Untouchable Darkness (The Dark Ones Saga, #2)(30)

Stephanie stopped the SUV in front of the bar.

Marcus, a Demon I’d had the great displeasure of meeting upon a dozen occasions stood on the sidewalk, rain dripping down his blond head onto his chiseled jaw as he nodded discreetly toward our SUV and shoved his hands in his pockets.

At six-foot-four, people gave him a wide berth as they stepped around his bulky body. Men shied away, and women stared. Not like they could help it. Men were bred to fear the evil. And if Demons were spiders with webs—that made women the perfect fly.

“I’ll go.” I exhaled a loud breath, the air in front of my face crackled with the sound of ice breaking. I should feel like my old self. Instead, it felt foreign, and terrifying. Not something I wanted to admit to anyone, least of all Stephanie. That what used to feel so natural and right, now caused my human heart to skip a few beats and this ridiculously frail body to sweat as if I was over exerting myself by merely existing.

Stephanie turned to face me, her eyes already going white. “But… this is my job, right?”

“No,” I said in a rough voice. “Believe me, if Marcus has called, then Marcus will need to be… disposed of.”

“And you don’t want me getting my hands dirty?” The temperature dropped in the vehicle.

“Temper, temper.” I kept my voice teasing even though my body was screaming Danger! as loud as it could. Teaching Stephanie to control herself was going to take more patience than I possessed.

Never thought I’d see the day where I’d teach the person I loved, how to kill me, and how to kill me well, because that’s exactly what I would be doing.

“Just trust me,” I barked out. “And let me speak to him first. If he tries to take off my head you have my permission to decapitate him without asking questions first.”

“Permission?” Stephanie repeated, her eyes lit up like a flashlight. I quickly got out of the car and slammed the door.

“Stay,” I mouthed.

Frost exploded in the inside of the car lining the windows.

Smirking, I turned on my heel and made my way slowly toward Marcus. The human inside was already telling me to run, my body trembling with the awareness that what I was approaching was pure evil, that I needed to run in the other direction.

Save yourself! my mind screamed.

Damn it. I was a Dark One.

I would not run!

My heel turned, as if my body was physically making the choice that mentally I hadn’t the capacity to do.

“Marcus.” His name slid from my lips like a slow dark curse. “Why don’t you start at the beginning?”

“Cassius?” He frowned, his blue eyes narrowing into tiny yellow cat like slits before returning to their regular color. “You look… different.”

“I smell different too. Must be new soap.” I offered with a dark chuckle. “Now stop staring at me or I’m going to get the wrong idea.”

Marcus didn’t move, but his nails elongated into small spikes, ready to attack or slit my throat, whichever came first, I supposed. “Something is different.”

I could feel the power surging through my veins but knew if I expended too much the glamour would dissipate into thin air, and he truly would take off my head in front of a handful of people.

With as much strength as I could muster, I allowed the angelic blood to float to the surface of my body and blew a harsh amount of cold air across his face, freezing his lips shut.

“There.” I nodded. “Much better. Why don’t I do the talking? And if you keep staring I will gladly freeze your eyes as well, though a bit of warning, you’ll be blind once they melt.” I motioned for Stephanie to get out of the SUV just as Mason, Ethan, and Alex pulled up in the second car. “Now, we can do this here, on the street, you can calmly explain what you saw and why you’re willing to die for telling us, or we can all go into the bar. Your choice.”

Marcus eyed the rest of the council as they walked up behind me, his lips were already starting to melt, with a quick nod he crooked his finger and we followed him into the abandoned bar.

Human bodies were scattered around the floor.

Drained of blood.

The bartender, half Demon half human, snarled in our direction as he stacked bodies to the side of the stage and lit a match.

Like dry firewood they went up in flames, sadly the families would never know what happened to their loved ones.

All could have been prevented if I wasn’t a damn human. I would have seen this future.

Prevented it.

It was my own human fear that kept me from teaching Stephanie. She’d already seen one future, and the horror it would expose her to was damn near life ending.

“You froze his lips shut?” Ethan whispered out of the corner of his mouth. “Why have you never done that to Alex?”

“Because Alex has a nice voice,” Alex piped up. “Smooth, sexy, just enough husky to get the ladies excited, but not so deep that he sounds like a lumberjack in need of a shave.”

“Silence,” I barked, elbowing Alex and bruising myself in the process. Must remember how weak I was, before I suffered internal bleeding.

Mason frowned as we neared a back door. “No.” He shook his head. “No!”

“Mason?” I sniffed the air but even the Angel power couldn’t help me. I tried again, all I picked up was the scent of… sulfur.