I pressed my hand to his shoulder, he reached out and caressed my fingertips, his skin was smoother than before, as if it was brand new, barely created a second ago and placed on his body.
“A life for a life,” he said in a low tone.
“And the life taken?”
“Offered. He offered his life, and everything, all of his power and his job, fell to me.”
“More heaviness,” I guessed as Cassius shared a look with me and in that look I saw everything, Sariel offering himself up, the child I’d recognized in the dream, trees, the thrones, and all of the angels.
“When you stabbed me, I didn’t know what I was doing, just tried to give you as much power as I could, I knew you were running into danger. I had no idea that by doing that, I was condemning myself to death.”
“I wanted to help,” I said in a small voice. “It’s my fault he’s dead, if I hadn’t run off—”
“There were several futures, Stephanie.” He cupped my face with his hand. “Believe me when I say, this was the best one, the one—now that I know Sariel’s thoughts— that he very much hoped for.”
“And the others?”
“Altered, only slightly.”
“I haven’t told the others about Bannik, about what I saw.”
“Well.” Cassius pulled me in for a hug, pressing my body tight against his. “I think it is time they know what we are up against, not just a race of unruly Demon, but a fallen angel hell bent on destroying both humans and immortals alike.”
“He doesn’t want everyone dead.” I squeezed my arms around Cassius. “He wants them enslaved.”
“Death is better.”
“It is.”
“If it comes to a choice.” Cassius tensed up again. “I will kill myself, destroying both humans and immortals at the same time. I will kill us all before I let him make slaves out of us.”
“Is that your choice to make?”
Cassius paused, his voice grave. “It is now.”
Cassius
TO BE A DARK ONE was to know perfection, but be unable to reach it. Now that I had Sariel’s blood flowing somehow miraculously through my veins, I could touch it, smell it, bond with it. But my humanity, or whatever was left of it, rejected the notion completely. Logic shook its head in denial, and so I appeared different, but I was very much the same.
Split completely down the middle between two races.
The answer as well as the end.
In a cruel twist of fate, the angel of life and death had created both—me. I had no idea if I possessed enough power to fight off Bannik on my own, but what I did know was that the battle between dark and light was just starting to get interesting.
Mason was hovering over the stove flipping a steak as he so often did when he was upset about something. I had to wonder if he had some Italian or Greek running through some of those wolfish veins. The blood of Sariel called to me to use it—no longer would I have to guess about anything—but my humanity pressed the fleeting thought away, what fun was life when you knew all the answers already?
I’d learned that as a human.
I’d keep living that way as a Dark One.
Alex sipped a cup of coffee and pretended to be reading but he rarely turned the page, just stared it down, lost in his dark thoughts, the same ones he so often tried to play off when really, it was quite possible he had the hardest future of us all.
And Genesis, lovely, beautiful, pregnant Genesis sat on Ethan’s lap while he drank from her neck.
If you blinked, you could almost miss the small cut near her ear where he kissed and sucked.
“Gross.” Alex said in a bored voice. “At least have the decency to do it in private.”
“You eat at a table,” Ethan pointed out. “Why can’t I?”
“Hah!” Mason flipped the steak in the air again. “Vampire has a point.”
Alex scrunched up his nose while I sat between the two of them, Stephanie still gripped my hand, offering her support, her love, it floated off of her in perfumed waves, stabilizing me, altering me so completely that I knew had I been in Sariel’s place—I would have made the exact same choice.
Because when I closed my eyes.
I saw her.
And only her.
“Sariel has given his life for mine.” My voice didn’t shake, it was smooth, in command, something I didn’t feel, but everyone knows just because you have a feeling doesn’t mean you are that feeling. I felt unsure; that didn’t mean I needed to actually follow through with it and become unsure when it came to my decisions, because they effected every being around me, mortal and immortal, I had to focus on my knowledge, on my heart, on the love surrounding me, not the flimsy feeling that told me to be afraid.
After all.
Fear.
It is not welcome here.
Alex spoke it for me, his eyes locking onto mine as he leaned forward in anticipation.
“Bannik, one of Sariel’s brothers, has fallen. He’s captured the ten remaining archangels of the realm. Each was to be guarding a different part of the human plane. They are all missing.”
Genesis’s mouth dropped open while Mason stopped cooking and turned around eyes wide with shock.
“How the hell did we miss that?” Ethan raged through clenched teeth. “It’s our job to keep the peace and some archangel’s been luring others into his keep? And creating Demon? Where have we been?”
