Night Falls on the Wicked

SEVENTEEN

Darby woke in the middle of the night. She wasn’t certain what roused her, but her every nerve was stretched taut. She’d woken like this before … seemingly with no explanation to find there was a very real, very valid reason for her state of high alert. That reason was usually in the form of a late-night guest.

The demons never stayed too long when that happened. It was too cold, after all, for them to last beyond a few minutes. But they made the most of their time, tormenting her in an attempt to get her to submit. As a child they would send her sobbing in terror into her mother’s room.

She squinted through the gloom, trying to see if a shadow worked its way toward her in the dark, slithering over the walls and floor. Goose bumps broke out over her flesh as her gaze scanned the room, darting around wildly, searching for any hint of something that shouldn’t be there.

She clutched the three charms resting against her chest and muttered a prayer low under her breath.

“What’s wrong?”

She jerked at the low voice. Her gaze darted toward the bed across from her. Apparently, he did sleep. Or at least he relocated himself to the bed.

Niklas’s eyes gleamed at her through the scant distance between their two beds. He slept shirtless. Her throat constricted at the sight of bare skin. Even in the gloom she could see the hard curve of his shoulder, the warm-looking male flesh, several shades lighter than the darker bedspread.

Her breathing grew tight and raspy, like she’d run a short distance at high speed, sprinting the last half mile on one of her runs. She couldn’t help wondering what else he had on under those covers. Or didn’t.

“What’s wrong?” he repeated.

She inhaled slowly and evenly through her nose. “Nothing,” she replied, her gaze once again darting around the room. Suddenly it seemed like a very good idea to look anywhere other than at him, so close, in that bed.

“Don’t lie. Something’s bothering you,” he insisted.

Drawn against her will, her gaze slid back to him, taken aback at his insight into her—that he should know she was awake at all. How had he known that?

She drew a shuddery breath through her nostrils. Too bad it was the middle of the night … and her circumstances weren’t more conducive. She could handle a run about now to quiet the worries in her head.

Something was bothering her all right. And it was him. Maybe that’s why she was awake—why she felt so restless. It had nothing to do with a visiting demon. Instead it had everything to do with him. He was the different element. Him. His nearness, his proximity, her hunger for him.

“You sense something.” Again, she felt that ripple of surprise that he should guess along those lines. But then she remembered that he would know a thing or two about witches. With his mother—what she was, what she had been—of course, he would understand her behavior.

“Nothing’s wrong. Not really. I just woke abruptly, but I do that some times. Habit, I guess.”

“Do they come to you at night?” he asked, clearly disbelieving her protests.

She said nothing for a long moment, considered pretending that she didn’t even know what he was talking about, but then why bother? He knew. He understood.

She shrugged one shoulder. “Usually,” she whispered, thinking of the slithering shadows that had pursued her over the years. She remembered each of them the moment they revealed themselves to her in their hideous forms. Shadows no more but their true shapes.

“C’mon. Talk to me, Darby.”

And she wanted to. God, but she wanted to. She wanted to unburden herself, unload and share something, anything with another person on this earth. And not just anyone. Niklas.

“At night,” she whispered, her fingers brushing her lips, marveling at how they still tingled from that kiss, how they tingled just because she was around Niklas, talking to him, confiding in him. “That’s when I’m most vulnerable. When they usually come for me.”

“And this is how you survive it?” He motioned with his hand, gesturing to the room, but she knew he meant the frozen, arctic world outside. “You live where they can’t get to you?”

“My mom shot herself when it became too much. The demons appeared to her everywhere, every day. They were tormenting her, driving her mad. At the end, it was all the time. Day and night.” She closed her eyes, almost hearing her mother’s sobs and pleas through the walls again, begging for them to leave her alone. “She couldn’t keep a job because her employers thought she was some freak, jumping at every shadow, talking to empty space. Breaking down in tears. But why am I telling you this? Your mom was one of us.”

“Yes.” He nodded. “She was.”

Was. Darby stared at the hard line of his profile. “Then you understand?”

“It was never that bad for her. She was always happy to be alive. Happy to have me, happy for every day. I never saw her surrender to despair. They could have been bothering her. She just never showed it.”

