Warmth washed over my skin. It felt every bit as sensually blissful as his husky chuckle rolling down my spine.
I was intensely aware of how darkly beautiful this man was. Of how his scent, slightly spicy, all male, stroked my pulse. Of how everything about Roman La Mar whispered reminders of how long my self-imposed celibacy had dragged on. I’d noticed last night, and I was definitely noticing right now.
I’d give my left arm to have him not be here, for him not to have walked down my end of a deserted lane last night and smack bang into the thick of my life, but my right arm wanted to wrap around him and cling, to hold him tight for just a little while. I know, I had some serious hormone issues going on, but I wasn’t a lost cause.
“Have dinner with me tonight,” he said.
I swallowed a sigh of pure longing. “This really isn’t a good time.”
“Tomorrow?”
“That’s not going to work either, I’m afraid.” I fell back a step, out of his space, out of temptation. I wasn’t even sure what was happening here, but it didn’t matter.
There’d never be a good time. We would never work, and not just because there was a distinct possibility he might still get me locked on the wrong side of a slab iron door of some or other secret government laboratory.
“Name the day, then,” he pressed, jade stone stealing some of the softness from his gaze. “I’m flexible.”
“I’m sorry.” My lips twisted into a regretful moue. “I’m not available.”
“I don’t want to claim ownership, Raine,” he murmured. “It’s just dinner.”
Really? My brow shot up. I wasn’t an idiot and I hadn’t made any wildly inappropriate assumptions. When a guy asks a girl he barely knows out to dinner, it’s never just dinner.
He inclined his head, his eyes boring into me as he contemplated my raised brow.
“On an unremarkable evening, a beautiful woman saved my life in an extraordinary sequence of events.” He spoke slowly, softly, the intensity of his gaze never lessening. “One does not simply walk away from that, Raine, not without something to mark the occasion. So, if not just dinner, then let’s call it closure.”
It took me a moment to recalibrate, a long moment, but then I smiled, nodding. This, I could deal with. This, I didn’t have to regret into the long, empty nights to come. This, I’d expected all along.
“Monday?” I suggested sweetly to the dark undertone of thinly veiled threats and not so subtle blackmail. “I think I could do Monday.”
He inclined his head, regarding me with a thoughtful expression, although I doubted he was thinking about what had changed my mind. He knew damn well.
“Monday, then,” he said at last, tagging on the details that ended with, “I look forward to it, Raine,” in a voice that left me in no doubt that he truly meant it.
ROMAN LA MAR DIDN’T WANT a date. His visit had nothing to do with gratitude. He didn’t feel indebted. What he wanted was to get me alone, without distractions, and grill me hard. I should probably have been mortified, pissed, but all I had was a vague sense of relief. Oh, and two days to refine my story into a version that would satisfy the man. He was a dog with a bone, but his bone was rubber and I’d stretch it until even he eventually gave up and buried the whole damn thing.
I watched as he reversed out of the driveway. The silver Mercedes rode low on the road, a broad and sturdy sports model that purred understated elegance. I tried to not draw the comparison between car and owner, but there it was, saturating my mind as I waited until Roman was out of sight before closing the front door.
Lost in thought, my feet dragged across the hallway and down the short passage.
There was no point lying to myself. Roman tugged strings that had been left slack for years, jerking parts of me awake like a puppet master.
I hadn’t intentionally sworn off all men, but Angeon men were hard to come by, especially pure ones. I got it, I really did. Three years ago, I’d been on that same track, dating my very normal, entirely human, high school sweetheart, anxious about him leaving for St. Andrews while I prepared to start at London College.
My parents had done their utmost to instil me with their Angeon reverence, the importance of propagating the few remaining pure lines, but even they had started to realise they couldn’t fight the math. According to The Third Council, there were exactly thirty-seven pure Angeon males of suitable age, spread around the globe—my parents had kept informed of things like that. According to me, there were exactly two I’d actually met and knew, and as much as I liked the Bodine twins, that wasn’t happening.
