Rush of Darkness

by Rhyannon Byrd

To her horror, tears filled her eyes, the back of her throat burning as she sniffed.

  “Wait a minute. Now you cry?” His brows drew together and he shook his head. “What the hell did I say that was so bad?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” she whispered, wondering if she’d ever felt like such an idiot.

  “Jesus, Raine. C’mon.” His voice was raw. “You’ve gotta give me something.”

  She sobbed harder, unable to control the tears, her mouth trembling as she covered it with her hand. Choking back a sharp curse, he pushed away from the armoire and started toward her, the rustic floorboards creaking beneath his feet, while the hazy beams of watery sunlight sneaking through the weathered shutters painted his body in iridescent stripes of gold. He looked so big and solid and strong, she just wanted to crawl inside him and hide away from the world. Just wanted to lose herself in pleasure and sex, slaking her body’s hunger for him again…and again, but now she knew that she couldn’t. Not when he thought she was something she wasn’t.

  “Don’t,” she choked out, when he tried to reach for her. “I don’t trust myself with you.”

  “Bullshit. You trusted me to find you, Raine. To get you back.”

  She lifted her head, staring up at him through a salty veil of tears. “That’s different.”

  “And that’s just more bullshit. Trust is trust.”

  “Seth, I…” She broke off, too afraid to say that she was falling for him. That she couldn’t stop thinking about him. Couldn’t stop wanting him. The entire time she’d been traveling to Italy with Ashe, all she’d been able to think about was what had happened between her and Seth in that damn hotel room in Berlin, the erotic memories playing constant havoc on her body and emotions.

  Swallowing down the lump of regret in her throat, she forced herself to say, “There are things you don’t know about me. Things that would make a difference between us. And that’s why I…I don’t think we should do this.”

  “Damn it, Raine. I’m not going to put a move on you.” His chest rose and fell with his jagged breaths. “I just want to hold you. I want to find a way to help make things right.”

  “There’s nothing you can do.”

  His heavy-lidded gaze burned with determination. “You’re wrong. I’ll hold you and I’ll make it better. There may be a lot of things I can’t do, but I can do this.” The dark intensity of his voice made her shiver, a wave of heat crawling up her chest, burning beneath her skin. “I can be there for you, if you’ll just let me.”

  “Why are you doing this? It doesn’t…it doesn’t make any sense.”

  He lifted his hand as if he was going to curl it around the back of her neck, then paused, his sharp gaze falling to her hair. He studied her face, reading the tension there, and slowly lowered his hand, fisting it at his side. “When I first found you at Westmore’s compound, I knew you were going to be important to me.” The husky words were rough and low. “I couldn’t explain it, and I didn’t know how, but I knew it was true. And now? Now, I’m just trying to figure it out. But you keep pushing me away.”

  Her frustration flared. “I only push you away because I don’t know what else to do.”

  “And you think I do?” A bitter snort. Then a hard roll of his shoulders. “This…whatever the hell is going on between us…this kind of shit is not normal for me, Raine.”

  Softly, she said, “I know that.”

  “Then help me deal with it,” he pleaded, a deep notch etched between his brows.

  Her heart turned over in her chest, and if it weren’t for her guilt, she would have thrown herself at his feet and begged him for a chance at…anything. Whatever she could get. But she couldn’t change who she was or the things she’d done. Couldn’t let go of her fear…or her shame. “We’re too different, Seth.”

  “Who gives a fuck? Yeah, we have shit to work through, but what couple doesn’t?” The green of his eyes burned with the savage force of his frustration. “Damn it, Raine, you’re brave enough to give us a chance. I know you are.”

  She wet her trembling lips. “That’s just it. I’m not brave at all.”

  “Like hell you aren’t. I don’t know anyone else, man or woman, who could have gone through what you went through without letting those bastards break them.”

  “God, don’t say that.” She couldn’t hold back a fresh surge of tears. “You have no idea how wrong you are.”

  “I’m not wrong. It’s the truth.”

