Turn to Darkness (Offspring 5.6) (3 page)

Chapter Three

“S
O HOW DOES
it feel having that sick son of a bitch out of your hair?”

Shea turned to Darius, who was handing her another plate from the table. Her stomach twisted as she took it from him and scrubbed it. “I’m relieved that he won’t be bothering me anymore. But it was a horrible way for it to happen.”

She rinsed the plate and set it in the rack. The man being mauled by someone who turned into smoke and then a beast, according to the lone witness, was scary enough. Because that sounded like Darkness, and the only people she’d known with it were the four men in her life. That had been gnawing at her all evening, the coincidence of it. Or, rather, that it couldn’t be a coincidence.

He handed her a bowl. In his chair, his head was at her chest height. Thankfully he never leered. “I did it for you, Shea.”

She dropped the bowl, and it clattered in the porcelain sink. Her eyes wide, body stiff, she turned to him. Because he looked so matter-of-fact, she thought she must have misheard him. “What did you say?”

“I killed him. Good thing, too. You heard that cop. He probably would have escalated. I cleaned the pictures he’d taken of you and letters he’d written out of his computer. I’m sorry I didn’t find that unmailed one or the other pictures the cop mentioned. I didn’t want you dragged into this.”

She banged her hand against the faucet, turning it off. It felt as though cold water had been dumped all over her. The kitchen shrank so that all she could see was Darius, looking so pleased with himself. Like he’d just told her he’d fixed all the broken things in her house .

She swallowed, choosing her words carefully. Keeping her expression blank, too. “How did you know the stalker was Fred?”

“I kept an eye on your house. You said the guy left his presents at night, so I took up a vigil to catch him. And I did. He crept up to the house and peeked in your bedroom window. He couldn’t see anything; I checked to make sure. Your curtains were pulled tight.”

Her hand went to her throat at the thought of not only Frankie peering in her window but Darius, too. The violation of it churned her stomach.

“He was like a weasel, creeping around, trying the doors. Then he set the package you never saw on the door stoop. I followed him to his place and stalked him the same way he was stalking you, getting a feel for the layout of his house, where his bedroom was. When he fell asleep, I slipped into his house.”

Darius morphed to the smoke he’d obviously taken the shape of that night. Those with Darkness could choose their shape. Tucker was a wolf, Greer a panther. She hadn’t seen Darius’s chosen “animal” because he usually didn’t go with the guys to the desert to run out their Darkness.

Darius took the shape of a man, lean but muscular, though his essence was like black liquid. Standing way too close. “I knew he was dangerous, and that, despite the fact that you tried to hide it, you were scared. I felt such rage when I watched him sleeping in his bed, all pleased with himself for tormenting you. I couldn’t help myself, just tore into him. He saw me; that was the most satisfying thing. I told him why he was going to die.” Darius laughed. “You should have seen the look on his face. He thought he was having a nightmare. Even pinched himself. Then he pissed himself. I didn’t give him a chance to beg or scream. I—”

“Darius, you shouldn’t have.”

Water dripped from her fingertips to the linoleum floor, making a
splat
with each drop. She looked into his dark eyes, swallowing what felt like the sponge that was sitting in the sink.

His energy bristled. “ ‘Shouldn’t have’? Are you kidding me? The guy was going to rape you.
I
saved you.” He pointed to his chest. “Not Tuck, not Greer.
I’m
the one who sat outside in the dark for hours waiting for the bastard.”

Becoming a stalker, too. She wasn’t going to point that out, though. “I have powers. I’m not helpless.” She hadn’t known that back when those men held her down while the third one climbed on top of her, shoved his way into her body. She could have sent things psychically across the room.
That
would have ruined their mood. “You left yourself, and us, open for trouble.”

He slammed his hand down on the counter. “You’re supposed to be grateful. Maybe you would have defended yourself, but you didn’t have to deal with that. I saved you. I took risks, yes, because when I saw what he was doing to you, what he was going to leave next, I knew I had to take care of the problem. For you.”

He had murdered for her. Now he reached out, touching her cheek. She stiffened but forced herself not to move away.

“Shea, when you get over the shock of it, you’ll see how much I care about you. That I will do anything to protect you from anyone who threatens you. It’s my nature.”

His hand felt cold and smooth against her skin, but even scarier, she saw only shadows in his eyes. She shivered.

“Don’t be afraid of me, Shea. I can love you. I can be everything you want.”

