Darkness Wanes (5 page)

Today, he’d be teaching them about the supernatural war that had occurred several centuries ago. The anger and resentment from that period still affected their community today. Thousands of lives were lost, but many of the surviving sups remained, still seeking revenge against the sensors who betrayed them. Lucas knew because he used to be one of them until he met Melena. The nerou needed to know that.

“The shaman is taking care of the fire,” Micah said, entering the room.

He glanced at his brother, noting that he was still covered in ash and soot. “Do you think he can manage it?”

“Ajax says he’s gotten better at calling for rain, but it still takes a heavy toll on him. He won’t be able to do it again for at least a few days.”

They’d have to hope no more fires broke out. “Keep an eye on the situation in case we need to take more drastic measures.”

“You know I will.” Micah glanced at the doorway, and his expression turned critical. “Was it really a good idea to let Kerbasi teach the nerou about human holidays?”

Lucas shrugged. “He volunteered.”

Micah’s lips twitched. “I’m heading home for a shower, but you might want to check on him soon. He told the nerou Thanksgiving is some sort of ritual sacrifice of innocent turkeys because humans have a problem with winged creatures.”

Lucas wasn’t all that surprised. “I’ll go over there in a few minutes.”

“He’s starting on Christmas next. You might want to hurry.” Micah flashed away.

Lucas wanted no part of whatever the guardian taught in his classes, but the nerou didn’t need that kind of misinformation. He couldn’t begin to fathom what the archangels were thinking when they decided to have Kerbasi work at the training center. Perhaps they just wanted to keep the annoying guardian far away from them. If only he had that option.

Heading down the hallway, Lucas entered the room at the far end of the building. Emily stood at the back with a hand over her mouth, snickering as she listened to the guardian speak. She shook her head at Lucas as he came to stand next to her.

“Did you guys have to let him teach
this
class?” she whispered.

“He wanted to,” Lucas replied.

He was beginning to think allowing Kerbasi to handle the sex education class they had scheduled for next week was a bad idea as well. Lucas just hadn’t wanted to do it and Micah refused after he had to give a lecture on feminine hygiene products. That left the task to Kerbasi.

He was a former guardian from Purgatory who’d abused his prisoners, including Lucas, for centuries before the archangels found out. To say he’d been ruthless and cruel would have been an understatement. Last year, they sent him to Earth as punishment with the stipulation he couldn’t return until he found his humanity. Melena had been working with him on that until she was taken away. She’d done better than expected, but Kerbasi still had a lot of room for improvement.

Now, the hulking man with silver eyes and long black hair served his sentence at the nerou training facility. He had a way of getting under people’s skin due to his lack of tact or consideration for others. Melena had been the only one who could handle him. Without her around…well, Lucas couldn’t hold his anger in check against the man who’d once maliciously tortured him. He’d tested Kerbasi’s immortality several times in recent months, but it appeared nothing could kill him, yet.

The obnoxious fool stood at the front of the room, pointing to a slide show photo of a Christmas tree. It was the one Melena and Emily had put up in their home last December. How had the guardian obtained a picture of that? And managed to put it in a slide show? They’d showed him how to use PowerPoint for his classes, but Lucas hadn’t thought Kerbasi would learn the program well enough for photo insertion.

“This is what humans call a Christmas tree,” Kerbasi said with a sneer. “For reasons I’ve yet to comprehend, they like to cut these innocent trees down from the forest and decorate them.”

“Decorate them with what?” a male nerou student asked.

The guardian’s expression turned grim. “With shiny baubles and lights. Yes, I know…” he paused, throwing his hands up, “it’s ridiculous.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Olivia asked. The slim student with shoulder-length blond hair was Micah’s daughter. It was still hard for Lucas to imagine having a niece, but after getting to know her these past months, he’d come to truly care for her. “We used to decorate our living quarters with whatever we could find.”

Lucas had seen their austere dwellings in the underground tunnels of Purgatory. It was depressing to think of anyone growing up in such a cold and dark place, much less innocent people who’d never committed a single crime except being born to the wrong parents. It was no wonder the nerou had tried to make what improvements they could to their homes. When they’d escaped, almost every one of them had some sort of handmade object they’d insisted on bringing with them such as necklaces or small figurines.

“This is different.” Kerbasi’s lips thinned. “Decorating a tree is an abomination of nature. Much like a certain nephilim…” His eyes drifted toward Lucas.

Emily had to grab his arm to keep him from flashing over to the guardian and beating the life out of him for the hundredth time. Kerbasi had a very low opinion of nephilim, which was why he’d taken such pleasure in torturing them in Purgatory. Lucas would never be able to forgive him for the things he’d done to him and others of his kind.

“It sounds fine to me,” another student spoke up.

A few others in the class murmured their agreement.

“Ah, but there is something wrong with it.” Kerbasi wagged his finger. “Nature should be respected, and you should avoid seeking meaningless pleasures.”

Emily straightened from where she’d been leaning against the back wall. “Says the man who owns a pair of smiley-face boxers—in canary yellow.”

More than half the class laughed.

The guardian’s eyes narrowed on her. “You gave those to me. I could hardly reject a gift.”

“But I didn’t make you wear them.”

Everyone’s gazes swung to Kerbasi.

“How did you…?” he stammered.

“I didn’t,” she said, unblinking. “Until now.”

Kerbasi’s olive skin turned a bright shade of red. Emily was his biggest weakness. Somehow, she’d endeared herself to him, and he’d do almost anything for her. No matter how much she teased or embarrassed him, he’d put up with it.