  “No, it’s not the truth. The truth is that I cheated!” she shouted, completely losing it as she cried harder. He seemed stricken by the tears pouring down her cheeks, a guttural curse on his lips as he finally grabbed hold of her, pulling her against his chest and wrapping those powerful arms around her in a strong, possessive embrace.

  “I know you don’t want to be held, but I need to hold you,” he growled, his heartbeat pounding beneath her ear as she relented and tucked her head under his chin, pulling in a dizzying breath of his scent. “So while I’m doing it, why don’t you explain what you mean by cheating?”

  She shook her head, trembling, her hands fisted on his hips. “It’s too embarrassing.”

  “Raine, what happened to you,” he rasped, pressing a tender kiss against the part in her hair, “it’s not something to be embarrassed about.”

  “I know that. I mean—it’s not like I could have stopped them. But I…”

  “Go on,” he coaxed, holding her tighter.

  “I’m ashamed of how I handled it,” she confessed, her voice cracking at the end.

  “What do you mean, honey?”

  She blew out a shuddering breath and let her tears soak into the warm cotton of his shirt, then quietly said, “I used my Alacea powers to go into an Aldori trance. Basically, it means that I…I went away. I separated my mind from my body. I don’t really remember the rapes. Just bits and pieces, like when they would pull my hair.”

  “And this trance is what you’re ashamed of?” he asked in a deep, husky rumble.

  “Yes.” She ground her teeth so hard that it hurt. “It’s awful, isn’t it? I mean, what kind of coward would just hide like that?”

  “Raine, you did the right thing.”

  She stiffened with shock, pulling back from his chest so that she could see his face, though he kept his arms looped around her. “How can you say that?”

  “Because it saved you.”

  “But at what price? It was so…cowardly. So weak.”

  A muscle pulsed in his jaw, his voice a ragged slash of sound. “Christ, Raine. What you did isn’t something to be ashamed of. It made you a survivor.”

  “You have no idea how the Deschanel would look at this,” she whispered. “They consider running or hiding the ultimate sign of weakness, and would rather die than turn away from a confrontation.”

  He made a thick sound of disgust. “I don’t give a shit how the vampires look at it. I’m only thankful that you were smart enough to save yourself.”

  “Yeah, I saved myself,” she croaked. “But I got my sister killed.”

  His gaze softened with compassion. “Rietta’s death is not your fault, Raine.”

  “You’re wrong,” she argued, dropping her forehead against his chest. “When I went deeper into a trance, I couldn’t make the best decisions. One time I…I lied to them about the location of a cross, which was stupid, since it was obvious they’d realize I lied when they didn’t find a Marker and no Watchmen showed up searching for it. When that’s exactly what happened, they killed Rietta to teach me a lesson.” Her voice was strangely hollow, the eerie sound so hoarse she was surprised he could even hear her. But she knew he was listening, his muscles twitching in reaction to her words. “So I tried to stop going into the trances after that, but as soon as they’d pull my hair, it was like my mind had trained itself to go under. And when I came to, I’d be lying on the floor, bleeding, unable to remember what had happened.”

  “Oh, angel,” he murmured, as he crushed her against him, lowe
ring his head over hers in a sheltering embrace. “I know it had to hurt like hell when you found out what had happened, but you found a way to survive, Raine. That’s what matters. They would have killed Rietta, anyway, because they had no reason to keep her. And your brother, as well, if you hadn’t been able to use your sight on Gregory to save him.”

  Fisting her hands in the front of his shirt, she said, “It didn’t just hurt, Seth. It’s like the guilt is eating me alive. I hid from their torture, and cost Rietta her life. And what makes it even worse is that she didn’t even have that choice. She was too young to put herself into a trance of that depth, which meant that she couldn’t hide like I did. Everything she suffered was because of me. There’s no way you can understand how that makes me feel.”

  His laugh was sudden and harsh. “I understand better than you think.”

  She lifted her face so that she could see his eyes. “What do you mean?”

