SWNOVELS The Dark Rising: Chapter 44
as he comes out of the bathroom, steam billowing behind him as he rubs his hair with a towel. He’s fully dressed, and I suddenly realize that I haven’t once seen him fully naked since my heat.
He notices my glaring eyes, roaming before he meets my eyes. “Morning, little wolf.” He smirks down at me, and my anger spikes.
“Don’t ‘morning little wolf’ me, you prick.” I walk over to him and kick him in the shin. I’m barefoot, so I doubt it does anything. “Don’t you ever fucking lock me in a room again.” The soreness between my thighs has me shifting on my feet, and Darius eyes the movement, a gleam to his eyes.
“Are you sore?” I huff. “Ahh, sore but satisfied,” he rumbles. “Good.” Damn male.
I move over to the bed and sit on the edge, everything coming back to me from last night. Darius was true to his word and didn’t let me rest all night until I passed out, until I woke up with his cock still inside of me. I rub a hand against my mouth.
I killed Maize.
I didn’t control myself and get information out of her, I didn’t ask about Kade.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
“Hey.” Darius is in front of me now, looking down at me with worry in his eyes. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter. Gods, what did I do?” I bring my hands up to cover my face. I was reckless, I shouldn’t have killed her and kept her alive. She could have been my chance to get Kade, to find out if she knows where the rest of my pack are. But I was too far gone with thinking about her and Darius together, about them…mating.
I couldn’t stop the rage, the need to end her.
Hands grab my own, removing them from my face as Darius crouches before me. “Would it have been better that Maize was still alive, yes. Would it have been better to interrogate her to gather information, also yes. But, little wolf, when I sent her up to that room.” I tense, and he reaches for my thighs, squeezing them. “I was going to do those things anyway.” My brows furrow, and he sighs. “I was ordered by the Highers to mate with her.” A growl bursts free from my throat before I can stop it. He chuckles, I glare. “I agreed at that moment, because if I didn’t people would get hurt.”
“Who?” I whisper. He says nothing. “Who, Darius?”
He sighs. “My men, and Kade.” My heart lodges in my throat. They are hurting Kade, my fear of that now a reality. And his men once again, held over him to keep him in line. I swallow roughly as Darius stokes down my thighs. “I didn’t want that, so I agreed. I didn’t expect Charles to turn up here, or Maize to be with him to mate. I told her to come up here to this room where I planned to get as much information out of her, under the guise of eventually mating with her. That was never going to happen,“ he says forcefully, needing me to hear him. I look into his eyes and see no lies there, only see the truth. But is he just saying this? Can I trust his words? “Believe me, little wolf, I wouldn’t touch her like that. Just like I told you.” I think back to how he helped me calm down. I think back to his reaction to her death. He wasn’t angry, only angry that I put myself in danger. I nod at him, and he releases a breath. “When I had the information from her, her head was mine, but you got there first. How did you get out of our room?”
“I undid your power.”
His jaw ticks. “Smart. Dangerous, but smart.”
“What happened, tell me everything.” My hands clench in my lap
“Charles knows Sarah is missing. He wants me to look for her again, that I have no choice but to do so. He knows I’m pulling away from him, from his authority, but I don’t think he knows why.” That’s good, at least. “He keeps threatening to make me a Higher, to take a seat.”
“Wouldn’t being a Higher help us with what we are trying to do?” I ask.
He thinks for a moment. “No. I would be bound to Charles if I became a Higher. I would be in an oath to protect him, to not harm him. Which defeats the point of what we are trying to do. I also don’t want to become one, as I’ve told you. Even more so now after finding out that my father was involved with whatever Charles is doing. What they are all doing.“ His eyes darken, rage brimming underneath the surface of his skin. “My father, what did he do?”
I look away. I don’t think this is the time for this conversation.
“Rhea, tell me.”
“It will do no good, Dar.”
“I’ve been thinking around over and over in my head. I’ll go mad at this point in wondering.” His hand on my chin brings my face toward his. He rubs his nose against mine. “I want to know, I have to know.”
“There are more important things to—“
“Nothing is more important right now,” he says, and my eyes widen at the intensity of his words. He pushes me back against the bed and crawls over me, slotting himself between my thighs. He runs a hand through my hair, playing with the strands as he waits for me to speak. My hands tentatively come up to his sides, laying them against his ribs over his t-shirt. We don’t do this, just touch for the sake of touching unless we are fucking.
