his every muscle tensing at the mention of a demon witch. His mother was out there somewhere, running around performing a demon’s errands all because of him. Beyond help. Beyond saving. At the mercy of a demon. Naturally he wondered if they were talking about his mother. Could this Darius be after her?
“Who are you talking about?” he repeated.
Darius ignored his question. A slow smile curved the lycan’s mouth as he surveyed Darby. “Smart little witch, aren’t you?” He nodded once, seemingly satisfied. “What’s your particular gift? Something useful, I imagine?”
Instead of answering him, she said, “You can’t kill her, you know. Not without potentially screwing us all. If you’re truly good, how can you want that?”
The corner of his mouth tipped. “I never said I was good.”
She scowled. “It’s not true, you know. Killing a demon witch doesn’t reverse her curse.”
Niklas blinked in surprise at this statement, even if Darby was alleging it to be untrue.
She continued, “If you kill a demon witch, you unleash her demon on the world. Plain and simple. The demon will roam freely in corporeal form!” she reminded Darius sharply.
“Yes.” He cocked his head consideringly. “I have heard this.” He nodded his dark head in a mild way, clearly unaffected by the possibility. “I don’t believe it though.”
“What don’t you believe? That killing her will free her demon? It’s true. And there’s no proof that once you kill the witch, her curse lifts.”
Niklas whipped his gaze to Darius. “Is that true? If you kill the demon witch who started this curse, you end the lycan curse?”
“No!” Darby snapped. “Don’t listen to him. There’s no evidence this is true. It’s a myth.”
“There are many myths,” Darius countered, that slow smile there again. “Myths of lycans, witches, demons …”
Angry color flooded Darby’s face at this well-made point. “Well, your theory is truly myth.”
“I believe the answer lies in finding Tresa.”
“Leave her be,” she insisted, spacing out her words.
“I can’t do that.” He motioned a hand, encompassing himself it seemed, or maybe the world at large. “She’s responsible for all this and for whomever you’re hiding in that room that you’re trying to shield from me.”
Darby stiffened and scooted to position herself closer to the door, the fear once again all over her face that he would go after Aimee.
“Well,” Darius pronounced in that eerily polite way. “As delightful as this has been, I must be on my way. Sorry to barge in on you both.” He looked at Darby. “And I’m sorry if I frightened you.”
Niklas returned to himself then, asking himself if he was really going to let this lycan leave. Lycans deserved death. This was a rabid animal that needed killing.
His hand moved to his weapon. Darby’s hand met his there, her chilled fingers covering his, stopping him. She shook her head swiftly at him.
Her presumption nearly pushed him over the edge … until he reminded himself he never fell off any edges. He never lost control. Could never take such a risk. Never would.
The lycan was almost out the door when Darby rushed over to him and boldly laid her hand on his arm. Something burned up inside Niklas at the sight. He had to force himself not to move, not to react.
“Please reconsider,” she pleaded. “Leave Tresa alone. If you’re truly the reformed lycan you claim to be, then leave her be. You can’t risk humanity.”
He smiled again and there was a touch of sadness there—if such a thing were possible for a lycan. “My existence is a risk to humanity.”
“So that makes it okay to risk mankind even more?” Niklas couldn’t stop his disgusted snort. If this lycan could decide not to kill and feed, then he could decide to leave one witch alone. Especially if doing so was the right thing to do.
At that moment, the temptation to put a silver bullet into the bastard hit him harder than ever. Darby’s hand dropped from the lycan’s arm and some of the killing hunger pumping through him abated.
The lycan lifted his gaze to Niklas, and it was so knowing, so smug—as if he knew that every fiber inside Niklas was urging him to violence. Clearly, Darius knew—he felt Niklas’s rage, tasted it on the air. He knew. And not just because he was a lycan, but because he’d lured Darby in … because she’d touched Darius without fear—with an open heart.
With a final nod, Darius left.
Darby closed the door after him, hugging herself as if she were suddenly cold, bereft without