Darkness Savage (The Dark Cycle Book 3) Read online

  ALSO BY RACHEL A. MARKS

  Winter Rose (novella)

  The Dark Cycle

  Darkness Brutal

  Darkness Fair

  Darkness Savage

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright ©2016 Rachel A. Marks

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Skyscape, New York

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Skyscape are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503950306

  ISBN-10: 1503950301

  Cover design by Cliff Nielsen

  For my daddy, who taught me how to see.

  CONTENTS

  START READING

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  FORTY

  FORTY-ONE

  FORTY-TWO

  FORTY-THREE

  FORTY-FOUR

  FORTY-FIVE

  FORTY-SIX

  FORTY-SEVEN

  FORTY-EIGHT

  FORTY-NINE

  FIFTY

  FIFTY-ONE

  FIFTY-TWO

  FIFTY-THREE

  FIFTY-FOUR

  FIFTY-FIVE

  FIFTY-SIX

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  THREE MONTHS LATER

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Child of Night, born of angels

  with silver blood

  and opal skin.

  Darkness fair, Darkness savage

  now cloaks her soul

  with deadly sin.

  In the twilight, she will rise

  and open eyes

  to worlds that lie.

  Hungry

  to carve castles

  from

  ash and bone.

  Doomed

  to crest the ruins

  of earth

  alone.

  Darkness savage, Darkness atoned,

  what horror now awaits?

  The end

  at last

  has come.

  ~ scribbled on the back wall of a child’s closet ~

  ONE

  Aidan

  Game on, Demon Dork.

  The words appeared several minutes ago as burn marks on the pink paper. A taunt from my sister, Ava. I can’t seem to stop seeing the message. Even as I’m led from the clothing store and as the paramedic looks over my wounds—wounds that are already beginning to heal. Even as I scan the other side of the yellow crime-scene tape the police are putting up, wondering where Kara and Raul went.

  I can only see the words that appeared along the bottom of the note my sister gave me, the note in my back pocket now smudged with my bloody fingerprints.

  Game on, Demon Dork.

  Ava, what have you done? That poor woman . . .

  My vision clouds with the memory of the death, blood spraying across the innocent woman’s face in a red mist as the talon emerged from her chest, the crab-like demon scuttling up her back, perching on her head.

  The cops have been questioning people who were in the store when the demon attacked. They’ve got a cluster of witnesses sitting at the tables outside the coffee shop, across the courtyard of the outdoor mall. Kara and Raul must’ve slipped from the scene first thing and hid as the crazy aftermath unfolded. That’s good—they need to keep off the radar.

  There’s a cop standing just to my left, beside the ambulance, his presence chafing my raw nerves. He’s waiting for the female paramedic to finish cleaning the deep gouges and cuts on my forearm, and then, he’s assured me, he’ll have a lot of questions.

  Questions I can’t answer.

  I should’ve run when I saw the police moving in, but there was so much chaos, and they arrived so suddenly, gathering all the witnesses and looking at me, at my bleeding wounds. Then I heard the store employee talking about the surveillance video, so I was glad I hadn’t run. Runners look suspicious. And I have a feeling that I’m about to be suspect number one as it is.

  For now I’m sitting on the back of the ambulance, surrounded by people I’ll have to figure out how to lie to.

  “You’ll need stitches,” the paramedic says. She looks over to the cop. “He needs to get checked out in the ER. Whatever that animal was, it bit him or something. The wounds are likely to get infected.”

  It wasn’t a bite, I almost say. Scratches—or gouges, I guess. But it doesn’t matter because I can feel my body healing. In about twenty minutes there won’t be anything to stitch. If I show up at the ER with only scars, the doctors will just have questions I can’t answer.

  “I’m fine,” I say. “I don’t need stitches.”

  The paramedic shakes her head at me as she finishes bandaging my arm. Her blonde hair is pulled back in a tight bun, making her delicate features seem more severe than they are. She has a glittering gold mark on her soul, on the side of her neck, just under her jaw: it tells me she’s been saved by an angel before. I wonder if she knows.

  “Can I have a second?” the cop asks her.

  She finishes taping the bandage and rises to her feet, pulling off her blue plastic gloves. “You need to get that checked out by a doctor.”

  “I’ll be fine,” I say again.

  “We’ll see what your parents think about that,” she says before she walks away.

  My insides cringe. Shit, they’ll have to call Sid to come and get me. And the guy is so sick. He hasn’t been able to stray very far from his shed the last few days—since Ava’s return. Whatever his time traveling has done to him, it seems to be getting worse every minute. Eric insists that there’s nothing we can do to stop Sid’s deterioration, but I can’t give up yet.

  The cop steps forward. “So, it appears that you got the best view of what happened.”

  I look him over, his dark-blue uniform, his belt full of weapons; the leather squeaks when he moves. I don’t deal with cops. I usually just hide from them.

