A Darker Past (Entangled Teen) (The Darker Agency) (20 page)

Behind her, Lukas got to his feet. With a nod in my direction, he dropped to the ground and while I watched, did a fancy pivot and twist and swept the demon’s legs. It went down hard, as surprised by the attack as I was. He was on it in an instant.

Without taking his eyes from the thing, he thrust his arm in my direction. “What’s next?”

I went to hand him my Bane Talisman—a simple wooden symbol carved from the trunk of a three-hundred-year-old Brazilian Pine tree that I’d slipped around my neck before we’d left the house—but he didn’t get it.

The demon bucked beneath him, and his hand hit mine, sending the talisman flying somewhere to the left, into the darkness. Lukas toppled sideways, and the demon was on its feet in front of me. “Turn back now.”

Other than the quartz, which did as much as a tickle attack, I had no physical weapons. But that didn’t mean I was helpless. Mom told me on more than one occasion my mouth was going to get me in trouble one of these days. I was hoping today was that day. “Or what? You can’t kill me, right? I mean, that’s what you said earlier.” I spread my arms, heart hammering like a drum solo behind my ribs. “Hit me. I dare ya.”

The demon roared. Its attention was on me, which was good, because behind it, Lukas had pulled a knife from his boot.

“What? Nothing?” I taunted.

The demon’s arm twitched. Ironically, demons
were
known for their self-control. They didn’t go around inciting random chaos or ripping people to shreds just for the hell of it. They always had a plan. But they did have notoriously short tempers. Tempers that kind of got away from them sometimes when provoked.

“Must suck to have someone pulling your strings. Telling you who you can kill and where you can go,” I continued.

Another twitch. The illusion making it look like a charred version of Mom flickered, and a slightly extended moment of clarity made me cringe.

The thing screamed. The sound chased a chill up my spine. Not because it was intimidating, but because it was Mom’s voice the thing used. Lukas chose that moment to dive forward. He buried the blade to the hilt, the tip breaking through the front at the base of Mom’s neck. It wasn’t her, but it still turned my stomach to see it writhe in pain, choking on its own blood before falling to the floor, still and silent.

“You okay?” he asked, jerking the blade from the back of the demon’s neck. A wet suction-like sound echoed in the small space. A moment later, the illusion dropped, and it was back to the scaly green-skinned thing that it was in life.

“I’m good,” I replied. “You?”

“I am,” he said with a nod. “And us?” He was referring to the not-so-subtle hints the demon kept dropping.

I took a deep breath. “I don’t like secrets.”

“I don’t either,” he said.

“But you have them.”

He frowned. “Everyone has them, Jessie. But these are not mine to share.”

If they weren’t his, then that could only mean that Dad wasn’t telling us something. That bothered me, probably much more than it should. I thought about it for a second before reaching for his hand. “I don’t like it. I understand it. But I don’t like it.”

He didn’t need to know how amped it made me. That I wasn’t going to let this go, which would only make our current task harder. I inclined my head toward the far end of the tunnel. We were almost there.

“Let’s get this over with.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

We walked an additional twenty minutes or so without incident. The walls didn’t shift again, and nothing else attacked us. When we got to the end of the tunnel, the opening spilled out into a small round room with seven doors. Above each one was a series of symbols.

“Um,” Lukas said, taking a step inside. “Now what?”

I pointed to the door on the end. It was gold and encrusted with jewels the size of my head. “I think each door is for a different house.”

He walked forward and studied the first one. “Can you read them?”

I shook my head. “Nope. I think that one is Greed, but that’s going on the appearance of the door, not what the symbol says.”

“And if we walk through the wrong one?”

I shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe there’s a guy on the other side waiting with chocolate milk and cookies?” My stomach roiled at the possible—and more likely—alternative. “Or, ya know, we could get vaporized.”

“No, no. Nothing quite so dramatic,” a new voice said.

Lukas and I whirled around. The entrance we’d come through was gone, sealed over by pristine white wall with a single decoration. A small girl who looked to be about eleven or twelve.

Lukas spread his feet, ready for a fight. “We’re here for the prison, and you can’t stop us.”

The little girl laughed, and I cringed. Pigtails tipped with bright pink ribbon, a frilly white dress accented with shiny black Mary Janes, and snow-white knee socks with bows to match the ones in her hair. She looked to be the perfect little angel—but that laugh was demonic as hell. And when her image flickered, a moment of clarity showed a vaguely shapeless black thing with blood-red eyes.

