Seduced by Darkness (7 page)

So sweet was ne'er so fatal. I must weep. But they are cruel tears. This sorrow's heavenly; it strikes where it doth love.

— William Shakespeare, Othello

BELETH SHOVED ME
against the side of the cliff, his body a dark blur as he picked me up and threw me.

Onto my face.

"I thought we weren't fighting," I said, wiping a trickle of blood from my nose.

He came at me again, grabbing me by the shoulders.

"Wait! Wait!"

Ignoring me, the part angel (and, I'm convinced, part devil) picked me up like I weighed nothing and tossed me into the air. High into the air. Three or four stories high, if we’d had any buildings to compare this to.

Wind whipped through me as the weight of my body propelled me toward the ground again with a thump so hard the cliff shook. It was only a testament to my healing and new Nephilim body that I didn't die.

"You fly or you fall," he said, grabbing me again.

"How? You're not teaching me, you're torturing me. I don't have wings. I can't fly." Believe me, I'd tried.

He threw me up again, to the same results. By this point I could detect a Drake-shaped outline in the rocks below as I fell once again.

"Your wings are a part of you. I cannot tell you how to move them, just as I cannot tell you how to move your hand."

I checked my back again, just to make sure the pain hadn't dulled my senses to the sprouting of never-before-had wings. But nope, still nothing.

"They are hidden," Beleth said, as if everyone knew this. "But they are there." He grabbed my shoulders. "Again."

I groaned. Tried to land on my feet this time. Failed. Fell on my face. Groaned again.

If I'd known this would be my training, all day long, I would have stayed with Sam and Ana.

At sunset, Beleth relented and stopped throwing me in the air. "We must eat."

I was ready for a big bowl of pasta, but instead I got a blood pack.

Sadly, it smelled so good it made me drool, but I held it out to him. "I can't." Never mind I'd taken Sam's blood. This couldn't become a thing.

"It will give you strength and help you heal. Drink."

"I understand, but I don't want to get addicted. I don't want to go through what I did before. It nearly killed me and ruined my life with Sam."

Beleth drained his pouch of blood and tossed it aside. "You already are addicted. You have to learn to control it, and to do that, you must drink so that the bloodlust never takes over."

Bloodlust. Great. I rip open the bag and drain it, reluctantly enjoying the coppery richness flowing down my throat.

Beleth nodded in approval. "Now, I'll show you how to hunt, so you can get blood yourself whenever you need it."

"No way. That's my line and I'm not crossing it. I refuse to kill unless I must."

"Do you eat meat?" he asked.

"I became a vegetarian after I lost my powers. My new abilities made eating meat… difficult."

"You must learn to hunt, son. Even if you don't rely on it as your main source of blood, you have to know how to protect yourself and feed yourself or you will be at great risk."

"I'm sorry, I can't."

He sighed and stared at the night sky. "We will train again tomorrow."

I woke to a strong wind. We were higher up on a rock formation than we'd been last night.

Beleth held out a live rabbit, white with grey ears. "We're trying something new today."

"I told you, I won't kill unless I have to."

"Good," said Beleth. Then he dropped the rabbit over the cliff. "Let it fall, or catch it. It's up to you whether it lives or dies."

"Shit." I didn't think, just jumped off the cliff, knowing Beleth wouldn't let me die.

I fell fast, the wind cold against my skin, but the rabbit fell faster and I couldn't catch up. I needed my wings. Trying to push myself, I willed myself faster, harder, feeling the wind on my back, through my body, connecting with every part of myself.

And then I felt it. Pain in my back, like my bones were growing and stabbing out from my skin. I pushed harder and my speed increased. More and more. Faster and faster. I could see the rabbit through misty white clouds. It was falling but I was now moving faster. I felt the wings moving through parts of my body I didn't have before, extensions of myself I didn't have time to look at but could feel moving out of me.

The ground came for us, moving faster as I did.

I gave one last push, grabbing the rabbit and curling my body around it just as I crashed into the earth and everything went black.

When I woke, a new kind of pain greeted me. My back ached and shoulders burned. I looked around and saw Beleth playing with the rabbit.

"You're the devil," I said, smiling—then wincing as I tried to sit up.

Beleth grinned. "Your love of life is a weakness, but every weakness can be a strength. You reminded me of that."

"I'm learning pretty fast, aren't I?"

Beleth let the rabbit run free, and his smile disappeared. "Don't get cocky. Tonight, we fight again."

Who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves!

— William Shakespeare, Othello

I LEFT MY
shifting class with Talon, excited that I came closer to 'getting it.' With thoughts split between the computer design class I was about to teach and the shifting I'd been working so hard at, I didn't hear Ocean walk up behind me and pull my ponytail.