  When I stay silent he adds, “I’m Officer Matson. What’s your name?”

  “Aidan.”

  “Do you have ID, Aidan?”

  I nod, pull my license out, and hand it to him. My fake license that Sid got me. I guess this’ll be a good test to see if it works.

  I swallow and try to hide my nerves, focusing on the officer.

  He’s the same height as me, about five eight, and his dark hair is slicked back in a clean, tight cut. His eyes dart from my ID
picture to my face, then stop to study intently the marking on my unbandaged left arm.

  “So, Mr. O’Fallan, what did you see happen?” he asks.

  I saw a demon kill a woman. “There was some kind of weird animal—maybe a dog?” I give him my best confused look and let my nerves out a little to help my voice shake. “It attacked the lady, killed her. I’ve never seen anything like it.” I swallow hard as I recall the woman getting impaled in the chest in front of a pants display. No, I’ve definitely never seen anything like that. “Then the thing came at me, jumped right on me when everyone was running out the door.” I lift my bandaged right arm.

  “Then what happened?”

  Then I stabbed it with my dagger, and my power turned it to ash. Because that’s totally normal.

  I hid the dagger in the waist of my pants, so it’s not like they caught me with it, but I’m sure they’ll see that I fought the demon—animal—in the surveillance feed. And as much as I don’t want to mention the blade, the story has to fit. “I, uh, stabbed it. And it ran off.” My pulse picks up as I wait for his reaction.

  His look hardens. “You stabbed the animal?” His gaze rakes over me again. “Do you have the weapon?”

  I lift my shirt to show him the hilt.

  He steps back a little, out of arm’s reach. “Why don’t you hand that over, then. For evidence.” I pull it out in the least threatening way I can, and he waves another deputy over. “Bag that, will you?” He motions to the blade.

  The second cop takes the dagger with a gloved hand and slides it into a plastic bag, then seals it shut as he walks back toward a cop car.

  “There was no blood on that blade,” Officer Matson says. “Can you tell me why that is—if you stabbed the attacking animal?”

  Because it burned off. Of course, even if my power hadn’t destroyed the demon’s blood, the cop wouldn’t have known it was blood; he probably would’ve thought it was tar or something.

  “I cleaned it off,” I say, “before I put it away.”

  He studies me, obviously aware I’m not telling him the whole truth. But instead of pushing the point he says, “So, you stabbed the animal, then what happened?”

  “Then I . . . I guess the ambulance got here, and you guys. It all happened pretty fast.”

  “Yes. I’m sure.” He holds up my ID between two fingers and says, “I’m going to go check something. You sit tight. I’ll be right back.” He turns and heads in the same direction the other cop went.

  I watch him walk away, and I try to breathe, to slow my heart rate. I consider attempting an escape, but I’m pretty positive that would only end me up in a larger mess. There’s a dead soccer mom. They won’t let that go with a surface investigation. They’ll want answers.

  Dammit, what sort of shit storm has Ava tossed me in?

  A harsh whisper comes from my right. “Aidan.” I turn, and Kara appears from the other side of the ambulance.

  “What are you doing?” I glance back toward the cop. “You shouldn’t be here. This is bad news, Kara.”

  “Which is why you need to split before it gets worse.”

  “Can’t. They have surveillance footage.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  “Yeah, not good.” I take her hand in mine, selfishly needing the contact to calm my nerves. “Where’s Raul?”

  She steps closer and leans into me. “He’s waiting for me at Barney’s Beanery. He said he needed chili.”

  “Chili always helps.”

  “You gave the cop your ID?”

  “Yeah, hopefully it works.”

  “Sid’s guy is the best, hands down. Mine always works fine when I get pulled over.”

  I give her a sideways look. “That happens a lot?”

  She winks at me. “Enough.” She seems to recall why we’re talking and releases a sigh. “I called Sid. He’s ready for whatever.”

  “You should go, then. You don’t need to get dragged into this.”

  “Just give me the keys to the car, and I’m in the wind, babe.” She leans in and kisses me, insistent and urgent, then pulls back an inch and whispers, “Don’t let ’em crack you.” One more quick peck on the cheek as she takes the keys to the Camaro, and she’s slipping away, back into the ordered chaos.

  I sit alone for a few minutes, and Matson returns. “The paramedics are going to take you to the ER to get that arm checked out.” He hands me my ID, then pulls out a small pad and pen from his front pocket. “I just have one more question. My colleague described some things from the video, namely that it appeared you had two companions with you. A male and female. What were their names?”

  “I, um . . .” Shit. “I don’t know their names. They were just some kids off the street. I was buying them clothes.” I suck at lying.

  “How nice of you.” And he doesn’t believe any of it. He makes a note on his pad. “You’re sure about that?”

  I nod.

  He eyes me for several tense seconds before saying, “Okay, then. Can I get your contact information, in case I have more questions?”