If I could go back in time, for just one minute, I’d wrap my arms around my mom and beg forgiveness for all those years of defiance.
She’d tried to tell me, warn me, but when did teenagers ever listen?
Pure Angeon blood meant pure Angeon power, strength, survival.
Pure Angeon blood meant I could strike back at the bastards who’d slaughtered my family, that I could at least make a stab at balancing good and evil in this world, that I was one of the few people left on this planet who could protect and defend against Demoran might.
Pure Angeon blood that I was now determined to pass down to my children one day, because who knew when they, too, might need to draw on it?
Kial’s voice reached me as I passed the kitchen. He was in there, phone pressed to his ear, pacing a circle around the table as he argued with whoever was on the other end.
I walked on without interrupting. My house was open-plan, the dining and living areas separated by the back of a three seater, tanned hide sofa.
“Beth?” I called, not seeing her at first, and then I did, sprawled half-on and half-off the three seater, spilling onto the floor. Literally. Her life blood drained from one arm dangling limply, congealing into a ruby pool on the hardwood floor. “Kial!”
I rushed around the end of the sofa, stripping my T-shirt over my head, falling onto my knees in the puddle of blood.
Her eyes were closed, her face pale, too pale, too serene. The peaceful sleep of the dead.
The muscle of my heart tore, straining, aching, labouring through each breath.
“Beth,” I croaked as I bound my T-shirt around her lower arm with frantic jerks, binding what was left of her blood to her body. “Beth!”
“That was the window—” Kial’s voice cut off on a sharp hiss.
No comment about my bared shoulders and lacy bra straps. Only the sound of Kial hurrying toward me, the charge of urgency that thickened the air. One of the quirks about my household; when you saw a half-naked girl kneeling on the living room floor, you didn’t immediately assume a game of strip poker was in session. Your immediate assumption was danger, each and every time.
I didn’t look up, but I felt Kial reach my side. My fingers went to the crease at the apex of Beth’s jaw, feeling for a pulse. Weak, barely there, I wasn’t even sure if it was Beth’s pulse or my fear trembling to my fingertips. My T-shirt was already soaked bright red and Beth was too still, not a single flutter beneath her eyelids.
Kial leaned over me and took Beth’s arm, bending it back up on itself at the elbow.
Of course, make the flow of blood work against gravity. Usually I was good in a crisis, in life and death situations, but this was Beth, the closest person to family I had left. Losing her wasn’t your standard crisis, it was the end of my world, my personal apocalypse.
If the rate of life leaving her body had decreased, I couldn’t tell. The makeshift bandage was soaked, dripping excess blood onto my folded thighs.
“No…” I pushed to my feet, tears choking my thoughts. “This isn’t— How is it—?” I swallowed hard, pressing a fist to my mouth as my eyes found Kial. “Is it the poison? Can it do this? Gash her open again from the inside out?”
He shook his head, his gaze rooted on Beth, his face grim.
“No?” I demanded. “Or no, you don’t know?”
He gave a small, dry cough. “It’s not the poison, Raine.”
His eyes came to me, ice blue shaded with grief.
“Don’t…” The parts of me that had fled in panic rushed back. Focus. Gut instinct. Capability. Blind stubbornness. “Don’t you dare give up on Beth.”
I fled across the room without sparing Kial and his grieving eyes another glance, sliding into the hallway, twisting my ankle as I turned into the staircase and leapt the first two steps at the same time.
Not the poison spreading, attacking from within. Then what…?
At the top of the stairs, I sprinted down the passage, pushing through the last few stabs of pain shooting from my ankle up into my calf. By the time I’d flung open my bedroom door, the pain was a distant memory, faded by anxiety and healed by my Angeon blood.
The solid iron chest bolted to the floor of my wardrobe, three-by-two feet and about knee-high, took up most of the ground space and I had to swipe away the pairs of shoes piled on top. My grandmother would turn in her grave if she knew her chest currently served as my shoe case. Then again, maybe not. Granny Allora had had a wacky sense of humour.