"Ouch!" I turned and smacked her arm. "Bitch."

She grinned, her copper hair gleaming in the sun, green eyes mischievous as always.

I hugged her hard. "I've missed you. Seems like I haven't seen or talked to you in forever."

She frowned, linking arms with me as we walked back to the mansion. "I know. I'm sorry. I've been working with IPI."

"How is it? Still trying to decide if you want to take up their offer to join?"

"Yeah. I'm not sure. I love the idea, but it's so… rigid, with all these rules and shit. Not sure it's my thing."

"What will you do instead? Stay here?" A girl could hope.

She pinched my arm. "Nah, this place isn't for me either. But we're family. I'll always come back."

We passed Derek's martial arts class, which had doubled in size with Bishop Alaric and Paul teaching half of it. "When did Alaric start working with the kids?" Seeing him sparring and taking time to work one-on-one with students was… shocking.

"I don't know. That man surprises me sometimes."

I waved to Derek, who smiled at me. We weren't fighting anymore, not really, but we still hadn't had time to talk.

"Uh-oh, trouble in paradise?" Ocean always could read my moods.

I told her about Ryder.

She whistled under her breath. "That's intense. But Rose, I gotta say, you married an Alpha. Literally. You can't try to tame him. He's going to have different values than you."

It surprised and irritated me that she took his side in this. "But murder? This isn't like the toilet paper debate or whether he replaces the cap on the toothpaste," neither of which we ever fought over.

"No, but it's not like he's out there killing kittens and babies. Ryder nearly killed Drake, and he's certainly killed others in the past, likely other innocents. I may not have done what he did, but I get it."

We entered the mansion and Ocean walked me to my class, which was already full of mostly eager students. I turned to her before entering. "I'll think about what you said. Don't be a stranger, okay?"

She kissed my cheek. "Promise. Now, I gotta jam, I have double guard duty today."

Throughout the class my mind kept drifting to my shifting, to the morality of Derek taking a life, to the threat of the Beast—so many major life stresses that teaching design seemed silly. At least Derek was teaching the kids something that could really help protect them.

I knew this scattered mind of mine was keeping me from being effective in my shifting, so after class I found a spot under a tree to meditate and quiet it, but I didn't get much time alone before Sam sat next to me, staring up at the sky as I finished my meditation.

She smiled when I opened my eyes. "Sorry to disturb you, but I was hoping to catch you alone."

"Sure, what's up?"

"I wanted to thank you for saving my life. It's always been frustrating to have such a passive ability when it comes to fights and conflict. This isn't the first time I've felt useless in a fight."

"I didn't exactly use my powers to help much. I couldn't. I don't even know why the Beast left, but it likely had nothing to do with me."

"Still, you put yourself in between me and the Beast. That you couldn't shift made it even more significant of a sacrifice." She fidgeted on the ground and frowned. "Since I became a mother, everything has been about Ana. I don't want to die, of course, but now, I have to live. I can't leave her alone in this world."

I couldn't imagine having a child to worry about in all this, especially one as remarkable and gifted as Ana.

"But that's enough about me," she said. "How are you? How are your shifting abilities coming along? Derek didn't like it, did he? There's a rule about it in his—your—pack." I could hear her unspoken question as well. How were we since Sam told me Derek's secret.

"Yes, but he's slowly coming around. We've had some tricky communication issues, but we're getting through it. We love each other and we're learning to see each other's side."

Sam nodded in understanding. "I get it. I had a problem with Drake's abilities when he could control minds. For a while, I could control them too, when I was pregnant. I was too hard on him though. He only ever tried to keep us safe."

"I know that's where Derek's heart is too, but sometimes his methods are hard for me to handle."

"Yeah, I—"

We both stopped talking when the forest behind us began to moan, as if the trees were coming alive. Red eyes peered at us through the dark shadows.

"Sam, run!"

We stood, but it was too late. The tree next to Sam moved, using its branches as arms to pull Sam into it, trapping her as it stepped through the forest fast, too fast, and away from me.

I chased them, knowing I wouldn't be fast enough on human legs, and willed myself to shift. I went into my room, searching through the animals until I found my bear, then took in the form and will of the bear, putting his body over mine. But when I tried to leave the room, to use my bear body to chase down Sam and save her, I couldn't open the door and get out. "Help me!" I screamed, but I knew no one would hear.

My body collapsed to the ground and I fell out of my room, my brain jangling in my skull from the impact. I tried to get up and run but instead screamed in agony as I noticed my deformed body.

I had shifted to bear.

At least part of me had.

One leg and one arm. And I couldn't shift back, couldn't run or move as Sam's screams grew quieter and then disappeared into the forest.