Untouchable Darkness

by Rachel Van Dyken

  Cassius

  “SLOW DOWN, TIGER.” ALEX LAUGHED at my expense, but I was too hungry to care. Why was I always so hungry? As if my stomach was in constant anger at its emptiness?

  I chewed then swallowed. “I am not a tiger.”

  “Sar—”

  “—casm,” I finished for him. “I’m not an idiot, but name calling is lost on me. I’ll slow down when this—” I patted my stomach. “—is full.”

  “You’ve had three steaks.” Mason spooned more steaming green beans onto my plate. “You’re going to put us in the poor house with the way you’re putting away food.”

  “Impossible. Immortals have endless amounts of resources and money.”

  Alex reached for one of my green beans. “Not with the way you’re eating.”

  I stabbed at him with my fork and growled, “Get your own.”

  “I don’t need food. I just find great satisfaction in trying to steal yours. What are you going to do about it?” His smile deepened. Damn I wanted to punch him. “Fight me?”

  “Poke the bear, and when he wakes up from his hibernation he may just remove your intestines with a fork.” I lifted my fork in the air and matched his smile. “And it pleases me that the only time you could ever beat me in a fight would be when I’m this weakened. Sirens aren’t known for their muscle.”

  “No.” Alex’s lips twitched. “But we are known for our prowess in bed. Try not to be jealous, Dark One.”

  I snorted. “The last thing I’d be jealous of is the poor humans that stumble into your bed while you promise eternity only to fan your own narcissism.”

  “My touch saves lives.” Alex chuckled. “Or so I’ve been told.”

  Mason plopped down between us and snarled as he started slowly, methodically, slicing his meat into tiny pieces.

  Pieces fit for a mouse.

  Mason had always been more sensitive than the others, so I kept my mouth shut… or tried, that is, until he started lifting the fork to his lips.

  Alex’s eyes went so wide I thought he was going to explode on the spot.

  We both watched. Waited.

  But the minute the meat was brought to Mason’s lips, he frowned and set the fork back down.

  Alex let out a defeated sigh and looked away.

  “Mason.” I licked my lips and pushed my plate away so I could lean across the large wooden table. “You honor her by trying.”

  Mason had once been mated. But the curse of the humans had taken his mate’s life during the night. He’d woken up to her cold in his arms.

  I had seen it coming.

  But I was never allowed to alter those types of futures, the ones that dealt with life or death.

  That was above even the Archangels.

  We were not allowed to play Creator. It was not our place, would never be our place. It was why, saving Genesis a few weeks ago had gone against everything I’d been taught.

  Thankfully, Sariel had agreed with our decision as had the Creator, or we would have all been… nothing but dust.

  “The scent of meat reminds me of her,” Mason finally said, his voice gruff. “She loved steak.”

  “Most Werewolves love steak,” Alex mused while slowly bringing a glass of wine to his lips.

  I shook my head at him. He was so callous at times that he was truly lucky he had the ability to seduce women with his looks. It sure as hell wasn’t his warm personality.

  Alex glared. “Like you should talk.”

  I’d forgotten he could hear people’s thoughts, though usually only when very close and typically only of the female variety.

  “Chill.” Alex rolled his eyes. “You’re a dude. Promise.”

  “Er, thanks.” I scooted my chair back and stood. “It’s time to train Stephanie.” Yawning, I covered my face with my hands and was half tempted to steal some coffee, so I had energy enough to stay awake.

  “You know you could always spike yourself with a bit of vamp blood.” Alex shrugged. “Just saying…”

  “No.” I shuddered. “Never again.”

  “I wasn’t that bad…” Ethan stumbled into the room and retrieved two bottles of water from the fridge, while memories of drinking from Eva ran rampant through my brain.

  Alex’s eyes narrowed in on mine. “Yeah, I don’t think he was talking about you.”

  The room fell silent.

  I let out an irritated sigh. “Must you muddle through my thoughts, Siren?”

  “Must you think so loud?” he fired back.

