Shiela Stewart - [Darkness 06]

by Penetrating the Darkness (epub)

  “We’re all going to be pretty protective of Felicity. Some of us more than others. I just thought I would let you know that.”

  Something inside of him gave. “Look, I know all of this. It’s practically been pounded into me, so don’t worry. I plan to go inside and tell her I’m going to stay at the clinic and not here. That way no one has to worry that I’m going to do anything to harm her.”

  Jonah stepped in front of him, preventing Dusty from entering the house. “You seem like a nice enough guy, but truth is, we don’t know you that well.”

  “And you don’t know Felicity that well either, but I get it. She’s family and I’m not. But here’s something to think about. If I wanted to harm her, wouldn’t I have done it by now? Why would I have helped her find her parents?” Stepping around Jonah, Dusty marched into the house and straight for the stairs.

  “She’s asleep.”

  Looking back, he saw the dark-haired woman, Jonah’s girl—what was her name?—Raven, coming towards him from the sitting room. “Then I won’t wake her.” Hurrying up the stairs, he decided just to leave her a note, then head out of here. The sooner the better, he figured. No one wanted him around anyway.

  Throwing his bedroom door open, in a grumpy mood, he froze at the sight of Felicity asleep in his bed. His heart tightened and his loins ached. For a brief moment he thought about climbing in beside her.

  He decided against it.

  Searching the room, through the many drawers in the stands by the bed, he finally found a pad and pen. But in the meantime, Felicity woke up.

  “Hi there…” she slurred as she groggily sat up in the bed.

  He noticed that she wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing. Damn it, why did she have to be naked? It made it so much harder for him to walk away. “I didn’t mean to wake you. Go back to sleep.”

  “Only if you join me.” She patted the bed, giggled, and nearly fell over.

  “Are you…drunk?” She certainly seemed it.

  “I am intoxicated, yes. And I feel like I’m floating on air.” She giggled again and, this time, rolled to the side of the bed closest to him. “Want to fly with me, Dusty?”

  He wasn’t entirely sure she meant that figuratively. “I think the best thing for you would be to sleep it off.” But, oh, it was hard for him to push her away when she was naked and warm and ready for him to take her.

  “I do not wish to sleep. I want to have sex with you.”

  “Whoa there.” He grabbed her hand away from his burgeoning hard-on, keeping her at bay. “Trust me when I tell you you’ll thank me in the morning…or whenever you wake up because I don’t have a clue what time of day it is. Come on, let’s get you tucked in.”

  “I want you to touch me, Dusty. I want you to make my body shiver.”

  Yeah, so did he. Still… “Just as soon as you have a little nap. There you go, up into the big fluffy bed. That’s a girl.” Though her hands were groping for him, he held firm as he pulled the covers over her. Then he leaned down and kissed her forehead. “Goodnight, sleepy head.”

  “G’night, Dusty.”

  She was out before he stepped away from the bed. With a heavy sigh, he picked up the paper and pen and wrote out his note. He set it on the pillow beside her, then backed from the room, watching her sleep. He couldn’t believe how hard it was for him to walk away. And it wasn’t just the sex, though that was pretty great. No, it was more. Dusty just liked being with her.

  “If you’re thinking of sneaking into my daughter’s room I would suggest you change your mind and fast.”

  The last person he wanted to see now was Basil and, as the guy glowered at him, Dusty had a brief thought to just walk away and let it go. But something inside of him said no. “Look, I’ve put up with your threats because I understand you’re only looking out for your daughter, but I’m damn tired of the way you’re treating me. I’ve done nothing to hurt her, only protect her. If I wanted to use her for sex, as you once put it, then I should be inside of that room now, in that bed with your daughter who is lying naked, ready for me to have her, completely intoxicated. But I’m not, and do you know why? Because I’m a decent human being and even after the shit I’ve been put through these past few months I have still maintained my integrity. You’ll be happy to know that I’ve decided to stay at the clinic instead of here so you won’t have to worry about us sneaking into each other’s rooms and fucking our brains out.”

  With that said, Dusty marched past Basil and, without a glance back, left the house.

  ***

  His jaw clenched, Basil had half a mind to march after the smart-mouthed bastard and wring his neck. Instead, he inched open the bedroom door and sighed at seeing Felicity asleep in Dusty’s bed. Entering the room, he walked to his daughter, lightly brushed a hand over her long, silky hair.

  He was supposed to have had years to prepare for this moment, to prepare him for the many boys who would come calling for his daughter. Instead he’d been robbed of it. Was it any wonder he was protective of her now? The very moment he meets his daughter for the very first time since her birth, she’s got a man at her side. He’d had no time to prepare for the moment. Just bam! She’s sleeping with someone.

  Sniffing the air, he smelled nothing remotely close to a sexual scent, which meant Dusty had spoken the truth. What he did smell was the distinct scent of alcohol. Who in the world had given his baby girl alcohol?

  Then he saw the note.

  Reaching over to the pillow beside her, he took the note and read.

  I think it’s best if I stay at the clinic. You belong here, but I don’t. You’ll be safe with your parents. I’ll stop by and see you in a few days.

