West (A Darkness Series Novel)

by Stacey Marie Brown

  Rez stood by my bed, placing alcohol and a sewing kit on the nightstand.

  “Okay, nurse, your patient is ready.”

  She glanced over at me. I wore only a towel. Her cheeks slightly pinked but she motioned to the bed. “Get in.”

  Without warning, I dropped my towel and went to climb in. She swiftly stepped to the side and dropped her eyes. Fae were not ashamed of naked bodies, but it felt different to have her looking at me. Oh yeah, it was different.

  I settled against the headboard and pulled the sheet to my waist.

  She sat on the edge of the bed, her back straight. She looked so elegant even though she still wore the damp, sand-ridden clothes from earlier.

  “Go shower.”

  “I’ll sew you first, some of the cuts are still bleeding.”

  “I know you are uncomfortable.” I tapped my fingers on her dirty cargo pants. “I’ll be all right for another ten minutes.”

  She sucked in her lip, leaning her neck to the side, a strange smile echoing on her mouth. “You know me so well, huh?”

  “Yeah.” I nodded. “I know you don’t mind getting dirty but hate having to stay that way. You’ll be twitchy and uneasy the whole time, craving a shower.” I grinned. “I’d rather have your full attention on me.”

  She returned my smile and stood. “Be just a few minutes.”

  She grabbed some clothes and disappeared into the bathroom. My eyes closed and I drifted off to sleep to the movie of her naked in the shower. But quickly my dreams shifted, and my mind returned to the mysterious figure on the cliff.

  ***

  I squinted, staring harder at the spot. Suddenly the sky lit up with a flash of lightning, igniting the outline of a small hooded figure. A woman. I felt her power. It crackled the air, feeling vaguely familiar.

  Her cloak fluttered in the wind as she raised her arms. Then magic rushed into me, crashing me back onto the rocky beach. The moment her magic hit me, the beast broke free. My body shifted with elation, and my paws hit the ground, feeling the freedom and peace it had been wanting for so long.

  A roar tore from my throat as I took off down the beach.

  “West!” I heard Rez scream from behind. I looked behind to see Rez and the hooded figure standing on the rim of the cliffs, the cloaked woman holding a knife to Rez’s throat.

  “She will merely be another one you doom to death.” Without hesitation the figure sliced Rez’s neck and pushed her body off the ledge into the sea.

  Nooooooo! Agony howled through the beast.

  ***

  I bolted awake, ready to attack.

  “West.” Rez grabbed my rising arm. “It’s me.”

  My gaze danced around the room, reassuring myself we were safe. She was alive. Oxygen left my lungs, and I sagged back against the headboard.

  “Nightmare?” Rez perched herself on the chair, smelling amazing, fresh from the shower. She was in her silky cream camisole and soft cotton cream pajama bottoms, her wet hair draped over one shoulder.

  “Yeah, but featuring a different woman.”

  Rez’s eyebrow shot up.

  “When we were leaving tonight, I looked back and could swear I saw someone standing on the opposite ledge,” I explained. “But I blinked, and they were gone…so it could have been my imagination.”

  “But…” She grabbed for a hand towel and the bottle of rubbing alcohol.

  “In my dream it was the same hooded figure. A woman. Her magic was so strong it blasted through me, bringing the beast to life. That’s when I woke up.” I left out the part where Rez was killed. “What if it was the Druid? The one who awakened Balor?”

  “I was thinking whoever revived him might have to stay close,” Rez responded, leaning me forward to look at my back. “This type of magic might need to be refueled. Bringing someone like Balor back from the dead has to take constant magic to keep him animated.”

  Aneira had killed most of the Druid line, afraid of the power they had. Druid magic was more powerful than fae magic, and fae could not control them. The Queen did not like being less powerful than anyone. She created a fear campaign and had them slaughtered by the thousands. Until Eli became aware of Kennedy, Ember’s best friend, we thought all Druids had been annihilated. Since Kennedy, the first Druid Queen, had been installed on the throne, Druids had come out of the woodwork. And some felt the right to avenge the fairies, the fay who were the elite group of fae, who had wronged them.