She knew she had to be careful with him. His mood could change with a hair trigger. Everything she and the guys had suspected about him was true. She wrapped her fingers around his cool hand and pulled it away, unable to stand the feel of it for another second. “This doesn’t change what I told you earlier.” She released his hand. “I’m damaged goods. I don’t want love or anything that goes with it. You’ll find somebody who will love you like you deserve.”

She couldn’t force words of gratitude from her throat. “I need to clear my mind.” She walked away, down the hall to the tiny back porch.

His voice called after her. “There’s only you, Shea. I don’t care if you’re damaged.”

She wasn’t good with confrontation. Turning away, moving out, were her ways of leaving a hot situation. She knew she was doing that now, but she would have to deal with Darius sooner or later.

She turned on the light and opened the small cabinet where she kept her tools. Her collection of bonsai felt like friends, and she desperately needed some normalcy and quiet right now. She sat down at her workbench and started pruning. She wanted to call Greer, to tell him what Darius had said. What he’d done. Not while Darius could hear.

Greer wanted her, too. Though it tangled inside her, she wasn’t afraid of him. Even if he turned into a black beast. Why would two men possibly want her?

Greer cared about her. He was even willing to work through her hang-ups. He’d been so damned perceptive.

She did want
him
like that. Hopefully her flat statement had killed those thoughts. Guys and their egos, after all. That was why he’d backed away from her last time.

A shadow caught her eye, and she saw Darius, back in human form in his chair, at the French door leading out to the porch. She kept her focus on her plant, looking as though she were doing something vitally important like brain surgery.

He moved away, getting the message. For now. He wanted her because he wanted her. His primal urges, or maybe because she was probably the only woman who would understand and accept him for what he was. No matter that his desire for her wasn’t rooted in real feelings, like Greer’s. No, because Darius had no feelings. When he’d dropped his bomb, expecting her to fall over in gratitude, he had nothing in his eyes. No emotion, only a flatness. The only hint of real emotion was his glee at murdering that man.

Darius was going to be a problem. She tried to turn her thoughts to the one bright spot—her mom had called. Shea wasn’t ready to completely open the door between them, but hearing her concern helped.

Tuck had called, too, after Greer let him know about the detectives’ visit. Thankfully, Greer hadn’t told him about the rape, or if he did, Tuck said nothing. He offered to come over, but Shea told him she’d be fine.

She turned to the night that surrounded the porch. Was it her imagination that she felt someone watching her? Her stalker was dead—she shivered—thanks to Darius. And he was inside. So why did she feel eyes on her?

D
ARIUS WAITED FOR
Shea to get over the shock she obviously felt over what he’d done for her. He let her work on her stupid little plants, giving her space like a good guy would. So when she came back in, he expected her to approach him as he watched television in the living room. He would have liked for her to have gotten to her knees in front of him, her hands on his thighs, and told him how much she appreciated what he’d done. Or better yet, showed him. He smiled at the thought of her mouth on his body. Even the parts he couldn’t feel, like his legs and his feet, because watching her would be gratification in itself.

Instead she looked all tensed up as she leaned into the room. “I’m going to take a shower and go to bed. See you in the morning.”

Not even a good-night. What the hell was her problem? Okay, he knew she was repressed, guarded. But damaged? Why would he, of all people, care?

He heard the shower start. The place had one bathroom, located in the hallway. He wheeled up to the door. What if he came in, took control of the situation? Maybe if he wrapped his body around hers, she’d give up whatever stupid illusion she had about herself and give in.

He bristled at the thought of Greer with his hands on her earlier. Darius guessed that whatever had happened between them was of a sexual nature. Fury slid through his veins like poison. He took a breath, reminding himself that they weren’t together now, even though the big son of a bitch was sure trying. Playing all
let me comfort you
. Dammit, being in a wheelchair sucked. He could take Greer, Darkness to Darkness, but in human form, his disability made him unable to do things like pull Shea into his arms or step into Greer’s space when he was trying to be proprietary.

Bastard.

He wished the guy would die in a fire. Sure, everyone would think he was a hero, but then Greer would be out of his hair.

What pissed him off the most was their conversation out by her truck. Whatever they’d been talking about looked intense. He was touching her face, forcing her to look at him. Touching her. Darius gritted his teeth. He would never make her look the way she had when she’d come back, all kinds of sad. Whatever Greer was doing to her had to stop.

The sound of water hitting her body brought him back to present. It had him wondering how she was damaged. She kept herself covered, even in the heat of summer. Did she have scars all over? Folds of skin from sometime in her life when she weighed three hundred pounds? He had to find out, because it would drive him crazy until he knew for sure. Until he could see her, touch her with his hands.