My heart pounded as I worked the combination. All I needed was for Beth to hold on a little longer. All I needed was for her to hold on by a thread.
I’d regained full functionality of my head, but my fingers trembled with a mind of their own. Too many tries later, the lock snapped open. I heaved the lid up (super strength was not a special on the Angeon menu) and dug inside with both hands. My fingers closed on the vial and I tumbled out the wardrobe and onto my feet, racing back down to the living room.
Kial was sitting on the sofa. He’d gathered Beth into his arms, cradling her against his chest.
“Did she wake?”
His eyes lifted to me. “We’re losing…” the slightest hitch, nearly indiscernible. “…her.”
Losing her. Which meant she wasn’t lost yet. Hope flashed inside me.
I sunk down beside them. “Hold out her arm.”
“Raine, what—”
“Just do it,” I snapped as I wedged my nail beneath the snug cap of the vial.
Kial gently unfolded Beth’s arm, but he was looking at the silver vial in my hand. “What is that?”
“Stygor blood.” I flicked the cap open, ignoring Kial’s probing questions as I unwrapped the sodden bandage and flipped Beth’s arm over.
What in hades is Stygor blood?
Where did you get it?
Raine, what are you doing?
I tipped the vial over the soft inner flesh of Beth’s lower arm, letting my actions answer at least one of his questions.
Once I’d emptied every last drop of precious Stygor blood from the vial, I rocked back onto my butt, suddenly drained.
This was it, my last trick.
All I could do now was wait.
If the Stygor blood didn’t work… I bit the inside of my cheek. I couldn’t, I wouldn’t think that way. I’d promised Beth. This Demor would not get her. I would not allow it.
And then, like a metal spike twisting inside my gut with sharp, painful awareness, I knew.
“It came back, didn’t it?” I looked at Kial. “The Demor panther attacked Beth right here, in my living room, while I was at the door—” making dinner plans “—while you were in the kitchen—” arguing with a man in a van.
“I think so,” he said quietly.
“But what about the shields?” Protection runes weaved around my property. They wouldn’t keep out a physical form, like an actual Demor or their fire, but the ancient runes blocked transient matter and Demors couldn’t fade across them.
“In panther form, Demors are ten times more powerful,” he reminded me in a weary voice. “Maybe you need stronger runes. Different runes. I don’t know, Raine, I don’t know everything.”
A groan escaped Beth’s lips, expelling all thought of Demors and runes. I lurched forward, staring hard into her face. “Beth, can you hear me?”
Kial shifted so that she was cradled deeper to his left, so that he could tip her chin to him. “Beth?”
Another groan, and then her eyelids fluttered. Just a flutter, not enough to open. I pressed two fingers beneath her jaw again, and this time the steady, insistent throb of her pulse was undeniable.
“She’s coming around,” I breathed out. “She’s going to be okay.”
I settled back on my haunches to examine her arm. There was so much congealed blood, I couldn’t see skin.
Kial’s gaze tracked mine. If his scowl was any indication, he was somewhat less convinced of Beth’s recovery.
Leaving him to his doubts, I fetched a bowl of warm water and a towel from the kitchen. When I returned, Kial was on his feet, making Beth comfortable with her head propped against the padded sofa arm.
“You’re right, her breathing is strong,” he said to me. “The longer she sleeps, the better. Her body’s healing.”
I gave him a terse smile, then set about cleaning Beth’s arm, starting with the dried blood furthest up. Slowly, carefully, I worked my way down to her wrist with circular motions, revealing flawless, unmarred skin all the way. The thin scratch scars from this morning? Gone.
“What have you done?” Kial’s deathly flat tone chilled my spine.
I glanced over my shoulder to find him towering over me from behind, his expression black, his gaze narrowed on Beth’s wrist.
“I saved her,” I said defensively and turned my attention to the floor, scrubbing furiously. I could feel Kial’s eyes on me, judging me, and I didn’t care. I’d have done far worse to save Beth and I liked to think so would Kial, that there was no line drawn when any of our lives were at stake.