  His mouth twitched with a humorless smile as he released his hold on her and took a step back, shoving his hands in his pockets. “There are things you don’t know about the night my family was attacked.”

  “I looked into Spark’s mind at the safe house and I saw what she’d read in your file,” she admitted in a soft voice, blinking to clear the tears from her eyes. “They tortured you, didn’t they?”

  “Yeah.” He coughed to clear his throat, his gaze shifting to the side as he muttered, “But what I never told anyone is that I was the reason they’d come after us in the first place. The rogues had seen me in the woods near our house, fighting another kid from my school who’d been picking on my best friend. The guy was older than me, and bigger, too, but I kept at the fight until I finally knocked him out, and the vamps thought it’d be fun to feed from a human who didn’t know when to stop. And just like they expected, I fought them as hard as I could when they attacked us. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing, but I managed to hurt a few of them before they strung me up to a tree in our backyard. And still, I kept on fighting.”

  A violent clap of thunder rattled the shutters as he paused to exhale a rough breath. His corded throat worked as he swallowed, and then he went on, his voice graveled and raw as he said, “So they made it a game. There was a female in the group, and she wanted me to fuck her, while the men…did things to me. She said if I didn’t, they would kill my little sister—who was the only one left alive at that point—as slow and as painfully as they could.” His eyelids flickered at the memory, and Raine pulled in a deep breath, trying to brace herself for what she knew was coming. “I remember when they dragged her out into the yard,” he rasped, his voice tight with pain. “She was so scared, and I…I wanted so badly to stop myself and just give in. To do anything they wanted and save her. But I…couldn’t. I just kept fighting, so furious I couldn’t control myself. And then I had to watch them kill her.”

  “Seth,” she whispered, her voice thick with tears. “I’m so sorry.”

  He made a hoarse, bitter sound and dropped his head back on his shoulders. “And when they’d finished killing her, they went ahead and had their way with me. By the time the Collective showed up, I was barely alive. It turned out that they’d been hunting the rogues, but got there too late for my family and me. I spent days unconscious, and when I finally woke up in one of the Collective’s hospitals, the first thought that went through my mind was that if I hadn’t fought, my sister might have been spared.”

  Raine couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen this in his memories, but then, it was probably buried so deep, she would have had to go looking for it. “You know that’s not true, Seth. Rogues aren’t predictable. They’re driven purely by instinct—by hunger.”

  “But I’ll never know for sure, will I?” he asked, lowering his shadowed gaze back to hers.

  God, she’d been such a bitch to him from the very beginning, always throwing her issues in his face, when he’d lived with his own nightmares and tragedies. Shame seared through her veins, making her ill. She couldn’t stand to see him in pain. Couldn’t stand to have him compare his actions to her own, when he had nothing to feel guilty for. “Seth, what you did…you didn’t have a choice. You couldn’t control what was a natural reaction. You fought because you wanted to make the ones who had hurt your family pay for their crimes. But I did have a choice. I chose to avoid what happened to me, and ended up causing pain to someone I loved.”

  “You don’t think I’d have done the same thing and gone into a trance if I’d had the option?” he asked. “Because believe me, I remember more than I want.”

  She shook her head vehemently. “I think you would have fought till the end.”

  “Raine, fighting isn’t always the answer. My sister fought, and all it got her was more pain. If she could have done what you did, I’d have begged her to do it. So just trust me when I tell you that you did the right thing.”

  “How can you be so sure?” she whispered, undone by the way he was staring down at her, as if she was the most amazing thing he’d ever seen.

  “Because if you hadn’t,” he said huskily, his face tightening with emotion, “I might have lost you before I even found you.”

  “God, Seth. You have to stop saying things like that.”

  His nostrils flared as he drew in a sharp breath. “Why? I think it’s exactly what you need to hear.”

  Wrapping her arms around her middle, she said, “But I can’t handle it. Not now, when there’s so much going on. I’m on overload.”

