting out on the front step when Ashley pulled into the parking lot of Waterworks. He stood up when he saw her and stumbled forward, catching himself on the railing before nose-diving off the steps. She huffed in frustration and climbed out of the Mustang, running over to him before he took a face-plant into the gravel.

  “Heeey, Ash,” he greeted, as she grabbed his arm and wrapped it around her shoulder while sliding hers around his waist.

  “Jeez, you’re heavy,” she complained, trying not to think of the awkwardness of having Mitch’s rock hard body pressed up against hers.

  “Sorrry…” he slurred.

  They stumbled up to her car and she opened the passenger door, dumping him inside. After a quick check to make sure nothing was hanging out, she slammed it shut. Ashley hopped into the driver’s seat and took her frustration out on the accelerator.

  “Easy…You tryin’ to make me siiick?” he groaned, lolling his head to look over at her.

  Ashley sighed. “Mitch, you can’t keep doing this to yourself. Look at you. Olivia would be disgusted—”

  “No more ‘n I am with heeer.” Even drunk, the anger and betrayal in his voice was unmistakable.

  “Look, she won’t be gone forever. She’s gonna come back eventually, right? And is this want you want her find?”

  He scoffed.

  “Come on, you gotta find a less self-destructive way to channel your grief. You can’t keep putting your body through this.”

  Mitch didn’t answer her, and for a moment, she wondered if he passed out. But when she glanced over at him, he was watching her with a surprising amount of clarity for as trashed as he obviously was. She, too, remained silent for the rest of the drive back to his place. When she pulled into his driveway and parked the car, he made no effort to get out.

  She internalized the sigh that had been a second from passing her lips and climbed out of the car. Walking around to the passenger side, she opened the door and reached inside to help Mitch out. He grabbed her hand for leverage and slid the other under her arm and around her back. “Come on, let’s go,” she said, leaning back and using her counterweight to help drag him out of the car. As he crawled out, he leaned on her—heavily—and at six-two, two-hundred pounds, the guy was no lightweight. He verily dwarfed her petite five-four, one-twenty pound frame. In fact, they probably looked ridiculous stumbling up to the house together, nearly falling more than once.

  “Key,” Ashley snapped when they reached the door. Bracing him with her hip, she held out her hand.

  “Pocket,” he replied, making no move to get it.

  Seriously? Huffing impatiently, she shoved her hand in his front pocket and got lucky. By the whiskey grin on his face, one would think he was the one getting lucky. Fumbling to get the key into the lock, she finally managed to shove the door open and dragged Mitch inside.

  “Damn, Mitch, you weigh a ton,” Ashley complained.

  “It’s aaall muscle,” he slurred.

  Was he…flirting with her? Ashley rolled her eyes. “I’m sure it is.” And it was. The guy was nothing but solid muscle and she knew it, because a very large amount of that brawn was crushed intimately against her. In fact, if she wasn’t mistaken, there was a very muscular part of his private anatomy digging into her waist right now. Focus on Olivia… “You know Olivia’s coming back, right?”

  “I’m not thinkin’ ‘bout Olivia right now.”

  That’s what she was afraid of. Ashley didn’t miss the contemptuous undercurrent in the way he said her name. Mitch was hurting, and the alcohol only distorted his already less than stellar judgment, bringing his old tendencies back to life. Before Olivia, Mitch had been a huge player.

  She kicked the front door closed behind her and was about to send him to his room to sleep off his drunk when she remembered the flight of stair separating him from his bed. There was no way he was going to make it up those stairs without breaking his neck. “All right, Mitch, we gotta get up these stairs, so you’re going to have to lean on this railing instead of me, because I can’t carry you up them.”

  She unwound him from her grasp and made sure he had a good hold of the railing before getting behind to prevent him from toppling backwards. “Come on, let’s go,” she encouraged, nudging him up the stairs.

  He did all right—considering. Only twice did he fall back into her, but she wedged her shoulder against his ass and shoved him forward again. Once they hit the top of the stairs, Mitch braced himself against the wall to wait for her. He looked like a jumper hugging the brick wall of a twenty-story building. If it wasn’t two a.m. and i
f she wasn’t so pissed off at him, she would have laughed. He looked ridiculous standing there like that.

  “You want to go to the bathroom before you go to bed?” Please say no, because there was no way in hell he was coordinated enough to work that button and zipper, and she was not going to whip it out for him.

  “Just wanna to go to bed and sleep,” he slurred, using the back of his head and shoulders to push off the wall.

  Thank God. She caught him around the waist and ushered him into the bedroom, grumbling, “You’re sooo going to owe me for this. You know that, right?”

  “Add it to my taaab,” he replied glibly.

  As they walked into his room, she noticed the window was still open from this morning. Crickets serenaded them as the crisp night air wafted in. They stopped beside the bed, and Mitch attempted to stand on his own. He reached behind his head and grabbed ahold of his shirt, attempting to pull it off over this head. He knocked himself off balance and stumbled forward. She caught him as he struggled to free himself from his shirt in an uncoordinated battle he was quickly losing.

  “Stop. Just stop,” she said, trying to steady him.

  Mitch froze with his shirt half-on and half-off.

  “Stand still.” She braced her hip against him and wrapped one arm around his side, splaying her hand against his back for support. She used the other to untangle his shirt and pull it over his head. As his shirt came off, his balance shifted and he stumbled forward, knocking her back. Ashley let out a startled yelp as the back of her knees hit the mattress and buckled. Her feet left the floor as she fell back, landing on the mattress with a bounce. Mitch’s hard, half-naked body quickly followed, landing on top of her. The air left her lungs in a whoosh as his heavy weight squished her into the mattress.

  As she struggled to catch her breath, he made no effort to get off her. His jean-clad arousal dug intimately close to the inside of her thigh. She could feel the ripped muscles of his abdomen against her stomach, the weight of his bare chest pressing against her breasts. His radiating heat that would have sparked a fire in her core had this not been her best friends fiancé lying on top of her.