Crave the Darkness (18 page)

“Yes.” She sniffed a little and cleared her throat. “It was a month ago. At first he didn’t do anything. He knew I’d feel his presence, and I think that was enough for him. But he grew restless. I watched my back and watched Dimitri’s even closer. I didn’t tell anyone, not even my king. It wasn’t until he decided to use my car for target practice that anyone knew I was being threatened. I told Dimitri it was probably someone after Xander, using me to deliver a message to the king. He’s believed me. So far.”

“Don’t you think he has a right to know he’s in danger, too?”

Anya fixed me with a hawkish stare, her violet eyes glowing. “What have you done to protect the ones you love, Darian?”

What indeed? Lied. Deceived. Withheld important information. Exercised control I swore I would never use. I looked away. Buried painful emotions I couldn’t afford to unearth right now. “How does Dimitri factor into this if Kade’s motivations aren’t jealousy?”

“Cambion are just as attractive as their Succubi or Incubi parents. Humans are drawn to them. Kade was like the Pied Piper, gathering followers wherever he went. Dimitri was one of them.” Her smile grew wistful, her expression full of love. “He had nowhere else to go. But Kade never kept anyone around unless they could do something for him. Dimitri was dangerous, even for a human. Deadly. Skilled with a gun and blade alike. I’d never seen a better fighter. Kade used him as security, and he was expendable. But not to me. He was different with me. Loving. Gentle, even. He wanted to take me away, protect me. Dimitri didn’t know that Kade had branded me. Not that it would have mattered. No man had ever loved me like that before—with all of his heart and soul. I protected
him
. From Kade, from the reality we both wanted to escape.

“Kade decided he was tired of meddling in the affairs of humans. He was after bigger prey, namely, his father. Kade loves secrets, and his father kept one in particular that he was hot and heavy for.”

I’d come to accept that keeping secrets was standard practice in the supernatural world. “What secret?” It must have been a good one for a father to keep it from his own son. Azriel had kept my true purpose from his own father, Xander, for almost a century. Secrets are a precious commodity.

“Kade’s father possessed a codex. Filled with spells, esoteric rituals. More or less it’s a demonic bible; more specifically, it’s a sort of Incubus manual. A how-to for the demon world. Being half human, Kade was forbidden from knowing anything about his kind. I think it was the only thing he truly hungered for.”

“I take it you stole it for him?”

“Yes. But I ran into a snag. Dimitri had insisted on coming along. He was caught by Kade’s father. I tried to trade the codex for Dimitri, but Kade’s father didn’t want that. He wanted his son.”

“And you gave him what he wanted, didn’t you?”

Anya sighed. “What would you have done in my situation?”

I didn’t have to answer her. She already knew.

“Kade’s father was ruthless, his reputation for cruelty well known. I don’t know what he did to him or where he kept him. I only know that once his father took him, I no longer felt the connection between us. Unfortunately, I felt him the moment he escaped from his father’s imprisonment.”

She still hadn’t gotten to the point. “Seems to me his beef would still be with you. And not Dimitri.”

“Kade had a woman,” Anya whispered. “At the time of his capture. She was pregnant. She died in childbirth, as did Kade’s son.”

Fuck me.
“An eye for an eye, am I right?”

A single tear trickled down Anya’s cheek, and then another. “I made Dimitri a Shaede. I changed him to protect him. To make him strong. I can’t protect him from a demon’s wrath. Not even the shadows will keep Dimitri safe.”

“How can I find him?”

“I don’t know.” Anya’s tears had begun to fall in a steady stream. “The brand only works one way. Kade knows I won’t be able to stay shut up in this house forever. More so, he knows Dimitri won’t let me keep going out without him. He’s using me as bait, to draw Dimitri out. Kade won’t just kill him, Darian. He’ll make him suffer first.”

I stood up from the stool. I’d had enough of love and the lengths people would go to protect it. My experience had taught me that no matter how hard you try, you always suffer in the end. It was unavoidable. “Kade won’t get the chance, Anya.” I walked to the door and left her to worry and sorrow. “Because I’m going to kill him before he can lay a hand on either of you.”

