Night's Darkest Embrace (6 page)

“And you stopped him? Managed to get away from him?”

He still sounded doubtful, but at least he was listening instead of yelling for the other guards. “I tranqued him when he wasn’t paying attention. He never even saw the needle coming.”

To my surprise, Jack began to laugh, though he kept it from being loud enough to draw attention to us. “You got the drop on Rafael?” he said at last, quieting his chuckles. “He must be
beyond
pissed at you.”

“I have no doubt,” I replied dryly. “But that’s not important. What is important is telling as many people here as we can so he’s stopped. You have to help me, Jack. He’s killing our kind, either directly or indirectly.”

“Where are these gateways in the castle?”

I took it as a good sign that he was asking about their location instead of questioning their existence. “In the bathroom attached to his bedroom. I’ve never seen two barriers so close together before, but they’re there. Trust me.”

Jack seemed to mull this over, the lines of his face deepening as he frowned. I waited, hoping that all the time we’d spent together before would serve me well now.

“It’s worth checking out,” he said at last. “We need to avoid the other guards, though. Rafael’s got a DOS out on you. If one of them sees you, he might take you back to Rafael no matter what you’d tell him.”

DOS,
detain on sight.
I had no doubt that the other guards would be less likely to hear me out, let alone believe me, since I didn’t know most of them.

“Get me to Bonecrushers. The more people who hear about this at the same time, the better. Not even Rafael can stand against a mob of pissed-off Partials.”

“Climb up,” Jack said, holding out his hand.

Despite the years I’d known him, I hesitated. What if Jack didn’t believe me and was just pretending so I’d be in the vulnerable position of having my back to him? He could shoot me, pistol-whip the back of my head, or even stab me, and there wouldn’t be much I could do about it.

“I’ll get on behind you,” I said, my hard tone letting him know that wasn’t negotiable.

He let out another grunt. “Suit yourself, Mara.”

Jack didn’t seem at all uneasy about giving me that kind of advantage. I shook my head, feeling ashamed. Being duped by Rafael made me give everyone a suspicious eye now, even people who didn’t deserve it.

“Sorry,” I murmured as I accepted his hand and climbed up behind him.

Jack spurred his horse once I was settled, dropping his torch into the first brook we came across with a muttered “Don’t need them seein’ you up here with me.” Instead of following close to the torch-strewn path that led into town, Jack went into the thicker part of the woods. After he gave up our only source of illumination and headed away from the path, the woods soon returned to their normal, almost impenetrable darkness. Jack seemed okay with it, though. He steered his horse confidently through the trees, making me wonder how many years he’d patrolled this particular section to get so familiar with it.

Very
familiar with it, in fact, because he spurred his horse again even though I now couldn’t see more than a dozen feet in front of me.

“Should you be going so fast?” I called out, stretching to be closer to his ear so he’d hear me.

“Aren’t we in a hurry?” he countered, the words whistling by me as he kicked the horse to increase its pace even more.

Yes, I wanted to get to Bonecrushers as soon as possible. Definitely before one of Rafael’s guards spotted us, but riding at a gallop when you were mostly blind wasn’t my idea of smart. Even if Jack knew these woods like the back of his hand, he was only a quarter demon like me. So if I couldn’t see, then he couldn’t see—

The truth hit me right between the eyes, but unfortunately, so did the large overhanging branch that Jack saw in time to duck from and I didn’t.

My last thought before lights exploded in my mind was,
Pureblood . . .

CHAPTER SIX

Icy water splashed over me. I came back into consciousness with a jerk, my senses sluggish but instinct warning me of danger. Remembering what had happened before my eyes even opened, I reached for my weapons but realized my hands were bound.

“Yep, that woke her,” Jack’s familiar voice noted with an undercurrent of laughter.

My gaze swung around as I tried to orient myself. It was very dark, but I could make out Jack standing several feet away on the edge of a river. I was
in
that river, getting chilled to the bone from the frigid water, someone big holding me in a tight grip from behind.

