Forever in Darkness (novella) (Order of the Blade #4) (2 page)

His soul mate lay beneath that
marker, sharing her final resting place with his ancestors. Beside her was an
empty plot. His. Waiting for him to join her. It was where he belonged. He
could feel his grave calling to him, welcoming him, offering him respite from
the pain he was suffering.

Grief consumed him, and he fisted
the handlebars, fighting against the surge of despair so intense he couldn't
even breathe. Then he felt the burn in his arms as his weapons became
available, and he heard the satisfied rumble of the voice that had taken so
many from him.

The fight wasn’t over.

Swearing, he thrust the bike
forward, the tires spinning out as he left behind the woman whose death was
already eating away at what little was left of his soul.

Alice Shaw screamed, gasping for
air as she grabbed at the claws crushing her throat, her fingernails scrabbling
uselessly on the scaly skin of her assailant. Her body was on fire with the
poison racing through her veins, the taint rushing into her cells. “No,” she
shouted, her voice raw as she sucked in another desperate breath.

Above her gleamed the face of
death, the twisted rotting face of one of the demons that lurked beneath the
earth, that lived in the hell that no human could survive, the one reserved for
those who had died and deserved nothing but eternal torment.

Its eyes glowed red, its features
contorted by the way its skin stretched across its bones. Its mouth was twisted
in that malicious smile that drove chills through the marrow of her bones. Pain
screamed through Alice's body, and she knew she couldn’t take anymore—

A bright white light flared behind
the demon’s head, and Alice gasped. Tears of agonizing relief filled her eyes
as she watched it take the shape of a person.

Of a woman.

Of herself.

Her way out had just arrived.

The demon shrieked and reared back
to shove its claw into her heart. She met the demon's deranged gaze, unable to
keep the triumph off her face. "You lose," she whispered.
"Again."

It ignored her as the light behind
it began to spin, faster and faster, changing shape from a flaming spear to a
globe. So close. Almost ready. Almost—

The demon plunged its claw into her
chest. Alice screamed, her body bowing with agony as its claws closed around
her heart. Too much. Too much. She couldn't survive it—

The glowing white sphere careened
over the demon's shoulder and plunged into Alice's stomach. The demon bellowed
in agony, and the air was filled with the scent of burning rubber as it
stumbled back from her. The white light streamed through her body, igniting
each cell with an intense heat that sent pain knifing through her.

But it was beautiful pain. It was
the agony of her cells coming back to life, of the light cutting the ties the
demon had on her and freeing her from the hell that had taken her. It was life,
coming back to her, and bringing her back from the darkness that had done its
best to take her.

It was over.

Death had lost its grip on her.

She was going home….until it
happened again.

The demons had almost succeeded
this time. One more time, maybe two more times, and then she was out of
chances.

Time was running out.

* * *

Ian yanked open the door to the bar
and shoved his way into the dark dive that was hidden below the city of the eastern
Oregon town. The bar for people of Otherworld descent was accessible only by
the narrow set of steps hidden in a filthy alley that relied on the stench of
decaying rodents and rotting garbage to deflect the interest of all except
those determined to come.

He needed a shot of something hard,
and the name
Deliverance
had called to him.

The lighting was dim, and the bar
was loaded with more people than Ian felt like dealing with. The ceiling was
low, the walls dark, and the low murmur of conversation thrummed through him.
The hum of Otherworld undercurrent was thick, making the air ripple with energy.
Ian paused by the entrance, using the wall to guard his back while he took
stock of the room.

He scented desperation, lust and desire.
The dark, swirling emotions matched his restless mood. Low music pulsed through
the air, the drum beat thudding in his gut as couples moved across the dance
floor in sensual, decadent rhythms that ignited a raw lust in him, that same sexual
need that sent every Calydon seeking out women despite the danger of stumbling
upon his soul mate, the woman destined to destroy him.

But Ian had no interest in any
woman other than the female whose scent was still burned in his mind.

Swearing, he stepped away from the
wall and strode across the room toward the one empty seat at the bar. He took
over the vacant stool, and downed the shot that the bartender slammed down in
front of him. The liquid burned through him, streaking its way down his throat,
but the pain wasn't enough.

Shit.

Nothing was enough.

Scowling, he turned and surveyed
the room, the brands on his arms burning with the need to call out his weapons.
The darkness pulsed at him, like a miasma of doom and decay, trying to pull him
down. He gripped the bar, swearing as the darkness closed in around him.

It was worse this time. Worse than
the first time she'd died, when he'd been so screwed up that his teammates had
chained him down for months to keep him from snapping. He could feel the
insidious poison crawling through him. He was losing it. Losing his shit.

Swearing, he braced his hands on
the polished wood of the bar, bowing his head as he sucked the thick, damp air
into his lungs.

