Night Falls on the Wicked

TWENTY-FOUR

Niklas woke with a rough gasp, his heart beating like a fierce drum in his chest. Instantly, he looked around, reacquainting himself with his surroundings. One learned to do that, especially when one never woke in the same place, when the scenery constantly changed.

The fact that Darby wasn’t in the room struck him immediately. His mind registered this even though his body already knew, already sensed her missing from his side.

“Darby?” he called, flinging back the covers and rising from the bed. He checked the bathroom and then the other two rooms. Scowling, he stopped, wondering where she could have gone. She wouldn’t have gone looking for Aimee on her own. She needed his help for that.

He returned to his room and his gaze caught on the glint of something on the bedside table. The flesh at the back of his neck prickled. His hand trembled slightly as he reached for it, grasping the chain between his fingers. He held the necklace up and let the three charms dangle before his eyes. Darby’s talisman. He’d never seen her without it.

He folded the necklace into his hand, curling his fingers into a tight fist. She left it here. He knew what that meant. Knew where she’d gone—what she’d done.

With a curse, he dropped back down on the bed and ran his fingers through his hair, tugging at the ends tightly.

Just like his mother. It was happening again. She was sacrificing herself. It felt the same. The crushing guilt. The grief.

He inhaled deeply and sat up straight. No. Not again. He wasn’t going to let this happen again.

Lifting his hands, he put her necklace around his neck for safekeeping. Until he could return it to her.

Suddenly finding Cyprian wasn’t nearly so important to him. He surged back to his feet, determined to find Darby. He’d already lost one woman in his life to a demon. He wasn’t going to lose another one.

He dressed quickly, his mind racing, trying to imagine where Darby would have gone to do this … thing.

A soft knock sounded at the door. He paused, almost thinking he’d imagined the timid sound—until it came again.

He hurried to the door and stared out the peephole. Nothing. No one was out there. The knock came again. With a curse, and a sixth sense telling him what he would find, he yanked the door open and looked down at Aimee. She stared up at him with wide eyes in a dirt-smudged face.

Her bottom lip quivered. “I want Darby.”

He squatted and swept her into his arms, hugging her close. He couldn’t help thinking: I want her, too.

“Darby,” she sobbed, burying her face in his shoulder.

He carried her into the room, making shushing sounds.

She pushed up from his shoulder, her wide eyes darting wildly around the room. “Darby! Darby!”

“Shh.” Seeing no hope for it, he guided her to the couch and explained, “Honey, Darby’s gone.”

“Gone?” She swiped a grimy little hand against a runny nose. “Where’d she go? Who’s going to take me to my grandma’s? She promised she would bring me to my grandma.”

“I’ll do that. I’ll see you get there.”

Tears trailed down her cheeks in shiny tracks. “Why’d she leave me?”

“Aimee, honey, can you tell me what happened to the bad man that took you?”

“The shadows came. They got him.”

“Shadows …” He stopped, suddenly understanding. He squeezed his eyes in a tight blink. Demons.

Darby did it. Of course. She’d made a pact with a demon, but not for nothing.

Cyprian was gone.

It was over. Ten years of searching, hunting, breathing and living for revenge. Done. Finished. His mother was avenged. Because of Darby.

He looked intently at Aimee. Her eyes were no longer the pewter of a lycan. She wasn’t infected anymore. Darby had taken measures into her own hands. She’d sacrificed herself for Aimee. And for him.

He probed carefully inside himself, searching, testing to see if the connection to his alpha was there, if the thread that always linked them still existed.

No. Nothing. It was gone.

There was no rush of relief as he’d always expected. No sudden sense of freedom.

If anything, he was furious with himself for not guessing Darby would do something like this. And he was furious with her for sacrificing herself for Aimee. For him. Damn her.

Damn her for thinking she was somehow less important than him, that she was expendable.

She was everything. And he would show her that—prove it to her. He’d find her. Save her as he failed to save his mother. And then he would spend every day of the rest of his life showing her just how much she meant to him. He’d show her that she didn’t have to spend her life alone. That she had him. Always.

He looked down at the little girl staring up at him so expectantly. He stroked a hand over her downy-soft hair.

Aimee buried her face in his chest. “I want Darby.”

“I know, sweetheart. So do I. So do I.”

He’d find her. Even if it took surrendering to that part of himself that he had vowed to kill, to keep buried inside himself forever.

There was no question about what he needed to do. Darby had done the unthinkable. He could do this. He would.

He wouldn’t lose her.