Beyond the Darkness (23 page)

“Ah.” Styx reached to pull on a loose black robe. “If you will forgive me, I have someplace I need to be.”

“Where do you need to be?” Salvatore demanded.

Styx flashed a meaningful gaze at Harley’s grim expression.

“Anywhere but here.”

The King of Weres snorted. “Traitor.”

“Self-preservation,
amigo.
”

A thick silence descended as the vampire left the room. Caught between the urge to slug Salvatore and push him to the floor and tear off his clothes, Harley instead wandered the short distance to stroke her fingers over the hilt of the heavy sword propped on a stand.

She was supposed to be annoyed with the Were, not yearning to run her tongue over the exposed muscles of his chest.

“Been playing?” she demanded.

“Styx was in need of a sparring partner.”

“Yeah, I bet.”

Salvatore moved to stand at her side, his fingers tucking a stray curl behind her ear.

“I thought you intended to spend the evening watching movies?”

She jerked from his gentle touch. He wasn’t going to distract her with sex.

A shame.

“And to make sure I did, you sent Darcy to keep me distracted,” she accused in a tight voice.

“I sent her to keep you company,” he smoothly countered. “As Styx said, Darcy is happy to have you as her guest, and I assumed you would enjoy spending time getting to know your sister.”

“You wanted me too busy to notice when you slipped away like a Slugaugh demon.”

He folded his arms over his chest, studying her with a brooding gaze.

“You were the one,
cara,
to make it clear that our mating was nothing more than biology,” he reminded her. “What does it matter if I intend to leave or not?”

She clenched her jaw. She wasn’t going to be deterred by logic or reason. She didn’t have to make sense. If she wanted to be pissed off, then she was going to be pissed off.

“You’re going after Briggs, aren’t you?”

“My first priority is to make sure that my curs are safe. Briggs was holding them captive in the caves.”

Crap. A pang of guilt twisted her heart. Of course he was worried about his pack. She should have told him that she’d seen the curs the minute they had gotten free of the caves. Unfortunately, she hadn’t been thinking clearly on the trip back to Chicago.

One side effect of battling a demon lord.

She reached to place a comforting hand on his forearm. “I ran across Hess when I was searching for you. He was…” She abruptly halted, considering her words. Salvatore didn’t need to be reminded that he’d been forced to beat the poor cur to a bloody pulp. “Disoriented, but I’m sure he managed to get the others free and lead them out of the caves.”

His lips twisted with rueful amusement at her unusual attempt at tact.

“Even if they weren’t caught in the collapse, they will need to be near me.”

She couldn’t argue with that. Salvatore could help heal both the physical and mental wounds the curs had suffered.

Luckily, there were any number of other things to argue about.

“You didn’t answer my question. Are you going after Briggs?”

“It’s my duty.”

“This has nothing to do with duty,” she gritted. “You want revenge.”

A muscle twitched in his jaw. “I might have more than one motive, but the bottom line is that I can’t allow the bastard to escape.” The golden eyes glowed, his voice roughening with fury. “He nearly destroyed the Weres once. He won’t get a second chance.”

She understood his desire for revenge. She really and truly did. But that didn’t mean she was going to let him stumble into a potential trap. Not when he was blinded by anger.

“What could he do without the demon lord to give him magic?”

“No doubt he’s already attempting to discover a way to reopen the portal.”

Her brows jerked together at the mere thought. “Good God. Is that possible?”

“I don’t intend to find out.”

Her lips tightened. “So your plan is to charge off like the Lone Ranger to capture the bad guy?”

A hint of amusement sparkled in his eyes. “Lone Ranger?”

“Do you prefer Batman? Hellboy? Incredible Hulk?”

He framed her face in his hands, peering deep into her eyes.

“Does it matter if I do charge off?”

“You’re damned right it matters.”

“Why?”

“Because…” She licked her dry lips. “Because it’s stupid to take such a risk. You’re supposed to be a king. You have an endless number of Weres and curs who can kill Briggs.”

“Hardly endless.”

“You know what I mean.”

His gaze lowered to her mouth, his thumbs teasing the corner of her lips.

“I could send others in my place, but I won’t be satisfied unless I watch him die with my eyes, preferably by my own hands.”

Her heart faltered. Not at the jolt of need that clenched her stomach. Being near Salvatore would always stir her desire. No, it was the melting tenderness of his touch that was doing all sorts of dangerous things to her heart.

