Untouchable Darkness (5 page)

Stephanie

“D
ID HE JUST SAY
he was cold?” Alex repeated after Cassius’s disappearing form.

“Yeah.” The words felt hollow coming out of my mouth. “He did.”

Alex tapped his chin then looked at the doorway Cassius had just walked through. “Interesting.”

Interesting? Try terrifying.

I rubbed my arms, I wasn’t cold, just uncomfortable… It almost felt like we’d switched places, though I had never been human to begin with, so I couldn’t even imagine what Cassius was going through—or what desperation had taken place in his mind to get him to a place where turning into a human was even a bargaining chip.

It was a punishment. It had to be.

Ethan put his muscled arm around my shoulder and kissed my temple. “So it seems you have a lot of explaining to do… or maybe just Cassius?”

I shrugged. “I know just about as much as you guys.”

“Well.” Mason rubbed his hands together and cackled. “This should be fun.”

“Play nice,” Ethan snapped. Then, as if realizing what he was saying, he chuckled. “I should probably remind myself of that.”

Genesis nodded. “You did try to kill him a few days ago.”

“He wanted what was mine,” Ethan fired back, his eyes blazing green as he hissed out a curse.

I stepped away from his embrace and made my way slowly into the house. Cassius was sitting in the kitchen staring out the window like it was going to suddenly turn into a TV and show him his destiny if he stared hard enough.

“Penny for your thoughts?” I joked.

He was silent.

The room was strung with tension.

I gulped.

“Weak.” Cassius whispered the word. “I had forgotten how weak humans were.”

“Are,” I interjected without thinking.

His nostrils flared, “My apologies. Are. Present tense.”

“Grammar lessons?” Mason waltzed into the kitchen and pulled out a chair; it scratched across the floor loud enough to make my ears hurt. “So Cassius, feeling… all right?”

Cassius rolled his eyes. “Just come out and ask it, Wolf.”

“You look funny.”

Cassius snorted out a laugh. “That all you got?”

“Smells funny too.” Ethan joined in from behind me.

“And let’s not forget.” Alex patted Cassius on the shoulder. “Your eyes aren’t freaky anymore.”

“I was never freaky,” Cassius defended looking completely insulted as he crossed his bulky arms over his chest. Pieces of his dark hair fell to his sharp chin.

“You were,” everyone except me said in unison.

Cassius briefly glanced down at the table then back out the window. I sat next to him, not really knowing if it was my place to offer him comfort or just wait for everyone to finally pry out of him what the heck had happened.

“So.” Ethan spoke after a few minutes. “Now that we’re in the safety of the house, mind filling us in?”

Cassius gazed at me out of the corner of his eye, his jaw was set in a firm line almost like he didn’t want me to be there.

“It’s a… test of sorts,” he finally said. “From Sariel.”

Mason grumbled “bastard” under his breath as he walked over to the island and started pulling out pots and pans. He’d turned into one of those people who stress cooked even if he didn’t eat what he cooked—which was fine considering Genesis was still human and now that she was pregnant really needed food. The guy could probably compete on MasterChef and win by a landslide. Ever since Genesis had moved in, it seemed all he did was watch the cooking channel and go grocery shopping.

Odd behavior for a species known for ripping humans’ throats out.

“A test,” Ethan repeated. “Care to elaborate or is that all we’re going to get?”

Cassius was silent.

Of course.

No emotion. It pissed me off. At least being human I expected him to do something, react somehow, at least the way he had in the car, but now it was like staring at a stone wall.

“It involves Stephanie.” He said my name like a curse. I recoiled slightly into myself, nobody seemed to notice how his words affected me, how they made me want to flinch and scream all at the same time. Instead, I plastered an indifferent look on my face and waited. “I’m to… help her.”

“Help her what?” Ethan’s voice was laced with dread.

“Find herself?” Cassius said it as more of a question.

“Is she lost?” Alex piped up.

“She was at Starbucks staring at couples, let’s not forget that,” Mason called out from the kitchen, while my face flushed with heat. “And she’s been moody.”

“She’s right here,” I hissed.

“Her powers…” Cassius shrugged. “She’s unstable, dangerous. I’m here to help her but I need to be human in order to do that.”

“Why?” I blurted out.

He shrugged.

I rolled my eyes in response.

“Seems odd…” Ethan put his hands on his hips, his muscles were tight like he was ready to pounce on something—maybe Cassius.

“What’s odd?” Cassius folded his muscled arms across his chest. Damn, did he have to still be so built? I scolded myself for my fleeting thoughts and quickly looked away.

“Well,” Ethan’s voice was doubtful. “Why would Sariel need you to be human in order to do that?”

“I don’t make a habit of questioning Archangels,” Cassius said in a hollow voice. “Do you?”

“Man has a point,” Alex piped up. “So what, you’re human, you help her, she kicks ass, and then you go back to normal?”

I stole a peak out of the corner of my eye to gauge his reaction. Cassius’s mouth turned down into a scowl. “Yes. Something like that. But I’ll need to be with her twenty-four seven, and I can’t very well do that if I’m not living… near her.”

Was it my imagination or did he just blush?

I blinked.

The pink tinge was gone.

Right, my imagination.

“House party,” Alex sang, “Does that mean we get to finish watching all the Disney movies Genesis set us up with?”

“No,” Cassius barked out while everyone else said yes.

“Outvoted.” Mason pointed with his spatula. “Trust me, Cassius, it will do you some good. After all, it’s good to remember what humans are like, think of your time here as a… learning experience.”

Cassius growled low in his throat. “I’d rather not learn from movies.”

“Don’t worry…” Alex swatted his back. “We won’t make you watch the romantic ones about kissing and falling in love and sweeping women off their feet and—”

“What?” Cassius blurted. “What did you say?”