Must be Rafael,
I realized, the sinking sensation in my stomach increasing until it felt like my gut had descended to my knees. I hadn’t told Jack anything about Rafael that Jack hadn’t already known, because Jack was a Pureblood, too. What if
all
the guards in Nocturna were Purebloods? Hell, what if half the population was, Partials being slowly weeded out under the watchful eye and instruction of its centuries-old ruler?

At least my family knows about Rafael
, I thought with a pang. When I didn’t come back, they’d tell other Partials, too. Enough that even Rafael and his people wouldn’t be able to suppress them forever. It wasn’t the most compelling legacy to leave behind, but it was all I had.

“Best patrolman in Nocturna, huh, Jack?” I said bitterly while Rafael dragged me deeper into the river. I tried not to panic, not to wonder if drowning hurt, because I wanted to die fighting, not begging. “No wonder you were always first to discover who crossed over. You could see in the dark, you filthy Pureblood.”

“Aw, Mara, don’t be pissy,” Jack said in a chiding tone. “I told you to quit coming back looking for Ashton, but no, you just wouldn’t listen.”

“So it’s
my
fault you’re a murdering prick who devours the life essence out of
children
?” I spat, trying to kick even though my feet were bound, too.

I could barely see him now, but it looked like Jack shrugged. “I gotta eat just like you do. Can’t help it if my food is Partials.”

“All this talk of food is making me hungry,” a voice I hadn’t expected purred near my ear.

Every muscle in me stiffened. It wasn’t Rafael yanking me deeper into the river but Ashton!

I looked around again, but all I saw was the two of them. “Where’s Rafael?” I asked, my voice almost eerily calm.

Ugly laughter came from behind me. “Nowhere near here, baby. He doesn’t even know about this barrier, but thanks to you, now we know where another one is, too. Once we get rid of Rafael, we’ll have our choice of a few different barriers to play with. I can’t wait.”

“Get rid of Rafael . . .” I repeated, my eyes closing in the agony of revelation. Whatever Rafael had been doing hiding those barriers, he hadn’t been involved with Ashton. Or with Jack, or possibly with
any
other Pureblood.

And I’d used him, tricked him, drugged him, and now set him up with my family to take the fall. Drowning all of a sudden seemed too good an end for me.
What had I done?

I didn’t have long to wallow in revulsion over my actions before Ashton’s hand clamped over my mouth, pinching my nose at the same time. Before I could react, a horrible crushing sensation enveloped my entire body, squeezing me so hard that my organs ached. I would’ve screamed, but between the pressure of Ashton’s hand and those merciless invisible bands compressing me, I couldn’t even gasp.

Then I was on my back, looking up not at the ceiling of a dark underground dwelling but at a sky the most amazing shade of purple. For a moment, I stared, not moving. Was I dead? Was this the afterlife? If so, it didn’t look all that bad—

“Get up,” Ashton’s voice snarled.

No, not dead. Unless this was hell and Ashton had arranged to personally greet me. I blinked, my eyes adjusting from the darkness of Nocturna to the new, hazy sort of sunset all around me. Ashton yanked on my bound hands, forcing me to my feet so abruptly that I stumbled into him. Yet I collided with him softly, as if something I couldn’t see cushioned my impact. My body felt different, too. Lighter, like I’d suddenly lost thirty pounds.

A sick tremor ran up my spine. Ashton must have pulled me through a barrier in the river. Now I was in the next realm, a place that I could never leave even if I did manage to get away from him.

“Like it here? This is where I took the girl you were with that night,” Ashton murmured, hauling my face right up next to his. His brown eyes gleamed. “You know, I don’t even remember her name—”

“Gloria,” I interrupted him through gritted teeth. “Her name was Gloria, she was my cousin, and she was sixteen years old, you piece of
shit
.”

He just smiled. “Whatever.”

Then he began to drag me toward some tall slabs of rocklike formations. With the odd, buoyant feel to the air, it seemed like it took him less effort than it would have on Nocturna, or even in the normal world. Gravity must not be as strong here. Why I cared, I had no idea, but the analytical part of me was taking note of my surroundings in far more detail than the fatalistic part of me was.

