Drowning In The Dark: #4 The Veil Series (4 page)

I busied myself tidying away the breakfast neither of us had eaten so he couldn’t see the despair tugging at my face. “I guess you’re leaving again?”

“I need to get closer to Val’s half-bloods to see what we’re up against. I might be able to buy us more time.”

The thought of Stefan confronting my brother had my stomach fluttering with nerves. “Watch Val’s wings. They’re lethal.”

“So are mine,” he said from too close behind me. I turned, just enough to see he’d moved from the window to the breakfast bar, and was close enough to reach out and touch. My imagination played the scene of me doing just that, and in my head, things quickly escalated to more carnal endeavors. If what he said was true, I might never know him intimately again, and that thought, like so many others while in his presence, added to my burden.

Stefan could only wonder at the color in my cheeks. If he’d felt anything for me, it was probably buried under his demon’s desires. Demons don’t love. Maybe he never had.

I smiled despite my broiling emotions. “You know what? Maybe when all this is over, we can go out, grab a bite to eat, maybe catch a movie. Like normal people do.” I watched closely, trying to determine if what I saw was real or just a demon act.

“Like a date?” A frown touched his face, but didn’t cut deeply. Playful suspicion chased it away. He leaned a hip against the cupboard and crossed his arms. That trademark smile tugged at his lips. When he looked like that, I could forget how he’d changed. That smile reminded me of the old Stefan, living the demon-slayer dream: the wise-ass cocky half blood, with his red coat, flashy guns, and quick wit. So in control. So confident in his half-blood nature. His enthusiasm and lust for life had attracted me like a moth to the flame. But like those moths, we’d both been burned by our attraction. Yet, there I was, like an idiot, attracted to the cool burn of him all over again.

“Yeah, like a date…” I filed the plates in the dishwasher, keeping him in my peripheral vision.

“Did you just ask me out?”

“Yeah.” I gathered various plates, careful not to catch his eye, and loaded the dishwasher. “You got a problem with that?”

“Will there be ice cream?”

“Definitely.”

“Deal.”

I kicked the door closed on the dishwasher and straightened to face him. “You realize you’ve just made a deal with the Mother of Destruction?”

His eyes sparkled. “Will I forfeit my soul if I call it off?”

“Totally. No backing out, or I’ll send in my minion.” Jonesy
prrped
on cue despite not lifting his head.

“Hell no. My soul is all the human I have let in me.”

L
ess than an hour
later and back at Stone’s Throw, Ben didn’t hesitate when I ordered whiskey this time. He frowned at the hostile crowd and back at me while he fixed my drink. I wasn’t welcome, but it was a public bar, and unless Ben barred me, I could do whatever the hell I wanted there. Still, having half a dozen enforcers eying my head for a trophy wasn’t a particularly pleasant feeling. Ryder had made their thoughts pretty clear. I was the enemy. Adam’s intervention was likely the only thing preventing his elite squads from taking me out. I didn’t want trouble. I needed to get into the base of operations with my hands free and my demon intact. That wasn’t going to happen if I pissed them off. Time to play the good little half-demon consultant.

“Muse.” Adam acknowledged me with a nod then strode on by and sat at a table with a handful of enforcers. They spoke too quietly for me to listen in. As much as I wanted to overhear their conversation, looming behind Adam wasn’t going to win my any favors. I roamed the bar, checking out the incident wall. After twenty minutes, Adam finally joined me.

Adam towered over my itty-bitty five-foot nothing, intimidating me just by standing right next to me. Adam had the kind of natural strength you can’t hone at the gym. Good genes. Like his son.

A headache throbbed up my neck and around my temples. I took a sip of my whiskey and welcomed the burn. “How’s it going with Akil?”