  “Balor is not naturally magic. Druids are capable of doing dark magic, but usually don’t. It’s dangerous, evil, and corrupting. Everything they stand against.” Rez touched the cloth lightly to my skin.

  I grunted as alcohol sizzled in the cuts on my back. “Usually. We might have found one quite all right with their dark side.”

  “Are you thinking if we find this Druid, we might be able to break the magic over Balor?” She plastered bandages to my back, most of the sores healing from the bath, before laying me back again.

  “My exact thought,” I said through clamped teeth, the movement stretching my stomach wounds. “I might know a few witches who possibly know of a Druid around here. Or at least a rumor. Either way, we go forward.” I had told Rez about visiting Olwyn and Fionna on the way back from the granary.

  “So, we’re going to face Balor again?” She paused, glancing up at me.

  “We have no choice. You know that. But first we see a witch about a demon.” I hoped Olwyn could help us if there were a Druid connected to Balor. Breaking the magic between them was our best bet.

  She nodded. We didn’t have an option. The King had spoken. You got what he wanted or died trying.

  “Balor doesn’t look like he has too much awareness rolling around in that empty head, but whoever is retaining him will be expecting us this time.” I sucked through my teeth as she pressed another alcohol-laden pad to my wounds. “The only thing we had going for us tonight was the surprise element, and we still lost. Badly.”

  “I don’t think it would have made a difference.” Rez doused the cloth with more disinfectant.

  “Sure I can’t drink that?” I wanted whiskey more than I wanted food. And my stomach was grinding like an ungreased crank.

  “You could, but it would probably make you sick, besides tasting like troll piss.”

  My eyebrows reeled up in surprise. “Okay, darlin’, you saying troll piss is either disturbing or extremely hot.”

  “Which one?”

  “Can’t decide. Probably both.” I eyed her suspiciously. Every day her guard was falling away. “Do you actually know what troll piss tastes like?”

  Her eyes lifted coyly to mine with a hint of a mischievous smile.

  “Wow. Now I really want to know.”

  The impish expression stayed on her face as she shrugged. “Women are allowed their secrets.”

  Damn. And here I thought I knew most of them by now. My jaw loosened to ask her, when she spoke instead. “I am sorry. I reacted too hastily tonight out of anger and frustration.” She kept her tone even. “My mother does that to me.”

  “Like only mothers can.” I watched her lace some fishing line through a needle. “Believe me, my mother was a piece of work as well.”

  “What was she like?”

  “A complete and utter hippie. Didn’t want me, but Father was adamant about having kids. She hated limitations. Kids, clothes, rules. She resented staying home with me. After my father’s death she grew steadily worse at pretending to even give a shit, running away whenever she felt like it. She’d leave me for weeks on end, putting dry grain in bowls on the floor like I was a pet. She’d be gone longer than we had food or supplies. I was just a kid and I’d get so hungry. A few times I ate the neighbor’s trash. Lorcan realized what was going on. He snuck me food and milk or brought me home for dinner. He kept it secret. Never exposing my mother’s horrible parenting. It meant a lot to me. Even when she abandoned me I still loved her. Wanted to protect her.”

  “Ah. Another reason why you felt o
bligated to follow Lorcan.”

  “I knew it was the wrong choice the moment I followed him, but loyalty is a funny thing. It can overpower your better instincts.”

  An odd expression filtered swiftly over her face and was gone. “Yeah, it can.”

  Was she thinking about Lars? I wanted to know badly but kept quiet.

  “But you changed your mind. Is that why Lorcan turned you over to the Queen? Because you turned against him?” Rez knew I ended up in the Queen’s dungeons but not how. She flicked open a lighter, burning any germs off the needle. “Em said she didn’t really know what happened. You wouldn’t talk about it.” She squeezed my wound together. “Take a breath and let it out.” I did as she said. On the exhale she pinched my skin together and stuck in the needle.

  “Lorcan didn’t turn me over to her. He’s a dick, but we’re still family. I know he would never have done that to me.” I looked at the ceiling. Suddenly the story was tumbling from my lips.