Chapter 18

I
walked down the hall toward my room, armed with a little more information than I’d started out with. Maybe Levi could help. I hadn’t asked Anya if she knew how to kill Kade; maybe it took something special to get the job done. Hell if I knew, anyway. At least I had a better idea of what I was up against now, and that had to count for something. Right?

My back pocket vibrated, and my stomach jumped up into my throat. Ty said he’d be calling me, and I promised to answer when he did. I probably shouldn’t have agreed so readily. Still pretty raw from our earlier encounter, I didn’t think I had it in me to talk to him right now. I pulled the phone out of my pocket and checked the caller ID:
UNKNOWN
. Only one person called me from an unlisted number. It surprised me, how quick I was to smile. “Hello?”

“You’ve been avoiding me,” Xander’s velvet voice said through the receiver. “Where are you right now?”

“I haven’t been avoiding you,” I said as I continued walking. “I’ve been busy. And where the hell do you think I am?”

“I have no idea,” he said in mock innocence.

“I’m in
your
house.”

“I’d rather you

I felt the heat rush to my cheeks, and I stumbled on the rug. I didn’t know what to say or how to respond. Usually, I just told him to go to hell or go fuck himself instead. But I’ll be damned if Xander’s tactics didn’t have me a little off my game.

“Darian?” Xander laughed and my skin rippled with chills.

“I’m here.”

“Meet me in the foyer. I’m taking you to dinner.”

I looked down at my black outfit, more suited to fighting than a night on the town. “I’m not really dressed for going out.”

“Don’t worry,” Xander said. “You look fine.”

I neared the end of the hallway and stopped at the top of the stairs. “How do you know how I look?”

“Because I can see you.”

Xander stood at the foot of the stairs, his eyes fixed on me. The memory of his kisses was still fresh in my mind even though it happened weeks ago. I thought for a moment about Anya’s warning. But I doubted I could ever destroy Xander. He was too cocky to be destroyed by any woman. It was all about the chase for him, no aspirations of love, no matter what Anya thought to the contrary. This was safe. I could feel a little less lonely with him around. I forgot about Anya, about Adira, and Dimitri, and Kade. Xander’s eyes roamed over my body, glowing with warmth. I told myself it wasn’t affection in his expression. Admiration, maybe. Desire, definitely. I put thoughts of my broken heart to the back of my mind and whether or not Xander really cared about me. How could I think about anything else when he looked at me that way?

I tucked my phone in my pocket and took the stairs in a steady descent. Ty was happy. He’d found someone else. He hadn’t meant to hurt me when he’d shown up with Adira, but he had just the same. Those words were my mantra, the justification I needed to seek my own joy. And joy was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs. Xander smiled, the expression tinted with his trademark arrogance. “You look beautiful.” He held out his hand. “I hope you’re hungry.”

“I do not look beautiful.” I took his hand and the warmth was delicious. “Pretty words don’t work on me, remember? And yes, I’m starving.”

Xander wasn’t exactly decked out for a fancy night on the town. He still looked pretty damn good, though. The navy blue striped dress shirt probably cost more than my entire wardrobe. Armani, if I had to guess. It brought out the amber flecks in his eyes and made his hair look honey blond. Tonight he’d traded his slacks for jeans and dressed up his look with leather loafers. If the rest of his wardrobe was any indicator, the shoes could buy groceries for a family of four for a month.

“You’re better dressed than I am,” I said, making sure my tone was rueful.

Xander opened the door and ushered me through. “Hardly. Come on, let’s get you fed.”

“Good lord, Xander, can’t you do anything low-key?” I asked when I got a look at his car. The black Aston Martin Vantage fit him to a T, of course. “I mean, can you say ostentatious?”

“This
is
low-key for me. Would you rather we took a limo? Or had a driver take us in one of the Range Rovers?”

I gave an exaggerated sigh. “I suppose if I have no other choice. . . .”