“Uh, romantic movies, sweeping women off their feet?”

Cassius fidgeted in his seat. “It may help… learning how to deal with women, since I’ll be dealing with a prickly one for the next few weeks.”

Right. Now I was prickly. Had he been immortal I would have knifed him in the chest.

“Great!” Alex clapped his hands. “So that’s settled. Cassius stays here until Stephanie learns how to control herself… considering we don’t really know what she is…” All eyes turned to me with pity. “And since technically she gave her immortality to you…” Alex’s eyes narrowed. “Yet, now she has it back and you’re… human.”

“No.” Cassius cleared his throat. “For the time being no… but all will be well soon…”

“Not immortal,” I repeated out loud. I’d forgotten about that… barricaded the damn memory so far into my mind that I wouldn’t recall what it was like uniting myself with Cassius…

Because it was the only time in my entire existence that I’d belonged.

And it had been ripped from me the minute he chose to walk away. Granted he returned but I imagined there was more to the story, like if he didn’t help me the big bad Archangel was going to stab Cassius in the throat.

So really he had no choice.

My heart plummeted to my stomach.

“I think I’ll go lay down for a while.” My voice was weak. I didn’t look back, not even Alex called after me or even when I felt the ice start to tickle down my fingertips and lightly frost the air next to me.

Cassius

M
Y EYES WEREN’T USED
to the dull colors around me. Gray used to be my favorite color—it masqueraded as something trivial and boring when really it consisted of a million different speckles of blues, greens, blacks, and even some white, constantly changing, shifting in its color—evolving.

Now, I glanced around at the gray countertop, the gray or what some would call silver appliances.

And I was bored to tears.

And irritated that something as simple as enjoying the visions in front of me, was suddenly gone—taken from me. Humans really had no understanding of the depth of color, and now I was realizing that first hand.

Particles of dust used to float in front of my face, pieces of moisture collected into the air, ready for me to use had I needed it.

Now, I sucked in air through lungs that by my calculations would stop working around the age of seventy-eight, possibly seventy-nine; it would be something simple that would take this body.

Morose thoughts clouded my vision—making it impossible for me to really see anything but my own demise, and the very simple fact that last week I had been different, I had been better.

This week… I was facing the greatest challenge of my existence, getting Stephanie to see me as someone other than her protector, her King, a monster.

I wasn’t sure what was typical. Did I wait an hour to go fetch her? Two? Maybe three? So I sat, my ass pressed against an extremely uncomfortable chair, and imagined a simpler time when I was able to simply force my will on anyone and be done with it.

The coffee Mason had given me was cold.

The ceramic cup cheap, breakable.

I think he meant it as a joke when he gave it to me. After all, it had some silly Vampire looking character on the front of it, blood dripping from his fangs. I scowled and turned the cup to face the other direction.

“She’s upstairs,” Alex grumbled from the corner. “You know, just in case you haven’t turned into a statue. Then again with a heart that cold…”

I rolled my eyes and stood. “I’ll see to her.”

Alex moved in front of me, his cat like eyes narrowing in suspicion, his fingertips pressed against my chest, it hurt like hell, not that I was going to actually admit to the Siren that he was stronger.

Because the very thought—the idea that he could end my life, when I’d spent the better part of mine protecting his kind—it didn’t rub well. It felt all too humbling.

Damn, I hated that word.

“She’s… fragile.” He retracted his hand. “Remember.”

“She could break my finger with a flick of her wrist.” I shoved past him, ignoring the already bruising skin on my chest. “Think of it this way, if I make her angry you’ll simply have to burn my body to finish me off.”

“Ah, fire.” Alex snapped his fingers. “I always forget about the fire.”

I didn’t. I hated fire. Fire represented my future—if I couldn’t get her to fall for me, to love me, just as I was—I wouldn’t just die.

I’d be burned alive.

While Sariel most likely watched.

With a bowl of damn popcorn. Buttered.

“Just—” Alex’s sigh grated my nerves. “Be careful.”

“I’ll do that.” I had no idea how I was going to manage being careful, that word hadn’t ever really been in my vocabulary. Being careful meant I actually cared.

In all my existence I’d only cared about one person.

Her.

And now the game was twisted, altered, some of my chess pieces missing, the board falling sideways off the table.

“You’re stalling,” Alex called from behind me.

I grunted and made my way slowly up the stairs. I couldn’t smell her—there had once been a time when I’d been able to pick out her scent from across the room in a crowd. It had been all I could do to keep myself from pulling her close, from breathing deep, from kissing her deeper.

My footsteps were loud, awkward, as I made my way down the hallway to her room. I knocked.

She didn’t answer.

I didn’t expect her to.

I nudged the door open. Stephanie was sitting in front of the window, her hands placed demurely in her lap, her head cocked to the side as if she was watching something very carefully.

The beauty of Stephanie wasn’t in just her form, but the way she made you feel by simply glancing in your direction. Weakness made me crave it; my humanity demanded I stay in her presence forever, convincing me that walking away would only result in such physical and emotional pain that I wouldn’t survive it.

Her hair was like warm caramel chocolate, her eyes, an icy blue. She was tall—most immortal woman were—but she wasn’t thin, not by any stretch of the imagination. Calling her thin would be an insult.

She had curves.

The kind that made any man, mortal or not, stop and take notice. I imagined she was the epitome of the perfect woman.

I coughed behind my hand.

She ducked her head, but didn’t turn around. “So you’ve come to… train me? Is that it, Cassius?”

I moved toward her, slowly, carefully, because even though I knew she wouldn’t hurt me physically—my weak body was completely aware she could.