Darkness Comes

by A C Warneke

  “Ouch.” He placed a broad hand over his heart in mock pain but he was laughing at her.

  “I’m sorry,” she said sweetly, batting her lashes at him. “Did that hurt?”

  “No more so than a silly little girl so desperate for affection that she marries the first boy she fucks.” His smile was cruel as he leaned forward and skewered her with his words.

  “I loved Jack.” But her heart was racing in her chest; why didn’t she consider the possibility that he would be able to experience her memories while she was experiencing his? What else did he discover?

  Putting his hands on her knees, crowding her with his hard body, he put his face directly in front of hers, his eyes molten. “I would have made sure you came the first time.”

  She forgot how to breathe as his gaze dropped to her lips for the briefest moment. When he looked back, his eyes burned even hotter and he moved ever closer until he overwhelmed all of her senses. His primal musk filled her head as he lowered his voice, “I would have sucked your pretty nipples until you were writhing, then I would have bit down – not hard, but enough to keep you in the moment.”

  Her nipples tightened in anticipation, begging him to do as he threatened. Desperate to keep her sanity, she leaned further back into the chair to create some space.

  That was not a good idea as he let his gaze drop to her breasts. By his knowing, smug smile, he could tell that his words were affecting her. He covered her left breast with his hand, the warmth of his palm seeping deeply in the soft flesh. To her mortification, she took a deep breath, pushing her breast harder against his hand to feel those delicious imaged he had painted.

  With her frightfully easy capitulation, he fell back into his chair, a slight smile on his lips as he once again became the distant, aloof Aradian. “That is what I would have done, what I will do if you let me…when you let me.”

  Shame and arousal made her face crimson hot as she turned her head away. “I loved Jack.”

  “How could you have loved him?” he sneered. “He was nowhere near your equal, a mere child unable to fully appreciate the gift he had in you – a Breeder. Gods, I’ve missed being able to fuck a woman so completely as I could fuck a Breeder.”

  Inhaling sharply, she swallowed the lump in her throat, determined to ignore him.

  “A Breeder is life,” he continued, oblivious of her distress. “She exudes life and passion. You need an Aradian to keep you satisfied; you need me.”

  Her voice was low, rough, “You don’t tempt me.”

  “If I were any other Aradian, you would be naked, on your back, with me buried deep within you already.” He let her ponder his words for a moment before adding, “If you are so… reluctant to share my bed, I am sure one of the others will relish the challenge of breaking you.”

  “Fuck you,” she seethed, flying out the chair and walking away from him, crossing her arms beneath her breasts as she fumed. How could she possibly hunger for someone so deliberately cruel and vulgar?

  After a long silence, his voice was softer, graver, “How did you know about Varick?”

  Spinning around in bewilderment, she saw that he wasn’t even looking at her; he was staring at the flames that danced in the hearth, looking lost and vulnerable. In that moment, her heart ached for him.

  As she debated what to tell him, because she couldn’t tell him the truth, she opened her mouth to speak but he cut her off, shaking his head and wiping all traces of softness from his expression. “Never mind; it hardly matters.”

  Looking up, he smiled ruefully, “I don’t think I can share you. How ridiculous is that? You’re a Breeder and I want you for myself.”

  “But you just said….”

  “I lied.” With a sigh, he returned his attention back to the fire. “None of the other Breeders gave us this much difficulty and yet you never stop. What am I going to do with you?”

  “Let me go?” her voice was soft and even she heard the lack of conviction behind her words and he laughed, getting up and crossing the room to stand before her. His laughter was rich and throaty; it made him impossibly more gorgeous. And infinitely more desirable, which she hadn’t thought possible. How did that happen? It had to be his fault. She waved her hand in his direction, distressed, “Can’t you turn down the pheromones, or something?”