“We can’t blame ourselves,” I said. “Even Sariel did not see it coming until it was too late. Bannik has been planning this ever since Pompeii, ever since his first taste of human blood. At the time I blamed Timber for giving out immortal blood, and now I suspect it was Bannik pulling the strings the entire time.”
“Well damn.” Ethan sighed running his hands through his long dark hair. “That’s been a few… years.”
Alex’s lips twitched. “Try a few hundred, but sure yeah just saying few sounds so much better, like we blinked and oh, look, they invented cars!”
“You—” I jabbed a finger at Alex. “—will need to visit some old family.”
Alex’s nostrils flared. “Watch me curb my enthusiasm.”
“And Mason,” I nodded toward him. “You’ll need to notify all the wolves in the district. Let them know we will need to fight… we’ve been living in peace for too long, we’ve gone soft while they’ve grown strong. We will need to teach our people once again how to draw up their swords.”
Alex raised his hands. “Don’t you mean draw up their semi-automatic weapons?”
Ethan scowled. “Bullets don’t behead.”
“If you’re a good shot they do.” Alex smirked.
“Not the point.” I sighed and tried again. “They need to know how to protect themselves.” I stood, “And we need to keep our secret from the humans at all costs.”
“It’s always such a joy.” Alex yawned. “Protecting the weak while they continue to kill off one another without any realization they’re still alive and breathing because we choose to protect them.”
I smiled as more visions of Alex’s future laid themselves out before my eyes. Maybe I would get my payback a lot sooner than I originally thought.
“One more thing,” I added, waiting until every set of eyes was on me. “You are your strongest when you’re mated.”
The room fell silent.
“I’m calling numbers for you both. You will have a human by sunset next week or so help me I’ll kill you myself.”
Mason let out a guttural howl as he fell to his knees, then got up and ran out of the room.
All eyes fell to Alex.
He was pale.
So very pale.
“Is that going to be a problem, Alex?”
“No.” He swallowed. “No, my King. It is not.”
His thoughts screamed at me.
His words and actions said otherwise—because Alex, might be a lot of things, but he was loyal. He would obey me in this.
And it would eventually be for his own g
ood.
Eventually.
“And what about you?” Ethan asked.
“Me.” I grinned for the first time since I’d woken up. “I have Stephanie.”
“But you have wings.” Genesis blurted out. “Isn’t that… forbidden?”
“Red Bull…” Alex laughed. “…also has wings, but I touch my lips to that can like it’s my job—”
Stephanie shoved him out of the chair, he fell to the floor with a giant thump while Ethan laughed.
“We were mated before all of this and regardless, I’m still a Dark One, I just have actual wings… believe me, you cannot redeem the damned.”
Ethan stood. “Seems to me your wrong… what did you say happened to Sariel again? He went dark? Lost his mind? Ceased to exist?”
“He was taken,” Stephanie blurted out before I got the chance. “With over five thousand angels as an escort.”
The room was silent and then Ethan added, “Seems to me, you can very well redeem the damned… doesn’t it?”
He was right.
Because Sariel had been cursed.
Yet, something told me, he was still—present. Not in the same way as before.
But… aware.
Stephanie slid her hand into mine. “Can we go talk?”
“No,” I grumbled pulling her hard against my chest. “I want to kiss. I want to make love. I want to forget the fact that you stabbed me in the chest and ran away. That we can do anything else is off the table.”
“He gonna throw her on the table right here then?” Alex asked from his semi comfortable position on the floor, even leaning back against the counter he looked like a sexual deviant, just waiting for a lady in a short skirt to walk by so he could steal a peek while she peeled her clothes off in ecstasy.
“Upstairs.” Stephanie smiled pulling me in for a searing kiss. I was already carrying her as fast as I could through the house when I heard Ethan yell.
“Please don’t burn down the room! Keep your feathers under control, Cassius!”
Stephanie
“I LOVE YOU.” I pressed another kiss against his mouth as he ripped the rest of my clothes from my body, his hands sliding down my waist. Then he lifted me by the hips and tossed me roughly onto the bed.
I was a tangled mess in the sheets as I tried to pull myself up and give him my best glare. Instead, all I could do was openly gape at his naked body.
Nothing about Cassius was imperfect.
And it was so amazingly difficult not to stare at every plane of his body. His muscles bulged with every breath he took.
And like a knight from the fairy tales I’d read so long ago, his dark black hair cascaded over his shoulders in a magnificent fashion, he looked both wicked and heroic.
“I desire you.” His eyes fluttered closed. “More than you will ever know. And my love for you,” A silver tear ran down his cheek. “Would move mountains.”
