Darkness Devours

“No. The Rakshasa may be hungry, but it isn’t stupid. It won’t return tonight.”



I sighed in relief. “I’m glad, because I really don’t want to be here when those ghosts start up again.”



“We won’t be.” He rose, pulling me upright with him, then encircling my waist with his other arm. His face was its usual inscrutable self, but there was an odd tension in his body and Valdis flowed with a muted red fire. “Ready?”



I nodded. Energy swept around me, through me, tearing us apart and flinging us through the fields so quickly it was little more than a blur.



I gasped as we re-formed inside the hotel room. “Sorry,” he said, his hand sliding almost sensually around my waist before he stepped back. “I did not want to risk being on the fields for long. Not with the Raziq’s creatures still loose.”



I frowned. “Why aren’t they being hunted?”



“They are, but our resources are still stretched thin.” He paused. “Go shower, Risa.”



I studied him for a moment, knowing there was more to it than that, but also knowing he wouldn’t share until he was good and ready. With a half shrug of my own, I grabbed a shirt and some fresh panties and headed for the bathroom to clean up.



Twenty minutes later I felt somewhat refreshed, and though my arm was still red from the remnants of the slug glue, it didn’t look bad enough to scar. I got dressed, then finger-dried my hair, suddenly glad to be wearing my own face once more, even though I’d probably have to face-shift again when we left the hotel. The Raziq might have attacked me on the gray fields, but they hadn’t yet managed another attack on this plane. The subterfuge, as tiring as it was, appeared to be working.



I sighed softly, then jumped a little as my cell phone rang.



I dug it out of the pocket of my discarded jeans, and said, “Hello?”



“I must say,” a familiar voice drawled, “I am very disappointed.”



Lucian. Damn it, he was the last person I wanted to talk to right now, even if my hormones were suddenly saying otherwise. And what was it about this man that got to me so quickly? I hadn’t thought about him all fucking day, and yet the minute I heard his voice, I became a seething mass of need.



If I hadn’t known otherwise, I’d have said he’d put some sort of spell on me—except that Ilianna would have spotted anything like that.



“What do you want, Lucian?”



It was tersely said, but he didn’t seem to notice. His soft laugh ran across my senses as sweetly as a caress.



“What do you think I want? You, on me, under me. I want to feel your supple body, want to caress your silken skin, want to lose myself in the wonder of loving you.”



Each word had visions of our tangled bodies rising, and sweat prickled across my skin. I closed my eyes and sagged back against the bathroom wall. I could resist this. I could resist him.



“Only trouble is,” I said, the anger in my voice aimed more at myself than at him, “I don’t want to see or feel you. I’ve already told you that.”



“I may not be able to feel your need, but I can hear the lie in your words, Risa.”



“I don’t care. I said at least forty-eight hours and I meant it. Maybe next time you’ll reconsider the roughhouse tactics and try a little more respect.”



And with that, I hung up, and turned my phone off for good measure. It would piss him off even more, but I really needed to make the point.



Although what I really needed— I stopped the thought and frowned. Because if I was honest, what I needed and what I wanted were two entirely different things. I might need Lucian’s brand of loving with a fierceness that was indescribable, but the person I wanted was Azriel.



And yet, I still feared taking that step. Still feared where it would lead, and what would happen when all this was over and he left for good.



Because I had a suspicion that if I let Azriel in, he could lay waste to my emotional being far more easily than Jak ever had.



I took a deep breath and slowly released it.



I couldn’t risk it. I shouldn’t risk it.



I closed my eyes and knew that more than likely I would risk it.



I shook my head at my own recklessness and walked into the main room. Where I stopped. Azriel was standing in his usual spot at the window, but his arms were crossed and tension rode his shoulders. Valdis was oddly silent. Neither of them was giving me any clue as to what he was feeling or thinking.



But in many ways, that was clue enough. After all, he knew precisely what I’d been thinking.



“Just because I can read your thoughts does not mean I always do,” he said softly.



“And yet you are right now.”



“Yes.”



“And?”



“And what?”



I scanned his broad back, willing him to turn around and face me. He didn’t. Meaning he wasn’t about to make this easy. This step, if I took it, would be my decision and my decision alone. Despite his words earlier, he wouldn’t do anything further to influence me. “You have no thoughts? No desires?”



