Page 16 of Releasing Darkness

As soon as I made it outside, I threw back my head and stared at the deep purple of the night sky. There were no clouds to block the two moons that were slowly rising from either direction on the horizon. Legend had it that the two moons were once deities who had fallen in love against the will of the other gods. They were punished harshly, being made to watch over the realm as the demons below found their fated mates, while they could only look at each other from afar. The only time they ever came face to face was in that one magical moment when the moons crossed paths. For that one very brief moment each night, they became one again.

I shook my head and blew out a heavy gust of air. It was okay. I had been without a mate for centuries. I didn’t need a man now. Maybe I would finally give in and start dating once I got back to the Earth realm the way everyone had urged me to do for so long. Then I shook my head when I remembered that was no longer an option. For as long as Varos was alive, he was the only male I’d ever want.

I stalked away from the opening of the cave, feeling a mixture of hopelessness and regret. I wished things could have been different between us. I obviously felt the draw to him as my fated mate, but it was more than that. I was attracted to him on a visceral level. I appreciated his rugged handsomeness. I understood his bitterness at being a prisoner. I could sense his longing for his brothers. And as much as he projected anger at hearing that his brothers had found their mates and even had a child, the deep longing and even happiness for his brothers was there. I knew there was so much more to discover about Varos, but just what I’d learned so far, I liked.

I continued walking, much further than was necessary, needing to get away from the turmoil that my mind and body seemed to stay in while in his presence. I scanned the land as far as I could while also stretching my senses. There were no dangers nearby, either demon or beast. I spotted a large boulder in the distance and headed in that direction, needing a place to stop and simplybe.

After climbing to the top and settling on a relatively flat spot on the boulder, I hugged my knees to my chest. Turning my head to the side, with my eyes on the cave far in the distance, I rested my cheek on my knees. It was there that I allowed my hopes and dreams to rise to the surface.

I had never said it out loud to anyone in my life, but my greatest and most secret dream was to have babies. I wanted a lot of them. I longed to be a mother more than almost anythingelse. Only the dream of being loved deeply and passionately surpassed my longing for motherhood.

Everyone looked at me and saw the warrior. They knew me as the tough female who had no need for romance or companionship. On many levels, they weren’t wrong. It was just that those deep desires I kept hidden from everyone only ever existed alongside my hope for a mate.

As I sat on that boulder, I stared at the loss of a future I had hardly dared to consider a possibility. The hope had flared to life for the briefest of moments but had so easily slipped through my fingers as easily as the water from that pool in the cave. I felt the loss of the dream in my heart. I could truly say that the pain was the worst I had ever felt. My soul was screaming, and though my eyes remained dry, the pressure in my head grew and grew until I could no longer hold in the pain.

I turned, pressing my face against my legs, and screamed. I screamed so long and so fiercely that by the time the last echo of my pain faded from the night sky, my throat felt raw and bloody.

I had lost track of how long I had been sitting there on that boulder. I let out a deep sigh and struggled to my feet. My body felt as if it weighed a thousand pounds. I wished I could find a spot and curl up into a ball and sleep for a month. Maybe that was exactly what I would do once I made it back to Varek’s home with his brother.

The walk back to the cave seemed to take twice as long as the trek to the boulder. Once I saw the entrance, I came to a stop and looked up at the sky to see that the two moons were about to cross paths. I stared, fixated as the silvery orbs crept closer at a steady pace until they became one. Within seconds, they began to part ways, continuing on their individual journeys. I let out a shuddering breath and let my shoulders drop in defeat. If two deities couldn’t be together with the one they loved, what hopedid I, the daughter of one of the most horrible monsters in the Underworld, have?

The soft trill of Max coming from the corner where he’d holed up after going into a food coma welcomed me back, and I gave him a small smile. I didn’t dare look toward Varos. My succubus nature was still deeply in need of sustenance and didn’t help the situation any. My only hope was that I could keep pushing it back until I made it to the Earth realm before I did something we both regretted. After I delivered Varos safely to his brothers, I would take a room in the sex club of Brimstone and lock myself in. There, I would get all the sexual energy I would need, and I would make sure I was never this depleted again. I was realizing that having my mate near was making the hunger worse, far faster than I had ever experienced or anticipated.

