When Darkness Reigns Read online

  I shook myself from my thoughts. Cranking the water on, I waited until it ran hot enough to steam the sheer shower doors before stepping beneath the spray.

  Lilah was gone. Back in her prison, with her twin flame this time. Both of them sealed in by light flame blood. It felt surreal. Like I shouldn’t be too quick to believe it. There would never be a guarantee when it came to demons. Still the idea that she might just be in there for the rest of my existence sat pretty well with me. If I woke up tomorrow and it was still real, I’d let myself celebrate.

  I wasn’t afraid of Shya anymore. That was one reality of my life that I could embrace in full. Sure I feared his instability, himself one moment and loony tunes the next. But he no longer intimidated me as he once had. I found that incredibly empowering going forward. For now I didn’t intend to do anything about him, not unless The Circle of the Veil specifically asked me to intervene

  But I would be keeping an eye on him.

  It might be nice to take it easy for a while. I should be so lucky. Of course, I never believed for a moment that would happen. But even a brief reprieve from the underworld craziness in the city would be welcome.

  After a good head-to-toe scrub and a few minutes to appreciate the endless stream of hot water, I finally got out and toweled off. Smirking to myself, I grabbed one of the freshly laundered bathrobes hanging behind the door and slipped it on.

  If Falon didn’t want to see me, then I’d enjoy some time in a bed to myself with a remote I didn’t have to share before going home to a house full of men, where I no longer had such luxuries.

  I opened the bathroom door, exiting in a cloud of steam.

  A few steps into the room, I froze. I wasn’t alone anymore, and it wasn’t Falon who waited for me.

  Bane sat in the easy chair in the corner near the window.

  Malicious delight lit up his face, suggesting he’d gotten exactly the reaction he wanted. My joy at no longer being intimidated by Shya was shattered in an instant.

  Bane was not Shya. He did scare me. A lot.

  And I fucking hated that.

  I still bore injuries from the fight, not to mention the power fatigue. I was pretty much flying at half-mast at best. Could I take him?

  We couldn’t exactly power trash a hotel. That was the kind of shit The Circle strongly frowned upon. Surely Bane knew the rules. Not that he struck me as an upstanding, rule-following member of the supernatural community.

  “Nice to see you again, snowflake.” He greeted me with a toothy grin. “And all alone too.”

  I couldn’t help the panicked shift in my energy, and I couldn’t hide it from someone like Bane. Stunned in place, afraid to move, I forced myself to look right at him and not glance toward the door to judge my chances if I ran. He was closer to it than I was. I’d never make it out of the room if he didn’t want me to.

  “Is that what you called Winter?” I asked far more brazenly than I felt. Just how brave could one feel, naked in a bathrobe in front of a demon? Again.

  Bane’s lecherous gaze raked over me, lingering on the gap in my robe that revealed a large swath of skin almost to my navel. My breasts were covered, but I hadn’t tied the robe tight, seeing as I hadn’t been anticipating an uninvited guest. The loose fit gave him an eyeful of cleavage and a glimpse of thigh where the cloth pulled open at the hem.

  Well, at least I hadn’t pranced out in all my nude glory. That would have been much worse.

  “No, snowflake, I called her ice princess. Falon fucking hated that.” His leer grew menacing. “Almost as much as he hates it when I call you snowflake.”

  “Almost?” I repeated, catching that word like it had smacked me over the head.

  Bane rubbed a hand over the soft material covering the arm of the chair. His eyes never wavered from the slit in my robe that showed him a peek of thigh. “Something about you sets him off in a way even she didn’t. It’s almost like he’d resigned himself to losing her long before I ever came along. She was mortal after all. Doomed to die a human death. Falon is different with you. Savagely protective. I can tell you one thing, snowflake. He never marked Winter with a promise to complete his fall.”

  Everything Bane said fed the many mixed emotions already plaguing my heart and mind. Was he trying to gauge my reaction? Find out if my attachment to Falon ran as strong as his did to me? I’d attacked Bane the second I’d learned his identity, so surely he didn’t question my feelings.

