How would you know if you won’t even try?
His words rang in her head, cracking through her own defenses. Leaving him meant never seeing him again, never feeling his arms around her, or his kisses or those rare smiles… Tears stung her eyes. Nausea tracked up her throat, and she gripped a nearby shelf. Whatever this was between them, it wasn’t mere attraction any longer. Because the thought of leaving him felt as if someone stuck a blade in her heart.
“God, I can’t do it.”
Maybe she was selfish, but she wanted a little happiness, too. She only hoped they both survived the reckoning that awaited them at her decision once her symbionts required relief again.
She took a gray t-shirt, and as she turned to leave, a half-opened door at the back of the closet drew her gaze. More shelves here, too, but with deadly hardware. Blades, throwing stars, short swords, and several daggers, including an obsidian one.
Drawn to the dark weapon, she picked it up, her fingers wrapping around the black hilt. The blade started to glow, warmth spilling through her palm—
Shit! She hastily tossed it back on the shelf and hoped she hadn’t set off any kind of magic.
As the amber glow faded, she peered at the etching on the guards, the striking design resembling wings. Pretty, but no, she wasn’t touching it again.
Chapter 16
Nik tramped down the quiet cobblestone road in the village at the foot of the mountains, everything in him coiled like a spring about to snap. He would have laughed if it wasn’t so damn painful. Here he was finally free of the darkness, but at what cost?
Shadow refused to stay with him.
His mother’s curse had come back full circle to kick him in the balls.
No female should be broken because of who you are.
He might have been five, but he remembered her irate words. No female would ever want him, no mate.
Oh, he had his encounters while he lived at the pantheon. He’d never felt the need for more, and none of the females wanted him for anything more than a fuck with a brutal gladiator. And after Tartarus, he no longer cared. Until five months ago. But Shadow didn’t fucking want him, either.
Scowling, he kicked a stone out of his way. The serpent on his neck stirred, then settled again.
Memories of the night in the club crawled through his mind like an infection, the demon licking her face, her hand on the scourge’s bare chest while he doubtlessly sported a raging hard-on—
Fuck! He’d felt the lustful effects of her feeding, too, and couldn’t stomach the thought of it happening with some other male. Shadow was his!
A sliver of prickles grazed his psyche, cracking through his roiling thoughts. Nik slowed his steps, his Gaian sword stirring in warning. The sulfur stench hit him a second later. Emotions on lockdown, he dematerialized, tracking the acrid odor. Bastards were brave, moving about this close to dawn.
A terrified cry splintered the air then cut off as he rematerialized near the edge of the village bordering the forest. Partially hidden by the looming trees, two blights had a human trapped between them. The blood demon fed at the throat, but the other, a demonii, had his maw above the man’s mouth, drawing at his life force.
Remembering Shadow’s pained revelation of how she’d become an energy vampire—because of shits like these—anger thundered to his head, exploding into a deadly rage. Nik flung himself forward, breaking the two hellscum away from the hapless human, who fell in a lifeless heap. Growls erupted, then a hiss sounded. Nik ducked a fiery hellfire bolt coming at him like an arrow, the thing shattering a tree behind him.
Sensing more humans nearby, the early risers moving about, he summoned his Gaian sword. He had to get rid of them fast. “You should have never left the Dark Realm.”
“You don’t own this world.” The snarling demonii rushed him. Nik swung his sword decapitating the soul-stealing scourge. The blood demon took off in a flash. Nik propelled himself into the air, blade arching, and landed on the other side. The demon fell, his head sliding off his neck and rolling between the trees.
Mouth tight, Nik wiped his sword on the demon’s shirt and dismissed his weapon. It settled back on his biceps in its tattoo form.
The human soul the demonii had just consumed departed his decomposing body in a fading yellow glow and vanished in a wink. The blood demon’s dark one shot out of his slain torso and hovered.
No, he didn’t have to kill innocent demons for Shadow’s symbionts. There were always plagues like these around. His heart hammering like a drumroll, Nik waited, knowing the darkness would sense him soon enough. At least he could do this for her.
The agitating black blob slipped down into the ground—
“No!” Nik dove forward, landing on his knees, but the soul had disappeared.
What the hell? He scanned the gravel surface, then the gloomy trees and squat buildings, but no sign or sensation of the familiar abrading, dark energy. And then it hit him like a punch in the solar plexus, the truth garroting him.
No, this can’t fucking be. It can’t.
Whatever Shadow had done, she had healed him completely. He no longer attracted the dark souls that had been his fate since Tartarus.
The thought of her leaving skewered him like a dagger in his heart, the hope he’d hung onto smashing into fragments. There was no chance for them, not now—
No, chance?
Hell, she didn’t even want to try. And that gutted him.
A human coughing hauled Nik back to where he kneeled on the ground. Eyes burning, he pushed to his feet. The dead man lay under the tree where he’d fallen, night concealing him. With the village bordering the forest, his death would be chalked down to some wild animal attack.
Nik dematerialized and coasted above the village. He didn’t want to meet up with Race in the city, nor could he bear to see Shadow, knowing he would have to take her back to New York.
He picked up the revelries of the all-night party carousers leaving Club Samhain in the far distance, the club’s usual, blinking sign dead, indicating the end of the night’s frivolities. So, it was probably just gone five in the morning.
His mind in a roiling mess, he coasted away…only to find himself back on his bedroom balcony at the monastery. He reformed and then just stood there. Hell, there was no avoiding this.
Exhaling roughly, he opened the door and entered. The heart-stopping scent of wildflowers enfolded him, hurting him so fucking badly, knowing it would soon be gone. He leaned against the shut door, so he didn’t march over and beg her not to leave.
Fuck, he scrubbed his unshaven jaw. He was an outright mess. But there it was.
Shadow lay on her tummy asleep and facing him. Strands of inky hair spilled over her face and the pillow. Like a glowing star in the dark, she drew him. Nik found himself crouching at her side, the absolute knowing that she was his settling in his gut.
How do I get you to stay, Starshine?
He gently caressed her cheek with the back of his hand.
A whiff of sulfur wafted to him. Damn, he stank from his kill. Nik rose, dragged his t-shirt off, and headed to the bathroom.
What happens when she needs to feed?
Skatá! Not now. Later, later he’d deal with it.
Shower over, he dragged a towel off the railing and slung it around his hips. As he walked back into the bedroom, Shadow stirred then bolted upright, pushing back her heavy fall of hair. Her pale skin glimmered in the faint moonlight stealing through the window, casting a silvery, ethereal glow over her. “Nik?”