Stephanie Rowe - Darkness Unleashed (15 page)

She didn't even know how to kiss like he was doing. She had no clue how to unleash such emotion and fire into a kiss. But it didn't matter. Her entire soul screamed with the need for more, with a raging desire that seemed to pour through her veins like hot lava, searing her from within.

He locked his arm around her waist and yanked her toward him, her breasts slamming into his chest. Her nipples burned as they rubbed against him. Her thighs seemed to scream with need as he dragged her legs around his waist. His hands clamped on her hips as he lurched to his feet, consuming her with kisses so deep they invaded her soul and ripped it from her grasp.

Heat combusted between them, steaming through the air as his boots thudded across the rocks, as his mouth descended upon her throat, kissing, and biting, and teasing her skin as he carried her. "Where are we going?" she gasped, gripping his hair as his mouth found the swell of her breast.

"I need privacy for what I'm going to do to you." He jerked her shirt aside and took her nipple in his mouth, sucking so fiercely she almost screamed.

She writhed in his arms, her body restless and aching for more. More of what, she didn't even know. Never had she experienced the intensity of what Ryland was bringing out in her, in them. She felt out of control. Desperate. Frantic. Consumed by how badly she needed him. "It's too much," she gasped, fighting for breath, for control, for sanity.

"I know." He went down on his knees, cradling her in his strong arms as he laid her down.

She had not even a second to register the feel of the soft ground beneath her when he grabbed the front of her jacket and yanked it open, stripping her of her last protections against him. There was no time to get nervous, because he was on her too fast, his body heavy and hard against hers as he pinned her beneath his bulk.

His hips were between hers, moving with tantalizing rhythm. His kisses were penetrating and intense, almost violent with need. It was too much, too rough, too dangerous, and yet it was everything she wanted. She gripped his hair, kissing him back every bit as fiercely. She nipped at his lower lip, she welcomed his invasion, and she screamed for more.

Frantic, she moved her hands between them, wanting to feel his skin. "No more clothes," she whispered urgently. "I have to touch you."

Ryland grabbed her hand and shoved it beneath the hem of his shirt. His stomach quivered as she flattened her palm over it, and electricity seemed to leap between them. At the same time, he jerked her shirt and bra up, exposing her breasts to the cold night air. When the chilly air hit her nipples, reality came crashing back. What was she doing? She couldn't do this. Not with him. Not here. Not now. "Ryland—"

Her protest was swallowed by his kiss, by the desire that plunged through her as he rubbed his thumb over her nipple. Burning need soared through her, tearing her from sanity and plunging her into a world of passion, and desire, and the dark shadows of cravings so intense that nothing mattered but fulfilling them.

He broke the kiss, his mouth moving with heated intention down her body. Over her breasts, over her nipples, down her ribs, over her belly, and then lower.

She twisted in agonized need as he unzipped her jeans. Her hips rose to meet his assault, and then his mouth closed down on her core. The moment he touched her, something seemed to scream to life within her. More than desire, it was like a living thing streaking through her body, tearing her from her own mind and thrusting her into a world of incredible sensation. She twisted beneath his assault, gasping his name as he drew her to the climax—

"Holy shit." Ryland released her almost violently, jerking back from her.

Alarm leapt through Catherine and she jerked upright, yanking her shirt down. "What? What it is? What happened?" As she asked the question, she saw the look of shock in Ryland's eyes. "What?"

"It's started." He gestured to his chest, and she saw that the tip of the creature's tail was a bright turquoise. Just one dot, one brilliant, bright dot where only blackness and his flesh used to be.

"Oh my God." She stared at him in horror. "Why? What happened?"

He gave her a hooded look. "You," he said softly. "I think it was you."

* * *

The violence was seething inside him. He could feel it coming alive, almost like a thousand demons awakening in his flesh. He hadn't felt it in hundreds of years, but in an instant, he was back in that moment as a child, when he'd first felt it. The horrific realization that something lived inside him. Something brutal and terrible. And now it was coming back to life.