  “She chose you.” A slight tremor laced my voice. I wanted to clutch my robe shut against his prying eyes but knew that would only encourage him. “I’d throw myself off a bridge before I ever choose you.”

  Did I just throw down a gauntlet against a dead woman? Yeah, I guess I did.

  By the time my brain processed that Bane was moving, he was already on me. Just that fast. Grabbing me by both arms, he slammed me against the wall next to the bathroom door. My head hit the framed picture hanging there, and it shattered from the impact of my skull.

  Bane didn’t let me drop to the floor. At least two hundred and fifty pounds of muscle and well over six feet tall, the demon easily held me against the wall, my legs dangling.

  “I broke that woman’s spirit, and I will break yours.” Snarling into my face, Bane pressed close. Too close.

  Instinct took over, and I tried to knee his crotch. Expecting such a move, Bane threw me against the desk. I crashed against it and fell to the floor, catching myself on my hands and knees. Before I could get up or fight back, he was on me again. A fisted backhand snapped my head painfully to one side. The taste of blood filled my mouth.

  Fighting back was a necessity. Not optional by any means. Yet my elbow jabbed between his ribs and my punch to his nose only brought a satisfied smile to his face. I couldn’t just lay there and let him beat me half to death, but my attacks proved useless.

  Bane had yet to use anything other than physical force. I’d like to keep it that way. I didn’t think I could take him, burnt out the way I was.

  My damp hair coiled in his massive paw, Bane used it to drag me to my feet. Jerking me close he leaned in to smell me, an animalistic trait that had my wolf growling out at him. I wasn’t prey.

  “You smell too clean,” Bane observed, wrinkling his nose. Clutching my bruised jaw in a painfully tight grip, he examined my battered face. “I’m going to dirty you up. Make you absolutely filthy. Make you mine. All in good time.”

  “Is this some kind of sick cat-and-mouse game for you?” I asked, genuinely wanting to know. “Why do you even give a shit about me?”

  Bane rubbed a big hand through my hair, and I shrank back from his touch. I’d never had any man give me the ‘hell no’ feeling quite the way he did.

  Not even Briggs.

  “You aren’t supposed to exist, snowflake. Winter, she wasn’t supposed to either. Female nephilim are rare. Always powerful and always a prize.” Licking his lips in a manner that made my innards shudder, Bane’s crimson gaze dropped to the angel mark on my neck. “Still, other lady nephilim exist in the world. Winter wasn’t one of a kind.” His grin spread even wider, thinning his lips to a cruel caricature of a smile. “But there’s only one of you.”

  Being one of a kind was starting to suck.

  “I’m not property to be possessed,” I snarled in his face. “Not by you or Falon. If you know who I am, then you should know better than to fuck with me.”

  My big mouth sure could talk a good game. Too bad it happened when the rest of me wasn’t too keen on backing it up.

  Bane’s meaty hand encircled my neck, choking off my words and breath. He threw me onto the bed and pinned my flailing body with his much larger one. I had no way of knowing what he planned for me.

  With that one hand tight on my throat, Bane cracked me across the face with the other. New bruises began to blossom. As I struggled beneath him, he placed a palm on my chest, right between my breasts, which had been uncovered at this point.

  After I’d faced off with Lilah, I refused to
end the night as Bane’s broken toy. However I could use a split-second to think. I went still, as if I were in shock.

  No, I wouldn’t give this jackass the satisfaction of a fight. I decided to nail his ass with everything I had left in me. All I needed was a spark of light to put some hurt on this demon asshole.

  I had enough juice left to bring him some pain. The Circle and their rules be damned.

  He dragged that hand down the center of my body, his eyes drinking in every inch. Bane’s gaze alone was enough to make me cringe. It filled me with a nauseating revulsion. When he reached my lower abdomen he stopped.

  Desire blazed in Bane’s eyes, but it wasn’t a desire I knew. Sex, blood, death, those I knew well. What lurked inside Bane was something else entirely. A sick hunger to see something wonderous broken in mind, spirit, and body, destroyed beyond repair.

  He embodied evil on a level I didn’t want to know existed.