Warmer here than Nocturna. Gravity might be a little off, but oxygen levels must be similar or I’d be dead already. Lots of big, whitish formations, like a crystal forest around us. Gray fog everywhere. Dark blue ground underneath us, similar to sand. . . .

“Stop right there,” a hard voice thundered.

Ashton froze even as my heart constricted with a wild mixture of hope and disbelief. Rafael came out from behind one of those tall, smoky-colored pillars. His jacket, shirt, and vest were open, muscled arms crossed over his chest and leather-clad legs tucked inside knee-high boots. With the fog swirling around him, he looked like something out of a dream.

Or a hallucination. Maybe that’s what Rafael was, a trick my subconscious had formulated as a way to buffer me from the horrors of my reality. Then, just as quickly, I discarded that thought. Rafael couldn’t be a mirage, because it was clear that Ashton could see him, too.

“How did you get here?” Ashton demanded.

I wondered the same thing myself. I’d abandoned the idea that Rafael was a Pureblood after Jack and Ashton revealed he wasn’t involved in any of their dirty workings. Yet here he was, and only Purebloods could cross the barrier—unless Rafael had somehow managed to get a Pureblood to pull him through?

“I’ll give you one chance to die with your essence intact,” Rafael replied, each word bitten off with palpable fury. “Let her go now, and I’ll only take your life as punishment for what you intended to do to her.”

My mouth dropped even as Ashton’s grip on me tightened. Maybe the different atmosphere in this realm was messing with my mind, because Rafael
couldn’t
mean what that sounded like. . . .

“You,” Ashton said hoarsely. “That night, I couldn’t see your face, but it was
you
—”

“Yes,” Rafael cut him off, flinging aside his coat, shirt, and vest in one fluid movement. Then, as if out of a nightmare, I saw shadows begin to form behind him. Those shadows grew, darkening, solidifying . . . until a pair of charcoal-colored wings spread out in terrifying, magnificent formation, extending well past Rafael’s shoulders with their lighter tips trailing all the way to his feet.

Not a Partial or a Pureblood.
Fallen
.

Ashton flung me away from him as he ran. With my hands and feet still bound, I landed face-first on the sandy indigo ground instead of catching myself. Something whooshed over me, punctuated by a scream from Ashton. It took a second or two of awkward twisting, but I finally managed to flop over—and then stared.

Rafael had Ashton in his arms. Between the fog and the incredible span of his wings, I couldn’t see everything clearly, but it looked like Rafael had his mouth pressed to Ashton’s in a chilling parody of a kiss. Ashton bleated in terror, kicking and flailing against Rafael’s ruthless embrace, but to no avail. After several long moments while I watched, transfixed, Ashton’s movements slowed and his head fell back. When Rafael let go of him, he fell to the ground with a limpness that spoke of permanence.

Lights seemed to flicker in a spiderweb pattern over Rafael’s skin before they faded, vanishing into his natural creamy skin tone. Part of me was howling that now would be a really good time to attempt
running
, bound feet or no, but I didn’t move as Rafael turned and began to walk toward me.

“Am I next?” I rasped, mildly surprised that I could still talk after what I’d just witnessed.

Those unbelievable wings fluttered once before Rafael reached down, breaking through the duct tape around my wrists as though it were tissue paper. He did the same thing with my feet, until the sticky substance still clung to my skin but no longer restrained me.

“I told you before, Mara; if I wanted to eat you, I would’ve done so years ago,” he replied, no emotion in his tone or in his gaze. Then he hauled me into his arms, his grip unyielding, that lovely, killing mouth mere inches from my own.

I stared at him, barely able to breathe, thinking that if my heart beat any faster, it would burst.

“But now you know what I am, so you know what I
do
eat,” he whispered before brushing his lips over mine.

Then the air exploded around us as his wings lifted and fell, vaulting us upward into that deep violet sky while Ashton’s lifeless body lay below on the ground.

