She slept on, her hair a splash of ink against the white pillowcase. She looked vulnerable, her features soft and relaxed in sleep. Something unfurled inside his chest at the sight. He snapped his thoughts free with a single hard shake of his head.
The tray of food he’d brought her sat on the floor, her dinner eaten.
Satisfied that she wasn’t the reason he’d woken, he moved from her room and surveyed the main living area. It was dark out. Black seeped through the curtains of the wide front window. Silenced throbbed all around him. The kind of silence that made someone feel like they were the only person left on earth.
He walked to the door, his footsteps a dull thud against the wood floor. He unlocked the door and stepped out onto the porch. The cold hung thick and swirling on the opaque air. He squinted, looking deep into the snow-draped horizon. The winds stirred, a distant rush on the night. Nothing moved on the ground or in the trees.
He turned to move back inside, but then stopped, inhaling deeply. And that’s when he caught the loathsome odor, sweetly bitter and acrid.
Silver.
He whirled around just as a bullet whistled toward him. He jerked aside as it plugged the outside wall of the house.
Then they were everywhere.
They streamed from the trees. A small army, maybe twenty. Black camo, night-vision goggles secured to their faces, weapons at the ready. They charged for the house, shouting directions at one another.
He dove back inside and slammed the door shut, seizing the moment it gave him to ready himself. He centered himself in the middle of the room, bracing for the onslaught.
The door crashed open and they swarmed inside, shouting. He faced them. This is how they destroyed his kind, he thought grimly. Using sheer volume to overpower, to beat down and conquer beasts bred to kill.
His muscles bunched tight as the intruders circled him. He waited for the worst. He imagined they would slam him with silver bullets, but they didn’t.
The shot never came, never tore through his flesh.
One hunter stepped ahead of the others and stopped directly in front of Darius. He pulled his night goggles off and smiled humorlessly. “Thought you were rid of me, didn’t you, bastard?”
Darius recognized him at once. “Sam,” he murmured. “Good to see you.”
“You remembered my name? I’m flattered.” Sam lifted his rifle higher, aiming squarely for Darius’s chest.
Before Sam could squeeze off a shot, Darius wrenched the weapon free, snapping it in his grip.
A bullet ripped into his chest. He jerked from the force, hissing in pain. Another rifle was jabbed into his face. “Easy there. Settle down. The bullet inside you isn’t silver, but this one is.”
He growled low in his throat, but said nothing. He was lucky he was alive. Even as he stood, panting in pain, he could feel his body rejecting the bullet, pushing it free from his shredded muscle and sinew.
One of the other hunters burst into their midst. “You gotta see this!” He motioned excitedly toward the bedroom. “The animal’s got a woman handcuffed to a bed.”
Sam’s lip curled at him. “Sick fuck. You like torturing innocent women? Well, we’re going to have fun with you. See how you like it.” That said, he pulled the trigger.
Darius jerked at the second bullet to tear through him. Instead of the burn of silver, he felt only more discomfort. He swallowed a cry. Nothing he couldn’t handle. Nothing that would kill him.
He looked down and spotted the end of a protruding dart in his chest. Not a bullet—a tranq. He seized it and pulled it clean, tossing it to the floor with a grunt.
His gaze drifted back up. The hunters’ faces swirled in front of him, blurring until their features became indistinct smudges. The edge of his vision grayed, and then blackened. He dropped, hard, to his knees and swayed.
Sam took advantage and kicked him in the ribs. Once. Twice. He heard the crunch of bone and knew the hunter had cracked his ribs. He fell to the floor, clutching his side. He’d broken bones before. They’d heal. Not that he expected any of these hunters to keep him alive long enough for that. They’d torment him to the end, never giving him a chance to heal. Only giving him a chance to feel and breathe the pain.
The fog rolled in, muddling his thoughts. The blackness grew, spreading until he could see nothing. Feel nothing. Until he was no more.
SIX
The handcuff fell free from her wrist. Tresa sighed with relief and rubbed the tender flesh.
