Darkness Undone: A Novel of the Marked Souls Page 18

  The rush of it terrified him.

  Was he no better than the tenebrae? Taking what she offered so fearlessly, with a not-so-secret darkness in his heart?

  He groaned her name again, more helpless than she had ever been. Bewitched. Bedeviled. Be damned.

  For once, he understood the talya thrill to freefall.

  She pulled herself up to her knees, hands framing his face to slide his specs away. They clattered somewhere in the shadows. Well, he had plenty of duct tape.

  She matched him, tongue to tongue, lips, teeth, and she laughed against his mouth, a breathless sound of delight that made him feel like a talya-sized hero, swelling his heart, his head, and less noble parts of him. He swept his hands down her arms, left bare by the white dress. Crystal white in October; what had Nim been thinking?

  Alyce rocked into him, bumping his hands aside. She’d tugged the dress out from under her knees, and before he could speak, she’d yanked it over her head.

  No sacrificial virgin had underthings like this.

  He offered half a thought of apology toward Nim’s obvious shopping prowess, and then all thought evaporated.

  White silk and lace. Barely enough to fill a shot glass. As a man with a scientific bent, he should have been thinking in terms of milliliters, but since his brain had gone missing … Yeah, a shot glass was more up his alley right now.

  His hands hovered just beyond the curves of her breasts, hesitant to land on that purity.

  Alyce took a deep breath, and his burst out of him as the cool silk filled his palms.

  She tipped her head back, and the sweet thrust of her breasts stroked up to his fingertips. Raw lust closed his grip, gentled only by the tremor in his muscles. The instinct to overwhelm her shook him to the core.

  He was not that man.

  His body listened only to the tactile scuff of lace against the pads of his fingers. The sensation abraded the wisps of his restraint.

  In one caress, he pushed the straps down her shoulders and unhooked the back, freeing her. She had such pale skin. Had it ever seen sunlight?

  Never mind the hot eye of the sun; had any gaze at all but his rested here?

  Mine. The impulse was so archaic, so primitive, he blushed at it. Not Homo sapiens at all, but Neanderthal. Where was his fucking club?

  Her hands went to his fly, and he groaned.

  Right.

  She freed his heavy flesh as smoothly as he’d stripped her. He hissed out another breath when she grazed his hip bones as she peeled down the waistband of his jeans. They moved together, and her quick fingers undid the buttons of his shirt.

  Pressed skin to hot skin, he closed his eyes, trying to steady himself.

  But with eyes closed, his other senses only expanded. Hearing her gasp as she rubbed against his chest, he inhaled the heat and fragrance of her breath. His taut muscles raged against the confines of his will. Each rock of their knees on the mattress threatened to overturn him, demanding he take her down.

  Not a man, not even a primordial hunter, but a beast.

  The howl of recognition in him tore through the last of his self-possession.

  He yanked out of his shirt—a button popped at the wrist—and he tipped her to her back.

  She stared up, eyes bright and bold, as she kicked off the white panties.

  “God, you’re beautiful,” he whispered.

  “And naked,” she said.

  As if he might have missed it. “Do tell.”

  She smiled and opened her arms.

  The smile, simple and welcoming, ripped through him. “You want this?”

  “No more words. You need this too.”

  He did. As he’d never wanted anything so much. Not even the Bookkeeper’s archive key.

  He couldn’t speak that, and apparently he wasn’t thinking again either, because somehow she had rolled him, and now she hovered over him, the last of his discarded clothing dropping from her hand.

  “Now I’m naked,” he pointed out.

  “You don’t have to tell me.”

  Her lips descended, moonset slow in the darkness, inevitable. Her kiss touched down, and, hidden below the horizon of their coupled mouths, the arc of her tongue stroked his. Like some ancient mythology, her shadowed mysteries drew him deeper.

  In the yielding of her body, he found himself above her again, the edges of his vision narrowing so only she remained, pale skin on white sheets, her dark hair spread like an inverse halo—a damned angel.