Tears blurred my vision.
“His job was to watch life,” Cassius whispered pulling me into his lap. “And I plan on watching yours very, very carefully.” He kissed my lips hard. “Slowly.” His hands gripped my sides. “Thoroughly.”
Our bodies joined, there was no warning, nothing but him moving within me, watching me.
Loving me.
The moment was so beautiful, so perfect, I could have wept. Instead, I placed my cold hands on his body.
And felt warmth.
Gasping, I jerked back. “Why aren’t you cold?”
“A gift,” Cassius whispered across my lips as he moved languidly against me. “So that when you are tempted to fall to the darkness—you see light instead.” Our mouths tangled then broke free. “You’ll see me.”
Instead of closing my eyes, I watched, I watched him, I locked onto his light and held on for dear life as he embraced me, rocked into me, loved me with his words, with a language I didn’t understand as he pressed gentle kisses to my face.
And as my body released, the darkness dissipated as if it had never been there in the first place.
I had no strength to ask.
But Cassius must have known it was there because his next words were. “Where there is darkness there will always be light.”
Body still trembling I whispered, “What are you?”
“The same.” He hesitated for a brief second then added. “Fallen, evil, a curse, abomination. I’m all of those things.”
“But—”
He silenced me with a kiss. “I’m just more angel than human now.”
“So seventy-thirty?”
He shook his head.
“Eighty-twenty?”
Another shake.
I opened my mouth again.
“Stop!” He laughed, the sound did funny things to me, making me want to kiss him and never stop. “More like ninety-nine to one.”
“Oh.” I felt my eyes go big.
“Still fallen.”
“By one percent.”
“Numbers.” He shrugged and raised one eyebrow. “What are they anyways?”
“Important?” I teased, licking his lower lip while a small growl erupted between his teeth. “I take that as a no.”
“I’m the same…” He smiled gently and captured my gaze. “I still hunger for you.”
“And the bird outside my window?”
With a burst of sunny laughter, Cassius threw me back onto the mattress and braced himself over me. “I won’t eat your blue jay.”
“Now,” I said.
“I love you.” He sobered. “Completely.”
“Stay with me forever?”
We linked hands, palm to palm, as our fingers clenched together.
“I can do that.” He brushed a soft warm kiss across my forehead. “I can do that.”
Alex
I SENSED THE SEX.
Or love.
A female would scrunch up her nose or possibly be aroused by my use of the word, after all when you were with your mate, it was love and sex, a beautiful heady mixture of sugars, spices, alluring scents that would drive any sane person—just the opposite I supposed.
With a scowl I tossed the tennis ball hard against the wall over and over again, the rhythmic beat was the only thing calming my racing heart, well that and the distinct impression that if I asked Ethan to slow it, he’d probably kill me and say “oops” afterwards.
Mated.
I rolled the word around in my head.
I wasn’t the type.
At all.
To love one person went against every cell in my body, every fiber of my being. I was a Siren. I did not love one. I loved all.
And I loved them well.
All sizes.
All shapes.
Every sex.
Every plant.
Animal.
Creation.
I loved everything.
I spread myself around as all good Sirens did, and I was damned good at it. The very thought that I’d be tied to a measly human for eternity had me tempted to write a suicide note and steal Genesis’s little purple feather, draining my own immortality mid-orgasm.
The sound of my door opening and closing softly interrupted my bitter thoughts, and then the scent of cedar and dirt joined me on the floor.
Mason slumped next to me.
Silent.
And then, grabbed the other tennis ball.
And started slamming it against the wall opposite me.
We stayed there for hours.
Neither of us talking.
Until finally, the Wolf opened his mouth. “I can’t do this.”
I knew how it would work, one of us would go first, we’d call one number, the ceremony would take place, we’d be given time and then the next number would be called.
It never happened all at once.
Maybe I was feeling suicidal, because the first words out of my mouth were. “I’ll go first.”
Want more Dark Ones?
Be looking for Alex’s story Fall 2016! Darkest Seduction!
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br /> RACHEL VAN DYKEN is the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestselling author of regency and contemporary romances. When she's not writing you can find her drinking coffee at Starbucks and plotting her next book while watching "The Bachelor".
She keeps her home in Idaho with her husband, adorable son, and two snoring boxers. She loves to hear from readers.
You can connect with her on Facebook at facebook.com/rachelvandyken or join her fan group Rachel's New Rockin Readers. Her website is www.rachelvandykenauthor.com.
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