  “It was only a dozen or so times,” I said defensively. And then, “Because we were in battle.”

  A vision of Eva and me locked in a heated embrace flashed to the forefront of my mind. Nothing had happened, but we were in a cave for two days. She shared her blood and I shared mine, with no other choice but to strengthen one another before facing the fighting again.

  “So if I had a bite of Dark One…” Alex’s lips twisted into a thin line as he rubbed them together. “I’d basically be a ninja.”

  “Eva knew how to fight without my blood. It just enhanced her regular abilities. You’re too sedentary. I imagine a Dark One’s blood would just turn you into a comatose state.”

  Ethan smirked. “So he’d be the same then?”

  Alex scowled his eyes narrowing into tiny slits as he glanced in my direction, his face impassive. The bastard was picking away at my thoughts. Self-preservation told me to back away and go upstairs, but my feet felt sluggish, my body, exhausted and sore as if I’d taken on an entire army by myself.

  “Sleep.” Alex said helpfully. “You’re a human now, you need actual rest.”

  “I just woke up!”

  “Good, then you’ll remember how to go back to sleep,” Stephanie said walking into the room. “You’ve spent no time sleeping, most of your time trying to do everything you used to be able to do sans power. Sleep and then we can train.”

  A scream erupted from downstairs.

  John.

  “No.” I shook my head vigorously. “Absolutely not.”

  “Yes.” Stephanie held out her hand. “For me.”

  Her voice was so enticing, before I knew it, I was grasping her hand and following her up the stairs as Alex parroted, “for me,” in a high pitched voice.

  I chose to ignore him.

  Because she’d be upset if I tried to kill him and I was the one that ended up dead. At least I hoped she would be.

  If I ever had my powers returned, if the future ever changed and Stephanie didn’t kill me, I was going to have a serious talk with that Siren.

  He mimicked her voice again and burst into a laughter.

  A very serious and damning talk.

  The thought cheered me the entire achy way up the stairs.

  Stephanie

  NOTHING ABOUT CASSIUS WAS FRAIL. His physical body was in peak condition, but his eyes? Mannerisms? The way he carried himself? It was like was dying before my very eyes, which seemed silly, but there it was, his blood, not pumping as fast through his system.

  If I closed my eyes when I pressed a fingertip to his arms, it was as if I could feel the cells dying, his body aging, but I didn’t have any proof of it just this insane natural ability to be able to read his body chemistry. As if his physical body was already mourning the loss of years it would never see.

  Once we reached the room Cassius was staying in, he frowned, and then moved back down the hall and walked into my room.

  “Sure, let yourself right in,” I mumbled while Cassius’s exhausted body weaved its way toward the bed.

  “This body exhausts me.” His mouth formed a curse against the large white pillow as his hands clenched the blanket around him. “I’m constantly at war with myself, hot, cold, hungry, full, angry, happy, sad.” He yawned.

  I sat down next to him, reaching out to comfort him, laying my hand across his back. “You’re useless tonight, we’ll start training first thing in the morning.”

  He groaned. “We can train… just…” Another yawn. �
�A few hours, in our dreams.”

  “You want to train me in your… mind?” The thought was extremely unsettling. I’d been in his head; it was a dark place, a dark and lonely reminder of my future.

  “I’ll go to sleep.” He flipped onto his back. “You did it by accident the first time. There are two ways to enter someone’s dreams, one has to be taught, the other is quite simple.”

  “I’m listening.” Was I ready for this? For more of the dark? My body shivered uncontrollably with the possibilities.

  “The strength of every human lies… within their heart.” Cassius grabbed my hand and pressed it on the pulse in his wrist. “Follow the pulse.”

  I frowned. “I’m sorry I don’t understand, what do you mean follow the pulse?”

  “Follow it.” He yawned again, and his words became slurred. “I’ll see you in my dreams, Stephanie.”

  Something about the way he lifted my fingertips to his mouth as a curved smile spread across his face. The way he tenderly held my hand.

