Edge of the Darkness (Hell on Earth Book 4)

by Brenda K. Davies

  Freedom.

  I nudged Zorn faster as I became consumed by the certainty the calamuts wouldn’t let us leave this place. And then Zorn took a sharp right, leapt a log sandwiched between two of the trees, and landed on the other side.

  He pounded across the earth before taking a left that was followed by an abrupt right. Suddenly we were racing into an open, rocky field covered in a thin layer of snow. He ran away from the trees still smashing into the ground behind us.

  Zorn galloped across the field that gave way to mountains and sporadic pine trees. “Take us home,” I said.

  The horse veered to the right.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Wrath

  I set Bale down carefully in my chamber. Usually, I slept on the floor and didn’t bother with any kind of luxuries, but I couldn’t stand to leave her lying on the rock. My boots echoed through the room as I strode to the corner where I kept my clothes and a thick, black cloak I sometimes wore to protect against the cold.

  I pulled out the cloak and returned to Bale. I laid it on the floor beside her and lifted her back into my arms. I marveled at how light she felt though she wasn’t a petite woman. And then I realized it wasn’t that she felt light; she was frail in this vulnerable state.

  She also felt incredibly right in my arms. No matter how much she denied it, she belonged with me. I would make sure she realized it.

  I lowered her onto the cloak and knelt beside her to examine her. My fingers landed on her indented skull and the missing piece of flesh from her neck. Her bleeding had stopped, but blood matted her hair.

  Her breath rattled in and out, and when I pressed my hands tenderly against her ribs, she winced but didn’t wake. My fingers felt over her rib cage until I discovered the broken bone, most likely digging into her lungs and causing her breath to rattle.

  Despite her injuries, my Chosen put up a hell of a fight tonight. Pride swelled in me as I gazed at her beautiful, blood-streaked face. I traced my fingers across the high arch of her cheekbones before running them over her full bottom lip. I clearly recalled her taste of fire, but there had also been something sweet-tasting in her kiss, and I craved more.

  “Watch over her,” I said to Zorn, who snorted in response.

  I left my chamber and made my way back into the tunnels of the cavern. My fellow horsemen hadn’t returned yet. I didn’t know if they perished in the forest or were simply delayed, but if they returned, they couldn’t learn she was here.

  They would try to destroy her, and then I would have to destroy them. As much as I loathed them all, I’d prefer not to kill them, but I would protect her. Then I realized it was a favor she wouldn’t return.

  Why was I protecting the woman when she would gladly let me die? I couldn’t figure out the answer to that. It was more than her being my Chosen and the fact my life was now entwined with hers.

  I didn’t love the woman. I did want to fuck her more than any other woman I’d ever encountered, but that still wasn’t enough to justify protecting her. I did have some respect for her; she was strong and a warrior. I admired that about her, even if she was idiotic enough to try rescuing humans and to follow the varcolac.

  She was also self-righteous, which was another annoying trait, but somehow, she’d worked her way under my skin enough that I decided to go back and make sure she got free of the forest. And now, I’d brought the enemy into our lair.

  It was a move more foolish than her returning for the humans. However, I had to bring her somewhere safe so she could heal. I hadn’t planned to keep her with me, but once I had my hands on her again, I couldn’t let her go.

  I stopped along the way to lift a wooden bowl from the hands of a statue. I didn’t know who placed the bowl there, but it fit perfectly in the woman’s hands. The woman knelt on the ground, her head was bent, and her long hair fell over her shoulders. Her beautiful features were clearly carved, and her eyes were closed.

  Suddenly, the image of tears rolling down the woman’s cheeks formed in my mind. There was a haunting quality about the woman I couldn’t quite put my finger on….

  Bale needs you.

  I ran my gaze over the woman before shaking my head and striding toward the entrance. I didn’t know what it was about her, and I didn’t have time to figure it out. My Chosen needed me. When I reached the water, I filled the bowl before returning to Bale.

  She remained where I left her, nestled in my cloak. I went to my pile of clothes, removed a shirt, and returned to her. Gently, I rolled her to the side and used the shirt to clean the blood from her head and hair.

  When I finished, the bowl was red with her blood. I took the bowl, returned to the water, and refilled it. I also took the time to wash the blood from me before returning to her. I carefully cleaned the rest of the blood from her.

  I dumped the red water outside my cavern before removing her boots, socks, and vest. I left the rest of her clothes on before taking off my sword, shirt, and boots. I settled onto the cloak beside her. I wasn’t concerned about the other horsemen coming in here if they returned; we didn’t enter each other’s chambers.

  Tenderly, I pulled her into my arms and cradled her against my chest. I inhaled the fire and fresh air scent of her and smiled.

  Bale

  The darkness was all around me. Pulling at me. Tugging at me. Slithering over my skin and crawling through my hair as it enveloped me in a chill that wracked my bones and turned my flesh to ice.

  Never before had it been this alive, this greedy and grasping. I tried to fight it off, but it was impossible to fight the shadows creeping over my body. They pushed and pulled at me as they tugged at my hair and dragged me toward the edge.

  No. No. No!

