Night Falls on the Wicked

TWENTY-SIX

Niklas knew the precise moment he lost Darby. The demon’s shadowy shape faded from the room—there was no sign of the bastard anymore. Niklas was left facing Darby. And yet not Darby.

He growled, the sound vibrating from deep inside his chest as he gazed into her eyes. Hazel no more. They were a soulless black, the whites obliterated.

“Well, lycan,” the demon sneered in Darby’s voice. A strange thing to hear her voice and know it wasn’t her. “Where do we go from here?”

He knew precisely where the demon wanted him to go. He wanted him to attack Darby—kill her so that he could then be free. If a demon witch was killed, the demon was released. It was the only way a demon could take corporeal form and walk freely on earth.

Niklas flexed the knife in his clawed hand and inhaled. He wasn’t idiot enough to be led down that path. No, what he needed to do was get that demon back out of Darby so he could finish him off.

“You care about the witch, do you?” Demon-Darby cocked her head, sending her red hair tossing over one shoulder. “How singular … for a lycan.” He released a throaty laugh. “Then you should spare her. Put her out of her misery. If you care about her, you won’t leave her like this.” Using Darby’s elegant hands, the demon motioned to her body, which he inhabited.

“Stop hiding behind her and come out and fight, you coward,” Niklas said thickly, his voice almost unintelligible.

“Didn’t we just do that? It was so … tedious. You stabbing over and over, never even scratching me.” He sighed, but Niklas noticed he shivered, too. The cold was getting to him. He couldn’t hang on much longer.

Niklas smiled. “Cold, isn’t it?”

Demon-Darby scowled and lifted a hand. The mere motion was all it took to send Niklas flying and crashing back into the wall. The force jarred him to his very bones and he had to resist the impulse to attack. He held himself in check. One look at Darby’s face was all it took. He’d never harm her as long as she was in there, somewhere. If he went after the demon, it would be Darby taking the hit.

The bastard wanted that. He wanted Niklas to kill Darby. Because once that happened, he would be free. Once her body was broken, he could come out. No longer a shadow. No longer with his hands tied. He would be set loose on the world and wreak whatever damage he chose.

Demon-Darby flexed her fingers. “Oh, that felt good. Let’s do that again.”

Niklas staggered to his feet, bracing himself for the next attack as Darby approached. She lifted her hand and blasted Niklas with a second rush of air. He resisted it for a moment, managed to stay on his feet, and then he was flying through the air again, helpless against the force of the current.

The demon made a tsking sound, cocking Darby’s head and sending her magnificent hair tossing around her shoulders. “Shame. I didn’t expect this to end so quickly, but as you said, it is rather cold here. I can’t afford to dally any longer.” He glanced around then. “I suppose I’ll have to leave Darby here again. Like last night. Only this time, when she wakes, it will be to find you dead beside her.”

It was a strange sensation, staring at the face of the woman he loved and feeling only loathing. Because it wasn’t Darby. He wasn’t dealing with the woman he loved right now.

Yes. He loved Darby. The realization that he loved her slid through him smoothly, without the slightest ripple. It should have struck him as a surprise, but it didn’t. Why else would he be here if he didn’t love her?

Fresh resolve coursed through him. Thinking only of doing what he could to drive the demon from Darby’s body, he reached for the necklace at his throat—Darby’s necklace—and ripped it free.

Before the demon could react, he moved in a blur of speed. He pressed the necklace deep into her throat, just below her collarbone. He held it there, pressed against her flesh, hoping that combined with the cold it was enough of an irritant to send the demon running.

The demon shrieked and thrashed, but Niklas clung to Darby, pulling her close to him, holding the three charms tightly against her skin no matter how she fought him.

“Come on, Darby, come back to me,” he urged in a whisper, staring into her still-black eyes.

“No,” the demon spat. “She’s mine now. And forever.”

“Wrong.” With a final push, he drove the charms hard enough against her flesh to shatter each of the vials. They broke from the fierce pressure. He felt the liquid from within roll between his fingers and onto her skin, along with the gritty slide of the salt.

As each charm cracked open, holy water, salt and milk did their damage. The instant the three elements hit her, tendrils of smoke lifted off the surface of her skin, but he didn’t let go.

Even as he hated that he was hurting her, he knew that there was no help for it. The wound would heal and she’d be right in the end … as long as he managed to kill her demon.

Darby’s throat arched, the tendons stretched in agony.

Satisfaction curled through him as her eyes began to fade, flashing in and out. Soulless black one moment and hazel the next.

“Let her go,” he growled, shaking her, his clasp on her neck scalding hot. He knew his Darby was there, close to the surface.

A moan spilled from her lips. The sound came from her. It was Darby. He knew it.

Then he was blown free, ripped from her arms as the demon burst from her in a swirl of black shadow. Niklas’s blade flew from his hand and clattered to the ground.

Darby collapsed a few feet from him in a limp, boneless pile. Niklas scrambled toward her, carefully lifting her with his beastly hands.

The demon roared above them in a violent circling wind. Niklas held Darby close, shielding her, protecting her, telling himself the demon would leave now. That he wouldn’t dare come at her again. Not right now. This was over. For now. It had to be.

Turning so that his cheek pressed against Darby’s hair, he gazed at the window Darby had tried to escape through. He stared at the beams of sunlight, marveling that the sun could be shining at all right now. He was convinced that the sun would never shine again if he lost Darby.

DARBY CRACKED HER BLEARY eyes, the same fuzziness as before clogging her head. Would it be this way every time her demon took possession? Would she come to, struggling to recollect, to recall the horrors she’d committed at the behest of a demon?

Soft fur surrounded her. Her gaze slid up and she gasped at the lycan staring down at her—until she saw his eyes. Until she remembered. Niklas.

