Night Falls on the Wicked

NINETEEN

Niklas stared into the lycan’s cold eyes and knew he’d never faced a lycan like this one before.

He instantly doubted this big bastard had any affiliation with Cyprian. He was too menacing, his eyes far too wise, cunning … ageless. Cyprian wouldn’t keep such a male around in his pack. His presence would be too threatening, and Cyprian wouldn’t jeopardize his position as an alpha.

“Can I help you?” he asked, his hand slowly drifting to the gun at his waist.

The lycan didn’t remove his stare from Niklas’s face. And yet Niklas knew that he knew. He knew Niklas was reaching for a gun, and he was ready.

His hand whipped upward, one finger held aloft in warning. “I wouldn’t reach for that—not unless you want your next breath to be your last.”

Niklas stopped the descent of his hand. For now. “What do you want?”

He nodded his head to Darby hovering just beyond. “I want to know why the female over there looks at me like she has seen a ghost.”

Those words just confirmed Niklas’s suspicions. The lycan spoke with a quality that marked him as old. Older than any lycan he’d ever come across before. Niklas glanced uneasily over the lycan’s shoulder. Where there was one lycan there would be more. They weren’t solitary creatures.

“Maybe you look familiar.” He shrugged and tightened his hold on the edge of the door, preparing to slam it shut, put a barrier between the lycan and the girls for however long he could.

“No. She looked at me like she … knows me.”

And Niklas understood his meaning perfectly. He meant she looked at me like she knows what I am.

Niklas contemplated several ways this could play out, all the while realizing he had Darby and Aimee to consider. As Darby said, it wasn’t just him anymore. He had to make sure they were unharmed. Damn. He’d never had to worry before. About anything or anyone. And now he did. Now he had to worry and he’d probably end up getting them all killed anyway.

All this would be for nothing.

Shit. Not if I can help it.

With that burning determination feeding him, he pretended to turn away as if intending to address Darby. Then, in as fast a move as he had ever made, he launched himself at the lycan.

Darby cried out as they tumbled out into the corridor. He seized his weapon and jammed it beneath the lycan’s chin.

The lycan stilled beneath Niklas, his nostrils flaring as he sniffed. “Silver bullets, I take it? Now how would you know that?” His pewter gaze scoured Niklas’s face. He inhaled, drawing in Niklas’s scent. “You’re not a hunter … but you’re something. What? Not a dovenatu.”

“Niklas?” Darby called from behind him.

“Close the door,” he ground out, determined that she and Aimee be safe at least. “Bolt it.”

“I’m not here to harm you,” the lycan declared. “If I wished it, I could have already unarmed you.”

“You could try.”

“My point is that I wish you no ill.”

“A good lycan not bent on killing?” he spat. “Whoever heard of that?” He deliberately ignored that that was essentially himself.

“My name is Darius.” He nodded to the gun. “I would appreciate if you kept that silver bullet in its chamber. I don’t mean you or—” His gaze flicked to Darby. She hadn’t obeyed him. She still stood in the open door watching them. “Yours any harm,” he finished.

“Niklas,” she said in a low voice. “I don’t think he’s going to hurt us.”

“She’s right,” Darius agreed.

“Darby, go inside.” He cast her an annoyed glance. And that was the moment Darius chose to relieve him of his weapon. He surged beneath him and flung Niklas off, taking the gun from his hand in one smooth move.

Niklas hopped on his feet, ready to charge, inwardly cursing that he let Darby distract him.

Instead he stopped, froze when he saw the lycan stepping in the threshold and handing the gun to Darby.

“Here. I feel much more at ease with this in your hands. You seem the understanding sort.” The bastard motioned inside the hotel room. “May I come in?” Without waiting for an invitation, he strode past a gawking Darby.

She looked at Niklas blankly before rushing back inside the room, no doubt remembering Aimee was asleep only a few feet away, defenseless.

Niklas followed. Darby stood anxiously, splotches of color marring her face, her fingers twitching nervously at her sides. The lamplight shone on her hair, setting it afire.

Darius moved with deceptive idleness, his animal power banked but there, present, humming near the surface. Niklas was not fool enough to think he should drop his guard simply because Darius had turned the gun over to Darby and claimed he meant them no harm. The fact remained that he was a lycan. And no lycan was good. They were all soulless, murder their only impulse.

His body tense, he eyed his gear several feet away as Darius strolled to the window that looked out over downtown. As if he weren’t a monster and cared about the skyline view.

The lycan paused suddenly, angling his face like an animal sensing something on the air. He turned then in a sharp move and strode for the bedroom where Aimee slept.

Darby jumped in his path, pressing her hands to his chest as if he weren’t a creature that could snap her like a twig.

“Darby!” Niklas flashed to her side, taking her place in an instant and shoving her behind him.

He and Darius stood nose to nose.

Something flickered in Darius’s eyes. “You’re not human.”

“You’re not welcome here,” Niklas growled, feeling his own beast swimming beneath the surface of his skin. For a moment he considered unleashing it, setting it loose. “Leave now before this gets ugly.”