  “Uh, sure.” So I’m not being held for more questioning, that’s good. I tell him my address and cell number, and give him Sid’s, too, for good measure. The whole time I have to suppress the urge to lie. Better to tell the truth wherever I can. And I should probably leave it at that, but I can’t help prodding a little. “So, do you know what the animal was?”

  He looks up from his notepad, and his eyes meet mine. “It wasn’t clear in the surveillance footage, more a blur than anything. Whatever it was, it was small.” Maybe the view in the footage wasn’t any good. No red spark lights his eye, so he isn’t lying about the lack of clarity.

  “There was something that didn’t go unnoticed in the video, though,” he adds. “Apparently there was a point where it looked like you could’ve run with your companions, but you didn’t.”

  I just stare at him like I’m waiting for him to say more. My anxiety shifts back into high gear; I have a feeling my lack of fear in the video during the “animal” attack didn’t go unnoticed, either.

  “Also, something went wrong with the feed around the time the animal came at you; a glare in the camera. Seemed to make you blink out of the footage for a handful of seconds.”

  My pulse speeds up as I realize what that glare was; it must’ve been my power lighting up my mark. And it somehow made the camera unable to see me correctly?

  All I can manage in response is a shrug, because my brain is going a hundred miles an hour. I never considered how my fiery power might look on camera.

  “So, is there anything more you’d like to add to your story?” he asks.

  I shake my head.

  He studies me for another few seconds and then nods. “I’ll contact you if I have more questions.”

  I watch him walk away, and wonder if I should forget going along with the system and just run. But in the end, I sit on the back of the ambulance and wait for the paramedics to take me to the ER, hoping Sid will be able to come get me before they notice I have no real reason to be there.

  TWO

  Rebecca

  I sigh and lean my head on Connor’s shoulder as we watch a wave roll up the beach toward us. Just before it reaches our toes, it pauses, then slinks back to tuck itself into the tide again. I take in a deep breath, the scents of salt and sand and sunscreen filling my head, the smell of Connor’s skin surrounding me. I revel in the warm sunlight, revel in the calm that settles inside of me whenever I’m with him.

  That peace is so scarce now.

  “I need to head out soon,” he says, his voice breaking the stillness.

  The familiar shadow resurfaces inside me at the thought of leaving his side.

  “Not yet,” I whisper, closing my eyes.

  So many things seem to be keeping me unsettled; my fear of what’s changed, the hole in my gut since I left the LA Paranormal house, since I passed on my anointing—or whatever it was that linked me to Aidan. I gave that part of me to Kara. I chose to
do it—it was my idea to begin with—but now I’m a little scared. What if I gave her everything about me that mattered?

  I still haven’t tried to draw again. I’m terrified to pick up my pencils because it could be gone, that piece of me that was special, that allowed me to escape everything that’s happened, my mom leaving, and Charlie . . .

  “Aidan and I promised Sid we’d check out a job tonight,” he says.

  I try not to sound bummed. “You’re still worrying about working, even with all the stuff going on with Aidan’s sister?”

  A seagull hops closer to our bag of snacks, and he flicks sand to shoo it away. “We need to make money. As Sid says, ‘The show must go on.’ Not everybody has a millionaire dad to pay the mortgage.” He nudges my shoulder playfully.

  His words sting a little; a reminder that I don’t fit in his world.

  “Wanna go for one more swim?” he asks.

  “Sure.” I attempt enthusiasm, but I’m afraid it’s not there.

  The ache is returning just thinking of going back to my empty life where I have to pretend.

  He stands and holds out a hand to help me up. I take it, letting him pull me close. His other hand grazes the bare skin of my back, sending warmth spreading through me. We haven’t done anything more than kiss; Connor is a perfectly frustrating gentleman. I wish sometimes that he wasn’t so careful with me, but I think he’s afraid. He’s always saying I’m out of his league, and I’m starting to worry he really believes that.

  “I hate to be a typical guy,” he says, wrapping me in his arms, “but you look pretty amazing in that bikini.”

  “Glad to hear it,” I say, sliding my fingers over the lines of his arm muscles.

  He lowers his lips to mine, kissing me softly as his palms slide down my sides—

  A shocked laugh comes from my right. “Oh. My. God!”

  I snap to attention, stepping away from Connor, and spot Apple approaching with Samantha behind her. Connor grips my waist, not letting me get away.

  “Emery,” Apple coos, calling me by my middle name, reminding me who I’m expected to be, “you little slut.”

  Connor’s arm muscles tense against my back.

  Samantha gives a small wave. “Hey, guys.” Her mousy-brown hair is tied up in a sloppy bun, and she’s got a billowy blue cover-up on that could put her in a vacation magazine highlighting a trip to the Bahamas. I know she’s wearing it because she’s trying to cover a beautiful body that she thinks of as fat.