I strode through the front room of the cave and straight to the pool. I stripped off all my clothing, being careful with all my blades so as to not lose any in the dim lighting of the bioluminescent plants. Once I was naked, I did what Varos did earlier and jumped in, feet first, grateful that the bottom wasn’t so deep that I couldn’t stand.

The water was shockingly cold, making me shiver immediately. I’d swam in colder water on Earth, back before modern technology became a thing and bathing tubs were more abundant, but it had been a while. While I scrubbed furiously at my skin, which had been itching with the dried blood and caked-on dirt, I clamped my jaw closed to prevent my teeth from chattering.

I made quick work of washing myself without the aid of soap. It was just one more thing that I was kicking myself for not thinking of before running headlong into this quest of finding and retrieving Varos.

With shaky arms, I hefted myself out of the cold water. There was nothing to dry myself with, so it was a struggle to pull my jeans back on. I thought of how the moisture had made Varos’s pants cling to his legs and clearly outlined his cock. When I pulled my shirt over my head, I was trembling for a whole different reason. It seemed I didn’t need a visual of the male to turn my libido on. All it took was the memory of the brief glimpse I had of his long, thick…

Nope. I wasn’t going there. I had to focus on what was important, and that was surviving the wilds of the Underworld, evading any guards who might be looking us, and getting back through the portal.

I gathered up my jacket and the undergarments I didn’t want to put back on and slipped into the front room. This time, I couldn’t help but allow my gaze to find Varos in the darkness. The fire had died down to just burning embers. I made a mental note to grab more wood from the pile I had left outside. It was a pleasant temperature inside, but once the fire was out, it could get much cooler by dawn, and Varos had no clothing.

I grabbed my satchel from the ground, noting that it appeared to have been riffled through, and bit back a grin. I figured he wouldn’t have been able to contain his curiosity. I was surprised he hadn’t taken the clothing I brought for him. I would have to give them to him in the morning. I was sure he’d be more comfortable.

After adding more wood, I carried the satchel to the other side of the fire and sat down, adjusting the bag so I could use it for a makeshift pillow. It wasn’t the best or most comfortable way I’d ever slept. But, again, I’d had worse. Varos, obviously more so than me.

Once I was settled with my jacket draped over my torso and my head on my satchel, I searched in the darkness for Varos again, only to find his gaze already locked on me. A violenttremor rocked through me at the way his black eyes traced over me from my long, wet braid, down to my bare toes.

As heat flared to life in my belly, nearly burning me inside out with its intensity, I bit my lip so hard I could taste the coppery flavor of my blood. I squeezed my eyes closed, taking deep inhales to center myself, trying to push back the need for sex. The sound of a shifting body had my yellow eyes jerking back open.

“You are hungry.” It wasn’t a question, and I was glad to hear that much of the painful raspiness had gone, though his voice was still much rougher than either Varek’s or Valen’s. I wondered if it would ever fully heal, or if the injury to his vocal cords was so severe that getting nourishment after being starved for so long would never fully heal him. A part of me wished that it wouldn’t. Because, that rough, raspy voice? It made me shiver in the most delicious ways.

“I ate,” I whispered. And I had. Not much, but I wasn’t starved like he was. I’d also eaten the night before.

He shifted again, forcing my eyes to track every slow movement as his wings flexed and the shadows danced slowly around his figure. So his wings had healed as well. That meant his ribs should be back to normal. It was too dark to see, but I was curious if his broken horn had grown back yet.

“Your succubus,” he practically purred, his voice making me think of a lion seducing his lioness. “She’s starving. Isn’t she?”

I shivered again and pulled the leather jacket tighter around my shoulders. Before I could admit or deny his words, he spoke again.

“Don’t lie to me, princess. I can taste your pheromones on the air. When was the last time you had sex?” The last words were said in a lower, deadly tone. The menacing quality to them instantly had the fine hairs on my body standing on end. It was impossible to forget that I was in the presence of a deadlypredator. He was, if not fully healed, close to it and would be a formidable foe for anyone.

“I-I haven’t,” I whispered again.

“You haven’t fucked anyone in so long that your succubus is starving.” He cocked his head to the side, studying me. “Why would you do that to yourself? You know you’re beautiful. You would draw men to you—just like the deadliest flowers in the Underworld draw their victims in before they suck them dry.”

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