“Fine.” She was forced to halt and clear the huskiness from her voice. Just like a starry-eyed romantic. Damn. She determinedly squared her shoulders. “But you can forget going by yourself.”

His thumb feathered over her bottom lip. “Are you giving me orders,
cara
?”

“I’m a queen, aren’t I?”

He stilled, his gaze sweeping over her upturned face with an unnerving intensity.

“You said you didn’t want the position. Have you changed your mind?”

“I…” Her mouth was dry, parched.

With exquisite deliberation, Salvatore slowly lowered his head, brushing a soft kiss down the line of her nose.

“Harley?”

“I’m going with you.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

Salvatore pulled back, regarding her with lifted brows. “That’s your explanation? Because?”

She ignored the hint of smug pleasure in his voice. She didn’t want to dissect her violent reaction to the thought of Salvatore leaving her behind.

All that mattered was that she kept him from doing something stupid.

“My explanation is that you’re not going alone, and that’s final.”

“Hardly a reasonable argument,” he countered.

“Fine.” Her chin tilted. “Either I’m worthy of being your queen or not. If you insist on going after Briggs, then we’ll go together.”

He stilled, as if caught off guard by her words. Then, with a slow smile he bent his head.

“Si.”
His kiss was soft and savoring, as if she were the most precious treasure. “Together.”

Caine didn’t know how long he had been unconscious.

Actually, he didn’t know
how
he became unconscious.

He remembered shifting as a black, malevolent fog had entered the cave. There had been pain. Not the someone’s-going-to-pay-for-this kind of pain, but the holy-shit-I’m-going-to-die kind of pain.

He had wanted nothing more than to curl into a ball on the floor and whimper. Just like a beaten pup. And that might have been his fate if he hadn’t seen the strange mist headed directly for Cassandra.

Instinct had taken over, and with a howl of fury, he had leaped directly into the path of the advancing fog. He didn’t care what the hell the thing was, it wasn’t going to touch the female pureblood.

And that’s when things got fuzzy.

Groaning, he forced his eyes open, wishing he hadn’t when the flickering candlelight sent a stab of pain through him.

“Am I dead?” he croaked.

There was a sweet scent of lavender and then Cassandra’s face appeared above him, her hair tangled around her face.

“Not now.”

Caine’s heart forgot to beat at her somber words. “Is that a joke?”

“No.”

“Christ.”

He shivered, trying to laugh off her impossible claim. He was a cur, not a pure-blooded demon. When he died, that was it. Sayonara, baby. End of story.

A part of him, however, wasn’t in the mood to laugh.

Something had happened to him.

Something vast and earth-shattering.

He could feel it to his very bones.

“Now I really know what it feels like to be ‘death warmed over,’” he wryly muttered, laying his hands flat on the hard stone to push himself to a sitting position.

His head spun with a sickening dizziness, nearly sending him tumbling back into oblivion. With the speed of a pureblood, Cassandra had her arm around his shoulders, holding him steady.

“I’m not sure you should move,” she chastised, her lips brushing his ear, sending an electric shock of awareness through him that proved that despite his recent introduction to death, everything was still functioning as it should.

“There are a lot of things I shouldn’t do, but I never let that stop me. As I have so painfully proven,” he muttered. Then his eyes widened as he caught sight of where he’d just been laying. “Oh…shit.”

“Blood,” Cassandra whispered.

“Yeah, I noticed.”

He swallowed the urge to vomit at the sight of the thick red stains that spread across the floor and splashed obscenely up the wall.

It wasn’t that he was squeamish. Hell, he’d slaughtered a pack of hellhounds who had attacked one of witches with his bare hands. But it didn’t take a doctor to realize that no creature could lose that amount of blood and survive.

“I told you to leave,” Cassandra murmured.

“No one likes a know-it-all,” he retorted, grateful to turn his attention to her pale, beautiful face. “Was it the demon lord who attacked?”

“Yes.”

“Charming guy.”

“Not particularly.”

He smiled, ridiculously fascinated by her habit of taking his words quite literally.

“I have a vague memory of a dark shadow entering the cave, heading directly toward you.” He shook his head, hoping to clear the remaining cobwebs. “Then the world exploded.”

“I think the demon was injured. He tried…”

Caine frowned as her voice faded and her eyes clouded with a painful memory.

“Cassandra? Cassie?” He turned to grasp her shoulders and tugged her against his chest, relieved to discover his strength returning. Laying his cheek on top of her head, he sucked in her delicate scent of lavender, feeling it flow through him with a healing calm. “Hey, it’s okay.”