He folded his arms over his chest and regarded the countless photos and documents pinned to the wall. It took a while for him to reply. So long in fact, I wondered if I was getting the silent treatment. “There was an incident.” The grave timber of his words made it clear things weren’t going well. “Conflicting reports say he wasn’t restrained properly or that he convinced one of the team to loosen the tethers. Either way, he killed one of the lab assistants and broke the arm of another before he could be…restrained again.”

“He did all that while still tied up?” What did Adam think was going to happen? You don’t capture a wild animal and expect it to roll over and let you tickle its belly.

Adam brushed a hand over his chin, bristling the day’s worth of whiskers. “The lab technicians will be more careful in future.”

A member of his staff had been killed, and he thought it would teach his staff a lesson. Those reactions were why Adam ruffled my demon bristles the wrong way. “Have you got anything of worth out of him?”

“It’s early days.”

“Yeah, lots of time to lose more valued staff members.”

Adam pointed at a photo on the wall. By the shoddy focus, I figured it had been taken with a cell phone, but it was clear enough to show the hideous lesser demon with its beast-like maw about to devour what looked like a human arm. “This demon took out a family walking in the park and tore them to shreds in broad daylight in a crowd of thirty people. It turned on others. Killed eight people in total.”

I tore my gaze away from the forensic scene photograph only to find Adam pointing at another.

“A fight broke out at the Aquarium,” he continued. “In the confined space, this demon killed seven and wounded fifteen people before staff trapped it in a side room.” His throat moved as he swallowed. The lines around his eyes pinched as he removed his glasses and wiped them clean on his shirt. “They’re coming through faster then we can send them back or kill them. It’s chaos.”

I bit back the urge to tell him to release Akil. He wouldn’t, even though he should. In Adam’s world, all demons were evil. The lesser demons, the ones without conscious thoughts, no more aware of what they were doing than wild animals, the no-name demons, just trying to get by, and the princes, they were all evil and needed to be destroyed. None more so than the Princes of Hell. “I can get information from Akil. Your people won’t get anything of value out of him, not in this century, and you don’t have a lifetime to question him.”

He slid his glasses back on and regarded me with a heavy sigh. “If I let you in there, he’ll kill you. Of that, he’s been quite vocal.”

I moistened my lips and scanned the pictures without really seeing them. Adam didn’t know how deeply my relationship with Akil flowed. Nobody really did. I often wondered about it myself. Stefan had suggested I give his father something Adam couldn’t refuse investigating. If I played this right, I could get into the Institute’s base and hopefully within spitting distance of the Operation Typhon Subjects. The other half bloods had to be near where they kept Akil. How many secret lairs could one organization have?

“He won’t kill me, Adam.” I tasted the words to come, rolled them on my tongue, and then reluctantly let them go. “He loves me.”

“Impossible. Demons are incapable of love.”

“That’s what I thought too, but he’s changed. When he believed Stefan killed me, it ruined Akil. I’m not sure he understands it, but it’s there. It’s real.” His behavior of late had me second-guessing what I knew of demons. Akil himself had told me he was different after I’d pumped him full of enough power to turn him into liquid fire. Plus, the grief he’d experienced, his reverent touch after he’d asked me to love him like a man, the things he’d said, the confusion behind his expressions: the signs were there. He hated it himself for it, but he couldn’t deny it. “He will talk to me.”

“Even if that were the case, I can’t let you in there with your demon. You’re a Class A demon and a volatile one.” He dropped his gaze to the drink in my hand. “You’re not even bothering to hide your instability. I’ve already lost one facility. I can’t afford to lose another, not while the demons are coming at us in vast numbers.”

“It’s not going to get any better. This is the first wave. You know that, right?”

He squinted at me. “It’s likely. Do you know more?”

“I have connections, remember. The princes have plans. They’re eyeing up Boston as prime real estate. Let me talk to Akil, see what he knows.”

“Do you love him?”

“Akil? No… I…” Adam gave me the arched eyebrow, and for a second, I saw Stefan’s incredulous expression in his father, the stubborn jaw, fierce eyes flecked with mischief. “It’s complicated.”