  A shudder racked him, and he lowered his head, capturing her lips. She burned, coming back to life.

  “So cold you are,” she whispered. “Come into me.”

  No art. No poetry. If he’d ever known words, he forgot them, and between one heartbeat and the next, he was inside her.

  Her wet heat gripped the length of him with unspeakable pleasure. The stroke as she drew away wrenched a groan from him, then redoubled when she impaled herself again, then again, and again in sweet torture.

  The force of his desire rose, topped itself, reaching higher, a wave ripping itself apart in a frenzy of chaotic energy. He would die here, blown apart like the tenebrae.

  Best give her what he could before he went.

  His mouth on her breast made her arch, driving her deeper on his cock. He almost lost it then, but some niggling sense of male pride held him together. He slipped his hand between them and found the heated center of her passion. She bucked, fingers biting into his shoulders until he winced. He’d have bruises in the morning.

  But she’d have at least this memory, damn it.

  He forgot mind, body, and soul while he feasted on her. Each moan, each tremor, pushed him closer to the edge. But he wouldn’t fall, not without her.

  “Alyce,” he said, “take me. Take it all.”

  Her half-lidded eyes flew open, her gaze fixed on his. “Sidney …” And then the ripple that started inside her expanded outward, through her limbs, through him. She made a noise, halfway between a scream and the throaty laugh she’d given him earlier, and buried herself in his arms.

  The riotous waves that had nearly overcome him washed through her, echoing back to him in concentric rings down his aching flesh.

  He came in a violent rush that unlocked his elbows and dropped him like a stone onto her. Fortunately, she was immortal.

  Gradually, his breath returned, though his brain was slower to catch up, still fried and off-line. He kissed the racing pulse under her jaw. Her reven twitched when she swallowed.

  “Oh, Sidney,” she whispered. “I had no idea.”

  “I’m the idea man,” he agreed. He thought he kept most of the gloating out of his tone. Whoever had come before him obviously hadn’t made an impression. Except the need to stake his claim wasn’t dissipating.

  “I didn’t know.” Her voice wavered. “When you said I should take all of you …”

  “I was overcome too. Really.” He pushed up onto one elbow. “Okay?”

  She considered for a moment. “Very okay. And you?”

  He laughed.

  She didn’t. “I thought you might hate it.”

  He brushed the tangled strands of her hair aside, his chest aching a little with tenderness, as if her grip had reached inside him and bruised his heart. “What would I possibly hate about the feel of you coming apart in my arms?”

  She blushed. “I meant the demon.”

  “That’s as much a part of you as your lovely eyes.”

  “I didn’t mean my demon.”

  His fingers slipped down to rest against her reven. “What?”

  “Your demon.”

  “My—?”

  He started to pull away from her as she touched his shoulder. When had the bandage come off? That feralis bite could have gotten blood everywhere. …

  Except the ragged wounds were gone, just a faint white jigsaw shape, crystal clear in his spectacle-free, flawless vision.

  He scrambled back to his haunches. The chill that swept down his spine had nothing to
do with his naked exposure.

  She sat up. “All those demon lights, all that ether … More than just the malice came down on us tonight. I didn’t understand what it was—it didn’t make sense—but there must have been another demon among them. Yours.” She reached out, and the tips of her fingers just brushed the black curving lines that curled down from his breast to the front point of his pelvis bone. “You are possessed.”

  CHAPTER 13

  When Sidney recoiled from her touch, Alyce said, “I thought you knew. I thought that was why you stayed with me tonight.”

  “Knew?” His voice broke. “I didn’t have the faintest fucking clue.”

  “But you punched Liam. And you came to me through the malice.” And then he had whispered, so sweetly, Take me, taking and giving in one blissful communion.

  In that instant—body, heart, and soul aligned—the haze that had been her only companion for so long had lifted. In the clarity, staring into the depths of his brown eyes was like finally finding the earth beneath her feet, and she’d felt there was a place for her.

  That he flinched from her now ate like venom through her veins and blackened her heart.

