Dark Destiny (Dark Sentinel #1) - Lexxie Couper Page 0,45

was blasting up the beach. How could the man’s hair not be moving? And come to think of it, why didn’t he throw a shadow? What the hell was going—

The man had turned his stare from the surfers out on the waves to Patrick, and before Patrick could blink, the unmistakable hum of a million insects filled his ears and the undeniable stench of dying flesh filled his nose. Thick and cloying.

A soft groan vibrated up Patrick’s throat and he’d gazed back at the man, his gut beginning to churn. Something was not right with the man. The wrongness rolled from him in thick, suffocating waves Patrick couldn’t see but sensed all the same. Something beyond Patrick’s ability to understand and yet he understood it all too well. Understood and accepted it with calm terror.

This man was the “something” Ven constantly warned him about. The “something” chasing him his whole life. The “something” of his nightmares.

This man was—

The Disease.

The title—no other term described the two words—had screamed through Patrick’s head in a deafening whisper, almost drowning out the roar of the insects. The man smiled, yellow, jagged teeth glinting in the cold sun, and a wave of sickness had rolled through Patrick. He always remembered that jarring sensation whenever he thought of this moment: one second he’d felt fine, the next he wanted to throw up.

The man’s smile stretched wider, revealing more teeth. An impossible number. All jagged, all yellow. All dripping viscous saliva.

Patrick’s stomach had lurched. His flesh grew clammy. Cold sweat beaded on his forehead, his upper lip. He frowned, swallowing convulsively.

The man had watched him, smile growing, teeth elongating, the very air around him writhing with infection and the tiny bodies of a million locusts.

Before he could stop himself, Patrick had sucked in a breath and it painted his mouth and the back of his throat with the stench of illness, decay and putrescence. His stomach had rolled. A violent shiver claimed his body. Sweat leached from his pores, icy beads of opaque moisture stinking of the smiling man before him.

Yes.

The man’s smile had turned into a smirk, his pale blue stare never wavering from Patrick’s face.

Yes.

Patrick’s knees had buckled, his body shuddering, burning up. His stomach rolled and churned and flipped, his mouth flooding with sour bile, acrid saliva. Insects crawled all over him, in his eyes, his nose, his ears. Heart thumping, pulse pounding, he’d rammed his palms to his knees, forcing himself upright. If he collapsed to the ground he would drown in his own vomit. Of that he’d had no doubt. He had to fight. He had to fight the sickness and the swarm trying to overwhelm him. He couldn’t let them overpower him.

The man in the black suit with the lank hair and the yellow teeth continued to smirk, his blazing blue eyes locked on Patrick. Refusing to let him go.

Sucking a shaky breath and a thousand bugs in through his nose, Patrick had stared back. Whatever fucked-up battle he was in, he was losing. The memory of that realization stung, even now. His life spent being chased by something in his dreams, his brother killed for reasons he’d yet to understand, and it all came down to this. This man and his radiating disease and flying insects. This beach. This frozen, icy moment. Fury had rolled through Patrick. Fury and fatal understanding. He’d never felt so sick. He’d never felt so weak. Weak. Fuck, he felt weak.

The man’s smirk became a grin. A saliva-dripping grin of triumph. Yessssss.

Patrick had gagged, staring at the man through a curtain of locusts, incapable of looking away even when his stomach wanted to erupt from his body. He’d never wanted to throw up as much as he had then. He was going to choke on the diseased crap his stomach ruptured up his throat and he couldn’t stop it. He was going to drown in his own blood-tainted, insect-filled vomit and he welcomed it. At least when he died he would no longer feel so sick, so ill. God, he felt so fucking sick. Jesus, please let him just drown in his vomit so he could—

“G’Day, Wato!” A young boy had run up the beach, surfboard tucked under his arm, his face flushed with joy.

Ricky! Patrick had shouted, but nothing came from his mouth, his throat choked with vomit and bile and bugs. Jesus, Ricky. Run away. Go!

“The surf’s a bitch today,” Ricky had called, running straight for the smiling, shadowless man. “Knocked me on