A deep breath.

Another.

And another—

His internal alarms suddenly exploded
through him, his head snapped up, and he went rigid. He spun around, searching
the bar, his heart crashing through his chest. He saw nothing amiss. Just the
same people who'd been there when he walked in. What had he just sensed?

He searched the room with his
senses again. He inhaled deeply, carefully sifting through the scents and then
he found it: the same fragrance of lilac and lavender that he'd scented on both
Catherine Taylor and the woman he'd just buried.

Again.

She was here.

Adrenaline roared through Ian and
he leapt to his feet, frantically scenting the air, but the scent had already dissipated.
Shit! He bolted into the crowd, searching for her, for that shock of auburn
hair, for another whiff of that scent, for the curve of her shoulder. Here.
There. He grabbed a woman, she turned, and he saw it wasn't her. Another woman
with red hair…not her. And another. And another.

It seemed like there were women
with auburn hair everywhere, surrounding him, taunting him, but none of them
were Catherine. The scent grew stronger, and he raced toward the corner where
it seemed to be coming from, but it was empty. Then the smell was gone again,
leaving him with an aching sense of loss so severe he felt like he couldn't
take another step…and that's when he realized what was happening.

It wasn't Catherine he was sensing.
It was the curse gnawing away at him, fabricating her scent just to torment
him. Or was it? Or was she really there?

Ian stood in the shadowed corner,
his breath heaving in his chest, sweat cascading down his temples. He stared
out at the crowd, at the undulating couples on the dance floor. He listened to
the thud of darts against the targets, the crack of balls from the pool tables.
He could smell the stale beer. He could taste the sweat and stench of too many
bodies in too small an area.

But he could not see the woman he
was looking for.

He couldn’t find her scent.

It was as if she'd never been
there. Had she been?

Grimly, he surveyed the club. Had
it been his imagination? Or had it been real? Confusion warred at his mind, and
Ian cursed, no longer certain about any of it, other than the fact that Elijah
had killed his
sheva
eight months ago. He knew that had really happened,
because other members of the Order had been there and witnessed it. Had all the
rest been his imagination? The curse trying to eat away at him? Was he finally
losing it entirely?

Ian laced his hands through his
hair and braced them on his head, fighting to catch his breath, to clear his
mind, to finally grasp the truth.

There was no way that his
sheva
had returned to his life twice within eight months. She was dead, and all that
other crap was simply the curse trying to derail him.

Catherine was gone.

It was over.

He had to accept it.

Alice ducked through the crowd, her
heart racing as she glanced over her shoulder once again. But no one had
followed her in through the rear door. No one had noticed she was there. She
was still safe.

She hurried up to the bar and
leaned on it. "James!"

The bartender glanced over at her
and raised his eyebrows in greeting. He was wearing the same jeans and tie-dyed
tee shirt he always did, and his bald head gleamed in the fluorescent lighting
above the bar. It was weird to see him like that, still the same, still making
drinks, after all she'd just been through. She felt like her head was spinning
and hell was on her heels, while James was just kicking back in his
rainbow-spotted shirt making drinks like he always did.

"Where have you been?" he
asked, shooting her a warm grin.

"Dead," she answered, too
frantic to bother making up an answer. And why bother? He wouldn't believe her
anyway. Who would?

"Yeah, you and me both."
James pulled the tap and filled a tall glass with an amber liquid. "You want
to fill in tonight?"

"No, God, no." She hadn't
worked there in ages, since everything fell apart. "I need to talk to Flynn.
Is he here?"

James gave her a friendly leer.
"You finally decide to put the guy out of his misery and sleep with
him?"

Alice felt her cheeks heat up.
"Dammit, James, I don't have time for that. I need to find him. Where is
he?" Flynn was the one person who could help her. She hadn't talked to him
in months, not since that horrific night, but she didn't know where else to
turn.

James's smile faded as he realized
she was serious. He swore, set the beer on the counter in front of a customer
and walked over to her. He leaned toward her, his scarred fingers gripping the
shiny wood. "Flynn has been a mess since that night," he said quietly.
"Don't track him down. He's too dangerous. Especially to you."

Alice saw the truth in James's
eyes, and her heart sank. "But I need him. I don't have anywhere else to
turn."

James shook his head. "Find
someone else to help," he said. "You don't want to unleash what's
inside of him. You really don't."

Guilt rippled through Alice,
because she knew she was partially responsible for what Flynn had become. But
she had no choice. Without Flynn, she had no chance at all. "I have to
take the risk," she said. "He's my only chance." She'd held off
trying to find Flynn, knowing how dangerous it would be to connect with him
again, but this last round with death had made her realize she had no choice
but to act now.

