Stephanie Rowe - Darkness Unleashed (24 page)

He felt his way over the stone wall, his hands broad as he palmed the surface. As he searched, the sheer force of his power seemed to fill their hideaway. His shoulders seemed to be even larger than they had been before, his very breadth seeming to expand. Ryland was such raw potency that it made her heart skip with longing. She wanted to walk over there and offer herself into his safekeeping. Accept his vow that he would keep her safe. Trust that he would be there for her.

And that realization terrified her.

Ryland was everything she shouldn't trust. He was steeped in death and violence, a creature of the nether-realm who was, even now, in the process of falling back under the control of the very creatures who had worked with Simon to steal her child and force her to murder.

But even as she thought it, she found herself craving Ryland's mark on her arms, wanting that silver brand to show a machete, to lock them together for eternity. "Can a Calydon hurt his soul mate?" She blurted the question accidentally, and her cheeks immediately flamed.

Ryland's shoulders stiffened, and he froze for a split second, not turning around. "No," he said. "Don't worry. Thano won't hurt you."

"What about you? What if
you
bonded with a woman?"

Slowly, he turned to face her, his face dark and turbulent. "Why are you asking about me?" he asked softly, dangerously.

Her heart started to pound. Why
was
she asking about him? Because if his answer was yes, if the bond would protect him from hurting her and she was his
sheva,
then she would be able to trust him again. She would be able to trust
someone
. "If you were enslaved again, would your bond with your
sheva
trump anything that Desdria and the Dark Lord wanted you to do?"

For a long moment, Ryland didn't move. Then he rubbed his hand over his wrist, as if he could feel the cuffs on his arms. Finally, he said simply, "I don't know."

"Why don't you know?" She walked over to him, urgency driving her. He was so tall, drawing his shoulders back as she approached, as if he was trying to put up a wall between them. She was so tired of being afraid, of being alone, of not being able to trust. "Haven't Calydons been bonding with their mates for thousands of years? Surely some of them have been pushed to the limit, right? If we completed the bond, then what?"

"
We
will not complete the bond," he said, going utterly still as she neared him. "But when a Calydon completes that bond, he is destined to go rogue and destroy all that they care about, including any innocents who are in the way. No one will be able to stop him, except for his own soul mate. She will kill him, and then kill herself because she is so distraught over killing the one man she loves." The comment ended in silence, and the walls seemed to throb with the doom he had predicted. His story was the same as the last time he'd spoken of it.

"But he won't hurt his
sheva
?" she urged. "He will destroy everything else, but not her?"

Ryland's face suddenly seemed to soften, and he trailed his hand down her jaw, a touch so tender and delicate that it seemed impossible for a man of his size to have done it. "No, Cat. A Calydon will never, ever hurt his mate. Even in the rogue state."

Tears filled her eyes, and she turned away, suddenly overwhelmed by the thought of there being a man she could trust so completely.

Ryland's hands went to her shoulders, and he pulled her against him, so her back was leaning against his chest. "Do not be fooled, angel," he whispered softly. "When a Calydon goes rogue from the
sheva
bond, he will destroy everything either of them care about. For you, that means your daughter. For me, that means Dante. For Thano...hell. I have no idea what it would be for him. He won't kill you, or even harm one hair on your beautiful body, but Thano killing your daughter will eviscerate your heart in a way that your own death could never do. That is what he would do if you completed the bond with him."

Catherine leaned her head back against his chest, feeling the heat of his body thrumming through her. She closed her eyes against the visions trying to swell in her mind. Of Ryland killing her daughter. "I don't believe
you
would hurt her," she said finally. "Even if we bonded, and you went rogue."

"You're terrified I will hurt you, but you're so sure I would protect your daughter?" He put his hands on her upper arms, his grip a seduction that seemed to awaken a deep, pulsing yearning for him.

He was right. That didn't make sense. How could she trust him with her daughter's life, but not hers? But even as she thought it, she simply couldn't see him hurting Lucy. Even rogue. Even with cuffs on.