  His luscious lips taunted her as his laughter deepened, and his eyes…. She could fall into those green depths and drown. Her belly was clenching with desire and when he reached and up cupped her cheek in his warm, broad palm, she had to remind herself how to breathe. His thumb brushed over her cheek bone and she felt it in her toes.

  “Stop that,” she whispered, not even trying to push his hand away. She swallowed through a dry throat as her eyes moved over his handsome face, lingering on his decadent lips. She wanted to lean forward and suck his full bottom lip between her teeth, into her mouth; she wanted to nibble on the sensuous upper lip, his tongue. She wanted his mouth on her skin, her neck, her breasts. “Stop.”

  “Why?” he asked, his voice husky and bone-melting. He slid his hand down her throat, over the curve of her breast, to her waist. Heat radiated outwards from his palm, racing along the nerves of her skin and setting her on fire. “You like it.”

  “Yes,” she admitted softly, pleased to see her honest answer startled him, however momentary. “But it’s not real; this… thing between us is just lust.”

  His brows drew together in a frown as his eyes moved over her face, caressing her with green fire. “It’s more than lust, Malorie; you know that.”

  She shook her head, denying his words even as they solidified in her belly. Exhaling, he drew his thumb over her mouth. “You act as if we are enemies but I am not your enemy; I only wish to protect you.”

  She took a deep breath, unintentionally filling her lungs with his intoxicative scent. With a hard swallow, she said, “Then let me go.”

  “Malorie, be reasonable.”

  “I am; you can’t keep me here against my will.” Especially when her will was so weak.

  “You want to be here.” His thumb slipped past her lips and she closed her eyes for a moment as she tasted him. He caressed the damp thumb over her lips and when he spoke, his voice was thicker, “You can feel it in your soul.”

  She shook her head, denying his words, not wanting to examine the veracity of them too closely. They shouldn’t be true.

  He stepped back and stiffened his spine, a cool mask falling over his handsome face. “Fine; if you truly wish to go, I cannot keep you.”

  The air around her coalesced and she felt as if she was disconnected, floating; a balloon unsure of whether it wished to stay or fly away. “You’re serious? I can go?”

  “I’m serious.” He looked at her with no expression, holding his hands out to the side. With a shrug of his broad shoulders, he intoned, “Obviously, I have no hold over you.”

  Her mind whirled with her thoughts; did he really believe he had no hold over her? If he hadn’t been dragged away, she would have succumbed at the mall. It didn’t matter that she knew he only wanted her for one thing; he was simply Feryn, the man who had been haunting her for years. She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head to remember who she was: Malorie Sinclair, mother. Soldier.

  Catching her lower lip between her teeth, she edged towards the room were Toby slept. “I can take my son and go?”

  He shook his head no, turning his back on her. “The boy stays.”

  This time, her brows drew together as she frowned, “What do you mean?”

  “You can go but the boy remains,” he reiterated, still not looking at her. “It is a huge concession on my part to let you go; I cannot allow the child to leave as well.”

  “I will not leave my child behind.” She glared at his broad back, unable to help noticing the enticing curve of his ass. Obviously she was sick, lusting after the man who would keep her son. “You’re delusional if you think I would!”

  He seemed taken aback by that statement, or maybe by th
e vehemence of her tone. Turning around, he tilted his head to the side, as if he needed clarification. “I don’t understand; none of the other Breeders cared about parting with their offspring; even the children who were neither Aradian nor Breeder.”

  She was appalled by that very idea of abandoning her child. “He’s my son!”

  “And he will be well-provided for if you decide to leave,” he answered calmly, irritation making his voice slightly rough. Shrugging his broad shoulders, he scowled at her, “I don’t understand your anger; you want to leave so go.”

  “I cannot leave him,” she bit out, her teeth clenched together. Heat flared between them and she wanted to tear his clothes off and thrash him with her fists and then fuck him. She needed help.

  “The boy stays,” he growled back, closing the distance between them and crowding her space with his heat. His green eyes darkened to emerald pools as he gazed down at her, as he settled his hands on her shoulders. His voice lowered, rasping over her, “I would not mind if you, too, chose to stay.”