  It wasn’t just confusing. It was hurtful, because I knew, that when he was given his powers back, the darkness I saw in his eyes, in his dreams, would consume him once again, and he’d block me away from his life.

  He had no room for love.

  I waited a few minutes as his breathing became heavy and then another five minutes after that just to be sure.

  “Here goes nothing.” I pressed my fingertips to his pulse and closed my eyes. How the heck was I supposed to follow the pulse?

  And just as I thought it, the pulse started to call to me, as if a single thread was placed from my conscious into his subconscious.

  Thump, thump, thump. The thread tugged me with each heartbeat until blackness burst forth into a beautiful night sky.

  A campfire was set up with fur coats laid across the log nearest the crackling fire. A small cabin was in the distance, smoke billowing out of the chimney.

  “You made it,” Cassius whispered from behind me, as a fur coat was spread across my shoulders.

  Turning, I gasped when I noticed his eyes. They were white, powerful, he looked like he used to. “How did you—”

  “My dream,” he answered quickly. “In my dream I imagine myself to be whatever I want to be, in my dream I am still me… and in order to train you, I figured this may aid in getting you there faster.”

  Nodding, I followed him over to the fire and held out my hands. “It’s not warm.”

  “Nothing, in our dreams will ever be warm.” He shrugged. “Your body temperature drops as we speak, mine to dangerous levels considering your presence in both my dream and in the room.”

  I stood abruptly. “You could die!’

  “Then I’d control myself if I were you.” He tilted his head, his eyes twinkling with amusement. “Or if you’d rather kill me now I imagine all you’d need to do was think hard about freezing my human ass.”

  I smirked. “Human ass?”

  “Humans have asses. Asses that freeze. Skin that falls off. Teeth that fall out. Wishes that never come true. Desires that are never acted on.” His eyes rolled to the back of his head as he continued to speak, this time with his voice lowered. “Dark Ones are quite similar. More powerful, yes. But we are unable to save the very creation we are aligned with. How horrible, do you think it is to watch a part of yourself die every day knowing you can do nothing to stop it?”

  His white eyes flashed blue.

  I think he expected me to answer, but I didn’t know what to say.

  “You’ve seen it.” Cassius leveled me with a cold stare as his black hair whipped around his face. “I’ve seen you staring at my skin, frowning as my cells call out to you for aid. You were doing it before I fell asleep, you’ll be doing it for an eternity.”

  “Your cells… call out to me?” I gulped.

  “All human cells call out to Dark Ones. They see Dark Ones as a way to fix what’s been broken, it is in essence why a Dark One takes humans so easily as slaves, it is also why once a Dark One leaves a human he dies. The want is too great, the power is suddenly lost, the cells incinerate.”

  I almost choked. “And yet here you are.”

  “Here. I. Am.” His curt use of the sentence had me believing it was the last place he ever wanted to be. With a sweeping gesture, he waved his hands over the flame. It rose higher and higher. “A Dark One is like this fire…” The flame cracked and whipped angrily into the inky darkness. “Humans are the wood that keeps the fire burning, but Dark Ones? We are the very air that surrounds the fire, we can cause the fire to heat, helping those who are cold, or use the fire for bad, allowing the air to set the entire forest alight with flames. As a Dark One you must always control the flame. Always.”

  “And if we can’t?” I swallowed, throat dry.

  Cassius’s head snapped in my direction, his eyes sad. “Then you destroy all that you hold dear.”

  “I thought we held nothing dear.”

  “It is smarter not to feel.”

  I narrowed my eyes and glared at him, he’d completely ignored the question.

  A heavy sigh slipped past his lips. “Better not to care. Then the pain doesn’t slice all the way to the bone.” He shrugged. “Surface cuts.”

  “Are more easily infected,” I pointed out. “Sometimes deceiving in looks… they appear easily fixed, but scratches bring in more bacteria, causing a slow break down of the skin, of the organs in the body, killing you before you even knew you were sick.”

