A Darker Past (The Darker Agency #2)(65)

We walked on for a while, and I knew it wasn’t the time for random chatter, but the silence was driving me nuts. “So, something you said earlier is bothering me.”

Behind me, Lukas’s footsteps slowed a bit. “Oh?” He tried to play it off like he was surprised, but it was impossible not to notice the tension in his voice.

“You said Valefar had his hand in all of it.”

“Did I?” He walked even more slowly now.

“You did.” I stopped and turned. His brow was twitching. “So, that sounds like something.”

His shoulders tensed, along with his arms. He stopped walking. “Something?”

“Yeah. Like there’s something you’re not saying.”

He sighed. “Things are going to be complicated sometimes, Jessie.”

“Okay, whoa.” There was nothing but cave tunnel for as far as I could see in either direction. The Vile Root muck was less now, which was good because the walls had become so narrow that our shoulders were brushing the sides. “What does that mean?”

He grabbed my hand. “It means that there are some things I cannot tell you.”

“Why not?”

It was there in his eyes. That spark. Anger. It was different this time, though. Potent and very real. “Because that is just the way it is.”

“That’s not really an answer,” I fired back.

His eyes flashed red, and a horrible growl spilled from his lips. “You—” He doubled over, letting go of a scream that rocked me from the inside out. His hands came up, each slamming into the wall on either side with enough force to knock rubble loose.

I took a step back.

Lukas took a step forward.

The torches flickered, then went out, drowning us in complete darkness. While that would normally have been comforting, the sound that came from Lukas in that moment chilled me to the core. More rubble broke loose.

There was a sizzle, and then the flame was lit again. But I almost wished it’d stayed off. Lukas was in front of me, inches really, but he wasn’t himself. Distorted face and lips peeled back to reveal razor fangs, he advanced.

“Don’t,” I said as calmly as I could manage. “This is another one of your fears. You said you were afraid to hurt me, remember? The cave is playing on that.”

But was it his fear—or mine? The way my heart threatened to hammer right out of my chest suggested it could have gone either way.

He snapped his teeth and came closer. I took the hint and ran.

Lukas roared, and I heard him behind me. Footsteps rhythmically pounded the ground, getting closer and closer. I bit back a yelp as my shoulder grazed the cave wall, just missing a patch of Vile Root. Narrower. The walls were closing in, and it was slowing me down.

My elbow hit the wall and I cried out, shifting and kind of shuffling along. The walls were too close now to stand facing forward. Sliding sideways was the only way to move.

I started to panic. I wasn’t claustrophobic, but what if I got stuck? What if I got trapped and couldn’t go any farther, and Lukas, in his snarling and demonic incarnation, was the thing standing between my death and freedom? Would I fight him? Could I?

But all the questions turned out to be moot because it didn’t happen. A few feet in, the opening widened, and in my haste to free myself, I went down on both knees. I scrambled to my feet, intent on putting more distance between Lukas and me, but froze when the scene changed again.

The cave was gone, and I was surrounded by trees. Leaves crunched beneath my feet as I took a step forward. I was in the middle of what looked like a dense forest. “What the—”

Something crashed into me from the left, sending me to the ground with jarring force. The air expelled from my lungs, and I fought not only to breathe, but to shift around to defend myself.

Snarling filled the air. “Questions,” Lukas spat. His weight on top of me was like a house, crushing and unmovable. “Always asking questions.”

It was that moment that I realized where I was. What this was. I’d been right. This wasn’t about Lukas’s fear of hurting me. This was my fear. The woods. The clearing. Even the tree to my right. All of it came rushing back. This was where Garret attacked me a few months ago after Vida, the girl infected by Lust, slapped a whammy on him.

“Lukas, don’t,” I wheezed, trying to get my hands free. This was all me. I had to get control over it.

He growled again, lips parting to give me a not-so-welcomed peek at a forked, black tongue. “You are an abomination. Not one of them. Not one of us. My Lord shall rise and wipe your stain from this earth.”

He brought his hands down and locked them around my neck. The demon who’d been wearing Sarah Scott’s face had said I couldn’t be harmed. Maybe it was fear rearing its ugly head, but this sure as hell didn’t feel harmless.

“Lukas,” I croaked, trying to suck in a lungful of air. Once my hands were finally free, I brought them to my neck, trying to pry his grip away. Not real. Just the cave. “Lukas,” I said again, this time with a bit more strength. I closed my eyes and focused on him. On his smile and the way he looked at me, always so full of admiration and wonder. I pictured him. Lukas Scott. Not a rampaging demon, but an old-fashioned gentleman with a fiercely protective streak that rivaled my own. A man out of time, born in one world, then thrust head first into another. Someone, I believed, who was made just for me.