  “You ask the impossible!”

  “And you’re making this more difficult than it needs to be! Don’t you understand that you and your son are so very important to us?”

  She nodded slightly and then frowned, reversing her answer by shaking her head no. She was still a so confuddled by the whole thing, knowing only that she was fiercely drawn to the man holding her son and that he was an Aradian.

  “As a leader of my people, I have to think of them first.” his voice was warm, charming, as he attempted to persuade her to see his side. “There are many that wish to have children; how can I deny them the possibility because of a single Breeder’s fears and doubts? What can I say to convince you that your place, that of your child, is here, with us?”

  “How can you even ask me that?” she asked painfully, her heart thudding harshly in her chest as if the rest of her life depended on the next few moments. Pressing her hand against the agonizing organ, she bemoaned, “You ask me to step into a cage and give up… everything.”

  “It is not as if you have a lot to give up; a menial job and a dung-pile of an apartment, a broken down truck, a life always on the run.”

  “Stop.”

  “You and your son would be very well provided for,” he cajoled, his expression earnest; only, she didn’t know if she could trust a single word that came out of his beautiful mouth. She desperately wanted to believe him but she knew better than to place her trust in a creature hundreds, if not thousands, of years old. She knew so little about him, about Aradians. About herself. How could she make any decision? “You would want for nothing.”

  “No matter how fancy the packaging, a gilded cage is still a cage,” she retorted.

  “It was so much easier to deal with Breeders when they had to rely on their lord and master to provide for them,” he lamented once more. “Do you honestly want to live a life of hardship when your every desire, your every whim, could be fulfilled in a heartbeat if you simply accepted your fate?”

  “It’s not the life I want.” She tightened her arms, trying to physically hold herself together when the walls inside her head were crashing down. “I just want to raise my son in peace; no more monsters.”

  “If you leave I cannot protect you from what’s out there.” He reached up and brushed the hair from her face, letting his hand linger on her cheek a moment longer than necessary. “If one of the less… honorable Aradians captured you, you would be made to wear their mark and you wouldn’t be given any choice. There are those of us that can be very cruel, especially to Breeders.”

  “They’d have to find me first.”

  “Pardon?”

  “You said if they caught me,” her voice was low, fierce. Looking up, she boldly met his eyes. “They’d have to find me first.”

  “I found you.”

  “But I had stayed hidden for twenty-five years.” Licking her lips, she continued, “My… companion has stayed hidden even longer.”

  “We know that Breeders exist now.” His gaze bore into hers but she didn’t flinch. “They will be looking for you.”

  “Fine.” Glaring up at him, she scowled, “Let’s say I do give in, that I give you the child you want, that I give you a dozen children; what will happen to me when you no longer need me; when you grow tired of me? Am I to be given to another Aradian?”

  “You are mine,” he declared hotly, closing the distance between them and taking her in his arms before she even knew he moved. His eyes blazed down at her and she had to swallow back whatever words she would have said had she remembered how to speak. She hadn’t realized how much bigger he was than her; he towered over her and she had to tilt her head back to see his face when he was standing so close. While he held her firmly and his grip was gentle, she could sense the latent power within him; he could crush her so easily without even breaking a sweat. “No one else will touch you. Ever.”

  Then, before her eyes, he seemed to almost shrink in size, compressing the space he took up into a more comfortable and less threatening aura. Relaxing his grip on her arms, he smiled mockingly and stepped away from her and she wasn’t sure if he was laughing at her or at himself. “You have no idea what you are up against, Malorie; you wouldn’t be so quick to refuse me if you knew.”

  “I didn’t say I was refusing you, just the cage you would put me in.” Her words were quiet and she was barely able to get them past her dry throat. How had he done that? Grow without growing; take up all of the oxygen in the room and make it impossible to think. At his look of disbelief, she took a step backwards in a vain attempt to keep her sanity. “I just… it’s hard to come to grips with everything that has happened the past few days. I need time.”