That was one of the reasons Lucas had allowed the guardian to continue staying in the shack behind their house after Melena left. Kerbasi would protect Emily whenever he and his brother were away. Also, the teenager had begged them not to make the guardian live anywhere else. After losing the boy she loved and the depression she’d suffered since then, it was difficult to refuse her anything.

Lucas cleared his throat. “I believe class time is over. I expect everyone down the hall in five minutes.”

“But I haven’t told them about Halloween yet,” Kerbasi argued.

“Do it tomorrow,” Lucas said, walking away.

Chapter Four

Melena

I passed the time in solitary thinking of Lucas. For many years, I’d seen him as the bad guy, and he’d seen me as nothing except a sensor—a race to be hated. That didn’t change until we worked together to save the city of Juneau from a demon infestation. It was only then that we started to see each other differently. Though looking back on it now, it seemed we’d always been attracted to each other. We’d just done our damnedest to ignore it.

Ironically, the moment we gave into our feelings for each other, we were torn apart. It kept happening again and again every time we reunited. First, he was locked away in Purgatory for more than a year because he broke an agreement with the archangels. Then he spent months searching for his twin brother after he went missing. I’d known what happened to Micah, but I was sworn to secrecy with a spell even I couldn’t break. It had nearly destroyed me to watch Lucas search long and hard for a brother who didn’t want to be found—even for a good reason.

And after the two of them were finally reunited and Micah got his daughter back, I was sent to Purgatory. Life might not be fair, but sometimes it seemed as if fate itself conspired against us. Not once in the two years Lucas and I had been mated had we been able to claim any real time for ourselves.

I imagined him in my mind each night, tall and strong. He had the face of a warrior with a strong jaw and fierce golden eyes like a lion’s. His light-blond hair was usually cut short and styled neatly as he preferred. I loved how fastidious he could be about his appearance. Lucas always dressed to impress and carried himself with utter confidence. Whenever I stood before him, I knew what it was like to look at the top of a mountain and wonder if it was possible to climb it. Maybe that was half the reason I fell in love with him. He was a challenge—and I didn’t like backing down from a challenge.

I rolled over on the frozen ground where I lay. The chains linking my wrist shackles rattled as I moved. I hated them and wished I could rip them off. How had Lucas survived being in this place for so long? The severe lack of oxygen would kill a human, and weaken immortals. The small portions of food and water they gave me didn’t help, either.

Frigid cold had settled into my bones. Trying to recall what the soothing heat of a fire felt like was beyond me. My lips were chapped, and my hands were callused from working in the mine. Every muscle ached from sleeping on the uneven stone floor of my cell. It was frozen over with a layer of ice that made me shiver constantly. As a newly made immortal, my body wasn’t strong enough to endure the harsh environment of Purgatory as well as the other prisoners.

The door to my confinement cell suddenly made an ear-splitting screech, opening wide. I pulled myself to my knees and squinted at the blinding light streaming toward me. Was my time up? Could I finally get out of here?

“Come, Melena,” Aldous said, stepping into the doorway.

I climbed the rest of the way to my feet and shuffled toward him. My time in solitary had weakened me to the point that my legs wobbled like molds of jelly. It was all I could do to keep them moving. To Aldous, I must have resembled the walking dead coming toward him, one tiny step at a time. After three days without food, water, or a bath—the description couldn’t have been too far off.

When you’re strong and healthy, it’s easy to think you’re invincible. Then something happens to ruin that illusion and you discover how fragile your body really is, even as an immortal. It was equally humbling and horrifying. I made a final lunge for the doorframe and grasped it like a lifeline. No way would I fall flat on my face in front of the guardian. I was already feeling bad enough about myself without adding that humiliation.

Aldous handed me a mug of water. With shaking hands, I took it from him and sipped slowly. I’d learned my lesson before about drinking too much at once. The water was surprisingly warm and soothed my throat as it went down. The guardian watched me with a hint of sympathy in his gray eyes.

After I got my fill, he handed me a chunk of bread. “Do not tell Dannia I gave this to you.”

“I won’t. Thanks,” I said, tearing into it. If the female guardian had her way, I would have to wait until a regular mealtime to get something to eat. Sometimes, I wondered if she and Kerbasi were cut from the same cloth. They both enjoyed making people miserable.

A little of my strength returned as I finished the bread. My body sucked up every bit of the nutrients and spread them to my starved cells. Even my vision sharpened a little. I was a long way off from full strength, but it was still the best I’d felt in a while. The thought of going home soon would help even more. Less than two weeks—that was all I had left of my sentence if my calculations were correct. I could make it.

“Where are we going?” I asked when Aldous took me on a different route through the tunnels than expected.

He glanced over at me. “The bathing chamber.”

I exhaled a breath of relief. The last time I’d come out of solitary, I’d had to listen to a lecture from Dannia for an hour before she sent me to my cell, reeking to high heaven. We only got to wash ourselves and get a fresh set of clothes once a week. I’d have been even more miserable if I’d had to wait much longer.

We reached the bathing chamber door where two guards stood outside. I held out my hands and Aldous unlocked my shackles one by one, starting with my wrists and doing my ankles last. This was also the only time we were allowed to go without chains. Rubbing my wrists, I gave him a grateful nod and went inside. I was surprised to discover there were no guards in the chamber. Most of the time, Dannia brought us. She and her minions kept a close watch even while we stripped down and got into the water. Aldous was giving us a break today and providing us with what little privacy he could.

I found the nephilim prisoners already scrubbing themselves with cloth and soap. The large stone bath wasn’t steaming, but the water was always reasonably warm, so I couldn’t complain too much. I tore off my garments and stepped down to join the others. It was about three feet deep and wide enough that we could each take a small space for ourselves. No one was self-conscious about their nudity. What was the point when you only got half an hour each week to clean yourself up?