Page 27 of A Wicked Dance of Obsidian and Light (Echoes of Darkness #1)

A gust of wind slams into my face, ruffling the strands of hair that escaped my braid. I push them back while I inhale deeply. The crisp air feels like heaven after being locked for so many hours in that crypt. Dawn breaks on the horizon, painting the moonless indigo sky in vibrant burnt orange and fuchsia streaks.

“Where are we?” I ask, looking left and right, but we’re only surrounded by overgrown grass and some cars parked to the side that I assume were used by the vampires.

“Bumfuck nowhere,” Malik says before taking a hair tie out of the pocket of his leather duster to tie his hair in a low ponytail at the base of his nape. He and Dominic are walking in front of me and Kaiden.

“We’re three hours outside of Ashville. There’s an abandoned town half an hour from here,” Kaiden juts in. He’s walking so close to me that I can feel the heat radiating from his body. His sensual black cherry scent wraps around me in waves, with a hint of fresh sweat. I resist the urge to rub against him like a cat.

The sounds of chirping crickets fill the air, and droplets of dew stick to my Dr. Martens as we make our way through the overgrown grass. “What day is it? I kind of lost track of time in that crypt. It was early Friday morning, and I was just about to finish my shift when the vampires jumped me in a dingy alley.”

“It’s Sunday,” Dominic answers.

Ugh.

And there goes another one of my weekends.

“How did you guys find me?” I ask.

Malik looks over his shoulder at me. “Tracking spell.”

“Well, um, thank you for getting me out of there. To all of you,” I say. I never imagined dark creatures would come to my aid, ever, especially ones part of the Obsidian Conclave.

They all mumble a “You’re welcome,” in my direction.

“But why?” I ask softly.

Dominic turns slightly, eyebrows drawn. “Why what?”

“Why did you guys track me? I mean, how did you know I was in trouble?”

“I called you a few times, and you didn’t answer, so I came by your place, and your neighbor said she hadn’t seen you in some time, so I got worried,” Kaiden offers.

Why does that make my insides pitch? “Oh,” I breathe.

Malik chokes on a laugh. “Yeah… worried . I thought you were going to level Ashville to the ground, and I swear I saw my life flash through my eyes when the first tracking spell failed,” he mutters, giving Kaiden a pointed look over his shoulder.

Kaiden doesn’t deny any of the things Malik said, he just grunts, and my heart does a backflip as I sneak a look at him. He’s so damn serious. I can’t help but compare this Kaiden to the one when he’s alone with me. He’s so different. It’s as though he’s two different people.

“Pay up, fuckface,” Malik says all of a sudden, breaking the silence.

“Oh, c’mon, you killed what, just one more than I did?” Dominic grumbles, fishing out a wallet from his breast pocket. He slaps a few hundred-dollar bills in Malik’s awaiting palm.

Malik pockets the money. “For your information, I killed two more, thank you very much.”

My eyebrows crinkle as I throw them a confused look.

Kaiden rolls his eyes. “They like to bet on shit. It’s their thing.”

A laugh bubbles out of me. “You bet on how many vampires you would kill tonight?”

Malik turns slightly, smiling roguishly. “Actually, we bet on which of us is the best fighter. Obviously, I won. These fuckers don’t stand a chance.”

Dominic punches him in the shoulder. “Dream on, dickbag.”

They keep throwing insults at each other for a few more minutes until we encounter a dirt road with two cars parked on the side: a truck and an SUV. A massive guy is leaning with his back on the fancy-looking truck, his arms crossed in front of his chest and muscles bulging the fabric of his forest green Henley. The color makes his deep amber skin pop. A mop of artfully messed-up ash-brown curls sits atop his head, the sides buzzed short, and his full lips curl up in a smile the moment he sees us approaching. He must be the wolf shifter.

“C’mon, fuckers, hurry up. Ava’s waiting for me at home,” he says, and then his eyes flick to me. He lifts his chin in greeting, the sunrise-streaked sky reflecting in his honey-colored eyes. “Hey, I’m Logan.”

I wave awkwardly because I don’t know what else to do. “I’m Iris.”

“I know.” He gives me a roguish grin, displaying a row of perfectly straight, pearly white teeth while opening the truck’s back door.

Lifting an eyebrow, I ask, “Let me guess, we met on the night the umbra attacked me, but I was unconscious?”

Logan nods. “Pretty much, yeah.”

“Shotgun,” Dominic calls out like he’s not older than fifteen before climbing in the passenger seat. “I’ll see you around, bella .” He winks at me and closes the door.

“Asshole,” Malik grumbles, sliding in the back. He presses the heels of his palms into his eyes with a weighted sigh. “I’m going to need a fucking week to recover from this.”