  “The moment Lorcan kidnapped Ember and locked her up, I knew I’d fucked up. It wasn’t Eli who lost his way, but Lorcan. When I found out he was working with Aneira no matter if he believed he was doing the right thing for his family, it was like a knife to the gut. That was one of the worst betrayals to us, especially after she had banished us from the Otherworld.” The needle weaved through my skin with a sharp tug as she drew the skin together.

  “I was on my way to tell Eli and Cole what was going on, where Ember was being held, before the Queen could get to her. I didn’t get far before I ran directly into Aneira and her men. She didn’t let me shift or contact my clan through our link.” I swallowed, remembering the tremendous magic she held, the soul-crushing humiliation she put me through. “Realizing I was about to betray Lorcan and mess up her plans, she knocked me out and had a soldier take me through the doors to the Otherworld. I woke in her prison, chained with a spiked choker. The rest you know.” My hand automatically came up to my throat. The scars from the collar still circled my neck, a constant reminder.

  “I can’t imagine what you went through down there.”

  My gaze darted away, mortification twisting to anger.

  “Think you’ve experienced enough of my nightmares to get it.” There was so much more Aneira did I wanted no one to know. I buried the memories so deep I hoped they would cease to exist.

  “Yes.” She pressed her lips into a grim line, looking down. “But those are memories, shadows, not what you actually experienced.”

  “Sometimes I think the nightmares are worse. Even after it’s over, they’re torture...never letting it go away.”

  “I am sorry, West,” Rez murmured, tying off the wound. “For all you’ve gone through.”

  Rage bristled under the surface. “I don’t need your pity.”

  “It’s not pity. If anything it’s understanding. As you know, my past holds a lot of pain and loss, but it has made me who I am.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

  She nodded, setting down the needle and thread, and picked up the cloth to clear the blood off the stitched lesion.

  Fuck. The topic had gotten too serious, stirring my ghosts, and allowing in all the dark memories I wanted to forget. I leaned my head back against the headboard and watched Rez from under my lashes. I could tell she sensed my gaze on her, but she wouldn’t look up.

  I needed to say something. Take away the tension in our silence. “So…Mareza, huh?” I licked my dry lips, quirking them into a cheeky grin.

  Rez tensed; her forehead lined as she continued to clean the abrasion.

  “What does it mean?”

  She finally sighed. “It means ‘of the sea.’ Not especially original for a siren.”

  “It’s pretty.”

  “I hate it. My mother is the only one who uses it.” Her eyebrow curved up, a hint of a smile on her mouth. I jerked as she pushed on one of my cuts. “So if you know what’s good for you, you will never say it again.”

  “That’s the problem, darlin’.” I chuckled. “I never seem to know what’s good for me.”

  Her gaze lifted slowly and met mine. Her irises glinted in the dim moonlight. I hadn’t meant anything when I said it, but staring at her now, my statement held a chasm of truths. I’d spent decades going after all the wrong things to keep myself safe from the right ones. To save myself the suffering again. My gut told me I had the right one in front of me, but my brain told me I was all wrong for her.

  She glanced back at my chest, focusing on cleaning an already sanitized gash. She had cleaned them all, but she didn’t stop, nor did I interrupt her. An intimate tension sparked the air, and my body responded to her feathered touch. I wasn’t one to ever be embarrassed over an erection since it was a natural part of being a Dark Dweller. “Permanently aroused” should be our motto.

  She lay the wet towel on the table, once again purposefully keeping her gaze from mine. She was done, but she did not rise and walk away to the safety of her side of the room. Part of me wanted to command her to leave, go as far from me as she could. The other was begging for her to stay.

  Neither happened. I stayed motionless and waited for her to choose.

  Rez’s eyes moved over my body. She lifted her hand and touched my skin. She had been doing it all night, but something changed. Before her hands had felt almost as distant as a nurse’s. Now as she glided slowly down my torso, curling around the Celtic tattoo on my side, lowering past my hip, I sucked in a breath, blinking, every nerve responding.

  Merely a touch from her and I was harder than cement. She saw it. The blanket was pitched like a fuckin’ tent, but she didn’t say anything.