  I thrashed against it, but the shadows persisted. A scream rose in my throat, but before I could release it, the shadows shoved me over the edge.

  Wind whipped around me; the darkness continued to pull and tug at me as my arms flailed. I opened my mouth to scream and the darkness poured into me. I felt it moving throughout me, digging deeper as it tore through my muscles and veins.

  I spiraled helplessly away, falling farther and farther into the oblivion. Then a hand enveloped my wrist, and I jerked to a halt. My eyes met Wrath’s black ones.

  A scream was still trapped in my throat when I startled awake. Panic briefly engulfed me when I opened my eyes to discover nothing but darkness around me. My heart raced faster than it had in the forest.

  I tried to scramble to my feet, but the solid arms locked around me didn’t give me a chance to flee. The darkness wasn’t swallowing me, but someone else engulfed me, and if the rightness of the arms around me were any indication, that someone else was Wrath.

  I shouldn’t do it, but after the misery of my dream, I relaxed against him and relished in the warmth he emitted. I needed a few seconds to relax and figure out where I was and what to do. If that dream was any indication, the darkness was getting closer; it was coming for me, and I had to prepare for it.

  I just had no idea how to prepare for something when I didn’t know what it was.

  A dull throb in the back of my head pulled my attention away from my nightmare. When I lifted my hand to touch it, I brushed against Wrath instead. My fingers fumbled over his cheek, then nose, and finally his mouth. A mouth made to make women beg for mercy.

  When my fingers stilled, a smile curved the corners of his lips. I should stop touching him, but I couldn’t cease marveling over the fullness of his bottom lip and his stiff upper one. I certainly couldn’t stop the rush of memories flooding my mind as I recalled our kiss.

  My body instinctively reacted to his. For a fraction of a second, I melted against him before recalling this man was my enemy and I had no idea where I was. Wherever it was, it had brought the darkness closer. I went to pull away, but his large hand settling on my hip stopped me.

  “You were badly injured; you should rest,” he murmured.

  I refused to acknowledge how the deep timbre of his voice created butt
erflies in my stomach.

  I’m just having a physical reaction to the one fate decided I should breed with; it is nothing more than that.

  Still, knowing this didn’t make it any easier to resist. My body wanted one thing, my brain another. Unfortunately, my brain had taken a bit of a battering earlier. Recalling that brought forth the memories of the battle with the calamuts and nuckals.

  I barely suppressed a shudder when his fingers slid beneath my shirt. It was the stroke of those fingers against my skin, so assured and so brazen, that finally caused my brain to kickstart my traitorous body.

  Pushing against whatever he had me wrapped in, I almost screamed in frustration when I found myself tangled in the warm material. Then my legs kicked free, and I shoved it off me.

  His chuckle did nothing to ease my foul mood as I launched to my feet and spun to take in the cavern where we’d slept. I was used to darkness, and my vision was fantastic, but with no light filtering in here, I couldn’t make out anything. I only knew it was a cavern because of the rock beneath my bare feet and the hollow feel of it around me.

  “What’s with the dreams, Bale?” he inquired.

  My breath caught in my chest, and for a second, I found it impossible to breathe. I wasn’t so delusional as to deny a part of me hadn’t suspected he was connecting with me in some way, but to hear it confirmed was like a kick in the crotch. Those dreams where I’d allowed myself to accept more and more of his touches, his kisses….

  I shut the memories down as heat crept up my neck and toward my cheeks. I didn’t blush. I never blushed, and I wasn’t about to start now. But, for the first time in my life, I was mortified. He knew I’d dreamed of him; he knew exactly how far those dreams had gone and how much my willpower faded over time.

  “Stay out of my head!” I snapped.

  “You pull me in.”

  “I don’t have the power for that. You’re the one doing it.”

  “I am,” he admitted. “My ability has mutated when it comes to you, and only you, but you draw me in. So, what is with the dreams? What is that pit? And why do you see the same thing over and over?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Come on now. I saved you from falling in tonight. You can tell me what it is I’m saving you from.”

  “I don’t know what the darkness is. I just know it’s coming, and it’s getting closer.”

  “How long have you been dreaming about it?”

  “My whole life. Where are my friends?” I demanded to change the subject.

  He released a snort of amusement. “I don’t give a fuck where your friends are.”

  “Do you know if they survived?”

  “I didn’t bother to look for them while saving your life.”

  That reminder rankled. The fangs I usually kept retracted tingled with their impulse to tear into him. The only problem was, I didn’t know if I wanted to bite him because I was annoyed or if my body was seeking to claim my Chosen. Either way, I could not mark this man.

  “Where am I?” I hissed.

  “My home.”

  I listened to him moving in the dark and rising from the floor. Did he want to kill me as much as I did him? We were enemies; it was what we were supposed to do, but he hadn’t taken the opportunity to end me. Instead, he’d come back, saved me from the calamuts and nuckals, and brought me here.

  Chosen or not, why would he do such a thing?

  To torture me. It was the only thing that made any sense. He brought me here to torture me, and he meant to do it by sleeping beside me and making me ache for him.