Darius’s gaze flicked toward the room where Aimee slept. His eyes seemed to glow brighter in that moment. “What do you have in that room?”

“Nothing that concerns you.”

Those pewter eyes turned back on him, sliding over him before moving again to Darby. “It’s a lycan. Like me. I can sense her.” He tilted his head and considered Niklas. “But you’re something else. Not human. What are you, friend?”

“I’m not your friend,” Niklas growled.

“If you’re a lycan,” Darby began as if there were any doubt, “then how come you … how is it that you aren’t—”

“Aren’t intent on killing you?” Darius finished with a shrug of one tightly muscled shoulder. “I’ve killed enough. Lived enough lifetimes where the stench of blood … death has filled my every waking moment. I suppose I’ve gained a sort of resistance. It doesn’t affect me as it once did.”

Bullshit. “You lie,” Niklas spat. “A lycan cannot control what he is.” Except for me. He was the exception.

The very notion that this … Darius had some control over his actions enraged him. It meant that his mother hadn’t needed to sacrifice herself. It meant that if Niklas had been strong enough, she would still be here. The urge to commit violence against the lycan standing before him consumed him.

He felt the beast surge up inside him then. He fought it, struggled against it, denying that part of himself—but never had the struggle been this hard.

Darby placed her hand on his arm, the message behind the slight touch of her hand clear. She wanted him to still his impulse, to stay his hand. He looked down into her hazel eyes. She believed the bastard. Believed that he wasn’t a murdering monster like Cyprian. Like every other lycan on this earth.

Suddenly, Darius’s cell phone rang and he answered it as if he weren’t among enemies at all—as if he were just paying them a social visit. “Yes … yes … all right. Gather the team and I’ll be downstairs in five.”

The team? “Your pack?” Niklas growled, shaking off Darby’s hand and darting a glance to the large duffel on the chair where his weapons were stowed.

Darius smiled. “Not like you think. But we’re a force of sorts. I’m the only lycan among them, however, so calm yourself. We’re on the hunt for … something.”

“What?” Darby asked.

Darius’s gaze fell back on Darby, lingering there with an interest that made Niklas’s muscles bunch and tense.

“A witch.”

Darby gasped, the color bleeding from her face as she staggered back a step. None of which was missed by Darius. The lycan looked at her with more interest than ever, his gaze searing and intense. Suddenly that gaze fell, dropped to her neck—to the necklace she wore there.

Niklas bit back a curse and forced himself to not snatch the necklace from her neck and hide it from sight. That wouldn’t exactly be the discretion he was going for. It was too late, anyway. The lycan had already seen it.

Darius reached out and lifted the three charms that dangled on the end of her chain.

“Salt. Holy water and milk.” His eyes shot back to her face. “To help ward off demons, I presume. Does it help?” He looked at her so intently that Niklas suddenly knew that this lycan knew what she was—had figured it out just as he had.

“For the most part,” came her breathless reply. “That, and living in arctic temperatures seems to do the trick.”

“So I’ve heard,” he murmured.

“I take it you’re hunting a demon witch. Why?”

“Not just any demon witch. One.”

Understanding lit her eyes. “You’re after her.”

“After who?” Niklas demanded, his every muscle tensing at the mention of a demon witch. His mother was out there somewhere, running around performing a demon’s errands all because of him. Beyond help. Beyond saving. At the mercy of a demon. Naturally he wondered if they were talking about his mother. Could this Darius be after her?

“Who are you talking about?” he repeated.

Darius ignored his question. A slow smile curved the lycan’s mouth as he surveyed Darby. “Smart little witch, aren’t you?” He nodded once, seemingly satisfied. “What’s your particular gift? Something useful, I imagine?”

Instead of answering him, she said, “You can’t kill her, you know. Not without potentially screwing us all. If you’re truly good, how can you want that?”

The corner of his mouth tipped. “I never said I was good.”

She scowled. “It’s not true, you know. Killing a demon witch doesn’t reverse her curse.”

Niklas blinked in surprise at this statement, even if Darby was alleging it to be untrue.

She continued, “If you kill a demon witch, you unleash her demon on the world. Plain and simple. The demon will roam freely in corporeal form!” she reminded Darius sharply.

“Yes.” He cocked his head consideringly. “I have heard this.” He nodded his dark head in a mild way, clearly unaffected by the possibility. “I don’t believe it though.”

“What don’t you believe? That killing her will free her demon? It’s true. And there’s no proof that once you kill the witch, her curse lifts.”

Niklas whipped his gaze to Darius. “Is that true? If you kill the demon witch who started this curse, you end the lycan curse?”

“No!” Darby snapped. “Don’t listen to him. There’s no evidence this is true. It’s a myth.”

“There are many myths,” Darius countered, that slow smile there again. “Myths of lycans, witches, demons …”

Angry color flooded Darby’s face at this well-made point. “Well, your theory is truly myth.”

“I believe the answer lies in finding Tresa.”

“Leave her be,” she insisted, spacing out her words.

“I can’t do that.” He motioned a hand, encompassing himself it seemed, or maybe the world at large. “She’s responsible for all this and for whomever you’re hiding in that room that you’re trying to shield from me.”