“While I can’t physically stop you, I can’t let you through. Not without passing the test.”

“Test?” I asked. “You’re joking, right? This cave has been trying to kill us. Now you’re saying you’ll let us have the prison if we pass your test?”

The little girl laughed. She stomped her foot and doubled over, guffawing so hard I thought she’d pee herself. “Silly little half breed. The cave has no intention of letting you take the prison. If you’re foolish enough to take the test, you’ll never pass. It’s impossible.”

Lukas was tense beside me. “What’s the test?”

She gestured to the doors behind us. “One door for each of the great houses. Inside each lies their essence. All you would have to do is overcome two of them.”

“Is that all?” I said, folding my arms. Obviously, it wasn’t as simple as the thing was making it seem. “Fine. I pick Sloth and Envy.” I was neither lazy nor envious. Those were safe bets for sure.

Again, the demon-child laughed. “As if we’d let you pick. No,” she said. “If you choose to move forward, you will both have to survive the house of Lust and Wrath.”

And there was the catch.

I understood Wrath. Lukas was terrified of the anger that still lived inside him, and me… The cave had proven that, apparently, I wasn’t as fearless about the whole thing as I’d thought. While I didn’t believe he’d ever really hurt me, my subconscious had normal, human concerns. But Lust? That one I didn’t get.

“Sounds simple enough,” I said, trying to mask my suspicion. Beside me, Lukas was quiet.

“You know nothing about yourself or your limitations.” The demon-girl played with the end of her pigtail. “I find it amusing. Pity. It would have been interesting to see how you turned out upon maturity.”

It was goading me. Trying to incite a firestorm of questions. It was working—but I also realized it was trying to stall. Keep us occupied. Though it killed me, I declared, “We’ll take door number one, if you please.” With a quick glance over my shoulder, I said to Lukas, “Can you do this?”

He slipped his hand into mine and squeezed. “I suppose we shall see.”

Well, that wasn’t very encouraging.

The demon girl giggled. She snapped her fingers, and all the doors except the one in the middle vanished. I started for it, but she moved to block my path. “Just one question first. What is the day of your birth?”

“The day of—” It took me a second to realize what she was asking. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Call it a matter of curiosity. Valefar has never…had a Regent so young.”

I didn’t buy that for a second, but wasn’t looking to waste any more time. “May 20th.” I’d missed my mom’s birthday by two days. “Curiosity satisfied? Can we get on with it now?”

“So eager to fail, aren’t we?” She snapped her fingers, and the door creaked open. “This should be very interesting…”

I didn’t wait. Tugging Lukas forward, I stepped over the threshold and into…my bedroom.

The door slammed closed behind us. “Um, I don’t get it.”

Lukas let go of my hand and backed away. When I turned around, he looked different. Instead of the black T-shirt, worn blue jeans, and leather jacket he’d had on when we entered, he was in black jeans and a simple black tank that showed off every glorious muscle.

And he was staring at me with his mouth wide open.

I looked down at myself and gasped. “What the hell?” My favorite Mashing jeans were gone, replaced by a little black dress. I raced to the full-length mirror by the bed and stared. Little black dress my ass. This thing was like a silky second skin, painted on and hugging every single contour of my body with perfection. I would have died rather than willingly put something like this on.

And yet…

I turned around and glanced back over my shoulder. My hair tumbled wildly down my back, falling just below my waist. My makeup, artfully applied and darkly mysterious, gave me an ethereal look. On my feet were a pair of strappy black heels.

“Wow,” I muttered, impressed by my reflection. Part of me was horrified by my reaction, while the other part stretched and twisted, ogling the mirror and playing it up, knowing Lukas was still watching.

I turned back to face the mirror, and he came up behind me, throwing his arms around my waist. “This is the cave’s plan? To lock me in a room with the most beautiful woman on earth? However will I overcome?” He laughed. A deep, throaty sound that made my stomach quiver.

“It must be total agony,” I said with a laugh. My voice was low. Raspy. Unlike me.
Sexy
.

I liked it. A lot.

Lukas gave a chuckle of his own and let his hands slip, palms flat against my stomach. My heart thumped a little harder. “It
is
agony. To be this close to the sun and know that to touch it would be to burn.”

His hands slipped a little lower.

