Night Falls on the Wicked

SIXTEEN

They drove late into the night before stopping at a motel. Niklas carried Aimee inside and laid her on the bed. Darby busied herself getting the girl tucked in. She seemed a little more at ease on the comfortable bed, tossed from side to side less.

“You should get some sleep,” Niklas advised, removing his jacket. She tried not to watch the way his muscles rippled beneath his black sweater, but it was a point of fascination for her. She couldn’t stop the surge of longing. She closed her eyes in a tight blink and looked away. She really was pathetic. This mission wasn’t about her and her misplaced desires. It was about doing what was right for Aimee. Giving her the chance Darby never had.

“Yeah.” She nodded, wrestling off her boots. “Sounds good.” And she really was tired—drained even though all she had had to do was sit in the backseat, silent for the most part, her hands full of Aimee, stroking and petting and lending what comfort she could.

Her few attempts at conversation had been shut down. Or rather ignored. Niklas wasn’t interested in talking. It hardly seemed he was interested in her. It was hard to imagine they had ever shared that kiss. Hard to imagine that he might have ever wanted her even for those brief moments.

So stop imagining it, a small voice commanded inside her.

Sighing, she doubted that would ever happen. Not as long as they were thrown together like this. Maybe not even when this was all over and they went their separate ways.

NIKLAS WATCHED AS SHE gathered her things and moved into the bathroom. He picked up the remote control from the table and forced his gaze away from the closed door and thin glow of light from beneath it. Punching the power button, he flipped channels until he found a news station. Something to do. Something to do to help block the screeching thoughts inside his head. Whirring thoughts that consisted of her. Darby, Darby, Darby.

He surfed for a local news channel. He always paid close attention to the news. The latest crime might be more than it appeared. It might be Cyprian. Although he doubted the alpha was doing too much damage at the moment. He was in flight mode now.

He shifted on the motel’s uncomfortable chair. Usually he acquired better accommodations for himself, where he could at least get a good bed, but they were in the middle of nowhere, and this was the first motel they’d come across. Distant trucks roared past on the highway outside.

Splashing noises drifted from the small bathroom, mingling with the busy sounds from outside. The child whimpered on the bed. If he closed his eyes, he could almost pretend he was someone else, somewhere else. Just an ordinary man with a family. A kid napping on the bed, his wife washing up in the bathroom.

He squeezed his eyes in a tight blink and scrubbed his hands over his face—hard. He didn’t want that. Didn’t need those images imprinted on him. He’d only ever wanted one thing and it wasn’t that. Not that crazy fantasy.

The sound of water stopped and she reemerged. She looked at him only fleetingly, her gaze avoiding his eyes, skimming him as she rubbed her hands dry on a hand towel. Her attention went to Aimee the precise moment the girl’s small body arched off the bed, as though she was trying to escape from something inside her. And she was. Niklas knew that for a certainty. The memory of his Initiation might be foggy, but he remembered the pain, the misery. The death of himself.

“Shhh,” Darby soothed, dropping down on the bed beside Aimee.

Almost in answer, Aimee whimpered and tossed her head side to side on the pillow. She cried out gibberish but one word rang loud and clear. Monsters.

Darby smoothed her hand over her brow and spoke as if the child could hear her. “No monsters are going to get you.”

Niklas snorted, noticing she didn’t deny the existence of those monsters.

She continued, “You have me and Niklas … and he’s really strong. Almost as strong as they are.”

Almost, Niklas thought with a wry twist of his lips. He fought back a bitter laugh. He was almost a monster.

“Trust us, baby. We’re going to get you to your grandmother’s. You’ll be safe there.”

At this promise, Niklas bit back a curse and quietly left the motel room. He strode through the cutting bite of wind, preferring the cold to staying inside the small motel room, listening to Darby make promises she had no right to make.

Still sheltered on the covered walk, he stopped in front of his Hummer. Snow already gathered on the hood. He cast a glance up at the sky, hoping the weather let up and didn’t slow them down tomorrow. In the night beyond, he could make out the vast snow-covered mountains.

With any luck, they’d reach Edmonton tomorrow … and he knew he’d find Cyprian there. He felt it like he always did. Deep in his blood, in his bones … in the core of him where the beast prowled. He would always be linked to Cyprian. A link that he loathed, a link that he hoped to finally sever. And then, maybe, he would finally be free.

Cyprian was probably holed up somewhere, waiting out the month and assessing who to draw into his web as his newest pack member.

His hand knotted into a fist at his side. He had to reach him first. He was closing in. He could taste it. At last. After all these years. He could let nothing get in his way. Nothing and no one.