When my arm began to ache, I stopped scrubbing. The dark stain on the hardwood floor wasn’t going anywhere, not with plain water. I threw the towel into the bowl and sat back, finally ready to face Kial and his accusing stare.
He’d waited patiently while I’d scrubbed my soul along with the floor, but that wasn’t all he’d been doing.
“What is this, Raine?” He opened his fist to reveal the tiny silver vial he must have found wherever I’d carelessly discarded it. “What is Stygor blood?”
A vein ticked at his temple. His jaw clenched so hard, I could practically hear his back teeth cracking down. He flung the vial across the room, his eyes pinning me. I’d never seen him this furious before.
“Beth lost too much blood. Her body wasn’t healing. She was dying.” I straightened, glaring at him, challenging him to contradict me. “Beth was dying.”
“Where would you get blood more powerful than Angeon?” His voice was gravel, scraping my nerves like asphalt burn. “What have you done?”
Had he heard a word I’d said? “I saved Beth’s life.”
“At what cost?”
My mouth dropped open. “Would you prefer I’d done nothing, left her to die? Is that what you want? Beth dead?”
The look he gave me could have frozen the bowels of Hades.
I backed down, feeling instantly bad. We were both shaken up, and I’d just thrown another unexpected horror into his day.
“A Stygor is a species of bat,” I told him. “And from the way you’re going off at me, I’d say you’ve got a pretty good idea of where it comes from.”
“You crossed into the underworld.” He rubbed his jaw, then pushed that hand through his hair. “Charon? Did he ferry you there and back across the River Acheron? What deal did you make, Raine?”
“Charon didn’t ferry me anywhere.” I hurled myself into the armchair and pulled my legs up, hugging my knees. I was raw, inside and out. We’d almost lost Beth. Demors were shape-shifting and my best friend seemed to be enemy number one. A panther had faded across my shield, fracturing the illusion that my home was a safe haven. “I don’t need your self-righteous act, Kial. I broke the rules and I don’t give a damn.”
“Self-righteous act?” He came to stand right in front of me, bringing that icy stare with him. “Rules? You think that’s what this is about? You don’t cross over without repe
rcussions, Raine. What was the deal?”
“No one crossed the River Acheron,” I said irritably. He wasn’t angry I’d used contraband on Beth. That was a plus. But his caveman attitude was a whopping minus. If I ever did feel the urge to cross the Acheron, I certainly wouldn’t be asking Kial, or anyone, for permission. “Stygors make their habitat in the Pertyx caves.”
Kial growled at the mention of the opening to the river that tumbled through a series of underground rapids and waterfalls into the subterranean rivers of the underworld.
“I didn’t enter the caves.” I sighed noisily. “My grandmother did.”
“Allora?”
“You knew her?”
“Who hasn’t heard of her?” The tension at his jaw loosened. The crease between his brows smoothed. That lasted about a second, and then his face darkened to thunder. “You stole Allora’s chest.”
“I reclaimed what belonged to my family,” I said hotly. “The Third Council stole it first.”
“They confiscated it, and with good reason. That chest is filled with underground contraband.”
“Yeah, well, they were too dip-shit scared to take it from Granny Allora while she was still alive.”
“This is the Third Council we’re talking about, Raine. You don’t steal from them!”
“What was I supposed to do? When my parents were…” I swallowed, blinking hard. “All that remained of my mom and dad were body parts,” I said hoarsely. “They weren’t coming back from that, Kial, not without help.”
Kial shook his head. The thunder on his face sunk into his cheeks, adding a decade to his twenty-something years. “You thought Allora had something in there that could bring them back from the dead.”
“No, of course not… I don’t know.” I hugged my knees tighter. “I wasn’t thinking. What does it matter?”
It hadn’t mattered then, and it didn’t matter now. By the time I’d retrieved the chest, my parents were in body bags. By the time I’d found Allora’s enchantment to preserve their flesh and bind their souls to their bodies, my parents were six feet under. I’d never stood a chance, but at least I’d tried.
Where Dark Collides: Part 1 (Shades of Dark) Page 5
