Night Falls on the Wicked

THREE

After work the following day, Darby regretted not squeezing in her much-needed trip to the grocery store on her day off. She glanced at her watch as she left the diner. The store closed in another half hour. Barely enough time, but she was low on milk. Since she didn’t particularly enjoy dry cereal, she figured she’d just have to postpone her run. This wasn’t a big city where the store kept late hours. Family-owned, it pretty much shut down right at eight.

Halfway down the block from the diner, she hesitated for a moment. A crowd was gathered at the end of the street in front of the grocery store. She didn’t do crowds. Not if she could help it. She never knew what might trigger a vision, but she knew that more people around her seemed to increase the odds.

Hovering there, she stomped her boots on the sidewalk, shaking snow loose, trying to pretend there was a reason for her standing in the middle of the sidewalk as she tried to make up her mind about whether to brave the crowd or not.

Things had been smooth lately, better than expected actually. Isolating herself, keeping a low profile was working apparently. She hadn’t suffered a vision in over a year, but that didn’t mean she was free. She’d never be free. She could never return home and she wouldn’t be so naïve as to think that she could.

Staring down the crowd with narrowed eyes, she clenched her jaw and strode forward with hard steps. She’d given up enough already. She wasn’t going to go hungry—even for one night. Nor was she going to go back to the diner and eat one of Sam’s greasy burgers either. One for lunch had been enough. Tonight she planned on enjoying a little pasta with basil and a glass of wine. She sighed in pleasure, almost as though she could taste it now.

Besides, it wasn’t like she was going to hang around and rub elbows with the lot of them. She’d be in and out in a flash. She’d walk directly past the crowd into the store, buy what she needed and be gone. With a decisive nod, she stepped forward.

As she neared the store, she saw everyone grouped around a beat-up old pickup truck, peering inside the back. A man stood in the truck bed wearing full camouflage.

“No thanks needed!” he called out with a wide wave to the crowd. “Every once in a while someone needs to show the wild beasts of the world that we’re masters of this land!”

The nape of her neck tingled in warning as he bent down with a grunt, and she knew something was coming that she wasn’t going to like. She told herself to turn, to walk away and not look, not watch what was unfolding, but her feet were rooted to the earth.

She gasped when he came back up with a grunt, hefting the carcass of a wolf. He showed off his trophy with pride to the crowd. Blood stained the brown and gray fur. The animal’s dead eyes stared out lifelessly—like inanimate marbles.

Clapping and hoots of approval erupted from the crowd. Darby looked away, unwilling to stare too long into the creature’s frozen eyes. She’d seen enough in that one glimpse. It was there, locked in the wolf’s expression, that last moment of life when he realized it was all over. She read the fear, the panic still mirrored there that begged for more time—for life.

More cheering exploded. She risked another glance only to see a second wolf hoisted for display.

She almost imagined she could feel the tattoo on her shoulder tingling with a kindred connection … an awareness of sorts. Crazy, she knew. She’d gotten the tat a few years ago, after leaving Seattle, leaving her aunts and cousins—after she’d said good-bye to Jonah.

Jonah. She sighed at the memory of him. He’d been her friend—a demon slayer made a particularly good friend to have. She hadn’t thought of him in a while. She missed him—hoped he was happy with Sorcha. It took Darby only a glimpse of them together to see that Jonah would never be hers … that her feelings for him would never be returned. They would only ever be friends.

He’d taught her a valuable lesson though—that not everything was what it appeared to be. It was a lesson she never forgot. Jonah should have been something feared and reviled, something as evil as the very things that hunted her. Instead, he’d been her savior on more than one occasion. Before she took on a life of isolation and had to start looking out for herself.

The tattoo of the wolf that covered her left shoulder blade served as a reminder of everything Jonah had taught her … and of the past she’d left behind. It gave her some connection to everything and everyone she’d lost. It made her feel less alone.

She bypassed the crowd and made her way quickly through the store, grabbing some milk, a fresh loaf of bread and some basil. Even walking through the aisles, she could still hear the furor outside.

The cashier, too busy staring raptly out the storefront window, hardly looked at Darby as she paid. With the recent attacks, those dead wolves were more than a pair of trophies. They symbolized justice to the townspeople. Darby shook her head, sad at just how wrong they were—and at how the innocent animals had to suffer for their mistake.

With her small bag in her arms, she sucked in a breath before emerging outside again—almost as if she were about to dive into a dense fog of poison. Anyone watching would have assumed she was bracing herself for the cold and not the mob overflowing the parking lot.

She couldn’t help eyeing the scene as she walked, fiddling with her scarf at her neck to better cover her chin and mouth, not watching where she was going and running smack into the back of someone.

It was like hitting a wall. She fell backward, her bag of groceries falling onto the ground. Elbows in the snow, she watched as a small tub of butter rolled several feet away before stopping.

Embarrassed, she hopped up and quickly began gathering her things, her boots crunching over the snow-buried ground. She didn’t look up. Not even when the man she’d run into squatted beside her and handed her the loaf of bread. She kept her eyes averted, muttering beneath her breath.

This was something she’d mastered. Never looking at people directly. When you looked them in the face, people talked to you way too long and tried to dig past the exterior. Never engage. She lived by this mantra. That’s why waitressing worked so well for her—even if the pay was barely enough to keep her clothed and fed. No one really wanted to talk to their server. People just wanted their food and to be left alone. A waitress was practically invisible—and invisible was what she’d set out to become.

Accepting the bread from the stranger, her gaze locked on his hand. All of her stilled at the sight. Even her lungs ceased to draw breath.

His hand was masculine, the wrist strong and narrow. Capable. The back of it lightly sprinkled with fair hairs and traced with faint veins. The sight was all achingly familiar. Although not in a specific way. It wasn’t a specific hand belonging to a specific man.

