Night Falls on the Wicked

TWENTY-ONE

So leaving her wasn’t going to be as easy as he’d thought.

Niklas winced as he trailed his fingers lightly through the thick mass of red hair spilling across his chest, reveling in the sensation of her body against his. Not that he had planned for this to happen. It wasn’t as though he’d deliberately set out to sleep with her. He’d tried to resist. Still, it had happened.

She’d long since fallen asleep. He’d pretended to do the same. Cowardly, he supposed. He wanted to avoid any awkward after-sex conversation.

Not that he had ever felt awkward before. He’d never worried about conversation because there’d never been any. It had only ever been sex before. Just that. Only that. This, with Darby … Well, it was something else. Something more.

It was as though some part of himself had known once wouldn’t be enough with her. That if he let her in, if he caved and got too close to her, he would be faced with this moment and the uncomfortable knot in his gut at the prospect of saying good-bye to her.

Part of him wanted to be mad, wanted to get out of bed and leave the intoxicating warmth of her body pressed flush against his own, but then there was that other part, the overwhelming voice in his head that told him to stay, to enjoy. Take what she offered him.

And that was more than her body, he realized. This hadn’t just been about sex. There was need. In both of them. For some reason, he needed her. And he hadn’t needed anyone, hadn’t felt bonded to another soul since his mother. For years, he’d been alone and that had been just fine. Until he met Darby.

She sighed against his skin, her breath moist and warm and spiking his hunger for her all over again. She nestled herself closer. His hand moved from her hair to the warm curve of her hip. For the first time he began to think about a future after Cyprian.

He began to think of a future like this.

DARBY WOKE WITH A panicked jerk, screams reverberating in her head. It took her a moment to realize the screams weren’t her own. She shook her head, shoving tangled strands of hair from her face. Years of waking to the sound of her own screams and she couldn’t be too sure.

But these weren’t her screams. They were Aimee’s.

She and Niklas both bounded from the bed. As Niklas dove for a weapon, Darby raced from his bedroom and across the small sitting area, grateful that she’d slipped her T-shirt on during the night.

“Darby, wait!” Niklas roared, but she couldn’t wait, couldn’t stop. Not for anything. She had to reach Aimee.

Guilt stabbed her for ever leaving Aimee, for putting her own selfish desires before the child. The girl probably woke up frightened and alone. At least that was the hopeful, desperate thought that rolled feverishly through Darby’s head in the second it took her to reach Aimee’s bed. Her empty bed.

“Aimee!” She looked wildly around the room before plunging back into the sitting area. That’s when the cold hit her, penetrated her, slapping against her bare legs. Snow blew into the room like powdery smoke.

Niklas stood there, armed with a gun in each hand—staring straight ahead where the window stood open, his expression coldly blank, void of emotion. And in that moment she knew.

“Aimee,” she whispered faintly, inching forward, her bare feet sliding over the flat carpet. She shook from head to toe—and not from cold. Not from the cold at all.

Niklas’s arm shot out to stop her from going too close to the open window. She stilled, froze, but not because of him. Her own fear held her in check—fear of what she would see when she looked out that window. Of what she wouldn’t see.

Without a word, he moved to the window and peered out. And down. Four stories down.

Niklas turned and faced her. The cold look in his eyes told her everything she needed to know. Everything she couldn’t bear knowing. She closed her eyes and turned her face away, as if she could turn from the horrible truth.

Her stomach lurched and she pressed a hand to her roiling belly. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Darby,” he spoke her name steadily, lacking emotion, and she wondered if anything ever reached him, affected him. The violent urge to slap him seized her. Not wholly fair, but it was there nonetheless.

He slid one of his guns into his waistband and approached her, his hand reaching for her as if he would comfort her. That, she couldn’t endure.

“Darby,” he repeated her name softly, and she was flooded with the memory of their night together when that same soft voice filled her ear with intimate whispers … when she’d conveniently, selfishly forgotten all about Aimee.

She shook her head against this memory and took a step back, holding up a hand. “No, no, damnit! No!” Even now, shaken with grief for Aimee, he was still clouding her thinking.

“I’m sorry.” His voice was infuriatingly calm. “He took her. I should have seen it coming—”

“Then why didn’t you?” she lashed out, uncaring at that moment that she was being unfair.

“I should have,” he admitted even as he flinched. “They’re linked. Even more than I’m linked to him. She’s freshly infected. He’s her alpha. He sensed her … and low on pack members, it makes sense that he’d come for her. He’s desperate to grow his pack again.”

Desperate enough to claim a seven-year-old child.