  “In rare cases.” Cassius lowered the flame with his hand. “You are correct.”

  “So, control the fire.” I stood, brushing the fur to the snowy ground. “I’m sensing a theme here, I need to control everything or lose control and kill.”

  “Killing is fun,” Cassius said in a hollow voice. “At times it helps.”

  “At times?”

  “In the moment,” he corrected. “It helps.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  He hid his yawn behind his hand and stood.

  “You aren’t really getting much sleep right now,” I said in a guilty voice.

  “I shall sleep when I’m dead.” He flashed me a grin, lifting his hands into the air. Snow started to fall, landing only on us, missing the fire completely.

  “I like that trick,” I whispered, holding my hands out to catch the snowflakes.

  “I knew you would.” Suddenly he was next to me, his hands holding mine in place as giant snowflakes kissed my skin. “You’ve loved snowflakes since you were born.” I expected him to be smiling at the memory; instead his eyes were black soulless pits of despair as his breathing slowed.

  “You saved my life as a child… and as an adult again.”

  “Saved the one who would later kill me.” He nodded. “Poetic, isn’t it?”

  “Tragic.” I caught a snowflake and pressed it against his palm. “I was thinking tragic.”

  Cassius wet his lips, his eyes focusing so intently on my mouth I had no choice but to lean in.

  The flames sparked higher.

  The snow fell harder.

  We moved closer.

  Our lips touched.

  The fire roared to life.

  “Control the fire,” he whispered against my mouth. “Control the flame.” He licked my lower lip, then kissed me harder as I greedily grasped for pieces of his hair tugging him against my body.

  With a moan, he lifted me into his arms, his mouth making love to mine, kissing me so tenderly that I had to hold back tears.

  He was kissing me with emotion.

  Actual emotion.

  Not lust.

  But something else, something more important, more raw.

  “Control the flame,” he whispered again.

  “What if I don’t want to?” I pulled back just enough to gaze at his full lips and attack again.

  “Then you’ll destroy the forest.”

  “Burn it to the ground.” I gasped as his hands moved to my hips, slowly lifting my shirt. My eyes blurred as th
e vision around us changed. Suddenly we were in a cabin, it felt warm, but maybe it was just the kissing.

  Cassius tore at my shirt, dropping it to the ground. With a gasp I launched myself into his open arms as he muttered a curse.

  I had no idea what I was doing—why he was letting me, or if it was a dream, reality. I had no sense of time.

  Only him.

  Cassius.

  I breathed out his name as icicles formed in front of me only to disappear from the heat of his kiss.

  Was I a completely selfish person? To want him so bad? In any way possible? That even if he was merely offering me a kiss, only to ignore me later, possibly fight me for his life—I would take it?

  Ever since becoming what I was, the line between right and wrong had been blurred into lines that didn’t quite go straight, they weren’t completely left or right. And at times, when I felt like I was making the right choice, the line would simply right itself, going straight again.

  Was that what life would always be like? A series of squiggly lines that made no sense until after my decision was made? And how was that fair?

  “Humans…” Cassius kissed down my neck and then flipped over my arm as the blue veins made tiny little lines down my wrist to my fingertips. “The majority of humans are born with an innate knowledge of right and wrong. Angels aren’t born, they are created. And created only with a duty. At least, that’s what was believed. Until they became… jealous.”

  “Jealous?” I whispered as he continued drawing circles on my wrist. My shirt was gone, as was his. Every part of his stomach was thick with bulging muscle, his chest was the same. He might be human—but he still had the body of some mythological god. Maybe that was why people tried to falsely worship him and the rest of the immortals. They didn’t know any better? To them beautiful was to be worshiped.

  When a lot of times, beauty was to be feared.

  At least in the immortal realm.

  “I wish I could still hear your thoughts,” Cassius whispered. “And I’m sorry for getting carried away, I simply…” He shrugged. “I wanted to taste.”

  “Was it worth nearly freezing to death?” I asked.

  He chuckled darkly then kissed me again. “Yes.”