  Nudging my robe open, Bane treated himself to the full view. “No wonder Falon enjoys fucking you. I imagine with that succubus thrall you’re quite the lover.” He never tried to touch me further. I suspected he just wanted me to know that he could.

  That didn’t stop me from reaching for the light. Intending a small but direct blow, something that should go unnoticed by neighboring rooms, I flung a hand in Bane’s face. A bolt of light flew from my fingertips. Just a pulse.

  But that was enough to loosen his hold at my throat.

  With an angry shout he jerked back.

  I brought my feet up between us and kicked him hard below the ribs. He didn’t budge far, but I managed to roll off the bed before he could grab for me again.

  “Fuck you, you revolting demon reject,” I snarled through fangs.

  Holding his cheek where my attack had burnt his face, Bane fumed. However, he seemed to also enjoy it. “When I’m done with you, sweet snowflake, you’ll be begging me to hurt you.”

  I was caught between the bed, the bathroom, and Bane. No matter where I ran I was trapped.

  When he launched himself at me, I darted for the bathroom. I slammed the door shut and called on my power to help me hold it shut, but he burst right through it.

  My shriek echoed in the hard-surfaced acoustics of the room.

  Bane hit me hard enough to throw me on my ass in front of the tub, causing my head to bounce off the side. I struggled to block the next blow while pulling my robe closed.

  With my back to the tub, I held both hands up to ward him off. Golden light flickered among my fingers, but it took more strength than usual to keep the flow going.

  Crouching in front of me, Bane just stared with a smile that bared all four of his beastly fangs. The air around him shimmered, and his demonic form unfurled. A double set of horns on either side of his head paired with a furry tail so long that it curled on the floor behind him. Bane’s scare factor went up about a thousand notches. His pupils dilated dangerously.

  “Such a fighter, Alexa. It’s damn sexy.” He cocked his head to one side, making no attempt to touch me further, merely studying me as he spoke. “You are strong where Winter was weak. I truly hope you make me work incredibly hard to break that fiery spirit.”

  Then he was gone.

  I toppled.

  For several excruciatingly long minutes, I sat there, nerve racked, on the bathroom floor, swallowing down the shock of what had just happened.

  Falon found me still sitting there on the floor, holding my robe closed, quaking in both pain and fear. Immediately he went to his knees and pulled me into his arms. I could feel the rage that filled him.

  “Alexa, are you ok? What did he do to you? Did he…? Dear God, tell me he didn’t…?” Falon’s hand was gentle on my thigh as he glanced down between my legs, unable to even say the words.

  Had I ever heard Falon utter anything even remotely close to a prayer? I put a hand over his and shook my head. “No, he didn’t.”

  Relief escaped him on a sigh that I felt in my bones. He ran a gentle hand carefully over my face, examining the cuts and bruises. “He jumped me on the other side. Had a small army of demons keep me there while he came after you. I promise I’ll make this right, wolf. No matter what it fucking takes.”

  I snuggled in against him, not even caring that we sat on the hard tile floor. Motioning to my injuries, I said, “Some of this is from Lilah. She came to The Kiss tonight. You weren’t there.” It sounded like an accusation and maybe in some way it was.

  Falon’s embrace tightened around me, and he rose from the floor, lifting me in his arms. “I know. I was being a dick. Drinking cheap whiskey in an other side dive bar. In my defense, I didn’t know Lilah had made a move. I just knew you wanted me, and I ignored that call. I’m sorry.”

  Falon set me on the bed and peeled back the top blanket. Once I scurried beneath it, he undressed. I slipped out of the robe and tossed it on the floor. Even in the lamplight the bruises stood out in blotches all over my pale body. I drew the blanket up and fluffed the pillows so I could sit against the headboard.

  When Falon got in beside me, naked and warm, I got a good view of the marks and wounds he bore from Bane’s demons roughing him up. Still he felt strong and lively. I needed to put my hands on him.

  “Did you just apologize to me? Again?” I teased. “I’m never going to let you live it down.”

  “Don’t get too excited,” he replied with an eyeroll, facing me while leaning against the pillow mountain against the headboard. “Nobody would believe you, your word against mine.” Falon leaned in to press his lips to the feather marking my neck and whispered, “Whatever you need from me, my queen, take it.”