“I have plenty of both, but ideally, none of them are ones that I should act upon.”



I forced my feet forward, closing the distance between us. Even though the heat radiating off him burned across my skin, making my breath catch and my pulse race, the few inches that now separated us still felt like a mile or more.



“And realistically?”



“Realistically, I wish to plunge Valdis’s screaming heart into the Aedh’s flesh and rip him asunder.”



Though there was no emotion in his voice, I felt it nonetheless. It burned inside me, bright and fierce. I licked my lips, wondering why I was suddenly so attuned to him. “Why do you want to kill him?”



He didn’t answer, but just for a moment, flames flickered down Valdis’s side, rich and red. The color of anger. The color of desire. It stirred through the threads of my being as sweetly as a caress.



“I didn’t think reapers were capable of an emotion as strong as jealousy.” I was standing so close to him that my breath washed across his shoulders as I spoke. His skin twitched so sharply it was almost as if I were flaying him.



“It is not jealousy,” he retorted. “I simply do not trust him. And I do not like the timing of that phone call, so soon after Logan was killed.”



“Lucian didn’t kill Logan. You found the shooter.”



“Yes, but who controlled the shooter? He was a Razan, Risa. Maybe he was Lucian’s Razan.”



“Lucian hasn’t got Razan.”



“How can you be sure of that? He has been on this earth for a long, long time. He may now revel in pleasure, but have no doubt he has also become proficient at lying.”



“You and I know it’s more a guess than a certainty.” I raised a hand and brushed my fingertips across the back of his neck, following the swirling tribal patterns inked into his skin. A dark fire seemed to ignite deep in the heart of them. “Lucian said he’d been stripped of most Aedh powers—how then could he possibly create human slaves and sustain them?”



“I am sure he can do more than what he says.”



“So you have proof of this? Or is it merely distrust and dislike?”



He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. I let my fingers slide down to the stylized black Dušan that dominated the left half of his back. It, too, seemed to gleam with a dark fire when I touched it. But then, it was alive, even if it couldn’t gain form on this plane.



“That distrust,” I continued softly, “isn’t the only reason for your sudden need to kill Lucian, is it?”



“No.”



“Then why the change?”



Even as I asked the question I had my doubts that he would answer it. But once again he surprised me.



“Because,” he said, his voice even though the air around us suddenly seemed to crackle with anger and tension—the same sort of tension that rode his powerful body. “He is the reason you are standing where you are, contemplating what you are.”



“No, he isn’t.”



“Do you deny the desire he raised when he called?”



“No.” I ran my fingers back up the tribal patterns. A tremor moved through him as I touched the one that resembled a comet trailing fire. “But he is not the reason I’m standing here, Azriel. He’s not the one I want right now.”



“But you will want him in the future?”



I hesitated, but there was no denying the reality of the situation. I would have sex with Lucian in the future—partly because I generally enjoyed being with him and partly because it was a means of self-preservation. If Jak had taught me anything, it was never to invest too much of myself in a relationship unless I was absolutely certain it was that “forever” one. And neither Lucian nor Azriel could be that, no matter how much I might enjoy being with Lucian or how strong the pull toward Azriel.



“Yes,” I said eventually, and let my hand drop back to my side. “I will continue seeing Lucian. But that does not mean I cannot also be with you. Werewolves are by nature—”



“Do not,” he interrupted sharply, “use your werewolf heritage as an excuse. It is fear that governs your actions on this, nothing more, nothing less.”



“I prefer to call it self-preservation.” I stepped back from him, though it was the last thing I wanted to do. “You said I couldn’t continue to deny what is between us. Well, I’m not. But I will not commit wholly to something that must end when all this is over. If you want otherwise, then I’m sorry, but I just can’t do it.”



“And I do not know if I—” He cut the words off and took a deep breath. Then, finally, he turned around to face me. His mismatched blue eyes were turbulent and dark, but the emotions moved through them too quickly to identify. “You once wondered what it would be like to make love to a reaper. That is not something I can share with you. You are not ready for it.”



I raised my eyebrows, but said nothing, simply because I sensed a “but” coming.