She burrowed against his chest, shivering. “He tried to use me to keep his essence anchored to this world, but you attacked him and he had no choice but to leave.”

Caine ran a soothing hand down her back, caught off guard by his fierce urge to protect this female.

She was a Were, for God’s sake. A pureblood.

Way above a worthless cur like him, even presuming Salvatore hadn’t put out a death warrant on him.

With a shake of his head, Caine thrust aside his inane thoughts. The only thing that mattered was getting out of the hellhole.

“So he’s gone?” he demanded. “Really, truly, never coming back gone?”

“He’s gone.”

“And you’re not hurt?”

She pulled back, and before Caine could guess what she intended to do, she lifted her shirt to study the flat plane of her stomach.

“I don’t think so.”

Caine choked back a groan at his instant, painful reaction to the sight of her smooth alabaster skin and the lower curve of her bare breasts. God, if he could just get that slender body beneath him…

His erotic fantasy was brought to a rude end as his gaze caught sight of the small tattoo that marred the skin just beneath her belly button.

He leaned forward, studying the crimson hieroglyphic that flickered with the same unsettling shimmer as the designs on the wall.

“What’s this?” he demanded, cautiously brushing a finger over the tattoo. His muscles clenched in alarm at the unpleasant chill that clung to the mark.

Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good.

Her grimace confirmed his suspicion. “The mark of the demon lord.”

“Bastard. What does it do?”

She turned her head, as if attempting to hide her expression.

“He used it to keep me bound to these caves.”

There was something more.

“And?”

“It allows me to…”

He captured her chin between his thumb and finger and turned her back to meet his searching gaze.

“You can tell me.”

“It’s hard to explain.”

“Try.”

“I can touch the other side.”

“The other side?”

“Heaven, hell, another dimension…” She shrugged. “Whatever you want to call it.”

Unease snaked down Caine’s spine, and with an abrupt movement, he was on his feet.

Dammit. He had to get them out of there.

He didn’t know who Cassandra was connected to, but he did know it couldn’t have her.

She belonged to him.

Period.

“Are you stuck down here?”

“No, that spell has been broken.”

“So you can leave the caves?”

She rose gracefully to her feet, her gaze deliberately shifting to the narrow opening of the cave.

“If we can find a way to dig ourselves out.”

“Dig?” He froze, praying she wasn’t implying what he thought she was implying. “What do you mean?”

“The tunnels have all collapsed.”

Well, hell. Of course they had collapsed.

Maybe he had died, after all. He’d always known that he was destined for hell, and what could be worse than an eternity in this dark, barren cave?

Of course, it wouldn’t be true torture so long as Cassandra was near,
a traitorous voice whispered in the back of his mind.

“All of them?” he rasped.

A white cloud floated eerily across her eyes, then a tranquil smile curved her lips.

“Don’t worry. We’ll get out.” There was a short pause. “In time.”

Caine clenched his hands, his temper flaring. Had she been stuck so long in the cave she didn’t understand the danger they were in?

“I don’t have time,” he snapped. “Unlike you, I’m not immortal.”

She moved toward him, laying her hands lightly on his chest.

“Are you certain?”

He grasped her hands, his brows snapping together. “Enough with your cryptic…”

“Don’t you feel it?” she interrupted, studying him with an intensity that made him pause.

Don’t you feel it…

A bolt of terror shot through his heart.

He did.

Waking up, he’d been too weak and disoriented to pay attention to the strange sensations that pounded through his blood. Or the powerful vitality that was swiftly repairing his battered body.

Hell, even if he had noticed, he wouldn’t have assumed he’d been magically transformed into a pureblood.

It was freaking nuts.

But now, he couldn’t deny the subtle change in his scent and the growing power that was altering him with every beat of his heart.

He stumbled backwards, glaring at the woman who stood there with her Zen smile and aura of pure innocence.

“Is this a trick?” he demanded.

She tilted her head to one side, her hair spilling over her shoulder in a curtain of pale silver.

“How could it be a trick?”

Caine clenched his teeth, ready to suspect the entire world was out to scam him.

Paranoid? Nah.

“Briggs deceived me for the past thirty years,” he bit out. “I’m not going to be a putz again.”

“Deceived you?”

“He made me believe in a vision…”

“That came true,” she softly interrupted.

“No.” He shook his head. “It’s impossible.”