  His first apology had been in my office just days ago, minutes after Falon had claimed me not just as any queen but as his queen.

  What the fuck had happened to us?

  “I do need something from you.” I selected my words carefully. Touching his face, I held his gaze, needing him to see that I was serious. “I need you to never again ask me to trap you like we trapped Shya. I won’t do that to you.”

  A frown creased Falon’s brow, and his lips pressed together into a hard line. He wanted to argue. It was written all over his face. But he just nodded and said, “Ok. It’s your call.”

  “And another thing,” I went on, nipping playfully at his bottom lip. “Stop using alcohol to cope with what happened in Las Vegas. You’re an annoying drunk, and you smell like a skunk in a brewery.” I wrinkled my nose to add effect, but it was halfhearted.

  Sure he smelled like liquor, but he also smelled like soap, lavender, and man. The soft rumble of his laughter drew me. I pressed my mouth to the pulse point in his neck, feeling the immortal blood flowing beneath the surface.

  “Now you’re just being a pain in the ass,” he muttered, purposely not addressing the heart of my remark. A sharp intake of breath followed as I reached down between us and wrapped a hand around his semi-hard shaft.

  What I needed, Falon could give me. The strength within his embrace. The well of otherworld power that would pick me up like an immortal narcotic, bringing me back to life. I tried to tell myself that’s all I needed, but that was a lie.

  I needed very much to do anything possible to keep Falon from falling too far. From slipping away from me, into the abyss.

  In my hand he swelled with growing arousal. I watched his face as I stroked him, appreciating the way desire crept into those beautiful silver orbs. “If I wasn’t a succubus, would you even still want me?”

  The question tumbled out before I could stop it. Not the greatest timing. Why the hell did I say that?

  Amusement danced across Falon’s face. “You know that question goes both ways, right? If you weren’t a succubus, would you still want me?”

  “I guess we’ll never know.” Needing him inside me, to fill that void, physically and emotionally, I climbed on top of Falon.

  Leaning against the headboard, he watched me straddle him with his sexy-as-hell, devil-may-care expression. “I think we do know.”r />
  Hovering over him, I quirked a brow. Yeah, we knew. Being a succubus might have played a role in bringing us together that first time, along with the evil entity’s manipulation, but we’d had ample time to end this thing.

  It wasn’t the hot sex that kept us coming back to each other. It was the way we could fall apart together. To watch each other’s souls bleed and want each other even more because of it.

  Falon’s gaze dropped between my legs as I took him inside me. Watching me slide down the length of him, he uttered a soft, “Fuck.”

  Being on top was my favorite power position, but with him sitting up so close, it became much more intimate than our trysts usually were. I liked it. That alone came as a surprise that scared me.

  His hands glided over me in a gentle caress. Down my arms, along my ribs, curving around my breasts. My back arched as I moved atop him. He sucked my nipple into his mouth. Fisting a handful of silver hair, a soft cry spilled from my lips when Falon grabbed my hips and held me down, impaled on his rigid length.

  “Do you feel that?” he murmured, mouth hot on my skin. “How deep inside you I am? This is my sanctuary. You are my sanctuary, Alexa. And holy shit do I fucking hate it, because you’re the most unbearably irritating woman on the planet, and I loathe you with every fiber of my being. But it’s true, and it has nothing to do with your succubus wiles.”

  Falon’s face contorted into something pained. This killed him and I kind of loved that. But it slashed deep for me too. Our relationship would now always be defined as either us before Las Vegas or us afterward. Envy had forced us to look beyond the surface to the grit underneath, and neither of us liked what we found there. I didn’t think we knew how to go forward, if Falon’s recent binge was anything to go by.

  Because I feared what he might see in my eyes after his unexpected confession, I kissed him, whispering against his lips, “Maybe it’s time we tear this thing open. Show me how you want me, Falon.”

  In a time of weakness, I surrendered to Falon. It was the only way I could show him that he wasn’t the only one struggling to understand how and when exactly things had started to change. And our confusion didn’t even matter. It was too late now. We were in too deep.