  Dusty

  Basil laid the note back where it had been placed and, leaning over, kissed his daughter’s head.

  Leaving her to sleep, he headed to his room where he found Trinity sitting up in bed, reading a book. “Our daughter is drunk.”

  She laughed, setting her book down. “I know. You should have seen her. She is so funny when she’s drunk.”

  All Basil could do was stare at her.

  “What?”

  “You gave our daughter alcohol?”

  “We had a girls’ night while you boys were out doing your manly duties. Besides, she only had one glass of wine. I think she’s in love with Dusty.”

  “Great.” He dropped down on the edge of the bed and rested his head in his hands.

  “He’s her first love…her first…you know…”

  “I don’t want to know. Damn it, Trinity, it wasn’t supposed to be this way. How the hell am I supposed to hate the kid when he’s being all noble?” He turned his upper body to look at her. “She’s lying in his bed, asleep, passed out more like it, and she’s naked, or so he tells me. And he walked away. Didn’t lay a hand on her. He left a goddamn note telling her she belongs here with us and that he’ll stay at the clinic. How am I supposed to hate him when he does shit like that?”

  Trinity laid a hand on his shoulder as she came up beside him. “Nothing about this is fair and it’s going to take all of us some time to get used to it. Now come to bed and let me soothe your heart with a nice, sensual massage.”

  That was his girl. She always knew just the right thing to say to make him feel better.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Dusty drove through the dark streets to his destination. There were crowds of people—animals, rather—in what looked like some sort of fight. He didn’t recognize any of them and kept going, hoping none of them came after him. Occasionally, he would see the odd person wandering about, or someone sitting on the front step of a house.

  Not one of them was human.

  If only he’d left even a week later. He wouldn’t have ended up in the position he was now? Or would he have made it safely to his apartment and started
his life as a student of MIT? There was no way to go back, but he sure as hell could go forward, and that was what he was planning to do.

  Of course, he realized that if he had left a week later, he never would have met Felicity. She was the only bright side to his very dark life right now. Thinking about her made him ache even more. He wished he had stayed and lain down beside her…but it was for the best that he hadn’t. Especially after meeting her grumpy father in the hallway. Dusty could admit to himself that he had feared the guy would come after him after what Dusty had said. He was more than surprised Basil hadn’t.

  Feeling uneasy, Dusty glanced around the car. Basil had said he could change into anything. For all Dusty knew, the guy could be in this car right now.

  Damn it, now he was going to be constantly looking over his shoulder. Again.

  Pulling into the parking lot behind the clinic, Dusty grabbed the bag of condoms from the back seat and hurried to the door. Once he was inside, he thought about how vulnerable he was now, without Felicity. Was the place still protected, he wondered, or could anyone come in without a problem? To be safe, Dusty decided to jam a chair under each of the doors. It wasn’t the best locking system but it was all he had at the moment.

  Dropping the bag as he entered the back lab, he hurried to the room where he had left his prisoner and let out a rush of air at seeing the vamp still out like a light, tied to the table.

  Or was he dead?

  Maybe he’d given him too many sleeping pills. Damn, he’d never thought about that.

  Rushing to the body, he laid a hand on his chest to feel for a heartbeat. He felt so much better when he felt the heart beating beneath his palm.

  Now, to get started.

  He gathered the tubes and needles and buckets he would need to drain the blood from the vamp. Then he gathered the IV bags, needles, and machine, setting them all up beside the table. Thank God his mother was a nurse and he had spent a great deal of his youth at the hospital she worked at, watching her administer IVs. And it didn’t hurt that he had an intelligent brain inside his head.

  Taking the left hand of the vamp, Dusty tapped the upper part of his hand to get the veins to pop. When he found one that he hoped would work, he pulled out the needle, and tipping the hand back, leaned in closer and slid the needle beneath the skin to the bulgy vein. He felt the pop and hoped it meant he was in the vein. Slapping some tape over the injection spot, Dusty hooked up the first blood bag, then set the dial at five drips per second. He didn’t want it going in too fast before he was able to drain a good portion of the blood.

  Sliding his chair to the right side, Dusty repeated the procedure on the right hand only this time, instead of connecting it to the IV bag, he led the drainage tube to the bucket on the floor. He opened the valve completely and watched as the sickly gray blood began to slide through the tube.

  He sat there for twenty minutes, watching the gray blood drain from the vamp, emptying the bucket when it filled before he turned the red blood up to full. Sliding back, he put his feet up on one of the desks, and waited.

  If everything went well, he’d be human again in no time.

  ***

  Her head was pounding in a steady rhythm that woke Felicity from her sleep. Rolling over, her stomach churned and as she sat up the room around her began to spin. Placing one hand on her head to stop the pounding, the other on her belly to ease it, she noticed she was in the bed alone.

  Then she spotted the note.

  Holding it close to her face, she read through blurry eyes the words Dusty had written. And on top of her pounding head and rolling belly, her heart ached. He had left her. She vaguely remembered speaking with him but wasn’t quite sure if it had been real or a dream. Apparently, from the note, it had been reality.

