The Council (Darkness #5) (6 page)

These two weren’t nearly smart or talented enough to pull off an invisible spell. He could see that in their blind swagger and their over-anxious movements, which meant possibly the invisible watchers earlier were exactly that: watchers. Spies. It explained why they took off so quickly. Which made these fools the first rung of challengers.

Stefan nearly laughed. Did they think so little of him?

His steps quickened as his temper rose. Electricity exhilarated his body, pumping through his chest and sizzling out his limbs. He focused on the male with the scar, obviously the stronger of the two. Reaching him with fluidity, Stefan grasped his shirt before the male knew how quickly Stefan would engage.

Stefan slammed the challenger against the wall once, twice. The hollow thump of his head rebounding off the wall echoed down the empty corridor. He punched the fool in the face three times, cracking a cheek and smashing his nose. Two more violent jabs to a kidney buckled the male’s legs. Stefan ripped him to the side, splashing his limp body across the ground.

His hard black eyes beat down on the pale brown of the next challenger. For one beat, the challenger met his gaze. The challenger’s chin rose fractionally, but his back was bowing. He hadn’t been ready for the brutality with which Stefan had assaulted his counterpart.

Slowly, as if a great weight bore down on him, the challenger’s resolve cracked. His eyes, dulling in defeat and submission, sought the ground. His body finished its bow. The power and fight in him seeped out.

He submitted.

“Challenging me was the wrong move,” Stefan said in a low voice filled with command. “I give challenges, I don’t receive them.”

“Y-yes,” the male stuttered. The acrid smell of urine wafted up.

“Yes, what?” Stefan pushed, leaning over the male, making his dominance complete.

“Yes, sir.” The male swallowed noisily.

“Yes,
Boss,”
Stefan corrected.

The man nodded adamantly. “Yes, Boss.”

Stefan straightened up and walked away without another thought. He’d just stepped up the challengers. There was no sense in playing a game about it. This whole facility had turned into a cesspool of bored politicians. Backers and power plays and whispered words—it was a weak way to go about things. They needed a leader, not a decrepit council. They needed votes and action, not false promises and words with double meanings.

And if someone said Stefan wanted that role, they’d be wrong. Since he’d talked to Kallias, he just wanted to walk away from all of this. To head toward a place that made sense. Home. But in order to survive, he had to be the toughest male they’d ever seen and the most vicious. His race worshipped that behavior, and Sasha’s safety demanded it.

Fighting a sudden pallor, Stefan let himself into his room and took a deep breath. Dominicous said the one place, besides the dining hall, that was forbidden to invade was the living quarters. No listening, no spying, and no challengers wanting to get a jump on him or Sasha.

He took a moment in the still setting, peaceful and quiet. He could lightly smell Sasha’s delicious scent. He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. It’d only been half a day, but he missed her. He worried that she was okay. That she was handling her first challenge without a heavy heart.

Above all, he worried she wouldn’t make it out of this in one piece. He was afraid that they’d kill him off and leave her vulnerable.

He looked around the room for a sign of where she might be. As he expected, he noticed a note taped to the window. Jonas’ impatient hand scrawled the message:
With the mongrels

Smart

Stefan paused at the door, his hand on the knob. His adrenaline was winding down, leaving his muscles quivering. Leaving him not as primed for another attack. But Sasha was out there.

Another deep breath and he was out the door again heading down the hall toward the shifters. Before he’d gotten two steps, though, he noticed someone coming up the corridor toward him. Slight and slinky, oozing sex, he could tell immediately that this was a human female. Not a challenge.

Slowing down, just in case she traveled with anything unseen, Stefan allowed himself a moment to analyze this creature—the type of human that seemed so common in this place. Submissive and with a desire to please, she, like the others, seemed to slink around with a promiscuous air. Even the males sauntered around promising sex. He’d seen these females glance at his kind imploringly and angle their necks, as if they were offering something. As if they were a buffet. There was no honor in their bearing, no pride. They were content to be used. To be
lesser.
It was disgusting.

The woman glanced up and noticed his advance. Her step slowed and a sultry smile curled her red lips. She veered directly into his path, all hip and breast. Her head tilted back, exposing three scabbed bite marks on her porcelain skin. Whoever had taken blood had not done so gently.

“Would you like a taste?” she purred. “I can please you in ways others cannot.”

He didn’t bother to hide his disgust as he stepped to the side to move around her. It was at that moment, though, that he caught her scent. It curled around his senses and infused his body. Unlike Sasha’s scent, however, this smell had a hint of decay. Like a dying rose in winter. Wondering about the difference, he slowed. “You have a scent to your arousal.”

“I taste just as sweet.
Use me
.”

He shook his head in frustration. “Is that common among humans? Are there many that give off a scent like you?”

Misinterpreting him, she stepped closer and draped her body over his. “Of the few I am one-of-a-kind. Sought after. I have my pick of the strongest and most attractive males at the Council.” Her hand ran up his chest. “Like you.”

He grabbed her by the wrists and removed her. “Do males have this scent as well?”

“Is that what you’re into? Well then, I can find someone to fulfill your needs. I have all kinds of
friends
.”

The way she’d said
friends
had Stefan pausing. His stomach tightened up. “Do my kind pay for this pleasure? Are those with scents sought-after for this… type of… endeavor?”