  “What do the markings mean?” she whispered, her voice like magic. Even if I were more immune than a human to her ability, she had the capability to ask anything from me and I would give it to her. It probably had little to do with her gift and more that she had the power to undo me.

  “It’s our clan’s symbol. We all have one.” I lifted my head, glancing at the symbol. “As soon as you hit a certain age and are trained to fight by a leader, you go through an initiation ceremony. You get a tattoo and head out on assignments with the elders.” My thoughts went back to my time. I was already centuries old, but in human years I was about eleven. “That was before we came to Earth. “Our clan doesn’t do it anymore. The only one who would have gotten one was Jared…” I trailed off, the hurt of his death still excruciating. I could barely say his name without losing my shit. I rubbed my face, laying my head back again.

  “Sorry.” Rez placed her full palm on my markings. “I know how much it hurts to lose those you love.”

  “He was a kid. He had so much more life to experience. I loved Maya and Koke and miss them all the time. But losing a family member so young...”

  She shook her head, her long, silky hair tumbling down her arms.

  “As a Dark Dweller, death is part of us. We are trained killers. Losing one of our own is rare, but it happens. We mourn, we move on. Losing Samantha and Owen was difficult, but it’s not the same. Jared…fuck…I miss that kid so much I can’t breathe sometimes. It makes me so angry at life.”

  “Ah.” She nodded.

  “What?”

  “It’s another reason to guard yourself from letting anyone in.” Her stare locked on, holding me prisoner. “If you don’t sit still, then no one and nothing can catch up. Keep it cheeky and fun. None see the pain consuming you underneath.”

  My head knocked into the headboard, and oxygen filled my nostrils. The beast wanted to close down and shove her words back. Growl. Bite. Anything but hear the truth in them. Twice tonight she had reached in and pulled out my soul and shoved it back in my face.

  “What the hell do you know?” I snapped. “You think spending a few days with me makes you an expert?”

  “Hardly.” She didn’t react to my harsh tone at all. “You, West Moseley, are one of the most complex, straightforward, layered men I have ever known. I could spend the next thousand years wi
th you and not fully understand you.”

  A rush of heat went through my body at the thought of her permanently by my side. The rumble in my chest, the beast reacting to her words, shocked me. It didn’t fear. It wanted.

  “Too bad, darlin’, I would have enjoyed your hands-on assessment for the next thousand years.” I half grinned.

  “Who said it would be hands on?”

  “Believe me, that’s the only way you’d want to evaluate me.” I winked playfully, trying to keep it light, but it failed miserably. I felt the heat rush off her body and slam into me. My hands curled into the sheets, fighting the primal reaction. Being naked only cranked every nerve ending to aching levels.

  She licked her bottom lip and dropped her gaze. I was afraid to move, wanting nothing more than to take her. Her fingers rested on my torso and glided down to the edge of blanket, right to my V-line.

  “You are gonna have to stop doing that, darlin’.” I struggled to swallow.

  “West.” Her voice was deep and raspy. The sound of my name licked at my skin, igniting my nerve endings. The air grew thick, and I gripped the bedsheets, my knuckles turning white.

  “Please.” I stared up at the beams, taking measured breaths, trying to ignore the way her hand kept moving farther down my hip. “If you know what’s good for you...you will stop. Move far away.”

  “That’s the problem, darlin’.” A sly grin curved her gorgeous mouth as she mimicked my earlier words. “I never seem to know what’s good for me either.”

  My chest stopped pumping air. My muscles paralyzed with desire.

  “When you kissed me tonight...” She gulped in air, her hand touched the place between her breasts, like she was trying to breathe. “It’s all I can think about. All I want.”

  Whatever flimsy wall I had been trying to keep up splintered into a million pieces. I reached out, clutching my fingers along her jaw, and drew her in. Our mouths crashed against each other’s with ferocity. Hungry. Feverish. My tongue parted her mouth, and she welcomed it with hers. Nipping at her lip, I growled, igniting my blood. She climbed on the bed and straddled me, the thin sheet barely covering me. The reserved façade melted as her kisses became more passionate and wild. She dug her hands through my hair roughly and ground against me.