A Matter of Circumstance and Celludrones (Dark Matters)

by Claire Robyns

  His father’s raspy voice coiled and recoiled inside his head. “Ye canna be here. Ye canna be real.” The day after he’d returned to Forleough. The day after the Cragloden explosion that he wasn’t supposed to have survived. “Yer nigh impossible ta kill.”

  His father had known about Duncan McAllister’s project. He’d had been a regular visitor at Cragloden; he would have known how to gain access undetected. Hell, maybe Duncan had even invited him inside. The only reason his father had harboured a demon in his home all those years was to reap the final reward. He’d known of the summons that would come when Greyston turned fifteen, the summons that would conveniently gather all the McAllister laboratory rats from around the world and hand him the opportunity to rid the earth of the demonic vermin in one swoop.

  “Yer nigh impossible ta kill. I shouldha known. From vermin ta vermin and ye’ll take us all with ye.”

  “The Almighty Lord ken I did my all ta rid the earth of ye and ye kind.”

  His father had killed Lily’s mother, had intended to kill Lily along with his demon-infected son. That was something Greyston would never ask Lily to live with.

  Kelan stood and set his untouched glass on the pedestal table beside his chair. “I have something for you. I’ll be right back.”

  Lily’s fingers, warm, soft and delicate, trembling slightly, stroked the curve beneath his jaw.

  Greyston closed his eyes. Breathed deep. “Don’t do that.”

  Her fingers stilled, then scraped through his hair.

  Greyston lurched forward. An extra dose of pain shot up his leg. He gritted his teeth and clamped his jaw on the curse. “Lily, please…don’t do that.”

  “Your shoulders are bunched and a vein is throbbing at your jaw.” She moved off the armrest and came around to look at him. “I was only trying to relax you.”

  “If you want to take care of me,” he said, shoving his empty glass at her, “refill this.”

  She took the glass. Her brows speared as she looked at him, then she shook her head and turned to cross to the drinks counter. When she came back, the glass filled to the top, she didn’t hand it over. Instead she dropped into the chair Kelan had vacated, put the glass to her lips and took a deep sip. Her eyes bulged and she spluttered most of the whiskey right back out.

  She rubbed a hand across her mouth, lifted the glass again and gulped down a quarter of the liquid.

  “Slowly,” he said, “You’ll make yourself sick.”

  “I’ve got demon blood inside me as well.” She drew her hand across her mouth again. “Whatever you are, I’m that too. We’re exactly the same, Greyston, and I’m not a demon.”

  She was so beautiful it hurt to look at her. To look at her and know she’d never be his. “You took whatever you were born into and spun it into light. Inside me, it turned into a curse. No wonder my mother never thought me good enough to keep.”

  His mother had given him up to the dark before she’d even met him. Sacrificed him to her worthy cause. Not Aragon. Not her next babe. Not someone else’s child. He was the runt she’d so easily cast aside to evil.

  “What makes you think I’m any different?” Lily took another slug of whiskey. This time, she kept more down than she spluttered out. “My mother gave me away when I was still in her womb. She thought I wasn’t good enough to keep, either.”

  The library door opened. Kelan stopped just inside the room, his gaze sliding from Lily to Greyston. “Your mother left this in my uncle’s keeping.” He came forward, delivering a letter sheathed inside an embossed envelope into Greyston’s hands. “As far as I can tell, it was always meant for you.”

  The seal was broken. One word was written on the outside. Neco. Greyston stared at the curly handwriting, waiting to feel something. Someone had intruded on his privacy. His mother hadn’t even bothered to name him before selling his soul.

  He couldn’t find it within him to give a damn. He crumpled the letter in his closed fist as his gaze went to Lily. His heart said goodbye.

  She was wrong. The difference between them was as vast as the skies above.

  The difference was that he knew his mother had been right.

  Chapter Twenty

  Lily sifted her fingers through the fine grains and pushed her bare toes deep into the damp sand, her face turned up to the afternoon sun. At the edge of the world, heavy grey clouds banked the blue horizon.

  A storm was coming, or so Kelan had said.

  The tide was out and waves lapped gently onto the bay at the mouth of the Firth of Tay. To her left, just beyond the limestone outcropping, she heard the same ocean crashing violently against the cliff.

  Perhaps Greyston was right.

  Perhaps two things could be exactly the same, and yet vastly different.

