Darkness Everlasting (Guardians of Eternity #3)(60)

"Lost to you? You make is sound as if we were spare change you happened to drop in the gutter."

That unnerving prickling swept over her skin.

"Then let me be more precise. You were stolen from us."

It took a moment for his words to sink in. "Stolen?"

"Healthy young babies are always desired, Darcy," he pointed out. "There are humans who would pay any price for a child, and of course, those humans and even demons who are willing to provide those babies by stealing them."

Well, that was something that she hadn't expected.

Then again, learning something she hadn't expected seemed to be a theme in her life lately.

"We were taken and sold on the black market?"

"Si. By the time we managed to track down the thieves, you four had already been shipped from Italy to America." There was an edge of fury in his voice that she suspected was years in the making. "It is impossible to track a scent over an ocean, even for purebloods. It has taken years to piece together what happened to you and your sisters."

"So you haven't found them yet?"

"We have managed to track two of your sisters, although we have not yet approached them." A wry smile touched his lips. "As you have demonstrated, it is not always an easy task to prove that we intend no harm."

"You can hardly blame me. I—"

Her words came to an abrupt halt as Salvatore moved swiftly toward her, his hand raised in warning.

"Hess is returning," he said in a tone so low that she could barely catch his words. "You must come with me. I promise 1 will answer all your questions."

Darcy took a deliberate step backward. "I don't think so."

His brows snapped together. "Darcy, I am the only one who knows the truth."

"Perhaps, but right now I think I've heard enough truth," she confessed. "In fact, I'm beginning to believe that ignorance really might be bliss."

"You can't run from this. You most certainly can't run from me." There was no missing the warning in his voice. "You are too important."

She tilted her chin at his unmistakable command. She was not about to be intimidated or bullied. Not when she desperately needed to consider all that she had learned so far.

"I've already figured out there's nowhere I can run," she retorted. "At least not anywhere that some demon or other won't track me down, but for right now I just want some time to think."

With unsteady steps she walked toward the car she had stolen, half expecting Salvatore to reach out and halt her as she passed his slender body.

Thankfully his ability to sense her every mood halted any arrogant attempt to threaten or bully her.

Smart wolf.

She was on edge enough that she might very well bolt as far and as fast as she could go if he so much as looked at her wrong.

After slipping into the car, she started the engine and prepared to drive away.

Without warning, her door was opened and Salvatore tossed a large bag into her lap.

"Don't forget your lunch," he said before she could protest. "And realize, cara, that while I am willing to be patient for now, there will come a time when you must fulfill your destiny."

"And you must remember, Salvatore, that my destiny is precisely that. Mine. And it will be fulfilled how I decide to fulfill it."

Her salvo delivered, she snapped the door shut and backed out of the park with a squeal of her tires.

Well, actually they weren't her tires, she acknowledged with a short, hysterical laugh.

She did, after all, steal the car.

She could only hope the cops weren't on her trail.

Her trail was quite filled enough, thank you.

Chapter Fifteen

It was nothing short of a sin to claim the crumbling pile of bricks and sagging roof was a rooming house. Although there had been a few pathetic attempts to slap paint on the walls and cover the threadbare carpets with throw rugs, the only thing that could improve the place was a bulldozer.

But, despite the fact that the squalid room could boast nothing more than a narrow bed and a broken TV, it was marginally warmer than sleeping on the street, and for the moment, it was demon free.

Huddled next to the radiator, which spit out a grudging warmth, Darcy nibbled on the salad she had discovered in the bag that Salvatore had tossed into her lap and attempted to put her scattered thoughts in order.

Yeah right. How did you straighten out thoughts that were a muddy, tumbled, confused mess?

All she had wanted was to discover the truth of her past.

Simple and straightforward.

Ha.

If Salvatore was to be trusted, which was a stretch she wasn't yet willing to take, then the truth of her past was that her mother was a werewolf with a number of lovers, and she had given birth to a litter of four babies. Babies who had promptly been stolen and sold on the black market.

It was a plot that only Hollywood could inspire.

Jeez. After the past few hours, she was terrified to even consider the thought of who (or what) her father might be.

Or, how she had been supposedly sold on the black market only to end up in an endless series of foster homes.

It was enough to make any poor woman's head ache.

And throb.

And .. . buzz?

Darcy dropped her salad, then pressed her hands to her forehead, battling the sudden sense that a black hole was forming in the middle of her brain.