“Great!” She tossed up her hands and then knotted them into fists, feeling like punching something, hitting and slamming her knuckles into something until the pain in her heart faded to numbness. “We have to go after her. Now. Right away!” The nausea returned in full force. “I can’t stand the thought of Aimee with him for even one minute. She must be terrified—”

He nodded, but there was something in his eyes. A certain vague distance that failed to convince her that he thought they could save Aimee.

“Get changed,” he directed. “We’ll go while the trail is fresh. I imagine a seven-year-old will only slow him down. He won’t run far. Especially if she’s resistant. She’ll draw more attention than he wants.”

They dressed hurriedly, neither speaking to the other. A painful lump resided in her throat, making speech impossible. Which was for the best. If she spoke she might break down in sobs and she needed to be strong, needed to keep moving, keep going. For Aimee.

And there was nothing left to say to him anyway. Nothing at all.

THEY TROLLED THE STREETS for hours, through the remaining night and all day into late afternoon. They stopped only to get some food, and this at Niklas’s insistence. He knew if it were up to her, they would have kept going.

“You won’t be any good to Aimee weak from hunger,” he told her, studying her stoic profile beside him. “How do you expect to face a lycan less than full strength?”

She didn’t answer him—simply placed her order through the drive-thru and stared ahead through the windshield.

Soon they were back on the road, and she only spoke if she had a question regarding their hunt for Aimee. Which only made him feel guiltier.

He should never have touched her, never let her in his bed, his head. He’d vowed to resist her, but it had been useless. He felt her in his blood. His lips twisted. Like a disease.

He knew she thought she could have done something to save Aimee had she simply been there, but she was wrong. Even if she’d returned to her bed to sleep, she couldn’t have stopped Cyprian from claiming Aimee. She was blaming herself needlessly, and he wasn’t going to let her do it a moment longer.

When they returned to their hotel room, he shut the door solidly behind them and crossed his arms over his chest, leveling a stare at her. “Don’t blame yourself,” he announced.

“No?” She arched a brow, her voice full of bitterness. “Who am I supposed to blame?”

“Well, aside from the lycan who took her? No one. Bad shit happens, Darby. You should know that.”

She turned her face away from him.

He pressed on. “If you had been asleep in that bed when he came for Aimee, if you had tried to stop him, he would have killed you. A lot of good you’d do her then. Maybe you should be grateful you were with me.”

Her lips pressed into a mutinous line, but she said nothing, clearly processing this and, he suspected, recognizing the truth.

With a defeated sigh, she sank down on the sofa. “What now?”

“The closer the full moon, the better I can sense him.”

Her head snapped up and she looked at him incredulously. “You mean we’re supposed to sit around twiddling our thumbs while he has Aimee and is doing God knows what to her?”

“We’ll still look. Every day.”

“Every day?” Her voice lifted a notch. “You don’t have much faith we’ll find her soon?”

“I didn’t say that.”

Her gaze drilled into him, demanding the truth.

Niklas sighed. “He’s gone deep. Maybe underground somewhere … but he hasn’t left the area. That much, I know. He’s still close. Close enough to find. And easier, the closer we get to moonrise.”

Darby unwrapped her scarf from around her neck and shrugged out of her coat with stiff, staccato movements. “I can’t accept this.”

“I know it’s not ideal, but he’s not going to hurt her—”

“How do you know? Just because he won’t kill her doesn’t mean he won’t hurt her. He could hurt her countless ways while still keeping her alive.”

“What do you suggest we do besides scouring the city? That’s all we can do right now,” he asked, his clenched jaw aching. “I’ll find Cyprian.”

“Before the full moon?” she demanded. “Because after that it’s too late for Aimee.”

He looked at her with an arch to his brow that implied, Yeah, I know that. I told you that. I warned you.

And he did. Of course. That’s why he’d tried to kill Aimee that first night. Because he knew he could be facing a predicament like this—with Aimee lost and on the loose out there.

“Say something,” she hissed. “I’m sure you want to rub it in that you knew this was going to happen. That we should have put her out of her misery that first night, right?”

He shook his head. “I’m not saying that at all.” He’d only been thinking it. “I agreed to this. And we’ll continue looking for her tomorrow.”

Anger flushed her face. Without a word, she stalked past him and into the bedroom she had shared with Aimee, slamming the door behind her.

He glared at that closed door. Anger spiked inside him that she was so obviously angry with him. He understood that she was upset, but why take it out on him? He’d done nothing except make a promise he shouldn’t have made in the first place.

He muttered low in his throat and knocked a lamp to the floor with a crash.

He shouldn’t have promised that he could find Cyprian before the full moon. He shouldn’t have gotten himself tangled with a woman and a kid. What was he thinking? He’d never had the time or need for such things in his life before. And he refused to now.