Darkness Hunts (DA 4) (27 page)

“Leaving you alone was what caused you to fall into Raziq hands.” His breath tickled the back of my neck, ragged and warm. “That should not have happened, and I apologize.”

“It wasn’t your fault.” I lifted my face and met his gaze. And while I ached to brush my lips against his, any move in
that
direction had to come from him. He knew what I wanted. He’d always known.

“If I had been here—”

“You would have been dead.” Even saying the words had my stomach tightening. “I know you believe otherwise, but there were six of them, Azriel, and one of them was immensely powerful. She said her name was Malin.”

He closed his eyes for a moment and said something in his own language. And though I didn’t understand one word, I didn’t really need to, given the anger in his voice.

“Malin is the leader,” he said eventually. “She is the one your father betrayed when he stole the keys.”

“Then what she did to me was as much about revenge as the keys.” I hesitated, and suddenly realized I couldn’t actually
remember
what they’d done. “Damn it, are you able to un-erase my memory?”

“No. And it is better that you do not know.”

Which suggested he
did
. Frustration ran through me, but it was quickly forgotten when he brushed a fingertip down my cheek and rested it all too briefly on my lips. “But you are right about the revenge factor. Your father and Malin were lovers. Malin has commanded the Raziq for a very long time, and she is nearing the end of her life. She wanted to reproduce. Your father refused.”

“But I thought that when the Aedh were at the end of their life cycles, breeding wasn’t a matter of choice, but rather an imperative they couldn’t ignore.”

“That is true.”

“Then why did my father turn to my mother when he had the option of a full-blood Aedh to breed with?”

He shrugged. “Your father is an uncommonly powerful Aedh, and one who has long planned domination. It would not surprise me if he foresaw the current problems and created you as a means of working around the Raziq and finding the keys.”

“But if he’d known the keys would be lost, why the hell wouldn’t he just ensure that they weren’t?”

“Because there were other players involved, and Hieu could not control them all. And perhaps you were nothing more than just a backup plan.”

Well,
that’s
something every child wanted to hear—although when it came to my father, nothing should really surprise me. “How come you know so much about Hieu and Malin?”

“When one is a hunter, it helps to understand the prey.”

“But I can’t see either of them giving those sorts of details to their own kind, let alone a reaper.”

“They didn’t. But the Raziq are nearly a hundred strong. It was simply a matter of capturing one of the unwary, lesser beings, and questioning him.”

Whatever it takes. Whatever needs to be done
. The words rolled around the outer reaches of my mind, and though I didn’t know if they were mine or his, I shivered. Because those words were like a death knell ringing in my future.

“Why would the lower-ranked Raziq be privy to information like that, though?”

“Aedh can read the minds of any who are in close proximity, and though Malin and Hieu are powerful enough to conceal information, they would have considered their relationship neither valuable nor important.”

Because they didn’t do emotions—although they
did
seem to have the whole revenge thing down pat.

I sighed wearily. “This is all becoming a nightmare.”

Azriel raised an eyebrow, amusement briefly teasing his lips. “Becoming?”

I smiled. “Yeah, I guess
that
train left the station long ago.”

“Definitely.” He hesitated, his gaze sweeping my body before coming to rest briefly on my lips. Desire spun around me, but its sweet heat disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. “You need to rest.”

I couldn’t disagree with that. But I also didn’t want to get into that bed alone.

“Azriel—”

“No,” he said softly. “I want what you want, Risa, but it is better that we fight this. Assimilation
is
a very real threat.”

“But it’s not assimilation you truly fear, is it?” I said it softly, my gaze searching his. Looking for the emotions he was never going to reveal, but that I nevertheless knew were there. The hum of them echoed through the deeper parts of my being, warm and precious.

For a moment I thought he wasn’t going to answer, but then he said softly, “No.”

“Then for once tell me the truth, Azriel. What is it you truly fear?”

