Page 120 of The Dark Rising
“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.”