“This is Lust, after all,” he whispered in my ear, the warmth from his breath igniting a fire in every nerve ending. “We shouldn’t give in.”

I wanted to speak. Words formed in my head and rose in my throat, but the actual act of forming a sentence was too complicated. Too time consuming. He was right. This was the thing we were here to fight. But how? Why? Resisting something so powerful, so magnetic that you felt it everywhere, in every pore, with each breath, couldn’t be right.

“What do you want, Jessie?” he asked, lips skimming the top edge of my ear. I nearly screamed. “Tell me what you need…”

“I need—” I gasped as he moved his hands to my hips, gripped tight and turned me to face him. He was breathing hard. Eyes ravenous with desire and hands itching to explore. He let the fingers of his right hand slide down my hip, then slipped them underneath the edge of my short skirt. Playing with the hem for a moment, he tugged the material up an inch, giving me a wicked grin.

“I’ll tell you what
I
need.” The material rose another inch. “I was trapped for over a hundred years. In darkness and despair. A neighbor to pain and misery. I was dead, Jessie. Dead, yet still present. I need to scrub that away. Erase all that pain of being nowhere, of being no one. I need to feel alive.”

Alive.

The word rang like a thousand church bells echoing inside my skull. It was perfect. The perfect word. The essence of how I felt when I was with him. There was no more time to waste. I kissed him.

Hands, limbs, lips. We were a jumble of moving parts and insatiable need as we tumbled back to my bed. The mattress had never felt so soft. The air had never smelled so sweet. Lukas’s hands, venturing beyond the boundaries, had never felt so right.

Right.

More. I needed more. I pulled at his shirt. When I couldn’t wrestle it over his head, I gripped the middle and tore. The ripping fabric was like a timer going off inside my head. Suddenly, I’d never needed anything more than him. I’d never wanted anything more than this.

He ran with my enthusiasm, pulling at the straps of my dress. I wriggled my arms, trying to make it easier. It wasn’t fast enough. He growled, a dark, delicious sound, and the straps popped free. In seconds, the smooth material was around my waist.

The cave was wrong. This wasn’t sin. It was sustenance. It was life. Being here with Lukas, like this, was fire and fuel and…

Love…

“I want this,” he said between kisses. “You. I want you. So badly. It’s been so hard to hold back. I don’t know why I—”

My head began to swim. I was drowning between the miraculous sensations, looming on the edge of a life-altering moment, but something chewed at my subconscious. A single, terrifying word.

Love…

We’d come here to… To what? There was something we should have been doing. Someone we should be looking for. I chased the thought, but it was too fast and skittered well out of reach. With his lips, borderline magical, Lukas traced a molten trail across my shoulder and up my neck. It felt like heaven. This couldn’t be considered wrong. This wasn’t lust. It was—

“Why did we wait?” he pleaded, and slid the material up a few inches. I’d never been more exposed with another human being in my life—and it didn’t bother me. All my insecurities, all my fears, all vanished.

It wasn’t right.

I brought my hands to his chest and pushed, the truth of it slamming into me like a million pounds. Why we’d waited. It wasn’t about a quick fix or an itch that needed to be satisfied. It wasn’t about lust.

“I love you,” I said.

He froze. “What did you say?”

I hadn’t realized it’d been there, but the invisible hand pushing down on my chest lifted, and I could breathe. Hell, not only could I breathe, but I could sing. I could fly. I could do anything. The one thing that held me back, three simple, stupid little words, were no longer my prison. They were my freedom.

“I love you,” I repeated, stronger than the first time. “And you love me. That’s why we waited. Because there’s no rush. We have a lifetime.”

There was a loud crack like lightning, only all around, and we were back in the main room, in our own clothing, and standing in front of that creepy little demon girl.

Lukas stumbled back, taking me with him. “What—”

The demon grinned, but it was all tooth. Predatory and furious. “Congratulations.”

I inhaled to try to even out my breathing. Three seconds ago, I’d been mostly naked with Lukas. My head spun.

“Aww,” I said, taking a step back. “Don’t feel bad. Not everyone can be great at what they do. Besides, it’s not like you can hurt me.”

When would I learn to keep my mouth closed?

The demon-child’s lips twisted. “You are not worthy of the House of Pride. A creature such as you, born into our ranks, is an abomination. Some may find disappointment if your life were to end. Others”—she snapped her fingers, and the Lust door disappeared, replaced by another—“may reward me.”