Guilt twists my insides. I’m sure my injuries were no walk in the park to heal.

“We have to stop for ice cream on the way. My girl’s craving some mint chocolate chip,” Logan says before rounding the hood.

Malik visibly shudders at that. “Is she going to dip pickles in that too? I mean, it’s bad enough that shit tastes like straight-up toothpaste.”

Logan laughs. “Probably. Yesterday, she had peanut butter on toast with hot sauce and pickles.” He slides behind the wheel and starts the engine.

Malik gags. “Pregnancy cravings are fucking crazy, man. Remind me not to stop by your house at lunchtime anymore. I think I’ll be scarred for life if I see her eat tuna and ice cream again.” He turns his head to look at Kaiden, his hand on the door handle. “Are we still doing the Conclave meeting tonight?”

“Not sure. I’ll let you know,” Kaiden responds.

“’K.” Malik closes the door, and the truck peels off, leaving a dust cloud behind.

“C’mon. Let’s go.” Kaiden places his hand at the small of my back, guiding me to the blacked-out Escalade. He opens the passenger door for me.

I unbuckle my sword’s holster, throwing it in the back seat before sitting down. With a deep sigh, I sink into the comfortable leather chair, then tilt my head back on the rest, eyes closed. They fly open when I feel Kaiden’s body heat. He brushes against me as he bends to snap my seat belt in place. Fireworks go off at every point of contact between our bodies, and I swallow hard when he turns slightly, grazing his knuckles on the side of my face. My pulse scatters.

“I’ll be right back,” he murmurs before dropping a large bottle of water in my lap and closing the door. He pops off. His absence leaves me cold, and I shiver slightly. I take a deep breath, but it does nothing to still my erratic heartbeat as Kaiden’s smell invades my senses. It clings to the interior of the car, warming up my insides.

Fuck me. He smells like sex and sin wrapped into one glorious tattooed package.

I down half of the water in the bottle in three gulps. As I put the cap back on, Kaiden pops out of thin air behind the wheel, throws the SUV into drive, and speeds away. “Alkaline” by Sleep Token plays softly in the speakers, and I murmur along with the lyrics. The cathedral is engulfed in giant crimson flames reflecting in the side mirror as I look through it, so tall they blend in with the sunrise-kissed sky. So that’s what Kaiden disappeared to do.

My sweat-slicked fingers curl in my lap as the familiar dread creeps up in the back of my throat. Shit . Not again. I really hoped that taxi ride was just a fluke, but the car crash flashback fucked me up good. The scenery is a blur in my window as I lean my head on the cold glass. Panic tastes like ash on my tongue as numbness seeps into my limbs. Sucking in a jagged breath and clenching my jaw, I try to keep it contained.

“Iris?” A warm hand wrapped around my upper thigh snaps me out of it. “You need me to stop?” he asks, concern evident in the lines etched in the corners of his eyes and mouth. Tingles bloom from his touch all throughout my body.

“No,” I mumble. “It’s not necessary. The panic usually goes away after a while.”

“Do you want me to open the window? Maybe some fresh air will help.”

I simply nod. I would have done it, but my fingers are so clenched I don’t think I can move them. The window rolls down halfway, and I inhale deeply, trapping the crisp morning air into my lungs while closing my eyes. It cools off my skin as it ruffles my hair. Kaiden doesn’t remove his hand, and I don’t ask him to. His touch grounds me. Keeps me in the present. I don’t know what this says about me, that I am so comforted by a demon’s touch, but I can’t seem to bring myself to care at this moment. He saved me again. He killed for me.

After a while, the dread subsides, and my muscles relax. I don’t think that the way my heart’s thudding against my ribcage has anything to do with my car anxiety anymore, but with the hot demon sitting next to me, his touch burning through my pants. I press the button to roll up the window.

Kaiden’s gaze flits to my face. “Feeling better?”

“Yeah, thanks.” I grab the amethyst pendant between my fingers to play with it, as I often do to distract myself when in a moving car. When the pads unconsciously brush against the onyx choker, I drop my hand in my lap with a deep frown. “Whenever I’m near you, my onyx choker doesn’t signal that I’m in the proximity of a demon. At first, I thought it was broken, and I even changed it for a new one, but now I’m starting to believe it’s because of you. Do you know why this is happening?”

His hands tighten on the wheel. “Might be because of my blood,” he replies, and I wait for him to expand on the response, but he doesn’t.

Then I remember that when I clipped him with my foot in the jaw, he didn’t bleed like a normal demon would. Huh. “I don’t understand. Are your parents a special race of demons or what?”

“Something like that,” he says cryptically.