Her reaction was familiar. Her single-minded focus something she’d felt before. Back when she didn’t want to be invisible. When she yearned for Jonah to notice her.

She remembered what it felt like to center all her attention on a single masculine hand, hoping she would look up and find his eyes on her, seeing her. Finally, truly, seeing her. At last.

She recalled how her chest would tighten at the glimpse of his hand, the brush of tapering fingers against any part of her. She’d spend hours lost in daydreams of what it would feel like to have that hand touch her, stroke her until she arched and purred like a cat beneath his expert ministrations.

Despite the bitter cold, she suddenly felt hot, flushed with warmth. This hand sparked something deep inside her, woke a dormant piece of herself she’d only ever felt stir and come alive around Jonah. Useless as her feelings had been. Jonah had never looked at her that way, never felt that kind of attraction for her. And now his heart belonged to another.

She snatched up her bread with a muttered thanks, grateful the girl she used to be was gone. She wasn’t the same girl of three years ago, given to girlish infatuations. She didn’t become giddy and experience butterflies for a guy with nice hands. She wasn’t the type to languish after a guy. She wasn’t even the type to waste her breath talking to one anymore. There wasn’t any point after all.

“Sorry.” Stuffing the rest of her things back into the sack, she rose to her feet. “I wasn’t looking where I was going.” She let herself look at him then, having regained control of herself.

And then she lost it again. Her composure flew away.

It was like coming face-to-face with an angel. Dropped from sky to earth, he stood right in front of her.

Her mouth sagged a little as she drank him in—the deeply set indigo eyes, the square jaw and perfectly carved lips. Fascinating creases carved into each cheek just alongside his lips. Lips made for kissing. She swallowed past the sudden thickness in her throat.

“It’s okay,” he murmured in a distracted manner, looking more at the crowd than her … which was a relief but also a blow to her ego. “Quite a show going on, huh?”

If his face didn’t push her over the edge into infatuation, then the voice did. The sound of it stroked her like satin on naked flesh. There was an accent there. She had no idea of the origins. Faintly crisp and rolling. British maybe? Her toes curled inside her boots.

She gave herself a mental shake to snap out of her stupor. She’d been fine these last few years without a man in her life. She didn’t need one now.

She didn’t want to need one now.

She looked with longing across the street to the sidewalk that would carry her home. Home to safety and solitude. The two were dependent upon each other.

“It’s a circus all right,” she returned, recovering her voice, the well-worn indifference. She shifted her weight on her feet, anxious to be on her way.

He looked at her then, truly looked at her, and she wondered why she’d said anything at all. Why didn’t she just take her bag and go, flee, instead of lingering here?

What was she hoping for? God, was she even hoping? When she’d given up on hope years ago?

“Yeah,” he returned, looking her over with slow appraisal. Those impossible indigo eyes of his altered, became something … unnatural.

She struggled not to fidget beneath their regard. It seemed that they almost glowed, lit from within. She shook her head, convinced she was going crazy. Just desperate and lonely enough that her imagination was running wild.

“A real circus,” he said, echoing her.

Something shivered its way inside her at his drawling voice that said nothing remarkable and yet did.

Even as she told herself to break away—walk, run even—she couldn’t budge her feet. His eyes spoke to her, told her to stay put. It was almost as if he mesmerized her … trapped her in a spell.

When he glanced back to the milling people, a breath escaped her that she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. With those eyes off her now, she felt more in control of herself.

“They’re definitely not a fan of wolves around here, huh?” he asked.

“You could say that,” she hedged. “They don’t have the most open minds around here. Just be glad you’re not a wolf,” she joked, but something came over him, a sudden tensing of his broad shoulders that she didn’t miss.

He looked back at her again, expectantly, as if he waited for her to continue, to say more.

“There’s been a few alleged wolf attacks,” she elaborated, compelled to fill the awkward silence. “Lately everyone’s armed to the teeth around here.”

“Ah.” He nodded in the direction of the truck. Hair that was a myriad colors, several shades of gold and brown, fell across his brow. Somewhere, not in towns like this, women spent thousands of dollars in a salon to get hair like that. Something told her this guy didn’t do a thing except shampoo. He was effortlessly gorgeous. And her throat felt suddenly tight and dry with this realization. “Then those are the fearsome animals responsible for the alleged attacks?”

“Those two?” She snorted against the bite of cold air and pulled the hood of her coat closer around her face, swiping at her red-tipped nose. “Unlikely. Those wolves hardly look like they’ve eaten all winter. I don’t think they’ve attacked anyone. But no one’s convincing the local rabble otherwise.”

His well-carved lips twitched and she thought he wanted to smile, but then the hint of curving lips was gone, replaced with the stoic mask again.

It was as though he forgot her presence. His gaze traveled over the locals, assessing, almost as if he were looking for someone, marking each and every one of them.

With his attention removed from her, she finally turned and hurried away, her steps crunching quickly over the snow-covered sidewalk. She felt like a criminal on the escape. Silly, she knew. She didn’t even know his name. Good-byes weren’t a requirement. He was just a stranger. That’s all he could ever be. All she could let him be despite her instant attraction to him. Despite how much she still wanted to linger and talk to him.

She watched her breath fog before her lips and tried to forget those eyes—that stare. Easier said than done. She hadn’t found herself in close conversation with a good-looking guy in forever.

She was better off not getting involved. With him. With anyone.

He was better off. Everyone was.

And yet several feet down the street, she could not resist another look back. Just to assess. Just to make sure he wasn’t looking after her. He wasn’t. And for that, she felt a stab of disappointment that she had no business feeling.