She tilted her face closer to look upon him, and the motion made her cringe. Her neck burned, stung like fire. She lightly touched the raw, scorched flesh there.

Dark wind swirled all around them, lifting trash, debris and newspaper into the air like wild birds. The demon’s outraged cries pummeled her ears. She flung her hands up to try and block out the sound.

Through the haze she could see him clearly. He tore through the air around them, his hideous face twisted in fury. He wasn’t done with her. With them. His rage fed him, made him stronger, strong enough to withstand the cold a little longer.

He was going to have another go at her. She knew it, felt it inside herself, in that part that was now linked to him.

She turned, sought Niklas’s face. Smiling, she reached up to touch him, stroke him, unafraid at the sight of him. If this was it, the end, it wasn’t so bad that it happened while in his arms. A month ago, she had no one to hold her.

Now she had him.

She’d beat out her mother’s prediction. She wasn’t alone. He had shifted for her. For her. She didn’t think anyone had ever done such a thing for her before. And to stay here even when it meant he would die. She’d never had that before. Someone who cared enough. Who loved her. Looking into his eyes, she saw that. Knew it to be true.

As much as she wanted him to go, to leave her, to be all right someplace safe far away from her, her heart felt warm and full in a way it had never felt before.

He smiled back at her, or rather grimaced. She doubted he could truly smile as a lycan, but she knew he meant to smile.

Drained and tired from her recent possession, she felt her hand fall limply from his face. She was too weak to even hold it up any longer.

“You should go,” she whispered over the roar of wind and shadow. She had to try. At least one more time.

Her hand brushed something cold and metallic on the ground.

“I’m not leaving you,” he responded in his thick, guttural voice. An animal’s voice that would make anyone else shrink in terror. Or run. But she knew the man underneath. The soul within.

She felt the ground, patting with her hand. Her fingers closed around the object, identifying it. Niklas’s knife. She tested the weight of it, surprisingly light in her hand. The handle felt abrasive against her palm but good, reassuring in its solidness.

She looked away from Niklas, fixing her gaze on the demon she’d been afraid to look at. He held himself over her in a state of full wrath, his slit eyes spitting fury, his lipless mouth curled in a snarl.

“You’ll regret giving me so much trouble,” he uttered in his ancient tongue, the words instantly translating in her mind.

He arched himself high above her, preparing to plunge back inside her. And in that moment it would be over. Everything done. The air locked in her lungs as she braced for it.

Niklas wouldn’t leave. There was no use begging. She couldn’t make him go. He was as stubborn and determined as she was. So he would stay—and her demon would see him dead through her, manipulating her.

And that’s when she saw it. The mark of the fall where he was pushed from Heaven. The sign of God’s abandonment. His Achilles’ heel, nestled in deep shadow under his biceps. A thin handprint glowed brightly, beckoning her. She saw it!

Her heart skipped, stuttered and then took off in a wild beat. Before she could think or even wonder if she could do it—if she could manage it—she lurched off the ground and plunged the blade deep into the demon’s vulnerable flesh just as he was descending.

His scream filled the air. A hellish screech that could shatter glass. Darby brought her hands to her ears. Niklas held her tightly, and together they watched as the demon clawed at the blade, trying to pull it free of his scaled gladiator body. But it was too late. She’d made contact—wounded him in the one place he could never heal.

The demon crumpled, wilted before her eyes, blurring into a twisting plume of smoke as he dropped to the floor. Gradually the air cleared, leaving nothing. No sign of the demon that had once possessed her.

Gasping and shaking, she fell back down to the ground. Niklas caught her up in his arms.

“Darby!” He shifted then, returned to himself. She was instantly surrounded by smooth, warm muscle. He slid a familiar callused palm along her cheek. She smiled faintly as she realized she wasn’t the only one shaking. “You did it!”

She nodded, the motion as jerky and erratic as her pulse. “You came,” she whispered, gazing into his indigo eyes. “You shifted.”

He grinned, one corner of his mouth cocking in that way that made her breath fall faster. “It was nothing.”

She swatted his bare shoulder. Transitioning, shifting into that thing, that part of himself which he hated … it had been everything. And she knew it.

She peered intently at his face. “I wouldn’t be free if it wasn’t for you. I won’t ever forget what you did for me today. For Aimee. It was brave—stupid, but brave.” Then a thought dawned on her. “Aimee!” she exclaimed. “Where is she? She was supposed to return to you—”

“She’s fine. She’s being watched by a very nice lady back at the hotel. We’ll go see her right now.”

She relaxed, nodding. Of course, Niklas would see that Aimee was safe.

He sobered. His touch on her cheeks grew firmer, the pressure of each finger searing. “Why do you make it sound like you’re going somewhere? Like this is good-bye?”

“I—” She didn’t know what to say to that. She shivered, and remembered herself and where they were, what had just happened. Staring into his eyes, she could forget everything. “We better get out of here. It’s cold.”

“Nice change of subject. But you’re not running out on me.” He shook his head, slowly, his devouring gaze never wavering from her face. “Not ever again.”

Her chest grew tight and itchy from the way he was looking at her. She swallowed and moistened her lips as the words in her heart rose up on her lips. “I don’t want to leave you, Niklas. I didn’t want to leave you back at the hotel—”

“But you did.”

“Because I had to.”

“You thought, inaccurately, that you had to.” His hand slid around to grip the back of her head. “Don’t ever do that to me again.” His voice softened, gentled to almost a plea. “Okay?”

She nodded, emotion thickening her throat.

He pressed a kiss to her lips, speaking as he did so, “Now let’s go home.”

Home. God, that word sounded good. For the first time in a long time, it felt real. It felt possible. It didn’t occur to her to wonder where home was. Because she knew, with blinding certainty, that her home was with him and it always would be.