  It was already working. My body was screaming at me to crawl back into his arms and ease the fierce need building inside me for the past month, but I couldn’t. The worst part was, I knew sex would be so much better with him. It was always better with a demon’s Chosen, or at least that’s what they said, and I didn’t think they were lying about it.

  It made sense. Casual, one-off relationships were great, and how I’d planned to live the rest of my life until he entered it. However, the Chosen bond was more profound and more intimate. I’d also watched the demons I knew fall in love with those fate picked for them. Of course, sex with your Chosen was better; they cherished each other.

  This man and I would never be like those happy couples, but sex between us would still be better. I felt that in every fiber of my aching being.

  “Where is your home?” I grated through my teeth.

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  If our roles were reversed, I wouldn’t tell him either, but his response still annoyed me. “How do I get out of here?”

  “I’d have to show you the way.”

  “Then do that.”

  His chuckle came from only a few feet away, and I realized he’d moved closer without me knowing it. I kept my alarm hidden as I refused to let myself twitch at his nearness. I was an old, powerful demon, but I was dealing with someone far older and more powerful than me. I reached for the sword on my back, only to discover it was gone.

  “You took my weapon from me?” I asked.

  “No. You lost it in the woods.”

  “Then give me my other sword back.”

  “The only way you’re getting it back is if you take it from me. Are you going to do that, Bale?”

  “You want me to take a weapon from you while you’re armed and I’m not? How is that fair?”

  “All’s fair in love and war.”

  My teeth grated together as I restrained myself from attacking him. I wasn’t worried about taking him on unarmed, I’d won many battles after losing my weapon, but I was worried about touching him again.

  “Where are the other horsemen?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, and I don’t care.”

  This response surprised me. I’d always considered them a close-knit unit bent on destroying everything in their way. “Not on good terms with your fellow monsters?”

  There was a prolonged silence, but when he spoke again, it was from directly in front of me. I managed to keep myself from jumping at the revelation of his proximity, but I couldn’t stop my heart from doubling in rhythm.

  “Demons, humans, and angels are all monsters, Bale. Every one of us possesses the ability to do the most monstrous things. Just because you think you’re on the right side, doesn’t mean you’re any less of a monster than me.”

  Perhaps he was right about my capability to be a monster, but he was wrong about one thing. “I don’t think I’m on the right side; I know I am.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “I only have to look at all the good Kobal has done and all the improvements made to our lives and the lives of the humans who follow him to know, to know he is the right one to lead us through all this.”

  “Because he is the varcolac.”

  “It is more than he is the varcolac, more than we were all born to follow the varcolac; he is a good and just ruler. So is his Chosen.”

  “Just demons and men have committed monstrous atrocities under the pretense of doing good.”

  “True, but he is not one of them. You can believe what you want and keep telling yourself these lies, so you feel like you have a reason to try to destroy what has become our new world. However, you’re seeking vengeance against a man who did nothing to you because what you really seek is the power you think will come from taking him down.”

  Waves of anger emanated from him as another prolonged silence stretched between us.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Wrath

  I rested my hands on the wall on either side of Bale’s head and leaned so close that her warm breath blew against my lips. When she lifted her chin in defiance, the tip of her nose brushed mine.

  The blood rushing through my veins sounded as loud as the roars of the drakón in my ears. I dug my fingers into the rock as I resisted bending my head a fraction of an inch lower to brush my lips against hers. But I would not allow her to push me away.

  “I already have power, Bale. I can
make good men beat each other to death as easily as I can make those with malevolence in their hearts kill someone. I can make others do things that would never cross their mind until they encountered me. I don’t want power. I don’t want to rule. I want the fucker who kept me locked away for twelve thousand years to pay for it.”

  “That fucker is dead. He’s been dead for millennia.”

  “But his predecessors kept me there too. The varcolac will pay.”

  “Since you’re the one who got yourself locked behind a seal, then you should be the one to pay for it.”

  “You think I should pay for being who I am?”

  “There is a reason the varcolac who locked you away did so. You did something to put yourself there.”

  “I only did what it is in my nature to do,” I snarled. “Am I supposed to deny who I am?”

  “You’re supposed to keep the worst of yourself in check like the rest of us do. You and your fellow horsemen caused problems. If the varcolac didn’t lock you away, then chaos would have reigned years before the angels arrived. You know the varcolac had to maintain a certain order in Hell. You disrupted that order, and the varcolac punished you for it. Get over it.”

  “Gets. Over. It?” I bit out the words as my fingers tore stone away from the wall.

  “Yes, get over it. You served your time, and you’re free now. Move on from your vendetta or continue to fight and die like some of your other equestrian friends.”

  I found it easier to control my temper around her, but she could also fuel it in ways few ever could. Unable to suppress a shout, I pulled back my hands and hammered them into the wall. Rock and stone gave way; they clattered as they bounced off the walls and tumbled to the floor.

  When I yanked my hands free, blood trickled from the gashes on my knuckles, and I was sure I’d broken a few. I entangled my hand in her thick hair and pulled her head back as I stepped closer. I considered twisting her hair around my arm and showing her who was in charge, but I found myself unable to inflict pain on her.