  With the note still in her hand, she hurried from the bed and, standing, felt her stomach rise up to her throat. In a desperate attempt to make it to the washroom before vomiting, she ran as fast as she could to the door. She made it inside and bent over the toilet just in the nick of time.

  She was sure she would never want another drop of wine again in her life.

  Rinsing her mouth, she dabbed some cold water on her face, then trudged back to her bed. She jolted at seeing her mother sitting there.

  “Oh…um…you need a robe.”

  Realizing she was naked, Felicity walked to the bed and climbed back under the covers. “I left mine in my room.”

  “Hmmm. So…how do you feel?”

  “Terrible. I wish never to drink wine again.” Leaning back against the wooden headboard, Felicity vowed to never get drunk again either. It just felt too awful after the fact. “I found this on the pillow beside me. He has left me.” With that revelation, the tears began to flow.

  “Oh, sweetie…” Taking Felicity into her arms, Trinity stroked her hair. “He just thinks it would be better if you lived apart. You can still see him.”

  “He did not wish to engage in sexual activity with me before he left. Perhaps he no longer finds me desirable.”

  Her mother wiped the tears from Felicity’s cheeks. “I’m pretty sure that isn’t the case. He didn’t have sex with you last night because it wouldn’t have been right with you being drunk.”

  “Why not?” Felicity sniffled, taking the tissue her mother handed her and wiping her nose.

  “When a person is drunk their inhibitions change, they aren’t necessarily thinking clearly. When people are drunk they often do things they regret the next day. Dusty didn’t want to take advantage of your condition so he turned you down. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t want you.”

  “I would not have regretted having sex with him. I love having sex with him. He makes me feel special.” She blew her nose, set the tissue aside, and took another.

  “You might not have had regrets, but he might have, taking advantage of you in your drunken state. I have to say, that makes him a pretty decent guy.”

  She tilted her head and looked at her mother through watery eyes. “It sounds as though you like him now.”

  “I never disliked him but, yes, this gives him a notch up on my likable scale.”

  “I do not understand that.”

  Her mother laughed as she tucked the hair behind Felicity’s ear. “I like him.”

  “What about my father?”

  “He’s coming around. We need to get some food into your belly and then you’ll feel better.”

  “Can I have cake?”

  Her mother laughed. “Maybe something a little less…filling. We’ll stick with toast and tea. But first you need to get dressed.” She slid from the bed.

  “Mother?”

  “Yes?”

  “I liked your friends.”

  Her mother’s eyes filled with a warmth that sank right into Felicity’s own soul. As Trinity handed Felicity her nightgown, she nodded. “They are pretty great.”

  “But I wish not to drink with them again.”

  Laughing, her mother kissed the top of her head, making Felicity feel that warmth slide deep into her belly. “I told you to go slow.”

  ***

  Sitting in a circle of his own blood, Chaos called out to the Dark Mystics. He knew what he was about to do would cost him dearly, but it didn’t matter, he’d given everything he held dear already. What did it matter if he would be trapped in the bowels of hell, writhing in pain after his death? At least he’d lived as he’d pleased and done as he’d wanted.

  The Dark Mystics could have his soul for all he cared.

  He felt the chill as it permeated him and he knew they had arrived. Opening his eyes, he looked up into the cold, black eyes of evil. “At your service, my ladies.” He bowed in reverence.

  “For what purpose do you call to us at this time?”

  One dark figure floated in front of him while the
other two surrounded him. He could feel their icy breath as it bore down on his head and neck. “I wish a favor.”

  “Once more a favor? You have given your soul already. What more do you have to give?”

  “My servitude. And…the souls of all those who serve under me.” He would see to it that they gave to their master even if he had to torture them into agreeing.

  “Such a present is a worthy offering. What is this favor you seek?”

  “Help me bring down Trinity and Basil.” He knew it was a lot to ask, still… “I have tried for nearly a year now to rule our kind, to bring more into the fold, but at each turn, they foil my plans. If they were out of the way, I could rule so much easier.”

  “And personal feelings play no part in this plan of yours?”

  He looked down, then back up into her dark empty eyes. “Did they not keep Avadur from you? Did Trinity not send him back to his wife instead of surrendering him to you? Trinity Ford sent him to the very woman you despise, to the woman who made you what you are when, in all rights, Avadur belongs in your hands and not in Rajana’s.” He felt the chill slice into him as the Mystic’s eyes darkened. He knew he’d hit a button. “I only wish to give both Trinity and Basil to you so that you may deal out the proper punishment they deserve”

  “You truly are your master’s protégé. Avadur would be proud of you. All right. We will grant you your wish.”

  “Excellent.”

  “There was a child born to the two. A child Rajana stole. We wish her soul as well.”

  “Sounds personal.” He cleared his throat when she bore down on him, breathing her frigid breath into his face. “I know not of a child.”

  “Do you not trust what I say to be true?”

  Chaos shivered as the cold sank right to his bones. “I do believe you. Tell me where this child is now.”

  “She has come through the Realm to find her parents but she is no longer a child. She is now a woman. You will find her with one of your young men, the one who got away. Bring her to me and I will give you the two.”