She'd rather have her death be at Flynn's
hands, knowing that she'd done everything she could to save her sister, than to
get run over by a bus and know she hadn't had the guts to track him down.

James shook his head in regret.
"He'll be in later tonight," he finally said. "But you should
take that cute little ass of yours out that door and be gone by then."

Fear rippled through Alice, but she
shook her head. "I can't."

"Then good luck." James's
face was grim, and he leaned over and kissed her forehead. Alice closed her
eyes at the feel of his lips brushing against her skin, her throat tightening
at the expression of affection from the man she considered such a dear friend.
James turned away without another word, but she saw the tightness of his mouth
and knew he believed that this was the last time he would ever see her.

And she knew he was probably right,
one way or another.

Tears burned in her eyes as she
turned away from him, fighting against the swell of loneliness. Then she fisted
her hands and lifted her chin as she surveyed the room for Flynn. Dammit. She
would not fall apart now. She didn't have time. She had to focus on her sister—

Her gaze settled on a man in the
corner of the bar. Adrenaline leapt through her and awareness pulsed low in her
belly at the sight of the stranger. He was tall, taller than most of the males
in the bar. His shoulders were wide, cut sharply with thick, strong muscle, but
his body was so lean he looked as if he hadn't eaten in months. He was all
muscle, no fat. He was looking in the other direction, giving her a clear view
of his profile. His jaw was tight, and there were sunken hollows deep in his
cheeks, a man who had suffered something horrible.

Her heart tightened. She almost
took a step toward him, drawn to both his strength and his suffering, both of
which were so extreme that she could feel them resonating through her. He was
wearing dark jeans and heavy black boots. Motorcycle boots? Even though he was
so broad and heavily muscled, his black tee shirt hung loosely on him, as if
he'd lost a vast amount of weight and no longer fit into it.

His dark hair was ragged and long,
tousled carelessly as if he hadn't thought about combing it in months, and his
whiskers had been long neglected by a razor. He was a man on the edge, a
warrior who was being haunted by nightmares that were destroying him. God, she
knew what that was like, and she was suddenly consumed with the need to cross
the dance floor and touch him, just to feel his skin beneath her hand—

He turned his head suddenly, and
looked right at her.

Alice froze at the sudden intensity
burning in his eyes. She was riveted in place, unable to shield herself from
his stare. Her heart began to pound, and she felt her skin heat up as his gaze
bore into her. His eyes were haunted, loaded with shadows so intense she could barely
breathe, but it was the raw ferocity and desire burning in them that made her
entire body tremble in response.

She couldn't breathe, couldn’t
move, couldn't pry her gaze from his—

Then he closed his eyes and turned
away, severing the connection like a cold knife through her soul.

* * *

It wasn't her
.

Ian gritted his jaw, fighting
against the need to sprint across the room and grab the woman standing beside
the bar. It couldn't be true. There was no chance that the woman thirty feet
away from him was Catherine Taylor.

Catherine Taylor was dead. She'd
fallen into his arms, stared at him for a fraction of a second, and then Ian's
teammate had struck her down. Dead. Done. Over. She was history.

And the second woman he'd buried
earlier in the evening? He was sure now that it hadn't been Catherine. It had
been a woman who looked like her, and his screwed-up mind had mixed them up.

The curse was trying to work him
over. There was no reality anymore. Just delusions.

It's not her.

Sweat beaded on Ian's brow, and
adrenaline surged through him. His entire body shook with the effort of staying
where he was instead of responding to the siren call of the woman by the bar.
His head pounded with the strain of trying to control his thoughts, to keep
from hauling ass over there, sweeping her up in his arms and carting her off to
his place to make love to her until neither of them could move.

He ground his jaw, focusing his
attention on an old wooden sign on the opposite wall.
Be a Man. Play with
Sharp Objects.

Be a man. Stand with honor. Shit. What
was he doing hiding in the shadows?

Honor didn't mean he was supposed
to shrivel in the corner, afraid to look at an auburn-haired woman. It meant he
stood tall, faced down that damn curse and defeated it. The curse had come to
claim him, and it was time to step up and fight it. He needed to challenge what
it threw at him and prove himself stronger.

He had to face it.

Ian clenched his jaw and slowly
turned his head back to the woman. He steeled himself for the impact of seeing
her, but the moment he saw her again, he felt like he'd been sucker-punched in
the gut.

It was Catherine. It was her.
It
was his woman.

He would never forget those
strawberry-gold highlights in her hair, the upturned slant of her nose, the way
her lips pressed together in tension. Her skin was paler than he recalled, but
her hips had that same curve of muscles and femininity. He would never forget
the feel of her hips beneath his hands when she'd fallen down that damned cliff
and he'd caught her. He knew exactly how they felt, precisely how they curved, and
he knew just how her jeans caressed them.