“Thank you,” she breathed as the hunter stepped back, giving her space.
Another hunter stood at the door, staring her down as if she were a great nuisance. “You okay?” he asked gruffly. He glanced from her back to the living room, obviously more interested in whatever was going on there.
Darius. She inhaled sharply. What were they doing to him?
Several moments passed before the hunter looked back, settling his dark eyes on her expectantly, and she realized she hadn’t responded yet.
“You okay?” he repeated.
She nodded jerkily, feeling the overwhelming urge to inquire after Darius and see what they were doing to him. Not exactly what a victim would do, though.
His dark gaze slid over her. “Do you require medical care?”
Obviously they thought Darius had injured her.
“N-no. I’m fine. What about… him? What are you going to do with him?”
His dark gaze sharpened on her, and she realized she might have sounded concerned. Which was ridiculous. Why should she care what happened to him? His assessment continued, sweeping over her and missing nothing. Not her mussed and tangled hair. Not her wrinkled clothing. The sleeve of her sweater was ripped at the shoulder. God knows what he thought Darius had done to her.
“Don’t worry. He’ll get what he deserves. We’ll see to that.” He looked to the other hunter, standing near the bed. “C’mon, Klonsky. Give her a minute alone.” He looked back at her. “Miss, we’ll be out here. Just take your time.”
She nodded as they started to leave. Klonsky’s gaze lingered on her, pitying and kind. A look that wouldn’t last if he knew what she was.
Once alone, she dropped back on the bed, rubbing the tender skin of her wrist. A heavy sigh escaped her. Male voices drifted from the other room, accompanied by the thud of feet. What was she going to do with a houseful of hunters? What would they do if they figured out she was more than some hapless female who had fallen into the clutches of a ravenous lycan? She gulped, somehow certain her fate would be better in Darius’s hands than in theirs. In either case, she wasn’t sticking around to put their goodwill to the test.
Rising to her feet, she quickly changed clothes, her movements hurried as nervousness tripped through her. She didn’t want one of them to walk in on her half naked. Sucking in a deep breath, she moved for the door, opening it carefully. Almost instantly a hunter was there, blocking her way.
“You need something?” he asked.
“Uh, yeah… I want to leave.”
“That’s not possible at this time.”
She blinked at his matter-of-fact response. Moistening her lips, she strove for an even tone. “Look. I appreciate all of you helping me, but I’d really just like to leave you to… whatever it is you’re doing and get out of here.”
He glanced over his shoulder, almost as if checking to see if someone else was going to step in and handle the situation—handle her.
She followed his gaze, looking over his shoulder. She gasped, spotting Darius strapped to a chair, silver chains looped around his body. Tendrils of smoke rose, curling on the air. He was naked from the waist up and unconscious, his head lolling, blessedly oblivious to his roasting body. Steam rose from where the silver seared into his flesh, eating deep into the skin.
Clamps bit into his chest, and her mouth dried. They meant to torture him. Her stomach roiled.
The hunter pushed her back into her room. “We’ve got our hands full at the moment. We need to be ready when he wakes up
.” He jerked a thumb behind him to Darius. “Give us some time. We’ll figure out what to do with you.”
“What to do with me?” she echoed. “You don’t have to do anything with me except let me go.”
“It’s not that simple. You’ve seen things today that you don’t have any business knowing about.” He grasped her shoulder, either to calm her or push her back in the room—she wasn’t sure which.
“I assure you I can forget everything that’s happened.” She knew these hunters prized the secrecy of their existence—not to mention the secrecy of lycans’ existence. “I won’t talk to anyone. I promise. Who would believe me?”
He patted her shoulder. “Stay put and we’ll be with you soon, sweetheart.”
Sweetheart. The word rankled. His condescension rankled. She was almost tempted to explain to him just what she was and what she could do. Of course, that would probably be the end of her. Assuming they knew to decapitate her.