"I have killed children before." His tone was dead. Bitter. Brutal. "Many children. Children destined for great things. Children destined to be the force that could bring down the nether-realm."

She twisted in his arms, staring into his dark eyes. They were turbulent storms of anguish, haunted by the beings he'd taken. So much death. So much darkness. So much brutality. The creature was stirring within him now. She could sense the power amassing within him. Merciless, ruthless death. "No," she said, laying her hands on either side of his face. "Leave Ryland alone," she said to the beast within him. "Let him be the man he is destined to be."

Ryland locked his hands around her wrists, his grip tight. Too tight. "Don't wake it up," he rasped, but his voice was already rough, a growl that seemed to crawl beneath her skin and claw at her soul.

She couldn't stop. She could feel the tormented souls within him calling to her, death reaching out for a kindred spirit. The creature within seemed to fixate on her. She felt herself falling into its spell, offering it her own power. It reached for her, dark blackness mixing with her aura, with the death eating away at her soul. She saw its eyes in Ryland's, twin spots of glowing crimson light staring at her, beckoning her. Death to death. Two powers. United. So powerful. The connection between them seemed to rise, igniting a need within her. A need to take. A need to consume. A need to harvest more. To thrust death into the world. To inflict the end of life on others. "Yes," she whispered, pressing her body against him. "Yes," she repeated, her voice breathless.

Ryland's mouth was a breath from hers, his breath so hot it felt like fire against her lips. "No," he growled. "Not like this."

Something pricked her hips where Ryland was holding her. She jumped, the pain jerking her back to the present. Ryland swore at the same instant and thrust her back away from him. Less than a yard apart, they both froze, the air thick with the need crawling between them.

"My hands," Ryland said.

She looked down. Silver claws were protruding from his fingertips. Nearly an inch long already, they were sharp and curved, with hooks on the end for tearing out flesh. "Your dragon called to me," she whispered, almost afraid to speak, as if it could hear her. Her skin felt like it was stained, her soul poisoned, from that brush with his monster. She'd never felt anything like that, anything so malevolent. It had been alive, a pulsing, seething malignancy tethering itself to her. It had been trying to poison her mind and corrupt her soul, binding her to it for a destiny so malevolent it sent chills reverberating all the way to her core. "It called to my darkness. It tried to take me." And it almost had.

"It wasn't my beast that was calling you." Ryland's voice was harsh, his breath rasping. "It was Desdria."

The moment he said Desdria's name, Ryland heard the bone-chilling cackle he'd heard so many times in his life, in his nightmares, in his memories. He went still, frozen by the vileness seething through him, by the low commands whispered in his mind.
Come to my throne, slave. Return to your duty.

The image of the tall, black throne sprang into his mind. The charred flesh and bones woven together by human hair, the stench of rot, the stain of blood spreading out in a carpet of doom. Sitting on it, ensconced on her podium of power, was the woman, the creature, the she-demon he abhorred. Her black cloak in tatters, her skin a flawless porcelain, her lips deep red like the carpet of blood below her, her eyes hidden behind the shadows that never left her face. His master. His creator. But not his mother. Never his mother.

She turned her head, and he felt her gaze blistering into him. His chest began to burn, his wrists and ankles were on fire. Sharp pains were piercing his head.
Now.
Her command vibrated through him, and he took a step, then another, and then he was sprinting toward her—

"Ryland!" Catherine's voice broke through the spell.

Sudden pain assaulted him, and he went down, gasping in agony as it drilled through his body. The image of Desdria vanished from his mind, his claws retreated, and his body became his own again. He saw Catherine kneeling in front of him. "Cat?" he rasped, reaching out for her. She couldn't be real.

She caught his hands, holding them against her chest.
Real. She was real.

"Ryland." A smile broke out over her face, a brilliant smile of relief that seemed to reach inside his body and rip him free of the last grasp of Desdria. "I didn't think you were ever going to hear me," she said.