His hesitation was longer this time.

“What I fear,” he said eventually, “is
us
.”

Chapter 11

Of all the answers I’d expected,
that
certainly wasn’t one of them. I reached for him, but he stepped away from me.

“You do not understand,” he said, his mismatched blue eyes glowing with a fierceness that was part determination, part desperation. “I have a task to achieve, one that is vitally important to
both
our worlds. I cannot let emotion get in the way or cloud my judgment.”

“But this isn’t about emotion—”

“It
is
, and we both know it.”

His words should have made me want to dance. Instead, they scared the hell out of me. Because he was right. Whatever this thing between us actually was, it was certainly more than just sexual attraction. It had the potential to be something far deeper, far stronger. It was something that could change both our lives, in ways I couldn’t even begin to see or imagine.

But
he
obviously
could
, and that’s what scared me.

I licked suddenly dry lips and said, “If you’ve feared this all along, then why did you give in to desire in the first place?”

“If I was without flaws, I would not be a dark angel.”

“But it’s only made things worse.”

Because now we both knew just how good we were together. And we were both aware that what we’d shared was only a beginning, that there was a whole lot more left unexplored between us.

“I understand that now, but I cannot undo what has been done.” He paused, then added softly, “Nor would I want to. When all this is over and we resume our separate lives, I will at least have something to cherish, even if it is only a memory.”

Tears prickled my eyes. Goddamn it, I did
want
an end to the madness. I
did
want life to resume normalcy. But at the same time, I couldn’t even begin to imagine my life without Azriel’s presence in it.

Which only testified to just how much I’d come to care for my stubborn reaper.

“We both hunger for things that should not be,” he said, his voice gentle. “But for the sake of our worlds, it
cannot
be.”

It was very tempting to just say
fuck our worlds, what about us?
I’d always been one to fight for what I wanted, but this was a very different situation. What I wanted—what he wanted—really didn’t matter in the bigger scheme of things. It never had.

God, I wanted to scream about the unfairness of it all. But that wouldn’t help anyone. I guess I just had to pull on my big-girl britches and deal with the situation as best I could.

“That is all the fates can expect of either of us,” he agreed softly.

“The fates need to be fucking shot,” I muttered, then thrust a hand through my hair. “I guess I’m going to bed alone, then.”

“I guess you are.” His words were as flat as his expression, but behind the facade, frustration burned, and it was every bit as deep as mine.

I forced myself to turn around and climb into bed. Drew the covers up and told myself to sleep.

Which I did.

Eventually.

And not before a very long battle against the urge to get up and claim what we both desired.

*  *  *

The phone woke me hours later. I groped for it blindly, then realized I’d actually left it in my bag, which was still sitting on a nearby chair. But before I could muster the energy to move, it appeared in my right hand.

I opened a bleary eye, and came face-to-face with Azriel. “It is Rhoan,” he said, rather unnecessarily. The ringtone informed me of that much.

“Let’s hope he has some good news for a change,” I muttered, then hit the
ANSWER
button. Rhoan’s face appeared onscreen, and the high-pitched wail of a siren just about blew my eardrum out. I hastily turned down the sound and said, “Please tell me you’re on your way to catch the bastard.”

“We hope so.” If the dark circles under Rhoan’s eyes were any indication, he’d been getting even less sleep than me. “And not only do we have a possible location, we have a name.”

“How the hell did you discover
that
?”

“Do you remember suggesting we investigate the warehouse?”

“Yes.”

“Well, inside we discovered a marijuana crop that had to have a street value of at least four million. Naturally, there was all sorts of security to protect this investment, including cameras.” He smiled. “Actually, your presence must have spooked them, because they were in the process of dismantling and bagging when we arrived. We caught all of them.”

Well, at least some good had come out of Dani’s death. “I’m gathering the cameras also picked up the coming and going of our killer?”

“Yes. And he wasn’t alone.”