“Love usually is.”

“Seriously? I’m not having this conversation with you. What is it with Harpers and love? Stefan asked me the same thing once.”

“What did you tell him?”

“It’s complicated.”

“When Ryder’s team took Akil down, what did you feel?”

I scowled and gritted my teeth. “Are you psychoanalyzing me?”

“All the time.”

Tension crawled over my shoulders as I fought with myself to not swing at Adam. Everything about the man set my teeth on edge. A sip of whiskey, and the resulting burn reduced the itch to punch him. If I wanted to get inside the base, I had some convincing to do, and landing a right hook across Adam’s stubborn jaw wasn’t going to help. It’d sure feel good though. “Do I love Akil?” I repeated, listening to the resonance of the words, testing their weight. “I don’t want to. I know what he is. I don’t like him. Sometimes I hate him. A lot of the time, I hate him…”

Adam had the gall to look sympathetic. “Love and hate are not mutually exclusive.”

I pursed my lips. He’d just confirmed my own fears. “When Ryder took him down, I wanted to kill everyone in that alley. Akil was mine, and you’d stolen him from me. I was ready to go nuclear…until Ryder told me he wasn’t dead.” I’d felt the rage bubbling, ready to blow. I had no doubt I’d have torn that neighborhood apart.

“But you didn’t.”

“Obviously.”

“He can’t ever love you back, Muse. Their mental capacity isn’t designed for emotion the way ours is. They’re creatures driven by a purpose. Whatever they desire, they seek it out. It’s a simple existence. You might even call it liberating. But they don’t experience the complexities of life. You forget. I’ve dedicated my life to studying demons. Every minute, of every day, for as long as I can remember. It’s always been about them. They will deceive, misdirect, and use force. They will lie. A lie to them is nothing more than another tool in their catalogue of methods to manipulate. A demon does not and cannot experience love.” His eyes had softened and glistened wet at their corners. His lips pressed into the ghost of a smile. This wasn’t a clinical lesson. He was talking from the heart. He’d loved Stefan’s demon mother, Yukki Onna. And it had scarred him. Maybe she’d lied to escape him? A chip glanced off my absolute hatred for Adam; maybe he was human after all. Noticing my silence, his smile hitched, and he inclined his head. “I know what it’s like. They’re easy to fall in love with, with their smooth lies and forbidden beauty, but not so easy to fall out of love with.”

“You still love her?”

He leaned back and tightened his arms across his chest. “It’s complicated.”

When did it become okay to talk love with Adam Harper? As much fun as this wasn’t, I needed to make progress. Still, I filed his revelation away for possible leverage against Adam. I’d learned that secrets make generous currency. “We can argue this all day and night. While we do, Akil’s getting angrier, and more demons are spilling through the veil. Let me help you.”

“I will.” He smiled that oh-so-friendly smile. “When you agree to P-C-Thirty-Four.”

“I can’t.”

“It’s temporary. You know that. Once you leave the facility, you’ll be given the antidote.”

He even looked sincere, like he believed his own bullshit. “Adam, the last time you said that, I spent six months with your poison in my veins. I was nearly killed by my owner while you procrastinated over my so-called wellbeing. I may be volatile, but I’m not stupid.”

“You have my word.”

I lifted my brow. “I’d rather die.” I might well die if I didn’t sort my shit out soon.

“Then we’re at an impasse.”

“Yes, we are.”

W
alking back to my car
, I considered how I’d failed my mission to get inside the Institute’s base. I had learned that Adam was still in love with Yukki Onna. Could I use that? Everyone has a weakness. Was she his? Was I wrong for even considering exploiting him? Hell, no. Bigger picture. I needed to get to the half bloods, and just because Adam might have a heart, didn’t mean I wouldn’t shove him in front of a bus given half a chance.