“I’ve told you…”

“I don’t care what the hell you told me,” he retorted, his nerves wound so tight he felt as if he might shatter. “A cur doesn’t die and come back from the dead as a pureblood.” His breath hissed through his teeth as he was struck by a hideous thought. “Oh, my God, I haven’t turned into a zombie like Briggs, have I?”

She studied him intently, sniffing the air as if testing for the stench of zombie.

“No, you’re very much alive.”

“Then how?”

“It has to have something to do with your battle with the demon lord.” Her brows puckered as she considered the various possibilities. “He’s been draining the ancient magic of the Weres for centuries. A portion of his essence must have been left in you.”

Caine shook his head.

Not in disagreement—hell, it was as good a theory as any—but in sheer bafflement.

Good God, was it possible?

Had he somehow been transformed into a pureblood?

And if he had…then why?

Muttering a savage curse, Caine paced the narrow floor, trying to wrap his brain around the staggering implications of his transformation.

He might have what he always desired, but it wasn’t the glorious revolution that he had dreamed it would be.

Actually, he felt more alone and uncertain than he had since giving up his human life to become a cur.

“Damn.” He shoved a hand through his hair, longing to fill his lungs with fresh air. A long run beneath the moonlight was just what he needed to clear the fog from his brain. “This was not how it was supposed to be. I thought the vision meant I was destined to be the savior of the curs.”

Her smile dimmed, a haunting pain darkening her eyes. “Visions are rarely what you believe them to be. They’re deceptive and dangerous.”

“No shit.”

“I try to warn people, but they never listen.” She shivered, wrapping her arms around her too-slender waist. “They always want to know.”

Caine wrenched himself from his dark thoughts, belatedly noting Cassandra’s stark pallor and the bruises beneath her eyes.

He wasn’t the only one who’d had a nasty day.

Gently he cupped her face in his hands, acutely aware of the fine shiver that shook her body.

“What people?”

“Briggs would bring some to the church or cemetery above us and demand I share the visions. Others would pay him to come and visit his ‘seer’ in person.”

“God.” Caine thought back to when he’d supposedly been “blessed” with his vision. For the most part, the night remained lost in fog, no doubt Briggs’s doing, but he did have a clear memory of being in a vast, empty room. “I was blindfolded, but Briggs must have brought me to the church.”

“Yes.”

“Are the visions still with you?”

She bit her bottom lip, her expression troubled. “Yes.”

Caine grimaced, knowing she
should
be troubled.

For all his frantic need to be out of the caves with the wind on his face, he was beginning to realize the dangers of plucking Cassandra from the depths of obscurity.

A true seer was…

Fucking priceless.

Entire demon nations would go to war for the opportunity to gain control of her visions. Others would go to any lengths to kill her and bring an end to her ability to see into the future. After all, when you were plotting evil deeds, you didn’t want to have to worry they might show up, shining like a beacon, on some female’s wall.

And of course, there was no telling what the Commission would do to her.

The mystical Oracles who ruled the demon world might decide she was beneath their notice, or they might make her disappear. Cassandra wouldn’t be the first demon with rare powers to be isolated from civilization for the safety of all.

And no one would dare try to save her from their prison.

At least no one with even a pea-size brain.

“Damn.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Do you want a list?” he muttered, moving the short space to take her chilled hand in his own. He would worry about keeping Cassandra safe once they managed to escape from their current disaster. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?”

“Now that, pet, is one hell of a question.”

With Viper’s extensive automobile collection at his disposal, Salvatore decided on the sleek red-and-black Alfa Romeo. It would have made more sense to take a Hummer or Land Rover, but Salvatore enjoyed tweaking the nose of the vamps. He didn’t doubt that Viper would be pacing the floor until Salvatore returned his precious baby to his underground garage.

Plus, he couldn’t deny the satisfaction of roaring through the Chicago streets in the elegantly engineered machine. He was a Were who enjoyed the finer things in life.

No, not just the finer things.

The very finest.

His gaze slid to Harley’s profile as she watched the passing scenery flow from Midwest suburbia to clusters of warehouses, and then finally, flat farmland.

Smug pleasure settled in his heart.

His protective instincts might howl at the thought of deliberately taking his mate into danger, but a greater part of him understood that this was how it was meant to be. As mates, the two of them were stronger together than apart.

Besides, she had made an irrefutable point.

The Queen of Weres was not an empty title.

Harley would be judged as much on her strength and ability to protect the packs as her skill in leadership. The Weres respected power, and there would be no sympathy for her inability to shift, or the years she’d been held captive by Caine.