He morphed to smoke, sliding beneath the door. The room was steamy, hiding the trail of smoke he was as he snaked up the wall next to the shower curtain. She was making little grunting noises, which made him think she was getting off. Maybe she was thinking of him.

Except she wasn’t. She was scrubbing so hard her skin was red. And holy hell, what a body she had. Not an ounce of fat or a fold of extra skin anywhere. Her skin was pale and creamy, where she hadn’t scrubbed it to death. She was turned away from him, giving him a view of her splendid backside. Damn, she was tiny. It stirred his possessive instincts even more. Stirred his lust, too. He wasn’t impotent, though women seemed to assume he was. He hadn’t gotten many chances to prove it.

He would prove it to Shea. She would come to want him as much as he wanted her.

She turned suddenly, as though she sensed him there. He pulled back, sliding under the door just as she jerked the shower curtain aside with a
screech
. He was settled on the couch when she emerged a short time later.

She was wrapped in a thick robe, hiding what he now knew was a luscious body. “You didn’t come into the bathroom just now, did you?”

“Of course not. Why?”

She shivered. “It felt like someone was in there.”

He turned so he was fully facing her. “I would never do something like that.”

She flinched rather than looking relieved. “Great. You know, too.”

“Know what?” he called, but she was already stomping to her bedroom. She closed the door.

He looked at the door for a few minutes. He’d be invited in there soon. It was only a matter of time.

Chapter Four

G
RAVES WOKE WITH
a start at a tapping noise. He realized he was still in his car, parked on the street across from Cheyenne’s house, and that it was dawn.

He started to turn toward the person tapping on his window. The police? Had someone reported a suspicious vehicle? Stupid, falling asleep here.

It was Frost’s face, though, beyond the dark tinted glass. He came around to the passenger side and got in, sinking the car a bit with his bulk. All muscle, too. “Torus has been trying to get in touch with you.”

Graves reached for his phone. Dead. “What did he want?” He plugged it into the car charger. He needed to come up with some reason why he hadn’t been looking for Elgin and Bengle.

“The police identified a person of interest yesterday.” Frost nodded toward Cheyenne’s house. “But I see you’ve already figured out who it is.”

He’d watched her work on her tiny plants, then returned to his car. He’d told himself he couldn’t take her out with someone else in the house; someone who also held their DNA. When, in truth, he should have killed her and then gone inside to kill whoever was with her. He’d decided, though, to keep her out of the whole hunt. To spare her. Even though he probably would never approach her, he liked that a part of him was out there.

“The girl didn’t kill Callahan. But I’m thinking someone in her life did. I’ll take care of this. Any luck finding your offspring?”

“Some. The woman I used to see the most, she’s dead. But she did have a son. No one seems to know anything about him, though, other than he took after the mother’s Native American looks.”

“Find him.”

Frost’s mouth tightened. “I’ve been working on it.” He tipped his chin toward the house. “What about the girl? Is she one of us?”

“She doesn’t have Darkness.” He had a gift for picking up the vibration of those from their dimension from a distance. Darkness had a heavy feel, one that now filled the car. “I haven’t been close enough to sense her vibration, but I don’t think she is.”

“Then how do you know she doesn’t hold Darkness?”

Having Frost there was complicating things. “I just know. Go find that kid, Frost. I want this over.”

“Yes, sir.” He reached for the handle but his gray eyes focused on something beyond him.

The front door opened and Cheyenne stepped out. She wore a baggy shirt and pants and a baseball cap, a far cry from the picture of the teenager with a tight tank top that revealed breasts too large for a small frame. Her vibration rolled over him, as it had last night.

A man in a wheelchair rolled out behind her and down the ramp. So he probably lived there. Boyfriend or husband. And one of their kind, too.

Relief surged through Graves. “He’s one, though, and he holds Darkness. It makes sense. His girl is being harassed, he goes after her stalker. We take care of him and we’re done with this.”

“Sounds good to me. I’ve already paid for my mistakes once.”

At her truck, Cheyenne looked over at them. The first person to get suspicious of his car being parked there, and it had to be her. Graves started the engine and pulled away.

“Holy hell,” Frost said, his head turning to keep staring at her. “That’s your kid, isn’t it? I saw her eyes. She’s one of us, and since you’re so eager to dismiss her—the high and mighty sensor—I’m betting you were screwing around with the humans, too. But you didn’t get caught.” Resentment clipped his words.

He gave Frost a pointed look. “I don’t have any offspring.” He picked up his phone and called Torus. “I think we’ve found our guy. He’s in a wheelchair but I’m sure he is perfectly mobile—and deadly—when in Darkness. We’ll wait for him to either be alone at the premises or go somewhere where we can take him out, nice and clean.”