I crossed the street and descended into the parking garage. A familiar figure leaned against my car. He’d retrieved his long leather coat. Faded to the color of dried-blood, it bore scuffs and tears that should have seen it tossed in the trash. But he’d kept it. I allowed myself a few moments of selfish admiration. He stood demon-still, arms crossed over his chest, head tilted a little to one side, a curious, knowing smile playing on his lips. At least, I guessed as much. I couldn’t quite see the smile, but if the sensuous touch of his element was anything to go by, he had mischief on his mind.

“Well?” Stefan asked as I drew closer.

“I thought you’d have high tailed it back to the netherworld by now.” I checked over my shoulder and scanned the shadows draped over the dozen or so parked cars. We were alone, no Institute tails. Stefan hadn’t budged from my car door, but the invisible lick of his element swirled around him. I planted a hand on my hip and lifted my chin. “I didn’t get in. Adam won’t let me near their base with my demon intact. He says I’m half way to crazy town, and he’s got a point.”

“I could force the information out of him,” Stefan replied, deadly serious.

Oh-kay
. “You’d kill him.”

The corner of his mouth tucked into his cheek, twisting his smile. “Yeah, there is that.”

“And you’re reformed, remember?”

He flinched. “And that.”

“So you’re hanging around my car because…?”

His gaze drifted to me, pinning me beneath its crystalline shimmer. A flush of heat spilled through my veins. My element sparked to life as surely as if he’d deliberately reached inside and stoked the fire. I swallowed, failing miserably at hiding my very physical reaction to his presence. “There might be something we can use,” I blurted, shifting my feet, and pretending to find the walls of the parking garage fascinating. Damn, he had power. It rolled off him, impossible to ignore and deliciously distracting. My demon blinked awake, very much alert and suddenly hungry for a Stefan-shaped snack. “Your mom, Yukki Onna.”

He sucked in a breath and drew the power with it, pulling it back from me as though he’d stolen the quilt on a bed. I shook out my hands, a demon reaction to rid my skin of the residual tingling.

“What about her?”

“He loves her.”

“What?”

“Adam loves Yukki Onna.”

Stefan hesitated, mind working as his scowl tightened. “How did you get him to admit that?”

“It just sorta…came up in conversation.”

He made a derisive sound in the back of his throat. “So how is his undying love for my demon mother going to help us?”

Well, at least the sarcasm now masked what I assumed to be anger and the lust-shaped elephant in the garage had vanished. “I’ve no idea. Would she come here? If you asked her to?”

He shifted, scuffing his boots on the floor. “Do you think it’d make a difference? Would he bargain his feelings for the Institute?”

“This is the same Adam, right? The man who bargains like a demon? He bartered for me before I was born. He made a deal with Yukki to get me away from Damien. Alright, it was Ryder’s idea…” Stefan glared, and shivers danced down my spine. I cleared my throat. “Any-who… Would she come if you asked her to?”

“He was supposed to send me back to Yukki Onna when I was old enough to fend for myself. He didn’t. He drugged me, caged me, and experimented on me instead.” Stefan threw his gaze high, searching the cobwebs trailing across the garage ceiling for the right words. “He left me for dead in the netherworld, and when I got back, gave the termination order. You’ve met Yukki. What do you think she’ll do if I ask her to come here so my father can profess his love to her?”

“Wear his guts for garters?” Stefan’s mommy-dearest was one badass ice-demon. We’d bonded whilst battling lesser demons, right before I’d lost control and attacked her. I liked her, especially since she’d probably kill Adam on sight.

He flashed me a sterile grin. “Bingo.”

“Maybe it’s a love-hate relationship?” I had one of those. I could relate.

“No. It’s a I’ll-murder-you-to-death relationship and a terrible idea.”

“Alrighty then. Just throwing it out there.”

“Want to come hunting?”

I blinked. The last time Stefan and I had ‘played,’ he’d killed seven enforcers. “Nope.”

He dipped his chin and peered through those long platinum lashes. “No?”