"Me?" Catherine was staring at him, her blue eyes wide with horror. "How did I do that?"

Ryland yanked his shirt closed and shrugged his jacket back on. Then he crouched in front of her, searching her stricken face for answers that she had hidden from him. "What are you really, Catherine? Besides the angel of death. What's your relationship to the nether-realm?"

Her cheeks paled, and she shook her head. "No, I—"

"I need to know." His hands almost shaking with the urge to call out his weapons and defend himself from a threat he couldn't take down, he clasped the sides of her jacket and pulled it back over her shoulders, needing to hide her tempting body from him. Just the sight of her flesh made him want to finish what he'd started, but he couldn't risk it. Not until he figured out what the hell was going on. "The only thing that controls the beast within me is the nether-realm, but your kisses woke it up. Why?"

She pressed her lips together.

"Dammit, Catherine! Talk to me!"

She finally looked up at him. "I don't know what it is, exactly," she said hesitantly, her face slightly averted, as if expecting him to lash out at her. "When I was a young girl, I murdered an entire community of angels in my sleep. Every last one of them, except for Alice, my best friend."

Ryland swore. "How is that possible?"

"When I sleep, they take me."

"They? Who?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. Demons? Something worse? I hear whispered voices. A man and a woman. I don't know who they are."

A man and a woman? Shit. He knew who it had to be. He fucking knew. An icy, bitter chill seemed to settle in his bones. "How do they take you?"

She sat up, the truth coming more easily now that she'd started talking. "The light keeps me fed, but if I sleep when my soul is too hungry, I become a predator. That day that I killed everyone, when we came back in the morning, the air was thick with demon stench. Somehow, they link through me. I broke away that night with Alice's help. She has such a beautiful light that she sustained me for a long time." She laughed bitterly. "I actually thought I'd defeated them. How stupid is that?"

"You're not stupid," he said softly. "What happened next?"

"They took…" Her voice broke. "Then they took Lucy," she whispered, tears brimming in her eyes. "It broke me, losing her, and the way it happened. I lost all defenses against the darkness, especially when Warwick had me. I was broken, Ryland. And Warwick, he pushed me so far. Too far. So terribly far. He made me do things that—" She looked at him, her face stark with agony. "I have to find her soon, Ryland. I have to."

"We will. We'll get her." Ryland ground his jaw at the tremble in her voice. What had this woman suffered? So much. Too much. Anger rolled through him, outrage on her behalf. He understood too much about what she'd suffered, because it was so similar to what he faced every day.

"They want me to work for them," she said. "They plan for me to kill every Order member so that the earth is no longer protected. I killed Dante. I almost killed Thano. There will be more, Ryland, and I can't stop it."

Ryland ran his hand through his hair, swearing under his breath at the story that was too much like his. She might not be an actual slave, but she fought the same battle he did, struggling not to become the monster that drove them both. She was trapped, just as he was. "Were you born there? Are you native to that realm?"

"No. My mother was an angel and my father was a human." She closed her eyes. "My parents were killed when I was four. I have this vague memory of something coming during the night, coming for me. My parents protected me, and they died."

Ryland sat down heavily beside her and draped his arms over his knees. "That was the night they got you."

"They," she whispered. "I don't even know who 'they' are."

"I do." He wiped his hand over his brow, surprised to find it slick with cold sweat. "You don't want to know."

"Okay." She didn't argue, and he didn't blame her. He wouldn't want to know either, if he had a choice. "I won't ask. Not tonight."

Ryland was quiet for a moment, digesting her news. It explained much about the dichotomy of who she was. "So, if they're reaching the earth-realm through you, they can use you to bind me." The thought made his skin crawl, and a prickle of foreboding slithered down his spine. He should walk away from her. No, he should run, stripping her of the ability to latch onto him.

But even as he thought it, he knew he couldn't.

