Darkness Hunts

Amaya did not appreciate my restraint.

“And here I was thinking you’d do as I ask and not bring your sword into the company of a dark sorceress.” His voice was calm, and there was little fear in his expression. The bastard knew I wouldn’t kill him. That I couldn’t—not in such a cold-blooded manner, anyway.

“Then you don’t know me as well as you thought.” I pressed Amaya’s point to the bridge of his nose. A thin stream of blood trickled from the wound. “I may be many things, Lucian, but I’m not stupid. That’s what meeting Lauren without some form of personal protection would have been.”

“I would have protected you.”

I resisted the urge to let Amaya bite just a little bit deeper. “I think your actions just now show where your true allegiance lies, and it’s certainly not with me. Or even, I’d hazard a guess, with Lauren.”

“You’ve known for some time just how deep the well is when it comes to revenge.” He reached out, but I snapped my head back and his caress hit my arm rather than my cheek. He let his hand drop again, but there was a brief flash of annoyance in his eyes. “I am sorry for the anger. I didn’t mean to harm or frighten you.”

He’d done both. But, more important, he’d shattered the trust I’d had in him.

His reaction had been deep and unthinking. He hadn’t seen me as a lover, or even as a person. I was just some thing that had sidetracked a means of gaining what he wanted.

And he’d hated me for that.

Hated me enough to want to kill me. He might not have meant to, but that would have been the end result if Azriel hadn’t turned up.

Of course, I had no doubt he would have regretted the momentary lapse of sanity, given that both he and everyone else needed me alive to find the damn keys. But regret after the fact wouldn’t have done me a whole lot of good.

“You and I are finished, Lucian.” I stepped back and sheathed Amaya. Her grumbles filled the back of my thoughts, and though the noise had dropped from banshee territory, it was still sharp enough to bring on yet another headache. “I can’t be with someone I can’t trust.”

“Risa, don’t be stupid. I apologized and I meant—”

“It’s not what you meant,” I interrupted testily. “It’s what you did that matters. Damn it, Lucian, I saw the hate.”

“What you saw was not aimed at you.” Perhaps he saw my disbelief, because he added, a little more sarcastically, “There is only one person I actually hate in this room, and he can lower his sword. I really do not intend you harm.”

“I could lower it, true,” Azriel said. “But Valdis rather likes the taste of your flesh.”

“We both know she will bite no further, as her master has no desire to flaunt reaper rules and thereby jeopardize becoming again what he once was.”

“I would not be so sure of that, Aedh.”

“So we’re all just going to stand here like this?” he asked, the sarcasm stronger this time. “That could get a little tedious, don’t you think?”

“What I think,” I said, taking another step away from him, though my retreat wasn’t just physical, “is that Azriel was right. You will lie, cheat, steal, and fuck to get what you want. Nothing and no one else matters—it’s all about you and your endgame. And while I might have been able to forgive the lying, I can’t forgive the attack. I don’t want that sort of violence in my life. Not now, not ever.”

“Risa—”

He reached for me again, but I slapped his hand away.

“No. I mean it, Lucian,” I said, anger and perhaps a touch of regret in my voice. Whatever else he was, he’d been a good lover, and I mourned the loss of that if nothing else. “You and I are finished.”

“As lovers, perhaps, but you will need another sword when it comes to finding the keys. Our last attempt proved that.”

“I would rather fight alone than fight with someone who plays this game for reasons he has not yet fully disclosed,” Azriel commented.

“I don’t believe I asked for your opinion, reaper,” Lucian snapped, then flexed his fingers and added, “I intend to remain part of this quest, Risa.”

“Well, I’m afraid that’s an option no longer open to you.”

My voice was resolute, but deep inside, doubt stirred. There was a saying about keeping your friends close, but your enemies closer. If Lucian was playing a deeper, darker game than mere revenge, it might be far better to keep him around and keep an eye on him.

That is a very dangerous game to play with one such as him, Azriel commented.

Perhaps, but I just get the feeling that there’s more going on here than what we think.

Have I not been saying that? It was wryly said, even if there was a hint of rebuke embedded within the words.

You’ve said a lot of things, reaper, most of them nasty in regard to Lucian.

He deserves nothing less.