Darby grimaced. “You were lucky then. Maybe your mother was stronger. Or maybe they just really wanted my mother. She was a unique witch with multiple powers.” She shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe Mom was just weak. My aunts are strong. They can ignore demons for the most part.”

He slid her a measuring glance. “You’re strong, too,” he pronounced. “So why are you way out here all alone? Why aren’t you with your aunts?”

She shifted uncomfortably. “My situation is different. I had to leave.”

It felt intimate, almost cozy, both of them whispering to each other in the near dark. In their separate beds, but inches apart. If they stretched out their arms, they could touch hands, graze fingertips. She felt deceptively safe in this moment, as if they were more than two people thrust together out of necessity. As if maybe they wanted to be together.

And maybe that’s why she confessed to him that very thing that had haunted her for so many years. “Once a demon took possession of me while I slept … and I tried to hurt someone. A—a friend—” Her voice broke as she recalled that moment she awoke years ago, holding a pillow over Sorcha’s face. In that moment she’d known she had to go. Had to flee all her family and friends and live a life of isolation where she would never harm someone she cared about again. Since then, she’d never lived anywhere where water didn’t freeze.

He cursed low. “Has it happened since then?”

She shook her head. “No. But I don’t exactly surround myself with people. I can’t risk it again.”

“Maybe it was a one-time thing.” There was no mistaking the ring of hope in his voice, and it warmed her heart that he would even care.

“Maybe. Or just living where it’s so cold a demon won’t visit for very long has kept them away.” She sighed. Hope was a hard thing for her to manage. She hadn’t felt hope in years. “Good thing I don’t mind cold weather too much. I’d rather ski than surf any day.”

His lips tipped in a teasing grin. “Well, then, nothing to cry about. It’s no hardship.”

She smiled. “Not at all. I live in a winter wonderland year round.” Her smile slipped then. Except for the loneliness. Except for keeping everyone at arm’s length.

“What are you going to do once you kill Cyprian?” she asked before she could consider how it sounded … how she sounded. As if maybe his future mattered to her because she wanted to be a part of it. She winced, hoping she didn’t come off that needy or desperate. She hoped that he didn’t think she was getting any ideas about them. They were both alone in the world, after all. Alike in many ways. It could be natural for the two of them …

His voice cut in, thankfully breaking her troubling thoughts. “I don’t know. Haven’t given much thought to anything beyond this.” The bed rustled and she could make out in the gloom that he’d rolled onto his back. His chest rose and fell on a deep exhalation. “I guess I’ll just continue to hunt other lycans.”

She frowned. “Don’t you ever want to try for a normal life?”

He snorted. “Normal isn’t a word you could ever apply to me.”

“But what about friends? Family? Don’t you want any of that?”

Again, there was a long pause and she thought he wasn’t going to answer when he said, “I had all that once.”

She guessed he meant when his mother had been around. She slid a hand between her cheek and the pillow. “And you don’t want it again?”

“It’s hard to imagine ever going back to that. Having that. Not when I’m this.” She caught the motion of his hand in the dark.

“What?” she asked, the challenge ringing in her voice. “You’re a lycan with a soul. Free will.” She snorted. “You have control. Does that even make you a lycan? At least you’re not limited to geography in order to maintain control over yourself—”

“You don’t get it. You have demons taunting you to take a wrong turn. My demon is inside me.”

And then she understood. That’s why he’d never stop, never quit even after he’d killed Cyprian. He couldn’t kill the beast inside him, but he could destroy others.

Suddenly the prospect of his continuing on after he killed Cyprian, traveling the world and hunting other lycans, living for nothing more than that, made her feel sad and hollow inside.

He watched her, his eyes narrowing, and she wondered if he could see her pity for him in her face.

Aimee made a small mewling noise in her sleep, sweet as a kitten. Darby rolled over and snuggled against the girl. The girl snuggled back, curving her little arm around Darby’s waist. Her heart squeezed to have this, another soul close and receptive. She almost wished she could keep her and didn’t have to hand her over to her grandmother. But that would be selfish. Darby firmed her jaw. She’d be fine.

Unlike Niklas, when this was all over, she would open herself to life again—to friends, to family. She couldn’t keep living the way she had been. And she wouldn’t think about him anymore. She wouldn’t worry about him or feel sorry for him, wasting his life away, his heart cold and closed to love.