Before she could say anything else, he shut the door in her face. She slapped the wall with a frustrated growl. Whirling around, she paced the room, trying to erase the image of Darius strapped in that chair, prepped for all manner of horrible torture. She needed to worry about herself, about stopping Balthazar’s new witch. Not about some lycan.
He probably deserved whatever they did for his past deeds. His very existence was a threat, a risk to innocent lives everywhere. She shouldn’t care about his fate.
She shouldn’t.
* * *
CONSCIOUSNESS RETURNED GRADUALLY. LIKE an annoying gnat buzzing about his head, Darius tried to push it away, reluctant to embrace it. When pain coursed through his body he gasped, his head shooting straight up, eyes wide and aching as he surveyed his surroundings, instantly assessing his position in the middle of a roomful of hunters.
“He’s awake,” several of them shouted. They tightened their ranks around him, their anxiousness palpable. They reminded him of children at the circus, eager for the show.
As his awareness sharpened, so did the pain. He struggled against the silver chains restraining him, hissing and going still at the fresh wave of agony. The sweet odor of searing flesh filled his nose. Smoke lifted from him as if he was a piece of meat on the grill.
“Hurts, doesn’t it?” Sam asked from beside him, his eyes glittering with satisfaction.
He swallowed back a response, afraid a plea would escape. He’d beg nothing of this hunter. Of any of them. They couldn’t hurt him as much as he’d suffered already, countless times in countless lives.
Pushing the pain aside, his thoughts jumped to Tresa. What had they done with her? A quick glance to her bedroom revealed the door to be shut. Was she still cuffed in there? He felt himself leaning forward against his chains. The fire burned hotter in his chest and arms.
“What’d you do with her?” he demanded.
Several hunters exchanged looks and he immediately regretted the words, realizing he’d come off sounding worried. Letting them think he meant to make a meal out of her put her in a better position. He didn’t examine why he should want to protect her. He just did.
“The woman you had cuffed to that bed? She’s fine,” one of them answered. “Fortunately we got to her before you could ruin her.”
Darius curled his lips in a deliberate sneer. “Too bad. She would have tasted sweet.”
“Bastard.” A fair-haired hunter lunged forward, his face flushed angrily. His comrades pulled him back.
Darius chuckled. “After a few weeks with me, moonrise wouldn’t have come soon enough for her. She would have begged me to finish her off.”
The young hunter flailed wildly, intent on breaking through his friends to reach Darius. They forced him outside. “Walk it off, Klonsky.”
Apparently Tresa had gained a savior. He ignored his flash of annoyance. He should be relieved. He wouldn’t put it past these hunters to kill her so she didn’t spread word of their existence—or the existence of lycans. It wouldn’t be the first time hunters had killed in the name of their cause.
Sam got in his face. “You like brutalizing women, dog?”
Darius chuckled. The man sounded so heroic. “Actually, I don’t. Would you believe I abstain from violence and feeding on humans? Every full moon I lock myself away…”
Sam snorted and his hand lashed out, grinding deeper the silver chain directly over Darius’s heart.
Darius cringed, tensing against the pain, his body going as straight as a charged wire.
“Enough,” a voice commanded.
Still glowering down at Darius, Sam stepped back, allowing another hunter to move directly in front of him. He was middle-aged and possessed none of Sam’s ferocity as he coolly looked Darius over.
Darius took several deep breaths, staring at this hunter through the steam smoldering off his body. “What do you want with me?” He was no fool. If they hadn’t killed him yet, it was because they wanted something.
Clearly this hunter was the group’s leader. His features revealed nothing as he assessed Darius. “Intel, of course. You’re a very old lycan. You must know a great deal about other packs out there.”
“I’ve been running solo a long time. I don’t know about others out there.”
He motioned to Darius’s body with a smooth wave of his hand. “Your end is inevitable. How much pain you want to suffer first is up to you. Silver is the only thing that can kill you,” he reminded Darius unnecessarily. “But let me assure you that my imagination is limitless. Over the years, I’ve learned that a lycan can withstand a lot of abuse.” For a long moment he held Darius’s gaze, as though he wanted his point—and the fear—to settle in.