“You don’t.” Xander opened my door and waited for me to crawl inside. He made his way around to the driver’s seat and settled behind the wheel. “It’s so rare I get to drive it. In fact, it’s rare I get to drive at all. You’re just going to have to humor me.”

I leaned back into the plush leather seat. I wondered if this was how Anya felt all the time in her leather outfits. “I can suffer through it.”

“That’s what I thought.” Xander flashed a mischievous grin before revving the engine. The tires squealed as he punched the accelerator, barely missing the gate as it swung open to let us out.

He drove us to a little diner in the Queen Anne district called Dick’s and pulled up to the drive-through window. “Best burgers in the city.” Xander turned to look at me. “Too fancy for you?”

I laughed. The meals prepared in Xander’s kitchen were five-star gourmet. Burgers? At a drive-through? The laughter continued to bubble up and wouldn’t stop. It felt so good. Cleansed the pain that had spread like a cancer through my chest the past several months.

“What?” Xander asked, amusement accenting his features.

“Nothing.” I stemmed the flow of laughter, though I didn’t want to stop. “This is perfect.”

* * *

Paper bags in hand, we settled onto a bench in Kerry Park on Queen Anne Hill. The view of the city took my breath away, the lights twinkling against a dusky sky and the Space Needle standing watch over it all. On a clear day, you could see Mount Rainier, but its snow-capped peak was shrouded by a bank of low clouds on the move toward the city.

“I don’t know what’s better,” I said, popping a fry in my mouth, “the food or the view.”

“The company has them both trumped,” Xander said.

I didn’t know what to say, so I stuffed my face with the delicious cheeseburger instead.

“I heard about what happened today at the clinic,” Xander said. “I’m glad you’re all right.”

I washed down the burger with some Coke. “Yeah, well. It’s no big deal.”

“I expect in a life as exciting as yours, tussles like that really aren’t a big deal.”

The sarcastic edge in his tone made me laugh. “I guess not. Xander,” I said, tentative. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Anything.”

Of course. He never denied me anything. Yet. “Why don’t you ever talk about your wife? Is she dead?”

He gave a bitter laugh. “She’s certainly not dead. Evil like that never dies.”

“So—you’re divorced? How does that work with the whole monarchy thing?”

“It works just like it does in any other race or social structure. Padma lives comfortably and as far away from me as I can manage. The farther away, the better.”

I sce=e or sotared out across the city, not sure why I wanted to know, or even why I cared. I guess my curiosity had been piqued because he’d never really spoken of her. She’d been human, just like Dimitri, and Xander had chosen to make her a Shaede. “You obviously loved her once. Enough to change her.”

“Hmm . . .” Xander took a bite of his cheeseburger, chewed thoughtfully. “Perhaps.”

“Do you miss him?” Good lord, what was wrong with me? This was supposed to be a light evening, and I couldn’t help but bring up painful topics. “Azriel?”

Xander looked at me. His eyes glowed with a soft, sad, light. “Azriel was always more Padma’s son than mine. He had her fire—and was quick to anger just like his mother. Azriel always felt entitled to more than he was given. He was insufferably hard to please.”

“And you don’t think this is even a little strange?” I fiddled with my straw. “You and me? Whatever this is between us.” I mean, Azriel
had
been my lover, after all.

Xander cupped my cheek, brushed his thumb across my skin. “Should I?”

Fuck, I didn’t know. It’s not like my life was defined in black and white. The gray was my comfort zone. This development between us should have been right up my moral alley. “I don’t know.”

“I took his mother,” Xander said matter-of-factly. “I wanted her and took her right from under the nose of her male. She was already pregnant when I changed her.”

My brain skidded to a halt and did an about-face. I’m sure my shocked expression was of the what-the-fuck variety. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“He was not my child. But I claimed him as my own, and no one was the wiser.”

Surely Raif would have told me something so important. Xander had to be bullshitting me to sway my judgment. “Raif never said—”

“He doesn’t know,” Xander interrupted. “I told no one.”

“No way.” I didn’t buy it. It was just too damn convenient. “You’re just telling me this to avoid some sort of moral stigma.”