CHAPTER SEVEN

From the glimpses I caught when I wasn’t fighting off nausea from the dizzying dips and ascents, this realm looked like a cross between Antarctica and the Grand Canyon, except in different colors. Rows of crystal formations—or their mineral counterparts—littered the ground, interspersed by streams, that bluish sand, and something that resembled a forest of tumbleweed trees, of all things. We seemed to be the only people in the sky, to my relief. If I’d seen swarms of flying Fallen, I might have passed out on the spot.

Rafael was a Fallen
. The proof of that was winging us to who-knew-where, yet I still had a hard time reconciling the fact. Fallen were ancient beings supposedly so twisted that they were banished to the middle dimensions because neither the highest nor the lowest ones wanted them. They were said to remain small in number because they ate their young. I’d even heard that the Pureblood species had come about only because the Fallen were so promiscuous that they hadn’t managed to destroy all their offspring before they’d interbred enough to form into their own race of demons. Purebloods interbreeding with humans later resulted in Partials, but by then, the bloodlines had been altered enough to make my race able to survive without feeding off the essence of others.

If the history of the Fallen was true, then I should have been paralyzed with terror right now. But, inexplicably, I wasn’t. Rafael’s arms were tight around me, but not with the careless, bruising force Ashton had used, and the knot of bitter despair that had resided in my gut since I’d woken up in the river had eased into a nervous fluttering. Rafael might take out some payback on me for drugging him, but I didn’t feel in danger of being murdered. That had been my first thought when I’d seen his wings, true, but if Rafael wanted me dead, all he’d have to do was let go. At this height, I’d splatter on the ground in an indistinguishable pile of goo.

All of a sudden, Rafael swooped downward, causing my stomach to lift in a way that made me glad I hadn’t eaten recently. Who knew how a Fallen would react to puke all over his wings? I might not be in imminent lethal danger, but I didn’t want to push my luck, either. Through eyes narrowed into slits, I saw we were headed right for a big crystal mountain. As the seconds passed, I waited for Rafael to swerve, but he flew in a straight line, his wings cleaving the air to eat up the distance between us and that huge, solid obstacle.

“Rafael . . .” I began, tapping on his chest.

His mouth curled, but he only flew faster. My tapping turned into a frantic pummeling as less than a hundred yards remained between us and that crystal tower of destruction. What was the matter with him? It wasn’t like the mountain was going to swerve first!

“Rafael!” I screamed, bracing for the unavoidable impact—

At the last second, he tilted, flying us sideways into a fissure I didn’t see until we were already in it. From then on, I kept my eyes shut, deciding that was the wiser course of action or he’d have more than puke to clean off his dark gray feathers.

After several more abrupt turns and swerves, all motion stopped, and I felt something solid beneath my feet. For a long moment, I just stood there, panting and trying to quiet my ominously rumbling stomach.

“Please tell me there’s a gateway back to my world inside this mountain and that’s why you brought us here,” I said when I felt settled enough to talk.

“No.”

I opened my eyes, meeting his hooded cobalt gaze. “No, there isn’t a gateway? No, that isn’t why you brought us here? Or no, you won’t tell me?”

He shrugged, releasing me from his grip. “Either way, the answer is still no,” he replied in an intractable tone.

That stiffened my spine. Okay, I owed him an apology—several, in fact, plus a huge thank-you for killing Ashton—but if he hadn’t been sneaking around and lying to me in the first place, I wouldn’t have jumped to all the wrong conclusions later.

“I need to get back to my realm,” I said, trying to sound very reasonable. “There are some issues I have to clear up—”

“They’ll wait,” he said, both words spaced while his brow ticced up in challenge.

Recklessness made me forget that I should try a sweet, charming approach. I jabbed him in the chest, stepping forward until our toes were almost touching.

“I need to go back so I can help clear your name, damn it, so you might want to—oof!”

Rafael picked me up, throwing me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. I would have screamed, but he’d done it so suddenly that the breath had been knocked out of me.

“Put me down!” I managed, kicking him as best I could.

“No,” he said calmly, keeping me steady with only one arm. “This way, I know you won’t be going anywhere until I’ve said what I need to say.”