  “I didn’t know what I was doing.” Louder and harsher his words came, as if he could raise a jagged wall to defend against the truth—against her. Those bristling defenses scraped her raw.

  “Not so clear when it’s you, is it?” Bitterness leached the last of their shared warmth from her limbs, and she drew her knees up tight. “The circling teshuva must have been why the tenebrae came down on us at the club, following you.”

  “But … it’s impossible. How did no one within the league notice an unbound teshuva?”

  She hunched her shoulders. “I noticed. That is what drew me to the alley with the ferales. And you.”

  “Then why didn’t you tell me?”

  The tight anguish in his voice, sharpened to a point with accusation, stabbed her. “I didn’t know what it was. It was just another thing I didn’t understand. And you seemed to know everything already.”

  His breath burst out on a curse and a discordant laugh mixed together. He staggered off the bed, and his heels slammed hard on the floor. “You are wrong. I’m not like you.”

  She rocked forward to kneel on top of the covers. “The shine in your eyes says otherwise.”

  His hands hovered over the reven with the same horrified hesitation as a gutshot man staring down at his death. “This can’t be happening.”

  She braced herself on the tousled sheets, a twinge of provocation stiffening her shoulders. “You tried to tell me it wasn’t so bad that I was possessed. Did you lie then?”

  Again he swung his head up to her, the focus of his ire. “You didn’t have a choice.”

  “You didn’t either.”

  “You didn’t have a choice anymore,” he clarified. “It was already done.”

  She bit her lip. “Do you mean you could have fought it off, as we fight the tenebrae? That I could have fought it?”

  He flattened his palm over his hip, fingers digging into the coiling lines of the demon’s mark. “Of all people, I should have been able to say no. Who else but a Bookkeeper … But I was never supposed to be a Bookkeeper anyway.”

  She shook her head. “Why—?”

  “A Bookkeeper can’t be talya. We stand outside your world and our own.”

  “That sounds awful.”

  “That’s how we stay objective.” He paced at the bottom of the bed, three short steps and back again. The vicious whirl at each turn made her stomach clench. “It’s all I had.”

  Now you have me. The words rose on her tongue. But for once, she did not speak her mind plainly because she knew his response would shatter her.

  He was teaching her, more than he knew.

  He snatched his jeans from the floor. Even in his eagerness to dress, his hands avoided the reven, as if it might spread like wet ink. “I have to go.”

  “Where?”

  He slipped into his shirt and yanked the front panels tight around his body. He swooped down and rose again, clutching his eyeglasses. “Don’t … Please don’t mention this to anyone.”

  “You think the talyan won’t notice another demon?”

  “I’ll explain the teshuva. But”—he gestured vaguely as he jammed the unneeded spectacles on the bridge of his nose—“the rest of this.”

  The bed—and her, naked in it.

  She refused to reach for the covering sheet. “And what would I say?”

  The heat in his face reminded her of the desire that had warmed them both, but he was already sliding away.

  He fumbled for the door handle, his demon-perfected vision skewed by the corrective lenses, but he didn’t remove the spectacles and he didn’t look back. The latch clicking closed was louder than the footsteps carrying him away.

  She pursed her lips and slouched back on the pillows.

  She should let him go. He was shocked, hurting, blaming her. She should keep her mouth closed and wait for him to come around again.

  Waiting she knew. Untold years had passed her as she waited in her haze.

  Without another thought, she rose and went to the bath to clean herself. What a delight it was to have warm water at her fingertips.

  The white dress was spattered with dried blood and ichor from the tussle behind the Coil, so she dug through the shopping bags next to the bed. She found the spray bottle of liquid that Nim had promised, no matter how bad the fight, would remove all stains. Too bad it only worked on the external signs.

  Alyce pulled on another new dress, also white. “White for innocence,” Nim had said while they shopped. “What talya could resist?” The ribbed fabric clung to her body, but it went down to her knees so she didn’t bother with the underclothes. She left her boots behind too. Sidney would not go far.

  She didn’t know much, but she was coming to know him.