  Turning away from him, she walked over to the wall, desperate to get her thoughts in order. She had been through too much, learned too much, in such a short period of time; there was simply no way she could make such a monumental decision right away. Especially since it affected those she loved; it affected Toby. And if she made the choice to stay with him, her father would be sentenced to a life as an Aradian puppet. How could she do that to him, after everything he sacrificed to keep her safe? To keep her out of Aradian hands?

  As a million thoughts and doubts and worries played havoc in her head, she looked at the various photographs and paintings on the wall, needing something to concentrate on so her brain didn’t explode. She had to decide whether or not she could trust Feryn or if she just desperately wanted to because of the connection between them. What little she knew of the Aradians was not necessarily accurate, considering the source. Perhaps her grandfather had a jaded perspective when it came to Aradians, considering he lost the woman he loved to… Oh, dear God; the women he loved with her womb cut open….

  She glanced over her shoulder while pressing her hand against her rebellious stomach. Looking at him, even knowing he had to have existed for many, many years, it was hard to comprehend that he was so… old. Even older than her father, who was actually much older than she could imagine. He met her eyes and she quickly turned away, afraid he would read her thoughts on her face.

  Doing a hasty genealogy chart, she figured out that even though it was probably her grandmother – her grandmother!! – that had Feryn’s child, Feryn was in no way related to her. His son would be; he would be her great uncle; no, just her uncle. Her father’s half-brother. Now her heart was racing with all of the ramifications of having a relationship with someone who had seen and experienced so much, who had intimate knowledge of her gr….

  She simply couldn’t dwell on the grandmother connection; that would be simply too creepy and weird. Staring intently at the photograph in front of her, she pushed the troublesome thoughts aside; it was just another obstacle that might prove impossible to overcome. She would….

  Her eyes narrowed as she finally focused on the man in the image, with his black hair and luminous, green eyes, he was obviously Feryn’s son, her uncle. But there was something so very, very familiar abou
t him.

  “Malorie,” Feryn’s voice came from so far away. “What do you think?”

  “Malorie, what do you think?” Jack asked, a huge grin on his face as they broke into the mansion reputed to be vampire nest. He had been with them for nearly a year now and had taken to vampire hunting with remarkable ease. She had to admit that he looked very nice with the sword strapped to his back and a pair of well-worn blue jeans. In the time that she had known him, he had put nearly twenty pounds of muscles on his tall frame and had filled out very nicely; he was very handsome in his boyish way, with his warm, brown eyes and shaggy blond hair.

  Mal’s hair barely brushed her shoulders and her breasts were, if not very large, noticeably feminine. And while she wasn’t as physically strong as Jack, in fact, she wasn’t anywhere near as strong as Jack; she could definitely hold her own in a fight; she was quick on her feet and she could be quite devious. Jack was an excellent sparring partner and as he beamed down at her, she shouldered him in the gut and entered the enemy’s domain.

  He followed close behind, his running commentary both a comfort and an annoyance. “How many vamps do you think we will take out tonight?”

  “It’s a recon mission, Jack,” she whispered back, constantly scanning the seemingly deserted house, shining her flashlight back and forth as she took in the rooms. They had been told about the house by some kids that swore up and down that vampires lived there, hosting parties for the idiot college kids who preferred partying to studying. Having done some research on the house, Malorie had come to the same conclusion. It was a hell of a deal for the vamps: fresh food all of the time and if they kept the deaths to the minimum, there would be no ramifications.

  Still, something didn’t sit right with her. The vamps seemed to be almost too compliant; as if they were up to something more than just a few midnight snacks. Hence the recon mission on a night when the vamps were out scrounging up some more fools. "We need to get an idea about their plans, Jack; we aren’t supposed to do anything reckless.”