Darby stiffened and scooted to position herself closer to the door, the fear once again all over her face that he would go after Aimee.

“Well,” Darius pronounced in that eerily polite way. “As delightful as this has been, I must be on my way. Sorry to barge in on you both.” He looked at Darby. “And I’m sorry if I frightened you.”

Niklas returned to himself then, asking himself if he was really going to let this lycan leave. Lycans deserved death. This was a rabid animal that needed killing.

His hand moved to his weapon. Darby’s hand met his there, her chilled fingers covering his, stopping him. She shook her head swiftly at him.

Her presumption nearly pushed him over the edge … until he reminded himself he never fell off any edges. He never lost control. Could never take such a risk. Never would.

The lycan was almost out the door when Darby rushed over to him and boldly laid her hand on his arm. Something burned up inside Niklas at the sight. He had to force himself not to move, not to react.

“Please reconsider,” she pleaded. “Leave Tresa alone. If you’re truly the reformed lycan you claim to be, then leave her be. You can’t risk humanity.”

He smiled again and there was a touch of sadness there—if such a thing were possible for a lycan. “My existence is a risk to humanity.”

“So that makes it okay to risk mankind even more?” Niklas couldn’t stop his disgusted snort. If this lycan could decide not to kill and feed, then he could decide to leave one witch alone. Especially if doing so was the right thing to do.

At that moment, the temptation to put a silver bullet into the bastard hit him harder than ever. Darby’s hand dropped from the lycan’s arm and some of the killing hunger pumping through him abated.

The lycan lifted his gaze to Niklas, and it was so knowing, so smug—as if he knew that every fiber inside Niklas was urging him to violence. Clearly, Darius knew—he felt Niklas’s rage, tasted it on the air. He knew. And not just because he was a lycan, but because he’d lured Darby in … because she’d touched Darius without fear—with an open heart.

With a final nod, Darius left.

Darby closed the door after him, hugging herself as if she were suddenly cold, bereft without the lycan’s presence. Niklas’s blood burned hotter, if that was possible.

“Don’t ever do that again,” he warned.

“Do what?” She blinked at him.

“Stop me from doing what I know I should do.”

Her eyes narrowed with understanding, darkening, more brown than green at that moment. “Meaning kill Darius?” She spoke his name like they were friends or something.

“For starters.” He nodded. “And don’t ever place yourself in danger like that. He was a lycan, a killer, but you seemed to have a hard time remembering that.” He shook his head. “You touched him. I told you to hold silent. But what do you do? You insinuated yourself closer to a lycan.”

“He wasn’t a killer.”

“I seem to recall him saying that he was. Did you not hear that little announcement?”

“Yes. I recall. I also recall he said he was a killer. Was.”

He swiped a hand through the air. “Semantics. He’s a lycan. Lycans kill. He did. He will again. It’s not a switch he can shut off.”

“You’re a lycan,” she flung at him, her words as sharp and well aimed as an arrow. “Are you a killer, too? Should I trust my life and Aimee’s life to you?”

“I’m very much aware of what I am. A fact I battle every day. But I have control.” He didn’t shift. He resisted the pull of every moon. Unlike other lycans, he could shift whenever he wished. If he wished. And he didn’t. He never would.

“And so, apparently does that guy. He didn’t try to kill us.” She waved an arm toward the door. “Can’t you give him a break?”

“Why do you have to argue with everything I say?”

She expelled a heavy breath. “What do you want from me?” She stepped forward to poke him in the chest with the sharp tip of her finger. “You want me to be a woman who meekly obeys your every whim? Well, sorry, but that’s not me.”

“I don’t want you at all,” he reminded her. “You’re the one who insisted on tagging along with me. That being the case, I would think you’d do what I say or risk getting left behind on your ass.”

She looked pissed now. Her features screwed tight. “You made a promise.”

“As did you. I told you that it was my way or nothing. Do you recall that you agreed to follow my lead and do as I say?”

She blinked several times but said nothing. Her bottom lip jutted defiantly. She remembered. Her answer was in her silence.

At last, she nodded—two hard jerks of her head. He sighed and dragged a hand through his hair. “Look. It’s late. We should just get some rest.”

A knock sounded at the door. He motioned for her to stay where she was and looked through the peephole. A waiter stood there. Niklas opened the door, letting the waiter carry in the tray of food. He’d forgotten he even ordered anything. Signing off on the bill, he turned to find Darby gone.

He moved to the bedroom she shared with the girl. “Darby?” he asked quietly.

Her shadow hovered near the bed where Aimee slept. “I’m not hungry,” she whispered quietly, dropping a hand on the nightstand and tugging off one of her shoes.

“You need to eat,” he insisted, hating the guilt he felt for coming down so hard on her.

“Is that a command?” she returned, her words a deliberate dig on his reminder that she needed to do as he said.

“No. It’s not.” Turning, he left the room, feeling hollow inside, lonelier than he’d ever felt. Strange, he’d never felt alone before. Now that he was with Darby, he felt …

He felt.