Frost snatched the phone. “Torus, Frost here. We found two of them, actually. The person of interest is this guy’s girlfriend or wife, and she’s one of us, too.”

Graves gritted his teeth. He heard Torus say, “Excellent. Take them both out. But first, interrogate them, make sure they’re the ones who killed Callahan. I want to be sure.”

“Yes, sir.” Frost finished the call and set the phone back in the center console.

“Why did you do that?” Graves asked, keeping his voice modulated.

“If she’s one of us, she has to die. That’s our orders. And since she’s not your daughter, it shouldn’t matter to you.”

Graves’s hands tightened on the wheel as he turned around to take Frost to his car. Before he killed the man. Now that Torus knew, the girl would have to die. He couldn’t take a chance on being found out. Being demoted was as bad as being castrated.

The guy’s car was gone. The girl’s truck was heading down the street in the opposite direction.

“Follow her,” Frost said, forgetting who was higher in the chain of command.

Graves was on shaky ground, though. He didn’t want Frost to even suggest to anyone that the girl might be his daughter. The best he could do was kill her quickly, mercifully.

He did follow her, because he had no good reason to oust Frost from the car, as he wanted to. She pulled into a fire station fifteen minutes later. He cruised past, circled around, and then came back. She was outside talking to another guy, this one built like the brick kicker next to him.

Frost laughed. “Whoa, she’s got one at home and one on the side. Hot stuff.”

Graves had the odd desire to defend her, but hell, he didn’t know. They weren’t kissing. Looked like a tense conversation. An unhappy one.

“She’s not going to leave the husband,” Frost said. “Can’t dump a guy in a wheelchair. How would that look? Harsh as hell.”

“Shut up.”

“Whoa, aren’t we touchy?” Frost leaned close to Graves, watching the two of them. Excitement came off him in waves. “Is he one of us, too?”

“I’m trying to sense the guy. Can’t do that with you yapping nonsense.”

He put out his sensors, picking up two distinct vibrations. Not many could differentiate. Usually they picked up a vibe in general. Graves was a connoisseur of vibrations.

“That’s your son,” he said. “I sense your kind of vibration. Darkness.”

Frost leaned even closer as they passed the station. “Native American, like the woman I was banging. All right, so we’ve got three. That ought to make Torus happy. One of them has to be the killer. I’m so ready for this to be done.”

They’d banded together, somehow finding each other. He was happy that his daughter had people to protect her. Now he was going to have to kill them.

W
HEN
H
ENRY HAD
waggled his eyebrows at Greer and told him he had a visitor outside, the last person he’d expected to find was Shea. She looked tense and dark and wouldn’t talk to him until they were alone. He led her around to the side of the building where they’d have privacy. Morning sun slashed down and heated the bricks.

She wore no cap, but her hair was tied back in her standard ponytail. As soon as they stopped, she turned to face him. “Darius did it. He killed that guy,” she whispered, even though no one was in sight.

The words hit him. “He what?”

She nodded, glancing around. “He told me last night. He said he did it
for me
. He hung around outside my house and followed Frankie Callahan home. He doesn’t know about . . . the rest of it. What happened, why Fred was harassing me. He was probably too busy worrying about being caught when the detective showed up to catch what he said.” She wrung her hands. “I had to tell someone.”

A mix of feelings hit him: anger, fear, and wonder. “First, you need to move back into the house. I don’t want you there alone with him.”

“What would I tell Darius? I said he could stay with me for two days.”

“You think he’s going to move out tomorrow? He’s going to play whatever card got you to say okay the first time. Shea, he’s not there only because he has no other place to go. He wants a lot more than a place to stay. You get that, right?”

She wrapped her arms around herself, shifting her gaze away for a second. “Yeah.”

“Did he try anything last night?”

“No, other than stating that he wanted more. I told him very clearly I wasn’t interested in . . . that kind of thing. He thinks he’ll change my mind and that I should be down on my knees grateful for what he did. Then there’s the detective. He clearly thought I or someone related to me might be involved. I don’t want him tracing me back to Tuck’s house. I don’t want you involved either, especially now that I know one of us did kill Callahan.”

Greer’s mouth tightened. “Darius isn’t one of us. Not really.” But he had to ask, “Why didn’t you go to Tuck? He’s your go-to guy.”

She blinked. “I . . . thought of you first. Because you were there when the detective came over, I guess.”

It warmed him in a way that shouldn’t have. “Does he know . . .”

She shook her head. “I don’t want anyone to know. About anything. Did you tell any of the guys about walking in on me?”