I resist the urge to roll my eyes at him and opt to change the subject to something else I found weird when Kaiden and his friends came in through the church window, guns blazing. “When you said your warlock friend saved me, I didn’t picture him being a dark magic wielder. I thought only light witches had healing abilities.”

“Malik is just…special.”

Wow. Shocking. Another vague response to which I let out a huff in response. I also want to ask how the hell is Malik able to shift into a panther like that and not even damage his clothes in the process. But I bite my tongue instead. An awkward silence stretches between us. I can’t stand it. It makes my skin itch. Besides, I need to distract myself from another impending panic attack, so I say, “There was a fae held captive in the crypt when they brought me in. Her name is Ophelia. They took her away before I had the chance to escape. Did you know about the fae being back?”

His eyes snap back to the road. “For some time now, yeah. They’ve managed to hide pretty well, though, since they’ve crossed back into the human realm.” He drums a rhythm with his fingers on the steering wheel. “Rogue vampires are hunting them. When we eradicated the flesh trade from the Conclave, it created a void. The rogue vampires took advantage of that and created their own trafficking ring. They pay dark witches to put wards on their hideouts. It’s a fucking nightmare tracking them down. We’re working on infiltrating Dominic to dismantle the ring. It’s been proven very difficult until now, though. This den—we’ve been looking for them for over a year. They’ve been taking other creatures too, selling them.”

“Lia said there were four other fae women with her in that crypt before they took them, and she never saw them again.” I swallow as I fumble with my fingers in my lap. “Jesus, this is crazy. How the fuck did the Order members not know about this? Maybe we could help somehow. It’s sick…what they’re doing. Selling them like meat.”

“The Order and the Obsidian Conclave working together?” Kaiden huffs a derisive laugh. “Do you believe the Order does not know? They don’t fucking care as long as it involves dark creatures. They don’t give a shit about us. They call us lesser beings for a reason.”

I open my mouth, then snap my jaw shut because what the hell can I say? He’s right. That doesn’t mean that this sits right with me. My job in the Order is my whole life, and everything they taught us is ingrained into the marrow of my bones. Still, the injustice for what is happening to the poor fae slithers through my veins like wildfire.

“You’re moving in with me. I’ll take you to my penthouse, and then I’ll arrange for someone to bring all your stuff to my place as soon as possible. Let Grayson know you’ll take a vacation or something, pretend to be sick, whatever you want. I’m the only one that can keep you safe,” Kaiden says matter-of-factly after a few beats of silence.

A surprised laugh bubbles out of me. It dies quickly when I realize he’s not joking. My mouth opens and closes a few times in shock at the words that came out of his mouth. Soon enough, anger replaces the shock, igniting my blood. “Are you on crack or something?” I mutter in disbelief. “Hell will freeze over before I move in with a demon.”

Kaiden pulls back his hand from my thigh, white-knuckling the wheel, and the absence of his touch twists my stomach into knots. His jaw ticks. “You don’t fucking get it, do you? You’re in danger, Iris. Do you think this was a coincidence? I told you someone’s after you. I can’t protect you if you’re not with me at all times.”

“I can protect myself,” I scoff. “Get it through your thick skull, pretty boy. Me moving in with you. Not happening.”

He throws me a scathing glare, his voice dropping down an octave. “Oh yeah? Then how the fuck did you end up here?”

Why does he care so much?

I suck in a serrated breath as realization kicks in. “You knew,” I say shakily. “The vampire that bit me, he told me there’s a bounty on my head. That I’m on Hell’s most wanted list and that he was going to hand me over to the demon that put me there. You knew about that, didn’t you? That’s why you told me to lay low and take a break from my hellseeker responsibilities.”

Kaiden’s jaw ticks, and his grip on the steering wheel tightens, but he doesn’t say anything. I don’t need a response; I can read it on his face.

My nostrils flare, and my fingers curl into fists in my lap. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?” I screech.

“I didn’t want to scare you, not until I knew more.”

“You lied to me,” I seethe.

The vein at his temple looks like it’s about to burst any second now. “I didn’t lie to you; I told you I don’t know who is after you and that I want to find out. I just left that part out. I did tell you that you were in danger and that they were going to come after you again, didn’t I? What the fuck do you think that meant?”

I snicker. “Are you for real? The part that you decided to leave out was pretty fucking important, don’t you think? I mean, hello, there’s a bounty on me.” My teeth grind together. “You’re taking me home. End. Of. Discussion.” Turning my head, I look through the window, refusing to acknowledge Kaiden anymore. If I do, I’m not sure I won’t throat-punch him.

Move in with him, my ass.

“Fine,” he snaps.

My breath slows down, and not before long, tiredness seeps deep into my bones, the weight of the weekend pulling at my eyelids.