From my position, with his wings cradled around me, I had a great view of his muscled legs as he strode down what looked like a long hallway. Then he stopped right as I caught a glimpse of another set of legs ahead, but these were distinctly feminine. I tried to angle myself upward to see whom those legs belonged to when Rafael began walking again, jostling me.

“Rafael,” a clear voice demanded. “What do you think you’re doing with that female?”

“Taking her to my room to ravish her, Mother,” he replied shortly.

My jaw dropped, both at his words and at the ebony wings I caught a glimpse of when Rafael turned a corner and I saw more of the woman. Then nothing but walls met my vision when he rounded another bend.

Not just one Fallen but
two
to contend with. I was so screwed, and not just in the way Rafael had outlined.

“Eh, I’ll see you afterward, then,” she replied in a disinterested voice, adding credence to the harsh rumors I’d heard about their race.

Yet they couldn’t all be cruel. Rafael had saved me. Twice. If I had to make a judgment now, Fallen would outrank Purebloods on a kindness scale, no matter their fearsome reputation.

As for the ravishment, I took that as sarcasm instead of nefarious intent. Rafael might have blown my mind by revealing that he was a Fallen, but I didn’t believe he was a secret rapist, too. No, he was the type of man who relished sensual surrender instead of brute force, as he’d proved in the carriage. The memory of that, combined with how long it had been since I’d had sex, made the prospect of being alone with him more enticing than daunting, Fallen or no.

Rafael deposited me inside a large, triangular room with crystal walls forming a point at the high, high ceiling. Light glowed from some of those crystals, bathing the room with a soft bluish tinge. A pool of silver water took up one corner, an assortment of thick pillows was piled in another, and a desk that looked formed from the wall took up the final corner. I didn’t wait for Rafael to speak but walked over to the shining pool, kneeling by it with a questioning look.

“Is this safe for Partials?”

“Yes, but there’s no barrier in there, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he replied in a silky voice.

I kicked off my shoes. “I’m thinking that I still smell like a sewer and I’d like to change that. You should be all for this idea. It’ll make your whole ravishment plan a lot more palatable for you.”

His mouth quirked, confirming my belief that he’d never intended that, before his expression became stern. “Don’t try to joke your way out of this, Mara. I’m still very angry with you.”

“I don’t blame you.” Spoken as I began to unbutton my shirt. Nothing put a man in a better mood than watching a woman strip, as Rafael’s fading scowl proved. Jack and Ashton had already taken my vest, gun belt, and weapons, so I had less to take off than what I’d started out with.

He watched me, his wings shifting and then folding back in a compilation of movements that somehow shrank them until I couldn’t see them anymore. How could he hide them so completely? True, I hadn’t seen Rafael’s bare back before, but he’d never looked like he’d had a large hump under his clothes.

“Turn around,” I said, wondering if he’d refuse.

Slowly, he turned, revealing wide, muscled shoulders, a narrow waist, and a set of odd, slight ridges that ran along his spine from its base to his neck. Impossibly, that was all that remained of the wings that had reached from his head down to his feet.

“How?” I asked, my voice coming out throatier than before.

“Magic,” he replied, facing me once more.

I swallowed at the intensity in his eyes, their vibrant blue shade already dusting over with tiny little lights. “I’m serious,” I told him.

“So am I.” He spread his arms, and those incredible wings unfurled again, their dark span reaching a foot past his fingertips and their breadth twice as wide as his body. Then he lowered his arms, and just as swiftly, those wings curled up, disappearing from sight.

“There’s no scientific explanation for these,” he went on, his tone making gooseflesh break out over my skin. “They defy reason and natural order. Fallen were made before those things even existed.”

I stood there in my bra and black jeans, feeling somewhat awed by the man in front of me, wishing I hadn’t thought that my taking a bath would distract him from being angry. It was too late to change my mind, though.

I unzipped my jeans and stepped out of them, feeling his gaze move over me despite the fact that I didn’t meet his eyes. Then I quickly lowered myself into the pool without taking off my bra or panties. Good thing it wasn’t cold, because my nipples were already hard from a mixture of excitement and nervousness. It was deep enough that I sank into the water up to my shoulders, noting that the shiny liquid felt different—thicker, like salt water but without the grittiness. Within moments, my skin began to tingle, but not in an unpleasant way.