“No.” Locking my arms crossed, I stood my ground. This was dangerous territory, not least because I wanted to go with him. There had always been something about Stefan that drew me to him when I should have been repelled. Ice and fire: asking for trouble. Prior to him killing enforcers, we’d sparred, demon to demon, and I’d relished every second of it. Even now, my demon stretched her awareness through my limbs, awakened by the memories. I’d had control then. Now… Now I couldn’t risk it. It wouldn’t take much for me to flip to the dark side.

“I promise to behave.” He paused. “Mostly.” He smoothed the brogue from his voice while at the same time lacing it with a hint of something not entirely human. Did he know how he sparked my fire to life with just a look, a word, a purr?

“Stefan—”

He shoved off the car and captured me in a kiss so quickly I squeaked, violated, surprised, and aroused all at once. A warning chimed in my head, but the surge of desire drowned it out. He cupped my face in his hands and kissed me as though I was made of glass, delicately, afraid he might shatter me. Soft lips, warm and sweet—all I could think to do was open to him and take him inside. He tasted like sorbet and tantalizingly like chaos. Too soon, he withdrew, doubts narrowing his eyes. I splayed my hands on his chest and marched him backward until he bumped against my car. It never failed to amaze me how warm he was. And hard. My hands rode over his well-defined chest, fingernails digging in, just enough to snatch a breath from his lips. I had to stop this here and now, but my demon didn’t agree. She surged in the wake of my desire, brushing common sense aside. Slipping my hands higher, skimming inside his coat and over his shoulders, up his neck, I cupped his face and drew him down. The brush of stubble fizzed beneath my fingers. I traced the line of his jaw with my fingertips, committing the feel of him to memory, and traced a delicate path to his lips. When I rose up onto my tiptoes and pressed my lips tentatively to his, his restrained gentleness melted away. One hand plunged into my hair while the other slipped around my lower back and yanked me close. Pressed against him, I savored the feel of Stefan: the tiny shivers like a taut chain about to snap, the trickling touch of power. He unraveled my fear, my pain, and the terrible burden of guilt. His mouth destroyed the tender kiss and worked with a sudden, delicious, urgency, casting aside all the reasons this was wrong. I wanted this. I wanted
him
. Never mind all the reasons to stay away, I needed to feel him, to be close to someone who understood everything, to lose myself in the tingling touch and sweet taste of chaos the way I had once before. But this wasn’t like before. We’d both changed so much. He wasn’t the same Stefan who’d stepped through the veil, and I wasn’t the same Muse either, which made this kiss new, real, and so damn good. The kiss gave me hope that maybe—
just maybe
—everything was going to be okay.

He pulled away all too soon. His hand released from my hair, but the other hand still trapped me against him. He trailed the backs of his fingers down my face. I blinked and watched diamond dust sparkle in his eyes. How could he be so beautiful, so tender, after everything he’d been through? Did he see hope between us too? His hand settled gently at my neck, and his thumb brushed softly over my pulse. He hesitated there. Neither of us seemed particularly inclined to move. I found my breathing matched his: exhale and inhale. Did the racing beat of my heart match his too? Invisible threads of energy wove around us, his and mine. I swallowed hard, fighting the urge to pull him into a kiss that wouldn’t be so easily stopped. He rested his forehead against mine, and for a moment, neither of us cared to talk or move. Perhaps he knew as well as I did that this—us, whatever it was—wouldn’t end well. A twitch jolted through him, just a little skip of energy, but even that tiny quiver snagged on my demon and tugged, almost yanking her out of my control. My teeth clamped closed, and a groan escaped my control. He was too powerful, too much for my fragile mind. I couldn’t dampen the demon down while he stood close enough to ravage. She was a creature of lust and fire, a being fuelled by passion for the kill, for wanton destruction, and she was hungry for Stefan. What would it be like, to have him as a demon? The two of us, ice and fire, elements entangled, fighting, repelled, and yet drawn together. The cool burn of his glittering demon skin against the raw heat of my lava-veined flesh? Would it hurt? No. I knew, somehow, that pleasure and pain were interpretations of the same sensations. It would be demon.

