to the doorway and took the dagger blade side in my hand. With speed and precision, I pulled back and threw. The point buried itself in the wood inches from his head. How I missed, I wasn’t sure, because I aimed for the middle of his high-and-mighty forehead.
I pitched forward as a heavy foot made contact with the back of my knee. I twisted as I fell, landing facing my assailant. Reaching out, I grabbed the offending foot and turned it sharply. Anya’s startled form flew in an acrobatic roll before she crashed to the floor beside me. I reached an arm to the ceiling and jerked, bringing the full force of my elbow down on her chest. I owed her a hundred times over, and payback is a bitch.
My training finally proved useful. I rocked back and kicked hard, propelling myself from the floor to a standing position. Dragging her sorry-ass, leather-covered body beside me, I brought up my knee and sunk it into Anya’s stomach, eliciting a grunt, before I threw her back and kicked again, this time at her ribs. It was when I reached to pull at a hank of her long, flowing hair that I felt a soft touch at my shoulder.
“Stay your hand, Darian.”
“Maybe not,” I said, “but it sure feels good.”
I had forgotten about Xander, having become so enthralled with giving Anya a proper beating. But I noticed from the corner of my eye that he stood. As Raif asked, I refrained from further damaging Anya’s not-so-gentle form. That’s not to say that I didn’t accidentally stomp on her instep when I brought my foot down.
“Who’s the mark?” I shouted at Xander. “I want his name.”
“Darian . . .” he said in his infuriatingly soothing voice.
“Who?” I screamed this time. My chest heaved with my breath, and I felt the sting of angry tears behind my eyes. The rush of rage through my body was tangible; I heard it in my ears and tasted the gall of it on my tongue. “Azriel!” I shouted. “It’s him, isn’t it? There’s no magic weapon but me!
I didn’t care what Raif thought of me at that moment, and I sure as hell didn’t care what Anya thought. I was too pissed to care about anything. “Azriel isn’t dead, is he?” So many lies . . . first from the very one who made me, and now from a king, his
“Leave me with her,” Xander said. Raif helped Anya from the floor. The door closed behind them, and I was left alone with the King of Deception.
Rounding the desk, he came to stand before me. He looked deep into my eyes and laid his hands on my shoulders. He sighed.
“Don’t,” I said, bringing my arms underneath his, brushing his hands from me. “I know what you’re doing, and it’s not going to work this time. I don’t care how beautiful you are or how sweet your voice sounds in my ears. I’m done with you, and I refuse to allow you to seduce me into doing anything for you. Magic blade, my ass.”
He took a step back. “I never told you there was a magic blade. That was Azriel’s lie. My only sin is that I withheld information. I never played you false.”
A lie by omission was still a lie in my book. My anger boiled to the surface again. “Pretty talk,” I said, “and nothing else. You never played me false, but you played me, all right. Not anymore, though. You can go to hell.”
“I need you,” he said.
“Fuck you,” I answered.
“He’s banded with the Lyhtans and is gathering an army. He plans to overthrow me, and if he succeeds, it will be the end of our existence as we know it.”
“So what?” I said. “I’ve existed for a century without
“Oh no?”
“How was I made?” I asked the question, determined to get an answer this time.
Xander looked to the floor. It was the first time I saw him truly uncomfortable. “Those of us who are strong enough can make another. I know of only a few that can do it, Azriel being one of them. An exchange is made between two souls, creating an ethereal connection that changes you forever.”
“How,” I said. “Tell me how.”
“In essence, he would have taken a part of your soul into himself, and in return, given you a bit of his own to replace the empty space.”
“In essence?” I shrieked. “Bullshit! I want details.”
“He might have seduced you. It usually happens during moments of passion, such as love, longing, or even anger. It would have been a simple act, though not simple to perform. With just the joining of your mouths, bodies, spirits, you would have opened your heart to him, and that’s all it would have taken. A window of opportunity for him to extract that small piece and replace it with something of himself. It is not only physical in nature, but metaphysical as well. It would have taken a moment of strong emotion for the exchange to happen.”
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” I said, turning my back on him. “You’re trying to tell me an exchange on a spiritual level effected a physical change. It’s impossible.” I would have fallen for a bite or drinking blood. Hell, an STD would have made more sense than soul exchanging.
“I understand your skepticism,” he said. “It’s a very rare occurrence. I know of only three who have been made, including you. You must have been particularly receptive to the change.”
“Receptive . . .”
“Receptive, meaning that maybe your life wasn’t a wonderful thing and you longed for a new life, a different existence. Or maybe you were truly in love with him.”
I snorted in disgust. “You still didn’t tell me how it was done.”
“At night, in his shadow form, he would have passed through your body. The exchange is made at that moment. What do you remember from the last night you were human?”
“Not much,” I said. “I remember him, the brief time we were together before it happened, and the time we were together afterward. But of the actual transformation, I remember nothing.”
“There must have been a shadow on your soul, Darian.” His voice slithered around me in false, empty warmth. “You were a shadow of a human; that’s why it was so easy for you to turn. You were one of us before you ever realized it.”
I turned to face him. I hated him more now than ever. He’d managed to draw me from obscurity, connect me to others like me. And I’ll be damned if I didn’t, in some deeper part of me, crave to belong to something. Because of that I knew—against my better judgment—that I would stay this course.
“Will you do this terrible thing for me?” he asked, taking my hands in his.
I looked away. “I’m leaving now,” I said, low. “I’ll meet Raif tomorrow night, and I want
Xander drew a deep breath. I cut him off before he could speak, saying in a strong and determined voice, “I wish Tyler was here to pick me up.”
Tyler never disappoints.
Delilah was gone when we got back to my studio. Tyler must have sent her home. It’s not like I missed her. I’d never thought her skinny ass would have been much good for anything anyway.
The ride up the elevator had been nearly intolerable. Ty’s gaze flitted back and forth from the floor to my face and back again. Though he didn’t say a word, I had the feeling volumes of prose sat on the tip of his tongue. I’m sure he wanted to talk—share oodles of feelings, clear the air. But I didn’t have it in me. I’m not big on sharing or feeling, for that matter. Plus, I was still mad that he’d kept his true nature from me for so long. So the last thing I expected to do was go after him like a carb-starved dieter after cake.
Which is exactly what I did.
He waited in the lift and stepped out right after me. His delicious smell floated on the air, his body close enough for me to feel a static tingle in the space between us.
My mind raced with almost incoherent thought. Memories flooded my consciousness, some from my human life and others from my Shaede existence. I thought of Azriel more than anything, and a hole opened up where my heart should have been, threatening to swallow whatever was left of my soul.
I couldn’t stand it. The pain, the memories, the heartache were too much. I’d gotten used to my gray, stoic