"
Cat.
" He pulled her over to him and buried his face in her hair. He basked in its silkiness, in the warmth of her body, and in the gentleness of her touch as she stroked his head. She was real. She was his angel. Goodness. Not evil. Not death. Not trying to control him. His heart was pounding, sweat streaming down his back, his breath rasping in his chest. He felt like he'd just been in a twelve-hour battle for his own life and had barely survived to fight again.

"It's okay, Ry," she whispered, wrapping her arms around him. "She's not here."

"She
is
here." He pulled back enough to see her face. Her blue eyes were so clear and radiant, her skin pure and soft. He needed her goodness. He needed that gift. He needed her. He needed to make love to her until she wiped out all of that taint. His grip tightened on her hair, and he pulled her closer until her mouth was a fraction of an inch from his. "I need you," he said.

"I know." She framed his face and leaned forward, her lips brushing against his.

For a moment, Ryland could do nothing else but absorb the beauty of her kiss. Her lips were so soft and tender, blessing him with the kindness and light that he needed so badly. His entire soul burned with the need for her, for more, for— "Shit." He broke the kiss, his body trembling with the effort of holding back. "You're Thano's woman. I can't do this."

"I'm not—"

"Look." He gestured to her arm, where more than half of the halberd was now drawn, no longer hidden by the shroud she'd pulled over it before. He stared at it in shock. "I don't understand," he said. "There's so much of the brand already drawn on your arm, that it has to be more than half of the stages already. But you've only done the one stage with him, when you called his weapon." He looked at her. "Unless there are other stages that you did with him? Did you tell each other your darkest secrets? Did you or he risk death to save one another? The blood bond?" No, he knew that. Sex was out. He knew that, too. She'd been with him the whole time.

Catherine shook her head. "No," she whispered. "I've barely spoken to him." She met his gaze. "I feel nothing for him. Not like what you do to me."

He swore, a raw need to claim her pulsing through him. "We had sex," he said. "I shared with you the secrets about my past. You trusted me with the fact you killed Alice's mother and the other angels, and you told me about Simon." He locked his hand around the back of her neck, riveted by the desire crashing through her eyes. "
Those
are bonding stages. Having sex. The trust stage, where we share our deepest secrets or entrust our lives to the other. Those are
my
stages, when I bonded to you. My claim to you.
Mine.
"

This time, neither of them held back when they kissed. He was hit with a crashing need to tear her from Thano's grasp, to bind their souls to each other. The kiss was hot and carnal instantly, two desperate souls fighting to ward off Desdria, the darkness, and the intrusion of another male who didn't belong. Her breasts were hot and full in his hands, her nipples taut and ripe in his mouth, her core achingly wet for him.

Shirts didn't matter. Finesse was lost. Foreplay was gone. All that mattered was that they bind each other. The need surging from Catherine was every bit as fierce as Ryland's, her hands just as frantic as she yanked off her jeans while he ditched his. Then he was on her, thrusting deep, so deep, claiming her, taking her, making her his. She gripped his hair, holding his kisses captive as he thrust, kissing him back desperately, as if she could make everything else disappear.

He felt her soul reach for his, a frantic yearning driven by a need so fierce it made the world spin in frenzied chaos. "Catherine," he growled as he thrust deeper, harder, opening himself to her and drawing her deep within him until there was no way to tell which darkness was hers and which was his. But he knew the light was hers, because there was no light within him. He felt like his soul was alive and glowing, vibrating with freedom and levity, everything he'd never felt before.

He wasn't a fool. He knew it was an illusion. Freedom was not his, not now, not ever, but as God was his witness, in Catherine's arms, he felt like he finally knew what he'd been seeking his whole life—

The orgasm took him with violent intensity, thrusting him into a whirlwind of darkness and light, of good and evil, of lust and desire, of innocence and beauty. Catherine screamed his name, her voice a declaration to the heavens that Ryland was the man in her arms. He joined his voice with hers, bellowing her name, two voices mingling together, denying the existence of anything but each other, their connection and their need for each other…