Her hair was tossed over her right
shoulder in a tumble of waves, and her white tee shirt hugged her body like it
was put on this earth to torment him. The plain cotton was almost innocent in
its simplicity, but the curve of her breasts beneath it made Ian's thoughts go
to places that were far from innocent. On her left wrist was a thin gold
bracelet that matched the gold hoops in her ears. No other adornment, no other
flash. Not even any makeup. Just the pure, sensual beauty of a woman who was
simply who she was, and that was more than enough for him.

She was searching the room now, her
face tense with worry as she scanned the crowd. Her tension made his protective
instincts pulse deep. Adrenaline rushed through him, and his weapons burned in
his arms. This time the urge to arm himself was not to impale himself like some
weak-willed embarrassment to his kind, but to protect her. To make her safe. To
keep her from the fate she'd already suffered twice—

Twice?

Ian swore and gritted his teeth.
What was he thinking? It made no sense that this woman was Catherine Taylor,
that she was some reincarnation anomaly who could come back to life hours after
he'd buried her. What the hell was his problem?

He knew the answer to that one. The
curse was his problem. It was going to keep trying to make him relive the death
of his
sheva
until it finally broke him.

Well, fuck that. The woman across
the bar wasn't his
sheva.
He was going to prove it, and then cut himself
free from her influence.

She turned her head and met his
gaze. His gut jumped as her green eyes met his, and he felt himself sliding
helplessly under her spell. She stiffened, then took a step back and glanced
over her shoulder toward the door.

She was leaving?
Unacceptable.

Urgency coursed through Ian, and he
broke from the corner, heading right for her.

Her eyes widened when she realized
he was approaching, and her cheeks flushed. But she didn't back away. She
lifted her chin and waited for him to approach.

Anticipation roared through him as
he neared her, and an urgent lust rose within him as he closed the distance
between them. The scent of lilac and lavender filled the air, so subtle, so
faint that he wouldn't even have noticed it if he hadn't been searching for it
so relentlessly.

Lilac and lavender. Hot damn. She
smelled
right.

Her green eyes searched his, and in
them he saw pain and fear, so deeply etched it had become a part of her soul.
But at the same time, they flashed with defiance and courage, a woman who had
not surrendered to the burden she carried. Respect surged through him, igniting
his lust even further.

But it was more than respect and
lust. It was a raw, burning need to drag her over to him and make her his, in
any and every way that he could.

She swallowed, and he felt her
rising nervousness. "What do you want?" she asked.

Sweet Jesus. Her voice was like the
choir of angels. Desire exploded through him, a yearning so powerful he could
barely contain it. He had spent his life fighting the carnal urges that were a
part of being a Calydon male, determined not to let them rule him and put him in
a position where a woman could bring him down. But with those four words, this
woman had unleashed all the raw sexual need he'd held at bay for so long.

She had to be Catherine. She had to
be his
sheva
. There was no other explanation for the intensity of his
response…but Catherine had died eight months ago. Her spirit couldn't have been
reincarnated into a twenty-something body that was already alive.

What the hell was going on?

He needed answers. He had to know.
He wanted to feel her body against his, to crush her into him and feel their
bodies come together. He needed to dive deep into her soul and see who she
really was, and he needed it
now
. The pulsing of music from the band
vibrated through him, the deep base thudding in every cell in his body.
"Dance with me," he said hoarsely, his voice raw with lust and need.
"Dance with me."

Desire flared in her eyes, so
quickly and so powerfully that he nearly went to his knees from the force of
his response to her. But then she shook her head and started backing away from
him. "I can't," she said, her voice throaty and desperate. "I
have to—"

"Catherine." He held out
his hand, offering her all he had. "Dance with me."

Her face registered shock, and she
stopped retreating. "Did you just call me Catherine?"

Ian went still, stunned by the
expression on her face. Son of a bitch. Her name really was Catherine? Raw,
instinctive possession thrummed through him, and he didn't ask her to dance
again. He simply reached for her hand and took it.

The electricity hummed between them
the moment their skin touched. Catherine sucked in her breath and tried to pull
back.

Ian tightened his grip. "One
dance."

She met his gaze, hesitation
evident on her features. He steeled himself for her refusal, knowing he could
not allow her to separate from him. Not yet. Not until he had answers.

Sudden determination flared in her
eyes, chasing away her fear. Her strength struck him, intensifying his lust.

She nodded, the smallest
inclination of her head, but it was enough. Anticipation hummed through him as
he led her onto the dance floor, his hand on her back to guide her and to keep
her in front of him where he could protect her. Bodies bumped against them, but
he blocked them with his shoulder, keeping them from hitting Catherine.