“If he’s blind, it makes sense he’d have an assistant.” I paused. “He
did
have a face, didn’t he?”

“And a butt-ugly one it is, too. Actually, that could apply to him as a whole.”

Which made you wonder how he was hooking his victims. But then, sometimes it wasn’t about looks. Sometimes it was about aura and power. And from what I’d seen on the astral plane, our killer had
those
in spades.

“So who is he?”

“He’s going by the name of Zane Taylor, but we can only trace his existence back about five years, which is when he landed in Australia. We’re currently checking the Croatian and Slovenian databases to see if we can find a match.”

“What about his buddy?”

“He’s a man by the name of Jason Bright. He’s an IT specialist with a history of hacking into high-profile companies and then selling their information on the black market. He’s served a smattering of time, but he’s been flying under the radar since he was released five years ago.”

If he was an IT specialist, why wouldn’t he have done something about the cameras to stop them from recording their presence? It wouldn’t have been that hard for someone who knew what they were doing—Stane could have managed it with his eyes shut.

“Meaning the two of them somehow hooked up when Zane arrived in Australia?”

“More than likely.” He glanced sideways, said something to whoever was in the car with him, then added, “We’re on our way to Bright’s last known address now.”

“What about Zane?”

“The address listed in the system was for an apartment that was torn down years ago. But his bank records show activity in the same vicinity as Bright’s house, so we’re hoping they share a residence and we can nab them both.”

It wouldn’t be that easy. No way, nohow. Our faceless killer might now have both a name
and
a face, but he seemed way too smart to leave such an obvious trail.

“You’ll call me after you raid the place?”

“Yes. But I’m sending through pics of both men, just in case this is little more than a diversion and they’re actually coming after you.”

A shiver ran through me. He
was
coming after me. I knew that for a fact, but at least knowing what he looked like would give me a small advantage.

Not that it would matter if he came in astral form.

“Be careful, won’t you? I’d hate to see—”

“Risa, I’ve been doing this for more years than you’ve been alive.” Amusement and warmth filled his voice. “Even if Taylor and Bright were aware of the cameras and have done a runner, they won’t have had time to clear away all the evidence. We’ll find them.”

I wasn’t worried about Rhoan and the Directorate finding them. I was worried about our killers finding
him
. After all, he was the one who’d pointed out how little respect Taylor seemed to have for the Directorate—and maybe that was because he was always one step ahead of them.

I had a horrible suspicion he was still one step ahead of all of us.

“I know,” I said. “Just . . . good luck.”

“Stop worrying about me, dear Risa, and just make sure
you
keep alert until we catch this bastard.”

“I will.”

“I’ll be in touch when we have him.”

He hung up, but the phone beeped immediately as two messages came in. I opened them to discover the faces of both my hunter and his assistant.

As Rhoan had noted, Zane was one hell of an ugly man. His face was round and puffy, the left side so scarred that it almost looked like it had melted. His hair was sparse and the same nondescript brown as his eyes, and his nose large.

Jason Bright, his companion in crime, had thin features, thick-framed black glasses, and dirty blond hair. He was the sort of man you wouldn’t look twice at on the street. The sort of man who looked totally and absolutely harmless.

And yet it was no doubt thanks to him that Zane had discovered my home address. If he could hack into the systems of high-profile companies, it would have been easy enough to gain access to the security company that monitored Vonda’s and Dani’s homes.

And maybe
he
was the reason the Directorate hadn’t been having much luck tracking Zane. If he was so damn good, then it wouldn’t have been too hard to get into the Directorate system and see what they were up to. After all, Stane could do exactly that—though he hadn’t recently because the Directorate had increased security and he preferred to stay out of jail.

I took one more look at the killer who was hunting me, then dumped the phone on the nearby pillow and closed my eyes. Weariness still rode me, but it was nowhere near as deep as it had been. I half wondered if Azriel had given me a little energy boost while I’d slept.