He brushed a thumb across his lower lip, snagging my attention to the spot I wanted to tear kisses from. His blue-eyed gaze flicked up, sending shivers through me. Adam was right about one thing. Demons had it simple, and mine wanted Stefan, right there, on the hood of the car. Was he having the same internal argument with his demon? He licked his lower lip, and it took every ounce of control I had not to pounce. I searched his eyes for permission, saw his lips curl into a smile. No, he didn’t argue with his demon. His demon got what it wanted. The smile was permission enough.

“Lesser demons, twelve o’clock,” he said, voice coarse.

Adrenalin doused my lust and poured steel into my limbs. Senses suddenly on full alert, I reached inside my mind and used the demon part of me to pinpoint our unexpected audience. Three shadows of displaced energy moved behind me. One in particular throbbed with chaos energy. The fine hairs on the back of my neck lifted, human senses sending out physical alarms. The demons weren’t meant to be there, not meant to be part of this world. Demon urges muddied human thoughts;
Kill them. Burn their flesh. Destroy them. Take them, and then take him, the Winter King.

Stefan brushed his lips against mine and sent a sparking jolt through me. My demon surged. His gentle touch in the storm of chaos whisked my thoughts into a frenzy. I hooked my arms around his neck and dragged him down. Screw gentle. Screw the demons. I tore into the kiss. Our elements flared bright and hot, tingling across my skin. He slid his hands down the curve of my back, over my ass, and pulled me hard against him. My breath caught. A heady mix of nerves, excitement, fear, and lust pooled molten warmth in my belly and lower. Oh, sweet hell, I’d never experienced a madness like it. I might gladly have sated the boiling need in front of our demon audience had I not heard the familiar click of obsidian claws on concrete. Hellhound? A thunderous growl rumbled the walls and startled half a dozen car alarms.

Stefan pulled back, surfacing from the madness of hunger. “I’ve got this.” He swept me aside, and in no more than two strides, had summoned a lance of ice twice his height. He strode toward the handful of demons, face determined. Two Scorsi demons, black scorpion bodies glistening, flanked the car-sized hellhound. I dipped my chin and shoved back my demon as she clawed to be free. The hellhound bowed its head. Huge hairless shoulders bunched as it readied to leap. Its flanks quivered, and paws the size of my head splayed on the asphalt. Hellhounds were tough. I’d been unlucky enough in the past to have several after me. They can’t usually be seen by human eyes or stopped. But the veil was weakening, and none of the rules seemed to exist any more. I had no idea if this one could be stopped, but Stefan didn’t seem concerned.

The hound leapt. Stefan’s crystal wings burst into existence. He lunged and plunged the lance into the beast’s neck. It let out a broken gurgling howl and smacked down behind Stefan with a sickening crack. He wrenched the lance free of the twitching beast and spun. His wings fractured the light, magnified it, and threw the fragments across the entire garage, bathing the scene in a broken kaleidoscope of light. The Scorsi demons scuttled on scorpion legs. Backing up, they danced nervously, suddenly unsure they’d chosen the right quarry. Their humanoid torsos rippled and bucked. Beady eyes flicked from me to Stefan. They must have sensed the residual power Stefan radiated. I smiled. This would be over sooner than I could have imagined.

Before I knew I’d been hit, I found myself crumpled on the ground, face down in a pool of motor oil. My head throbbed, my side ached, and something burned like a bitch down my back. What the hell? Huge scorpion legs skittered into my line of sight. The demon made a curious chuffing sound around its bristling lips and then arched its stinger high over its body, and plunged the barb into my shoulder. I screamed. Fire burst from my skin. My demon slammed into me, evicting my humanity, and the lights went out.