  The warehouse halls stretched silent around her. Nim had explained the concept of energy sinks that dampened the teshuvas’ emanations when they gathered together. Still, the faint signatures swirled in Alyce’s awareness. One thread—brighter to her senses than the others—tugged her downward, down the stairs to the basement lab.

  Of course, he’d have to know for certain.

  He slumped on a stool beside the table where he’d kissed her. She touched her lips. If she tried that again, would she rouse him from his doldrums?

  No, he was holding fast to his old ways. She couldn’t take that from him as cruelly as her past had been taken from her.

  She crept around him and pulled up another stool, out of temptation’s reach. She sat and waited. Waiting was easier next to him.

  Still, it was a long time before he spoke. “It’s true.”

  She didn’t answer since she couldn’t disagree.

  “I was going to run a spectral analysis, do a deep retinal scan—the teshuva presence warps certain structures of the sclera, you know.”

  “I did not know.”

  He tightened his fist in his lap. “Well, it does. But it’s quicker to just shove a scalpel through your hand and see if it heals.”

  That explained the little knife on the table beside him, next to the abandoned eyeglasses. A smear of crimson discolored the white paper sheet smoothed over the surface. “Still hurts, though,” she noted.

  “Like hell.”

  She offered him a tentative smile that faded when he didn’t reflect it.

  “I can’t be possessed, Alyce.”

  She cocked her head. “You just said—”

  “Certainly not by a middling-ranked crave demon.” His fist pressed into his flank over his hidden reven. “My whole life, I wanted one thing—one thing: to be a Bookkeeper.”

  “My whole life, I only wanted …”

  His gaze sharpened, and she realized the Bookkeeper hadn’t gone far. “Did you remember something?”

  “Nothing.” She lifted her bare feet onto the stool to hug her knees. “I remember there was nothing
I dared to want.”

  “Nothing at all?”

  “And that’s what I got. Nothingness.” How peculiar, then, that she had wanted nothing and her teshuva had led her to the crave demon that wanted Sidney. And yet he didn’t want her.

  He shook his head. “It’s not nothing. There’s a whole world below the one where most people live their entire, oblivious lives. It’s beyond fascinating.”

  She blinked. “Fascinating?”

  “Good. Evil. The battle that started it all. The fight that never ends. And I just wanted to be part of it. But the Bookkeeper post passes from father to eldest son. I could have gone my entire, oblivious life without knowing what my father and brother were, without knowing what they knew.”

  “Why would they keep that from you? Even as a child you must have had this curiosity.”

  He gave a short, wry laugh. “Oh, I was suited to it. But the rules were set in stone. Quite literally.”

  “But they changed the rules for you.”

  “Hardly. My brother told me everything so I wouldn’t tattle on him.” He leaned back against the table with a sigh. “I was seven. He was thirteen. Most Bookkeepers ensure they have only one son. From the first, I was a mistake.”

  Alyce tightened her lips. “I heard your father’s voice over the phone. He loves you.”

  “And I worshipped him. Which is why it hurt to watch him and Wes disappear together for hours into their workshop. So when Wes told me to come with him one night, of course I went.”

  “He told you all their secrets.”

  “He snuck me through the back door of a liquor store, shoved a flask of whiskey down the front of my pants, and told me to run.” Sidney clenched his hand in his lap. The place where he’d stabbed himself as a test had faded to almost nothing.

  She studied the gesture. “And your clever escape marked you of interest to a devil who would one day—tonight—recruit your prowess in the fight against evil.”

  He snorted. “The clerk caught on instantly. Wes vanished. I panicked and fell down in the parking lot. The glass sliced my femoral artery.” He flattened his palm over his hip bone, fingers resting where a bottle would have nestled. The blood spatter echoed the swirls she had seen of his hidden reven, as if the old wound had bled through the years. “But I suppose that was my penance trigger. That instant marked a change of course that set me on the path to where I am now. Didn’t appreciate it at the time since I was bleeding out in the parking lot.”