“Believe what you want. And for the record, I don’t give a damn about your insufferably
human
moral stigmas. Azriel was not my son by blood or birth. Padma was the lover of a Raksasha prince named Mahaveer. I’d thought her a slave when I first met her and reveled at the prospect of stealing her from the bastard. It wasn’t until much later that I discovered she’d gone to the Raksasha willingly. He’d promised to make her immortal, and in return, she’d agreed to lure innocent victims to him that he sacrificed in order to strengthen his magic.”

“What’s a Raksasha?” I interrupted. I thought I was pretty familiar with most supernatural creatures by now, but this one was new to me.

“They claim to be demigods, but they’re nothing more than an evil, malevolent race of ghouls. They absorb power by eating the flesh of the dying and drinking their blood. The worse the victim’s suffering, the greater the power they ingest.”

Lovely. Just the sort of creature I wouldn’t mind taking out. This Mahaveer sounded like a real piece of work. And apparently Padma was no better.
Way to pick a winner, Xander.

“No one suspected the child wasn’t mine,” Xander continued. “I sought only to protect Azriel. He was in his mother’s womb when I changed her, and he inherited the Shaede gifts I’d given her. It didn’t change his nature, however. Azriel was always a cold, calculating child. Whether I wanted to admit it or not, nothing I’d done to change him on the outside could affect his parentage. His Raksasha nature was much too dominant.”

“Jesus.” My mind struggled to wrap itself around this revelation. “Did Azriel know?”

“I never told him,” Xander said softly. “And he never had reason to question his lineage. He may have had a ghoul’s blood and parentage, but physically, he was simply a Shaede. I cannot speak for his mother, though. Once I learned the truth of her involvement with the Raksasha, I sent her away. I kept Azriel close, though. I hoped”—he sighed—“I hoped if he stayed close to Raif, some of my brother’s honor would rub off on him. I was wrong.”

If only . . .
I fiddled with the straw in my cup, utterly speechless. Even for Xander, the story was just too wild to be fabricated. Azriel, the son of a ghoul. It almost made perfect sense.

“You’re certainly introspective tonight, Darian. Does this have anything to do with seeing your Jinn today?”

I snapped to attention at Xander’s change of subject. “How did you know I saw Tyler today?”

Xander smirked. “I’m the king, my love. I know
everything
.” He leaned over, bumped his shoulder against mine in an almost playful way. “Eat your food. You need to keep that question machine you call a mouth occupied for a while.”

We finished eating in comfortable silence as I tried to process everything that Xander had told me. Not even Raif knew the truth of Azriel’s parentage and I wondered what, besides Xander’s usual ploys, had prompted him to confide in me. Darkness swallowed twilight, and the city lights stood out in stark relief against the navy blue backdrop. This had been a day full of revelations. I’d have to start looking for Kade tomorrow. I’d probably have to call Tyler too; not exactly something I was excited to do. And I’d be picking Levi’s brain for sure. If anyone would hear the rumblings of a demon in town, it’d be him.

I wadded up our trash and put everything in one of the nearest trash cans. Xander leaned back, bracing himself on his arms and stared out at the cityscape.

“I’d sit here all night like this with you if you’d let me.” His voice was soft in the quiet night. “Why have you been avoiding me?”

“I told you, I haven’t. I’ve just been busy.”

“Liar.”

“Xander.” I tried to sit, but he grabbed my hand and pulled me toward him until I stood between his knees. I couldn’t relax, so I took a deep breath. “I just don’t know what I’m doing right now. I don’t want to give you any mixed signals or make you think that what’s going on here is something more or less than it is.”
Lovely
. How could I explain how I felt when
I
couldn’t even make sense of it? “The other night was a mistake. I needed a distraction. Something to take my mind off just how much I hurt. You touched a nerve when you suggested that proving I’d moved on would make Tyler jealous. And is that okay with you, Xander? I mean, Jesus. Are you serio Arbeeusly okay with me using you for some kind of emotional manipulation just because I’ve been hurt?”