She was his key to Dante. And she was the Order's third guardian angel, unable to do her job because the nether-realm held her in its grasp. She needed to be rescued so she could save them all. But he looked down at his chest, as if he could see the dot of turquoise on his flesh through his clothes. "Every minute with you will tie me closer to you, and therefore to them," he said.

"I'm not trying to bind you."

"No. But you are." He looked at the vine stretched between their wrists, at the noose tying him to the person sent to bring him down. What choice did he have? Dante needed him, and the Order needed Catherine. He had to manage the situation and repay his debt. "We'll just have to move fast," he said. "Get in and get out before you can bind me completely to them."

She looked at him, and he thought she was going to ask what would happen after that, when they were free. How would they stop the slide then?

But she didn't ask. She simply nodded. "So, we go in tomorrow."

"No." He stood up, then offered her his hand. "We wake the team and go now. There's no time to waste."

And just as he expected, his fragile, pure, delicate angel took his hand and stood right up, completely ready to go into hell at his side.

* * *

Four hours later, Catherine stopped when Ryland held up his hand in a silent command for them to halt. Thano reined in Apollo. Zach went still, his sai clenched in his right hand as he scanned the sky. The two warriors had not questioned Ryland's decision to move fast when he woke them in the middle of the night, but she noticed that he had not explained about the dragon tattoo on his chest, and had given her a warning look when they'd asked why. Clearly, it was a secret that he wasn't sharing with them. Why had he told her about it? Why wasn't he telling his team? Too many questions, and no opportunity to find answers.

As the party stopped, the dawn was just beginning to break, casting the cold mountains in a swath of gentle light that seemed to bleed hope through the sparse pine trees and rugged shrubs. And with that first breath of sunshine, the vine binding Catherine and Ryland together vanished, freeing them. They looked at each other, and Catherine felt an unexplainable sense of regret, and for a split second, she thought she saw the same on his face.

Then he looked back at his team, taking several steps away from her, putting distance between them the first moment he could. She immediately folded her arms over her chest and raised her chin. How could she feel regret? She needed her space. She needed her freedom. She needed to be liberated to save her daughter when Ryland finally betrayed her, as she knew he would—

Ryland grabbed her arm suddenly and yanked her back over to him. "You will not shut me out," he muttered to her. "Our very survival depends on us being a stronger team than what's threatening us. We stay together. Got it?"

She gazed at him, and felt some of the tension in her chest ease. She nodded.

He flashed her a brief grin, then turned back in the direction he'd been leading them. So far, they'd hugged the river, moving fast, and Catherine had labored to keep up.

Traveling fast solo was one thing, but moving with the Order while they were on a mission was entirely different. They pushed at a relentless pace, with high demands for stealth. She was exhausted and drained, but so happy to see that the sky was cloudless, and they were going to be gifted with a day of bright sunshine.

Ryland went down on one knee and sifted the dirt through his fingers. He then rested his forearm on his knee and looked ahead. After a moment, he called out his machete with a crack and a flash of black light. He wedged the tip in the ground and dragged it through the dirt, making a horizontal line in the earth about six inches in front of him. "This is the border," he said. "This is where the fabric between the nether-realm and the earth begins to thin. Creatures that belong in hell survive in this area, and creatures that belong on earth die."

Apollo stomped his front foot and snorted, while Thano called out both of his halberds. "Excellent," he said. "I love a challenge."

"How do we stop them?" Zach asked. "Saplings again?"

"Depends on what it is," Ryland said. "Some of them, we just have to outrun."

Zach raised an eyebrow. "Outrun to where?"

Ryland flexed his hands, and Catherine could see the tension in his shoulders. "There's a waterfall near the entrance to the nether-realm," he said. "It's a remnant of the purity that once reigned here before the nether-realm leaked out. No harm can befall those who enter it. No harm can be done by those clothed in its purity."

Thano patted his restless mount's neck. "So, that means, once we go in there, we can't defend ourselves against anything until we dry off? Nothing can hurt us, but we can't hurt anything else either?"

Ryland glanced at him. "Yeah."