It feels like he needs it now though, maybe I do too.
“Tell me,” he says gently, and it’s with that gentleness that I cave.
“He came a few years after I was captured,” I begin. “I’m not sure, I didn’t really keep track of time. I didn’t know how, but I think it had not long before been my tenth birthday. They used to torment me every birthday. He came with Patrick and I thought…” I trail off, my head moving to the side to avoid his eyes. He grips my chin and pulls me back, his eyes imploring me to continue. “I thought this is it, I thought this could be my chance. That he is here to help me, to save me from my family. But he didn’t.” He strokes a thumb over my jaw, probably sensing the rising emotions within me. Runa comes to the surface, and I feel Darius’s wolf coming closer beneath his skin. “He unlocked my cage and said everything would be okay, so I went willingly to him. But as soon as I stood from my cage, he laughed, shoved me toward the table in the room and started barking orders at the others that were there.” Power slides out of Darius instantly, but I’m not frightened. Black mist like smoke curls around him and flows onto me, roaming, reassuring. I take a deep breath and move my own below the surface, greeting his. He shakes with rage, and I grip on to his ribs harder. “He would be there as the others… test me. He would be in a corner, writing things down, giving instructions, laughing along with them as I would cry for my mom.” A tear slips from my eye, and the room shakes with Darius’s power. “He didn’t touch me other than to place me where he wanted, but he didn’t help me, Darius. He encouraged them, just like they all do when they weren’t participating.” He closes his eyes briefly before leaning forward and rubbing his nose with mine.
I blink out of the memory of their laughter, their cruel, cruel laugher that used to ring in my ears constantly for years after I escaped. I don’t want them back.
“If I could kill him with my bare hands, Rhea, I would. Father or not, blood or not, I would do it.”
I think about everything I have found out so far concerning Darius, and I think he would. He made it possible to escape Wolvorn, he didn’t capture me in the village and took out the one who he assumed knew who I was. He hasn’t once revealed I am here to anyone and helped get Sarah back, is helping me now to make things right.
My eyes bounce between his as my brows furrow. He’s so full of anger toward his father, toward what he has done to me. I can feel his need to rip things apart, to hunt and kill like I’m the one with these feelings.
I think my enemy would destroy the lands and put it at my feet if I only asked him to.
“What happens now?” I ask, moving on from the feelings swirling around inside my chest. With Maize dead, the Highers aren’t going to like that.
He sighs. “I think we can get away with Maize being gone under the guise that she is… busy with me.” I frown and he chuckles. “You know she is dead, little wolf. No need to pout.”
“I’m not pouting.” Am I?
He says nothing and continues. “With that, we can hopefully keep the Highers none the wiser, and continue with what we set out to do. Find those that were taken and get Kade.” I nod. “In the meantime, we still need that memory crystal, and to look for the plane of the Gods.”
“I don’t even know where to begin,” I sigh, slumping down further into the furs.
“Well, the library is a start.” My ears perk up at that.
“You really have a library?” I lean up on my elbows, excitement running through me.
“Of course.”
“Why haven’t I seen it then?”
“We have been busy with other things. We need to lay extremely low for now, so what better time to start searching than now?”
“What kinds of books are in the library?” I ask as he pulls me to my feet.
“Many kinds.” He looks over my body. “As much as I like our enemies’ blood on you, you need to clean up.” Our enemy. Not mine, but ours.
I look down and my nose twitches. I may want to spill the blood that has done wrong, but I don’t want to bathe in it. Though looking at Darius’s intense eyes on me, I don’t think he minds at all.
He nods toward the bathroom. “I have some things to do and then I’ll take you there.”
“What things?” I wonder, and then a thought hits me. “Does it have anything to do with you sneaking off in the middle of the night?”
He pauses. “You’re supposed to be asleep.”
“And I wake when you are not here.” I hate to admit that, but it’s the truth. I feel it as soon as he leaves the room.
“I didn’t think you would wake up,” he murmurs quietly. “I will stay with you for the night so you can sleep.”
I shake my head. “What is it that you are doing that you need to leave in the middle of the night?”
“It’s something you don’t need to know.” I raise a brow. “Trust me, little wolf. There is no need for you to know, or I would tell you.”
“But—“
The door closes behind him as he leaves, and I’m left to wonder again where he is going.
Next time, I’ll find out.