“The water in that pool is similar to hydrogen peroxide, so the tickling you’re feeling is it dissolving away dirt and bacteria,” Rafael said, as if reading my mind. “And I’m not one of the original Fallen,” he went on, lowering himself into a sinuous crouch only a dozen feet away. “My mother is, but my father was a Pureblood. So while I have wings like my mother’s people and I feed on Purebloods, I’m not like the other Fallen you’ve heard of.”

I swallowed at the faintly ominous way he said that last sentence. “Are the other Fallen, the original ones . . . are they anything like their reputations?”

“They’re exactly like their reputations,” he replied flatly, making me shudder at the blunt confirmation of all the terrible things I’d heard. “My mother let me live because my wings were a curiosity to her. Most mixed-blood children don’t have those, though I’ve met a few others like me over the centuries. After I was born, she sent me to stay with my father in the normal world so I would age into a man. Once I had, she brought me to this realm and taught me how to hunt Purebloods.”

I couldn’t imagine such an upbringing. Partials were raised differently than regular kids, yes, what with being able to see dimensional barriers and knowing the world was made up of many different realms. But we didn’t grow up knowing we’d escaped being eaten by our parents only because of a genetic
fluke
. Or learning how to kill people—even if Purebloods deserved it.

“Your father? Is he here, too?” I asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.

A small, grim smile touched Rafael’s mouth. “When I was still young and living in the normal world, my mother visited unexpectedly and caught my father with another woman. He did not survive her displeasure.”

Holy crap, what a twisted family he came from! I’d be happy if that one brief glimpse of his mother was all I ever saw of her. Clearly, the woman was homicide on heels.

“If she’s so evil,” I said, making my voice very, very low, “then why do you have a room here, where she is?”

Rafael slid closer, until he could reach out and trail his fingers in the silvery water of the pool. “What do you think the biggest deterrent is for Purebloods looking to populate this realm as a permanent home? There aren’t many Fallen left, but the presence of even one will make most Purebloods fear to enter. And if there are fewer Purebloods crossing through this realm to get to one where Partials are plentiful . . .”

His voice trailed off, but I could fill in the rest. Purebloods flocked to where their food sources were—dimensions that Partials could cross into, like Nocturna. Without a safe dimension to drag their prey back into, the Purebloods were putting themselves at risk. They might be stronger than Partials one on one, but get enough of us together and we could kick some Pureblood ass.

The old expression ran through my mind:
My enemy’s enemy is my friend.
Fallen were Purebloods’ enemy, so they were a friend to Partials like me . . . as long as we didn’t get too close to them.

“And the barriers in your bathroom?” But now that I knew what Rafael was, I could already guess.

His shoulder lifted in a half shrug even as he pulled off his boots. “The ruler of Nocturna before me built the castle around them so that Purebloods wouldn’t find out about them and use them. I kept them a secret for the same reason. They also made it easier for me to cross into this realm to hunt without being observed.”

Right. Because if anyone saw Rafael cross through a barrier, they’d know he was more than a Partial. But would that necessarily be a bad thing?

“If your mother’s presence keeps most Purebloods out of this realm, why haven’t you revealed what you are in Nocturna? Wouldn’t the sight of your wings keep more Purebloods away?”

“No one knows where my mother’s home is located, aside from me, and if other Purebloods knew what I was, I wouldn’t long be safe in Nocturna.”

Of course. If Partials knew a Pureblood’s home address, we’d show up with some friends to drop off a welcome basket filled with Rest In Peace. It stood to reason that Purebloods would do the same to a lone Fallen.

Which brought up another, very obvious question. “Why are you telling me all this? To convince me to keep your secret?”

Rafael leaned forward until only a foot of that silvery, tingling water separated his face from mine.

“I’m telling you because a demon should know everything about her mate,” he said softly, but with enough resonance for the words to hit me like a sledgehammer.