A slight jolt brings me back to reality, but I don’t want to open my eyes just yet. I feel safe and warm and downright perfect. Another jolt follows, and I grumble a protest, not ready to wake up. My eyelids crack open at the soft chuckle that makes my whole body vibrate. When the sleep cobwebs finally clear from my mind, I realize Kaiden’s holding me in his arms like a bride, climbing the stairs to my apartment, and my face is pressed against his chest. The close proximity sends my heart into overdrive.

“What are you doing?” I ask groggily, voice thick with sleep.

“Taking you home like you asked.”

I struggle in his hold, but he only pulls me closer to his body. “I can walk, you know; I’m not some damsel in distress. Why didn’t you wake me up?”

He looks down at me, cocking an eyebrow. “Trust me, I tried. You were so deep in it you were snoring louder than a hellhound.”

My mouth opens in shock as the heat crawling up the back of my neck scorches my ears. “I don’t snore,” I harrumph.

Kaiden laughs, and I refuse to acknowledge its effect on me and my heart. “Keep telling yourself that. I never thought something so small could produce that kind of sound.”

“Shut up and put me down,” I fire back, narrowing my eyes at him. How dare he say that I snore?

I don’t, do I?

How would you know, Iris? Knowing would actually require sleeping with someone.

Ugh. I really hate him and his stupidly perfect face.

Kaiden ignores me as we reach my floor, and he cuts through the corridor, sliding me down his body slowly in front of it. I swallow. Hard. An ember of heat stirs to life in my belly, igniting my blood at the way his body fits against mine. His hand gliding up the curve of my hip leaves a fiery path behind. My knees almost buckle when he reaches the apex of my thighs, and his fingers brush over my center slowly. It’s embarrassing how wet my panties get. I suck in a shaky breath as he licks his lips, his gaze roving over my body slowly like a physical caress.

He bends slightly, and I close my eyes as his breath ghosts my lips. My heart is hammering as if it wants to crawl out of my chest to get to him. Kaiden’s finally going to kiss me, and damn it all to hell; there’s nothing I want more at this moment. When his fingers start traveling upward, I almost catch fire. He sneaks one into the front pocket of my pants, fishing out my keys.

My eyes snap open when he steps back, takes my hand in his, and places the keys in my palm with a devious smirk and a raised eyebrow. He fucking played me, and I folded faster than a cheap lawn chair.

Rage burns through me as my fingers curl into fists. I’m so angry and embarrassed that my face is probably the same color as a pickled beet. “I would say it was a pleasure seeing you again, but I would be lying, so kindly fuck off,” I grit out and turn my back to him, jamming the key into the lock so hard I’m surprised it didn’t snap in two.

Suddenly, I’m whirled around as Kaiden cages me in with my back to the door. The sound of his hands slapping against the wood on either side of my head reverberates in my ears. He towers over me, all broad shoulders and taut muscles, his eyes two pools of desire as he dips, traps my earlobe between his teeth, and then licks the bite of pain away. Electricity zips down my spine until I feel the zap in between my legs. My clit throbs in need.

“Oh, angel. I’m going to enjoy so much spanking the sass out of you. I’m going to get your perfect ass so red and your pussy so wet you’re going to beg for my cock,” he growls in my ear. His voice is liquid silk dancing across my skin. He pops off into thin air, leaving me a trembling mess against my door and so turned on I can barely see straight.

I cuss him out as my head falls back and hits the back of the door with a loud thud. I hate the way my body responds to his words. How they leave dents in the thick walls I erected around myself and my heart. How, every time he is near, my body gravitates toward him, unconsciously seeking his warmth. How, out of all the people in the world, I’m dangerously and madly attracted to a demon.

It takes an embarrassing amount of time for me to gather my wits and make my body function properly again so I can open my door. When I finally get into my apartment, I discard my weapons on my entryway table, take my combat boots off, and fix myself a sandwich, inhaling it in record time, even for me. I send a quick text to Sam, letting her know that I’m alive, recounting in a few sentences what went down since the vampires jumped me in the alley without checking the string of messages she sent me.

I don’t have the energy to deal with her dramatics right now. If she weren’t outside the country performing the purifying rituals with her grandmother for the upcoming Summer Solstice, she would have probably already been here chewing my head off for disappearing again on her. Not like I had a choice.

With a deep sigh, I plug my charger into my phone since the battery is at a whopping two percent and stride directly into the bathroom, slowly unsticking the hellseeker gear from my body.

Lethargy pulls at my muscles, and I almost drift off in the shower with the hot water pounding down on me. After an eternity, I manage to wash all the dried blood from my hair, and I don’t even bother blow-drying it as I make my way to the bedroom, draw the drapes over the window before face-planting into the bed, and fall asleep in less than a second.