“No.”

She blew out a breath. “Of course, that’s the least of my worries now.”

“There’s one way to get Darius to move out.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m moving in.”

Her face paled on that, which sucked away the good feeling. “I don’t want you guys to get into an altercation. He’s a murderer. And he’s scary.”

“All the more reason to move in. I can handle myself. I’ll bring a cot over, tell him I’m going to stay close because . . . I’ll come up with some reason. It’ll piss him off, but I’ll make damned sure he leaves.”

“I hate to bother you—”

He touched her chin, something he’d done earlier, too, without thinking about it. “It’s not a bother, Shea. I’m here for you.”

He still couldn’t believe what he’d learned yesterday. All night it haunted him, kept him from sleep. Now he understood so much more about her. Yeah, he wanted to kill the guys who’d done that to her. He could relate to Darius’s rage, and yet, Darius thought the guy was only a sick stalker, a stranger.

All Greer wanted to do was hold her and protect her. For a few minutes, at her house, she’d actually let him pull her into his embrace. She’d felt so damned right there, that rightness pulsing through his body. It was hard to let her go.

“I’d better get to the job site,” she said.

“The one you showed us on Durango?”

She nodded. “It’s about done. The owners return from an trip tomorrow, and I was so excited for them to see it.”

“ ‘Was’ excited?”

“Am.” She brushed her stray curls from her forehead. “This has really been messing with my head. Everything.”

Did “everything” include him?

She turned away from him, nothing new. Her frown deepened, though. “That car. I swear I saw it parked across from my house this morning. It’s a common car, and maybe I’m being paranoid, but—”

The fire alarm pealed. His body tightened reflexively. “I have to go. Don’t dismiss anything that buzzes your radar.” He caught sight of a beige car pulling away but couldn’t see who was in it. “Could be the cops, but we can’t assume anything right now.”

“Be careful.” She with her big violet eyes looking at him like that . . .

He planted a kiss on her forehead. “I will.” Then he ran into the station.

The building wasn’t far away, a long-abandoned warehouse. There was a chance that vagrants were inside. No matter that they didn’t belong there, he would do his best to get them out.

The flames roared as they moved in. Once inside, he searched for any signs of people living there, as well as eyeing the structure itself. This was a suspicious fire, no doubt. After clearing the area, he started to turn back, wading through the smoke that filled the space. Something hit him hard.

A column of smoke billowed around him, taking advantage of his momentary off-balanced state and pushing him to the floor.

What the hell?

Darkness. Had to be. He fought it, kicking, punching as its hands or whatever they were gripped his neck. In his fire gear, he couldn’t maneuver as well. Smoke filled the place, flames licking closer. Someone was calling his name. One of his colleagues. He couldn’t see a thing, which meant neither could anyone else. There was no choice but to morph to Darkness, breaking out of the hold his opponent had on him. As Dark beast, he wasn’t as affected by the heat and smoke, and he could move a hell of a lot easier. He prowled, looking for his attacker. There, in the roiling smoke, he saw a face, indistinct but its eyes were fierce.

It rushed forward, clamping onto Greer before he could move out of the way. They rolled together on the floor. Greer couldn’t see the form, only felt the claws sinking into him. He slashed at it with his fangs, tearing into the odd texture of Darkness. It screeched in pain and jumped back. As soon as Greer got to his feet, it threw him against the wall. He bounded up, racing toward the smoke he thought was his enemy—and rammed right into one of his colleagues.

He morphed back to human, grabbing Wesley’s hand and helping him up. “Sorry, I couldn’t see you. I was getting the hell out of here.”

“That’s what I came in here to tell you to do. The place is going to collapse.”

They ran for the exit, timbers cracking and exploding into sparks. They joined the rest of the crew, fighting the fire. All the while, he watched for any smoke that didn’t look normal.

There. He saw a trail of it sliding just above the ground. He couldn’t do a damned thing about it either, only watch it disappear around the building.

Once they had the fire under control, leaving one of their men as the fire watch, they returned to the station.

Greer approached his superior. “Sir, I’ve got to check on a friend who’s in trouble.”

“Would this friend be the young woman who came by the station house?”

“Yes, sir. I’m sorry, I can’t explain, but she may be in danger.”

“Go. But keep your phone handy in case we need you.”

“Thanks, sir.”

He jumped in his Jeep, not even taking the time to wash off the soot. Someone had tried to kill him. Which meant they could all be in danger. He called Tuck and told him what happened at the warehouse, adding, “Keep your eyes open.”

“I will,” Tuck said. “I’ll call Shea.”