She made a sound not unlike a purr. Her back arched, allowing her breasts to coat his chest. He tried to push her away by her hands, but the female was limber. She did everything she could to keep contact. “Nothing is for free, handsome. But for you, maybe I’ll just ask a favor. You I’d like to taste. Tell me, what is your name?”

He let go of her wrists in order to grab her shoulders. As he made contact and started to push her away, a blast rocked the floor. Fifty yards up a door burst loose from the hinges, clattering against the opposite wall. Jonas flew out after it, hitting the wall with a thud and sliding down to the ground.

“Don’t worry about that,” the female said in a feminine hum. “I’m protected.”

“Not from her, you’re not.” Stefan pushed the female away.

Even as the last words rolled out of his mouth Sasha stormed into the corridor, her face a terrifying mask of rage and violence. She saw him in the corridor, and then honed in on the woman trying to cling to his side.

The expression on Sasha’s face got even darker.
Not good.

Her body turned to face him slowly, like one of those westerns with the gun slingers facing off at high noon. She didn’t seem to notice Charles running out after her and saying, “You gotta leave him be, Sasha. Seriously. You can’t go around saving males. People will think he’s a sissy-la-la. Plus, you’d probably just—” Charles cut off when he realized what Sasha was looking at. The younger male’s eyes widened. He stepped away slowly. “Uh oh. Boss, it probably wasn’t the best place to be doing a thing like that…”

“He doesn’t need you interrupting his fight for dominance.” Tim stepped out of the door. Ann was right behind him. “This is how it’s done. With his kind as well as Shifters. We—”

Sasha was still staring at him, hurt now mingling in with the rage. He could feel her magic building in the corridor. Feel her scratching at their link, desperate for him to take off the muffle. He did so, immediately washed in her pain at what she was witnessing. With it came fear and anxiety, probably from worrying about his challenges.

“This isn’t what it looks like.” Stefan pushed the female away again, only to have her stepping back up immediately. If it wouldn’t make matters worse in Sasha’s eyes, he would physically lift the disgusting female and toss her down the hall.

“Really, Stefan?” Sasha started walking forward slowly, eyes on fire. “Because it looks like some slut-bitch is draped all over you.”

“Who the hell is she?” Ann demanded, walking right up beside Sasha. “Honey, get your filthy paws off him!”

“You’re not helping, Ann!” Charles yelled. “He’s probably got a good explanation. Right Boss? If not, you better think of one, quick, or your challenges are about to end in death.”

Jonas got off the floor stiffly.

“Yeah, like he couldn’t keep his dick in his pants?” Ann’s eyes filled with a crazy light to match Sasha’s. Ann was fiercely loyal where Sasha was concerned. Stefan had always thought that was a good thing. Now, not so much.

“Did you figure out how to cover up the link so you could screw this tramp, Stefan?” Sasha asked in a deathly-quiet voice. Bitter agony clouded the link.

Charles flinched back from Sasha’s arm, yelping.

“I thought you’d died,” she continued. The link colored with fear now. “You didn’t tell me you knew how to do that—I thought someone had killed you. I ruined Tim’s room, I tossed Charles across the couch, I threw Jonas through the door—all because I wanted to help you. All because—”

Her voice cracked, moist eyes threatening to overflow. “And here you are, playing sexy with another human. What the—”

“A
better
human,” the woman spoke up.

Green magic whipped around Ann. Her eyes rolled with a feline gold. Tim, sensing his subordinate’s shifter magic, gave Stefan a long, assessing stare. He glanced at Sasha before shaking his head and going back in the room.

Ann was just let off the leash. Great.

“This isn’t what you think, Sasha,” Stefan said in a hasty release of words. “Don’t release that spell—”

Sparklers erupted within the wall. Blistering balls of pure black sizzled as they floated around lazily. Any one of them would kill whoever it touched. That kind of magic was extremely hard to control. And it was calmly floating around their heads.

Charles ducked and covered his head. “Sasha, you’re a little unbalanced. I don’t think…”

“Don’t tell a woman she’s unbalanced!” Ann seethed. “Because I will
show
you unbalanced if she won’t!”

Jonas started forward with powerful, purposeful strides. “Keep that magic off me, human,” he growled. He didn’t balk, even when one of the balls nearly didn’t shift in time. He cut a path to the female wrestling with Stefan’s hands to get closer to his body, grabbed her by the scruff of the neck, yanked her away from Stefan, and then tossed her down the hall like a doll. She landed in a pile of limbs.

He turned to Sasha. “Talk this shit out. Kill him after you figure out what’s going on.”

The female got up like a cat who’d just been splashed with water. “You will be punished for your harsh treatment of me!”

Jonas stared at her for a moment. The female’s eyes went wide and her mouth clicked shut. “Have some respect for yourself. You let males—or whoever—rip into your neck. That kind of tear is about disrespect. They might as well have been spitting on you. And yet you claim to be protected? You give all humans a bad name, and that’s saying something. Scamper away. You’re not good enough to be in this circle.”

“Rudy will hear about this!”

“Super. Now go away.”

With trembling lips, the female attempted a glare that didn’t manifest and about-faced, marching away down the hall.

“Sasha doesn’t like when you rough up women, bro. Not the right time to be pouring salt in the wound. Probably better to get a BJ.” Charles scanned the floating orbs, now turning from black to rainbows of color. Stefan had no idea what that meant.