Drowning In The Dark - Pippa DaCosta Page 0,10
he still half human, or was he something else now? Akil had said Stefan was lost, but I didn’t believe it then, and I didn’t believe it now. “Do you hear Akil?”
He paused, listened, tilting his head slightly. “Not anymore.” He grimaced. “Why is that?”
I’d promised never to lie to Stefan, but I couldn’t help wondering why he was there. He was the Prince of Wrath, and he had debts to pay, scores to settle. Akil was vulnerable. “He’s otherwise engaged.”
A quiet settled over us, disturbed only by Jonesy’s purring. Stefan watched me watching him. I deliberately roamed my gaze, taking in his casual appearance. There was a difference in him—a stillness—but it wasn’t something quantifiable. His very presence gave off a low-level charge, like the electric tension in the air prior to a lightning storm. The more I looked, the more it occurred to me that I might not know this new Stefan at all. Power destroys people. Stefan had survived things that would have killed most or at least driven them insane. I barely held into the last thread of my sanity. He’d already let go of his. I swallowed hard. My pulse fluttered and beat in my ears. “Am I talking to Stefan or his demon?”
This time, the smile barely masked a tightly controlled wince. “You’re talking to me. You’ll know it when he’s in control.”
Did he know how I feared him? Feared for him? “So why are you here? You didn’t come back for the ice cream…”
“It feels good, being back.” He dropped his head back against the couch cushions and closed his eyes. “It’s too easy to forget in the netherworld.”
I knew that feeling. It tempted me every waking moment: the lure of freedom. I could look at him now and kid myself that everything was fine. Relaxed like he was, he almost looked the same as he had when we’d first met. He’d been quick to smile then, cocky and over-confident. Now he was too still, pulled tightly like a rubber band about to snap. “You said you needed my help…”
Stefan sighed and opened his eyes. “Yeah, I did. I do. Do you still have the file Adam gave you? The one about the half bloods they have?”
“Operation Typhon. There’s not much in it. After they failed with you and me, the Institute kept their half-blood experiments tightly controlled. They locked Subjects Gamma and Delta away. I don’t know where they’re keeping them.”
Leaning forward, he rubbed his hands together and drilled down the easy-going attitude, replacing it with the keen-eyed glare of an enforcer. “Does it say what they’re like? Mentally? Physically?”
“A little. They’re obedient.” Unlike us. “More demon than human. Not particularly powerful. Yet.”
Stefan hesitated a beat, just enough to jolt my heart with the thought of what was to come. “There are three half-bloods in the netherworld, controlled by your brother, Valenti. He’s about to release them on this side of the veil. Probably right here in Boston. Once the half bloods have annihilated the military response and created chaos, the remaining princes will step through the veil, bringing half the netherworld with them.”
It was so much, so suddenly, and delivered so effortlessly, that all I could do was stare, open-mouthed. The princes were indeed coming, and they had half-bloods: all-powerful, messed-up-in-the-head half-bloods. I tried to think of something to say, some wonderful words of encouragement, a way to sweep the implications aside, but all I came up with was, “Oh.”
CHAPTER FOUR
I woke to the sounds of someone rattling around my kitchen cupboards and the smell of cooking bacon. I was either being burgled by a hungry thief, or someone was in my kitchen, cooking breakfast. That someone could only be Stefan. He’d left me the previous night, saying he’d be back with a plan. I’d waited, but after two hours, exhaustion had gotten the better of me. I didn’t sleep though, not really. Sleep was a luxury I no longer had. The nightmares had come the way they always did, dark, twisted things, so deep, so hungry, they were almost alive enough to exist once I snapped open my eyes and listened to my own scream ringing in my ears.
I threw my legs over the edge of the bed, tossed on some jeans and a sweater, and trudged from my bedroom into the kitchen. And sure enough, there he was, brewing coffee, frying bacon, and making toast. He’d ditched the stolen sweats for jeans and a button-down, dark blue shirt. Rolled-up