“I will not be kept apart from this quest, Risa.” Lucian’s voice was resolute. Dark. Almost as dark as the gleam in his eyes. “Whatever it takes, whatever I have to do, I will be there when you search for the keys.”

“If you get in our way, if you attempt to harm or spell or do anything else to me or my friends, I’ll kill you myself,” I said flatly.

And there went any idea of keeping a close eye on him.

“Warning heeded,” he said. The madness and hate flared again, so strong I could taste it. And while he appeared to have it under control, it nevertheless scared the hell out of me. I’d been sleeping with that darkness. It could have overtaken him—and me—at any time. “And now, heed this. Vengeance is mine, and the keys play a major part in that. I will not be deterred.”

“Then we both know where we stand.” I grabbed my purse and slung it over my shoulder. “It was fun while it lasted, Lucian.”

With that, I turned and walked out.

And I didn’t stop walking until I was out of his building and well down the street.

That’s when the shaking began.

I leaned back against the nearby shopfront and sank down, wrapping my arms around my knees as I sucked in great gulps of air. I felt like crying like a baby again, and all I wanted to do was scream, why, why, WHY? to the heavens.

Just this once, it would have been nice to catch a break, to have my suspicions proved wrong. Why the hell couldn’t fate play nice for a change? Just one break—surely to god that wasn’t too much to damn well ask?

“It would seem that it is,” Azriel said softly. He sank down in front of me and placed his hands on my thighs. His touch was like fire, and it chased away the shivers and lent me strength. “I am sorry that it has come to this.”

“No, you’re not,” I shot back, taking offense where none was intended. “You wanted Lucian out of my life, and now he is.”

“That is undeniably true,” he agreed. “But I do not wish to see you in such pain. Believe that, if nothing else.”

I did believe it. Just as I believed that the pain I was feeling now—a pain that came from betrayal rather than any emotional depth—was only just the beginning.

I rubbed my eyes wearily. “This has all become so totally fucked, Azriel. All I’ve ever wanted is an ordinary life, and that seems so far beyond me now I’m not sure I’ll ever get it back.”

“There was never anything ordinary about you or your life, Risa, however much you might have convinced yourself otherwise.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. The restaurant was ordinary, falling in love with Jak and then getting my heart broken was ordinary, wanting kids and a family sometime in the future is very, very ordinary. That’s what I want back, and yet all of those things may now never be.” My gaze pinned his. Deep in those turbulent blue depths I saw the acknowledgment of my words. “And you know it.”

He wrapped his hands around mine and squeezed lightly. Longing shivered through me, but sadly, he was just another desire that was never meant to be.

“Nothing is ever written in stone, Risa. Fate is a fluid thing that changes with every decision and action. The future I see and the one you fear might never be.”

“And just what fate do you see?” I asked softly.

He hesitated. “Death. Many deaths.”

I closed my eyes again. There were some things better left unknown, that was for sure. And yet I couldn’t help asking, “Who?”

“That is uncertain and depends on our actions going forward.”

“Me? You?”

He half shrugged. “There are always casualties in a war, and you and I are front-line soldiers. The possibility is always there.”

I knew that. I’d always known that. But somehow, having him say it made it seem that much more inevitable.

“I don’t want to die, Azriel.”

“That is not an outcome that would please me, either.”

I couldn’t help smiling. “Really? I mean, it would at least free you from my bothersome tendency to do what I want rather than listen to your good advice.”

Amusement briefly crinkled the corners of his eyes. “Is there not a saying about challenges being the spice of life?”

“Actually, it’s variety that’s the spice of life.”

“And you are nothing if not variable,” he agreed solemnly.

I laughed, then leaned forward and brushed a quick kiss across his lips. “Thank you.”

His hands clenched briefly against mine. I had no doubt he was fighting the urge to reach for me and deepen the kiss, because I was fighting the very same battle. “For what?” he said, voice controlled and very, very even.

“For making me laugh when all I want to do is cry.”

A shadow fell over us both and my stomach twisted in sudden fear. I glanced up hurriedly, but it wasn’t an angry Lucian, as I’d half expected. The man was thin, rat-faced, and not a stranger. He was the shifter my father had used previously to courier packages and notes to me. We’d cornered him in the basement of an abandoned apartment building, but he hadn’t provided a great deal of information, thanks to the fact that my father had erased his memory. As had Azriel, once we’d finished questioning him.