Darker (Alexa O'Brien, Huntress #6)(64)

“Don’t bother. I’m sure I had it coming. I trapped him in a circle and bullied him with silver.”

“I’m aware. You should know that what he did can have a lasting effect on people like you. He crossed a line.”

Fatigue made it hard to care enough to continue the conversation, but anger kept me going.

“If anyone has crossed a line, Shya, it’s you,” I said bitterly. “You have Arys convinced that you’re some reliable ally. You and I both know that isn’t true. You’ve got some kind of ill-conceived plan for me. Whatever that is, leave Arys out of it.”

“I said I’d protect you; I just proved good on my word.” Shya cast a glance toward the sky, gauging how much time remained. He turned back to me and said with a wink, “I’m going to unleash hell on this city, and you’re going to help me.”

With his bemused smirk firmly in place, he unfurled his wings and vanished. My lips twisted into a scowl. “That was unnecessarily dramatic.”

Jez bumped her furry face against my hand. She was right. We needed to get back to the car before the neighborhood woke up. As eccentric as these rich types tended to be, walking a leopard through the streets likely wouldn’t go over well.

“Nothing more we can do here, thanks to Shya. Let’s get going. I’m feeling the need to get furry, too.”

I wasn’t going to react visibly in case Shya lingered unseen, but his words had chilled me to the bone. It left so much open to interpretation. Lilah’s need for a little blood paled in comparison.

Chapter Sixteen

For the first time in a long while, I slept a deep, uninterrupted sleep. A night of power binging was enough to grant me a dreamless slumber. It was similar to the effects of a human booze binge but intensified several times over.

I flung my arm out at one point, searching for Arys and finding the rest of the bed empty. Disappointment crushed me. I rolled over and hugged my pillow, falling back into the depths of sleep. Then, I slipped into Arys’s mind, and the bloodstained images flooded me with an unholy hunger.

Screams rang in my ears, accompanied by his wicked laughter. He wanted to make someone hurt the way he was hurting. He needed them to beg and cry so he could take pleasure in the torment. Only when he caused suffering did he himself cease to suffer. Arys saw nothing but the couple he had chosen to inflict his wrath upon.

If he felt my presence, he didn’t acknowledge it. The scent of blood was so strong it choked me. I woke up with a start, sitting straight up in my bed. The screams faded, replaced with the pounding of my heart. The hunger remained.

I sat there shaking in my bed despite the heat that had me throwing off the sheets. I was thankful Jez had returned to her apartment. After making me promise several times not to go after Lilah again without her, she had bravely gone home to face an apartment filled with memories.

As I went through the motions of showering and brushing my teeth, I could focus only on one thing: the heady rush that came with taking blood. Ravenous and impatient, I rushed through my human activities. A solid eight-hour sleep and the meal I’d eaten before bed had helped, but it wasn’t what I needed to be at full strength. That would only come from stealing the life force from another. As much as I hated it, I wouldn’t be sated until I had.

My eyes glowed Arys’s vampire blue. Absorbing another’s power so it visibly showed was unsettling. It made me feel a little like a freak, though what didn’t these days?

Bloodlust drove me. I didn’t think; I just acted. Like an addict who feels no remorse until after they get a fix, I moved mechanically, need and buried hurt guiding me. I should have known how Arys would choose to deal with the pain I’d inflicted.

It hadn’t been my intent. I was hurting, too. I didn’t know how to be apart from him. I couldn’t accept that I could no longer exist without him. Lilah’s remark about the twin flame bond being a curse lingered, taunting me, telling me it was true.

“Lying f**king demon,” I muttered, punching buttons on the radio in the Charger. The country station was out of the question. A Top 40 station playing a lost love ballad was quickly changed. I settled on a heavy metal satellite radio station and headed for the city with electric guitars screaming in my ears.

If I couldn’t hand Lilah over to Salem, I would have no choice but to keep confronting her until one of us was no longer standing. First, I had a desperate hunger to take care of, whether I liked it or not. Unfortunately, I would like it, and I would hate that.

I found myself sitting in The Wicked Kiss parking lot half an hour later. What was I thinking? I shouldn’t be here. Not only was it the one place I’d told myself I would never patronize, but Kale’s classic Camaro was parked near the rear door. He’d moved it for the first time in weeks.

I watched those milling about the front entry smoking and talking. Their raucous laughter carried. I saw them all as prey, ready and willing victims just waiting for someone like me to choose them.

Where was Arys right now? Tearing apart the couple I saw in his mind? Or, had that been a memory? I gripped the steering wheel tight and fought back the bloody images that surfaced. If I went into the club, I might not be able to control myself. And, though I sure as hell couldn’t avoid Kale forever, I just wasn’t up to that tonight.

I left the car and breathed deeply of the crisp night air. It did nothing to clear the haze of bloodlust fogging my head. I had just one purpose.