His gaze drifted back to the motel room as he considered the two females inside, and then his gaze strayed to his vehicle again. It would be a simple matter to leave them. He could make better time without them as they would only slow him down. He could finish Cyprian off and end Aimee’s curse. He didn’t need the girl with him to accomplish that feat.

But what if Cyprian slipped away? Eluded him one more time? Then the girl would be out there, on the loose, a little monster wreaking havoc—possibly even harming Darby. Unless Darby managed to stop her. And he doubted Darby possessed the strength or cold-blooded nature to finish her off.

“Thinking about leaving us?”

The sound of Darby’s voice startled him, but he showed no sign of it as he turned to study her. She stood in the open door of the motel. Her hazel eyes wise and knowing as she surveyed him with an arched eyebrow several shades darker than her auburn hair.

He said nothing at first, merely held her stare, annoyed at how close she had hit the nail on the head.

Finally, he retorted, “And end this good time we’re having?”

Color surged in her cheeks. “Go ahead and laugh, but this isn’t a joke to me.”

“Oh, it isn’t a joke to me either,” he bit out, advancing on her. He swiped a hand through the air. “Everything about this is wrong.” He looked her up and down where she stood shivering on the covered walk. “But you don’t want to hear that. You won’t.”

“You think I want to be in this situation? That I enjoy forcing myself on you when you so clearly don’t want to help me?” She stormed away from him, her hair whipping behind her like a fiery banner. She was almost to the door to their room before she swung back around. “I wish none of this had happened!” She waved wildly to the room where Aimee slept. “That little girl in there is seven years old! I’m twenty-seven. The same age as my mother when I was seven.” Her eyes shone in the dark like polished glass. “That could be me in there! It was me!”

“Is that what this is about?” he growled, stepping toward her. He reached for her arm, but she yanked free, shaking her head fiercely.

“No! Yes!” She made a sound, part groan, part sob, and buried her face in her hands. Lifting her face, she glared at him. “I don’t know!”

“Don’t confuse yourself here, Darby.” He pointed to the room where Aimee slept. “You’re not that girl in there. And you’re not your mother either,” he bit out.

“My mother did it for me.”

He shook his head, confused. “Did what?”

She continued, “My mother killed herself, removed herself from my life so I’d be safe. Don’t you understand? If something happened to her … if she gave in to a demon, I’d be the one caught in the crossfire. How long before the demon possessing her turned on me? Seconds? Minutes? She killed herself to protect me!”

Her words hit him like a fist. He’d never known how alike they were. “So you’ve appointed yourself Aimee’s protector to play out some sort of weird reenactment?”

Darby looked at him bleakly, the tip of her nose turning pink from the cold. “Aimee has no one.”

He took another sliding step closer. “And what about you? Who has you?”

Her jaw tightened. “I don’t need anyone.” She shook her head and looked away.

For some reason the words created a pang in his chest. He didn’t know why. Since he’d lost his mother—since he’d lost himself—being alone was all he knew. It had never bothered him. Someone else suffering loneliness had especially never bothered him before. He didn’t need anyone. Why should he care that she didn’t either?

He lightly cupped her cheek, forcing her to look at him again. “Yes, you do.”

“And what do you know about needing somebody?” she whispered. “I don’t exactly see you surrounding yourself with people. When was the last time you had anyone in your life?”

He stared at her, unable to speak. He couldn’t even breathe, he wanted her so badly right then. He dropped his hand from her face.

“That’s what I thought,” she finished. “You’re no different from me. You don’t need anyone either.”

She started to move away then, but he couldn’t let her go. Not yet. He snatched hold of her, wrapping a hand around the soft skin at the back of her neck. Her eyes widened for the barest second.

“I wouldn’t say that,” he growled, his gaze roving over her face.

And then he kissed her, smothered her gasp with the searing press of his lips on hers. The cold melted away as fire and heat erupted between them.

She held still for only a moment before coming to life and throwing herself into the kiss, pressing her body against him. He forgot everything in the taste of her, in the sensation of her body melting into his.

His hands slid along her cheeks, tugged through her hair, pulling her head back so that he could kiss her arching throat.

She roamed her hands over the back of his shoulders and up his neck, her nails dragging through his short hair.

“God, Darby,” he moaned.

His hands grasped the collar of her button-down flannel shirt. He tugged. A button popped. Then another.

He broke their kiss to stare down at the swells of her breasts nestled in a black bra.