Darius let loose a single laugh. “And over the years, I’ve learned that pain is relative.”
A flicker of irritation flared in the hunter’s eyes, the first sign of emotion Darius had detected from him. “Indeed. Then let’s begin.” He nodded to Sam.
With an avid grin, Sam made certain the clamps on Darius’s chest were secure. Darius held the leader’s gaze, his expression blank as he forced his mind to glide away… to drift to a place where he could wait out the onslaught of torture.
Sam stepped away and flipped a switch on a device sitting on the coffee table. Instantly, electricity flooded Darius’s body. The force of it arched his spine, driving him to pull against the ropes of silver.
He clenched his teeth, trying to swallow back the scream, but it was useless. He couldn’t hold silent against the torture.
SEVEN
The door to her room opened. Tresa scrambled off the bed where she’d been curled up in a ball, trying to block out the sound of Darius’s screams. At the first cries, she had trembled and pulled the pillow over her head. But it did no good. She shook at the sound of his screams, imagining the pain he was suffering.
And she’d wept. She couldn’t help herself. With his every shout, every low, keening moan, she felt herself splintering inside. The knowledge that she had done this—that she was responsible for him, for what he was… for the existence of these hunters…
It was too much.
Several times she had stood up, determined to rush through the door and try to stop them, the overwhelming need to explain that he wasn’t the type of lycan they should be hunting burning on her lips. It wasn’t his fault that he was what he was.
She stopped each time, reminding herself that if she showed the slightest sympathy, they’d likely strap her up beside him and inflict the same torture on her. She had to keep silent. Save herself. Escape. Balthazar was out there with his new witch, and their killing spree had to be stopped.
Darius had fallen silent over an hour ago. She’d watched the clock, timing the ominous silence. At least his screams had told her he still lived. Now she could only wonder if he was still alive.
Klonsky smiled uncertainly at her. “You doing better?” he asked, smoothing a hand over his fair, feathery hair.
“Yes. Thank you.” She nodded, straining for a glimpse beyond his shoulder.
“Come on.” He motioned for her to follow him from the room.
She hesitated, unsure. What did they want with her? Had they decided she was a liability? A witness they couldn’t keep alive?
“It’s okay,” he reassured her. “We decided you can go.”
“I can?” She blinked. They were letting her go? She could just stroll out of here?
He moved to grasp her elbow. “I persuaded them to let you go. You can come back after we’ve left.”
As if she would ever return here. “Th-thanks.”
He peered down at her, his gaze intense. “Forget what you saw. No one will believe you even if you tell. But if we hear anything, if you show up on some talk show, we’ll find you…” He let his sentence trail off ominously.
She didn’t need him to elaborate. They had tracked down Darius. A feat in itself, she suspected. He didn’t seem like the sort to let himself get captured.
She nodded fiercely. “I understand. I won’t talk.”
“Good girl.” Patting her arm in an irritating manner, he led her from the room.
The hunters were all still here. None so much as glanced at her. A few sat at her kitchen table, inspecting their gear. Another peered inside her refrigerator. She clenched her jaw and tried not to look bothered by their total invasion of her home. She just needed to get out of here.
She stumbled when she caught sight of Darius in the center of the room. He was still strapped to the chair, his flesh bloody and raw, exposed where the silver chains looped around him. Bile rose in the back of her throat. His head sagged, and for a moment she thought he was dead. But then his head lifted, slowly, as if the effort pained him.
As though he sensed her, those startling pewter eyes locked on her. Well, at least one eye did. His right eye was badly swollen and sealed shut.
She felt trapped, pinned beneath his stare. It was impossible to look away. His face revealed nothing, no expression, just the ravages of his beatings. A hot stab of pity twisted through her. And guilt, too.
A Soul So Wicked (Moon Chasers) Page 5