  A deep vibration strummed the Aether, rippling the waves a little more urgently onto the shore. The shadow from above passed over, deepening the colour of the water.

  “He’ll be back.”

  She tilted her head to gaze up at the flat underbelly of the Red Hawk. The ship drifted a moment longer, then burst into a graceful arc that cut through the sky in a flash of black and red.

  Greyston had ordered Neco to help him to his ship at once. He hadn’t even waited long enough to take a sip of the poppy opiate Ian had tried to force on him.

  She knew she should be furious. He’d kissed her senseless, he’d given her a place in his arms to belong, and then he’d left.

  She should feel hurt, betrayed and devastated.

  That might still come, she supposed, perhaps after the hurt, betrayal and devastation of what her mother had done had faded. She had so few answers. Her mother had regretted giving her soul away, had died trying to set her wrongs right. But there was one lie that hurt more than all the rest. Lord d'Bulier was not her father. Of that, Lily was finally one hundred percent certain. She felt it to her bones.

  She felt it with the same gut wrenching certainty that she knew Greyston wasn’t coming back.

  For now, Lily understood why he’d fled with barely a goodbye. He needed to retain absolute control until he was away from the McAllister influence and aboard the Red Hawk.

  Greyston was running again, but this time he was running from himself. There’d be no place far enough. The time to stop would never come. He wasn’t running because he was scared. He was running because he believed his tainted blood made him worthless.

  “You will never understand what it feels like to have demon inside you.” She brought her gaze from the skies to Kelan. He stood a few feet from her, his eyes tracking the ship’s path. “He won’t be back.”

  She was staying because she was too scared not to.

  She was terrified of a world overrun with demons, of losing everyone she loved, of living with demons skulking in the shadows.

  She would stay and turn her tainted blood into something worthwhile.

  Kelan glanced over his shoulder and met her gaze. The silence stretched. He was dressed in black from head to booted foot. His cloak swirled just below the knee. The breeze coming in from the ocean tossed thick strands of black hair across his stony jaw. From where she sat, even his eyes appeared more black than blue.

  “Come here,” he said. Without looking to see if she followed, he walked across the wet sand and didn’t stop until the waves lapped his boots.

  Lily pushed up, gathering her skirts in one hand, and went to him. The Red Hawk was nothing more than a dark speck against the blue horizon. The trail of steam dissipated too quickly in the heat and breeze, taking the last of Greyston from her.

  When she reached his side, Kelan walked deeper into the water, mindless of his boots and trousers.

  She followed, the sea icy between her toes, dragging at her skirts, cresting against her hands. The waves jostled her back and forth, drenching any residual fear with precious, soul-restoring salt water.

  Kelan turned to face her. “You’re not a demon, Lily.”

  “I know,” she said softly.

  For
a few minutes after she’d learnt the truth, she’d very nearly thought she was. Her blood had curdled, separating the demon essence from the rest of her, a foreign evil snaking through her veins and threatening to choke her.

  But then she’d looked into Greyston’s eyes, filled with pain, horror and self-loathing, and she’d seen no elementary trace of demon in him. This demon blood infused into them didn’t make them demons.

  “He’ll be back.”

  “You don’t know Greyston.” She shook her head slowly, her gaze shooting past Kelan to the endless expanse of ocean. “You can dunk him in a hundred oceans, and he’ll still believe he is a demon.”

  From the Author

  A very big thank you to everyone who helped out with this book. My beta readers and critique group, Judy for your absolute support again and again without grumbles, “Eagle Eyes” Leonie for your huge effort in helping polish this, Janet for your ever-helpful comments. And, always, to my family who make it possible for me to write and support me no matter what.

  I loved writing the heroine in this first book of my Dark Matter series. As much as I love kick-butt heroines, this series gives me the opportunity to explore a heroine who doesn’t start off that way. Seriously? If I came face-to-face with a demon, I’d jump behind the biggest male available. And then I’d probably faint. But Lily does have a formidable inner strength and by the end of this book, she’s well on her way to kick-butt fabulousness.

  Above all, I am a romance writer. My stories all have to have their happy ending, and Lily will get hers too by the end of this four book series.

  If you enjoyed this book, please look out for Book 2 in the series (coming soon) A Matter of Propriety and Parasites.

  I love to interact with readers and if you’d like to connect with me, you can do so on:

  Twitter: @ClaireRobyns

  Website: www.clairerobyns.com

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