Gooseflesh broke out over her exposed skin from the frigid air, but it didn’t matter, he couldn’t stop. He cupped one mound, kneading and lifting it within the lacy black cup. He nipped at the top of the plump curve. He drew the pointed tip of one breast into his mouth, laving it with his tongue until the lacy fabric was wet and clinging to the turgid peak. She moaned, her fingers digging into his shoulders.

A car horn blared three times. They jumped apart. Niklas spun around. A car with a pair of giggling women rolled past. One rolled down the window to shout, “Get a room!”

He turned back around just in time to see Darby disappearing inside the room.

With a disgusted sigh, he dragged both hands through his hair and stared out at the lightly falling snow. He waited several moments for his lust to cool. When it became obvious that was never going to happen, he followed her back inside.

A faint glow of blue suffused the room from the television she’d turned on. Darby was in bed, curled up next to Aimee as if nothing had happened between them.

She ran her fingers through the girl’s hair in a languid motion.

He eased down onto his chair. A movie played that he’d never seen before. Not that he spent a lot of time watching TV.

“This is my favorite part.” Darby was whispering as if Aimee were awake and could hear her.

His gaze moved to the television and he watched as a girl in period costume was torn away from a man she called papa.

“You see,” Darby explained, “he doesn’t remember that she’s his daughter because he was hurt in an accident. He can’t remember anything anymore, not even himself. But keep watching …”

Just then the actor on the screen presumably remembered his identity and the identity of his daughter and took off after her through the pouring rain, sweeping her up into his arms. Grand music played in the background.

“And there.” Darby’s satisfied voice floated over the room. “He remembered. And they live happily ever after.”

Darby glanced down, the smile slipping from her face as she eyed Aimee, still sleeping restlessly, her thin chest rising and falling rapidly beneath the bedcovers.

Niklas looked away, feigning interest in the movie and not this woman he was coming to understand. And like. It wasn’t just lust—he liked her.

Her company was torture. On so many levels. He looked out the drab motel curtains that smelled faintly of mildew and told himself he was checking the conditions of the road and not struggling with every fiber of his being to ignore the woman a few feet away.

AIMEE SETTLED DOWN AFTER a while, her breathing easier, less raspy. Darby pressed a hand to her brow and gave a satisfied nod. She even felt less feverish.

With a relieved sigh, Darby carefully rose from the bed and grabbed her things. Deliberately not looking to the man who sat like a marble statue in the chair by the window … the man who had kissed her outside the motel room and left her confused. And hungry for more.

She slipped into the bathroom again.

Stripping off her clothes, she hesitated in the small space, shivering in her bra and panties, examining herself, trying to see herself as Niklas might. She winced, heat crawling up her face.

She couldn’t help herself. She stared at the door. The flimsy particleboard. It was all that separated her and Niklas. Her belly tightened and her breasts ached, remembering his touch there. She shook her head and snatched her toothbrush from her small cosmetic bag.

After brushing her teeth—more vigorously than usual—and changing into a pair of pajama bottoms and top, she reemerged. He’d turned out the lights. It startled her for a moment, walking out into a darkened room, and she paused, her eyes adjusting.

The only light flowed through the tiny part in the curtains that let in an orange glow of the motel’s perimeter lights. She made out his dark shape still in a chair by the window. She felt his eyes on her.

“You’re not coming to bed?” She winced at the intimate sound of the question. For some reason the idea of him sitting in that chair in the dark as she slept made her uneasy. She’d have preferred he got into his bed and slept, too.

“I’ll get some sleep in a while.”

She nodded as if she understood or approved this. It was just a thoughtless movement because she didn’t really know what to say to him. Or what to think. Or how to act. He was doing this great thing for them—he could have ignored her pleas and finished Aimee off. And she couldn’t have really blamed him. His logic was correct. Which told her that some part of him had to be following his heart.

She slid into bed beside Aimee. Instantly, the girl’s baking heat reached out to envelop her. She lightly grazed the child’s arm. She was feverish again. Her skin burned and was slippery-wet with perspiration.

“You sure this fever will break?” She couldn’t stop the worry from entering her voice.

“It will,” he replied in that flat voice. “Initiation lasts a few days, but it will break. And she’ll be a lycan when it’s done.”

Her jaw clenched at the reminder. He got it in every chance. Like she could ever forget. “She won’t be a lycan until moonrise.”

“Let’s just say she won’t be human anymore once the fever breaks.”

She exhaled. She could handle that. What was Darby after all? A witch. What was he? Something similar to a lycan.

Neither were normal human beings. And they still deserved a chance, a hope for life. They were still struggling through each and every day. Like them, Aimee deserved a chance, too. And Darby was going to make sure she got it. She wondered why Niklas didn’t see it that way, too.