  “I know things have been hell for you, but you don’t have to go through this alone, Raine. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you all along. If you just need someone to hold you, to be your friend, I can be that person.” His voice dropped, and there was a dangerous glint in his gaze as he added, “But I’m not going to lie and pretend that I’m not dying to fuck you—because I am.”

  A breathless burst of laughter caught her off guard, and she used the back of her wrist to wipe her nose. “Well, that’s blunt.”

  “Just trying to be honest.” His tone was light, but his green eyes burned with a hard, molten glow.

  “I could still freak out on you, Seth. I could even try to hurt you again.”

  “And I’m a big boy, Raine. I can take care of myself.”

  She stared back at him through a teary haze…so tempted she could feel the violent, potent force of desire pulsing in every cell of her body. It throbbed in her earlobes and on the backs of her knees. In the sensitive creases of her elbows and in her nipples…and deeper within, where she felt heavy and warm and achingly empty.

  “And more importantly,” he added, “I would never hurt you. Despite what you’ve seen in my memories, I can be gentle.” A playful, sexy grin touched his mouth. “Hell, I’d even let you be on top.”

  Her heart thundered as she nervously wet her lips. “Is…is that what you want?”

  “The truth?” he murmured, lifting his hand. He cupped her jaw as she nodded, watching the movement of his thumb as he rubbed the callused pad across her lower lip, pressing it into the center crease. “The truth is that I’d rather take you under me, but I don’t think you’re ready for that. And you might never be ready for it,” he said, lifting his gaze, looking her right in the eye. “But I want you any way I can have you.”

  As Raine stared up at him, she knew she was falling under his spell, bound by desire. By need. It was impossible to stop the avalanche of hunger gaining momentum within her. It was like a wild force of nature tearing through her. Uncontainable. Uncontrollable.

  She couldn’t let him change the course she’d set. Her guilt wouldn’t let her. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy what time with him she had. Hell, why was she even fighting it anymore? She didn’t need to see the future to know that she and this man were going to end up in bed together. It seemed inevitable, like the changing tides and winds and the spinning of the world. An inexorable truth that wouldn’t be denied, no matter how many obstacles stood in their way.

  “I want you, t
oo,” she said in a breathless rush, grabbing his shoulders, wanting it to happen before she could freak out and change her mind. “So just hurry.”

  He gave a harsh growl, the primal sound vibrating through her as he claimed her mouth with a dark, devastating kiss. It was hot and deliciously hungry, cranking her desire up to a feverish, scorching level, her body shuddering with the desperate need to have him against her. Inside her.

  “Christ, the things I want to do to you,” he said, still cupping her jaw with one hand, while the other swept low on her hips, pulling her against him, the thick ridge of his denim-bound erection pressing against her stomach.

  “I want to do things to you, too,” she whispered, nipping his bottom lip. But as she tried to slip her fingers inside the top of his jeans, he quickly snagged her wrist and broke the kiss.

  “Before we go any further,” he ground out, holding her puzzled stare, “there’s something I need to tell you.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “IT’S OKAY,” Raine whispered, stroking the hot color in his cheek with her free hand. “I already know about the scars.”

  She could feel his body tense as he squinted down at her. “You saw it in my mind? What they did to me?”

  “No. But I caught a few glimpses from Spark this afternoon.”

  He closed his eyes, his color draining. “Damn it,” he growled, breaking away from her and heading toward the window. She turned around, watching as he braced both hands high on the window frame, his arms and shoulders corded with strain. “I never should have touched that woman.”

  “Why did you?” Heat rose beneath her skin as she said, “I don’t mean to pry, and I know it’s none of my business, but she doesn’t seem like the type you normally hook up with.”

  His tone was gruff as he explained. “It was two years ago, on the anniversary of my family’s death. I got…hell, I probably drank enough to kill me. Got lucky that it didn’t. But when I finally sobered up, I found myself in a hotel room with her. I couldn’t even tell you what had happened. I don’t remember.”