Scorched by Darkness: Eternal Mates Series Book 18 Read online

  Hartt stared wide-eyed at where she had been and then his gaze snapped to her. Relief filled it, his chest heaving in a sigh as he saw she hadn’t gone far.

  The only reason she hadn’t left him was because she still wanted answers. She told herself that on repeat as she faced him again, as she tipped her chin up and stared him down, waiting for him to talk.

  He sucked down a breath that stretched his wet black knee-length jacket across his chest and exhaled hard.

  “Iolanthe is the reason I am an assassin now.” He glanced back over his shoulder in the direction of Underworld. If he meant to leave it at that, he was going to find himself on the receiving end of another burning touch from her, because she wanted the truth. The whole truth. No matter how ugly it was. He sighed again and rubbed a hand over his hair, tousling the wet strands, and then ran his palm down his face. “Millennia ago, our parents decided we should marry. I courted her and thought things were going well… until she left me at the altar on the day of our binding ceremony.”

  “Is that a mating thing?” She couldn’t hold back that question, needed to say something so she could ignore the squirming sensation in her stomach, one that made her want to tell him to stop so she could spare herself the pain.

  He frowned again. “Mating? No. Iolanthe isn’t my fated one. Kyter is her fated mate.”

  But he had loved her anyway, and judging by the look in his eyes, the pain that brewed there, what she had done had hurt him deeply.

  “You wanted to marry her.” She wished she hadn’t put that out there, wanted to take it back but he answered before she could do it.

  “Yes. I wanted to marry her.”

  “Because you love her.” She fought the urge to take another step back or teleport before he could answer that one.

  She needn’t have worried, because he dodged the question.

  “I left the elf kingdom shortly afterwards, and wandered Hell, looking for a purpose. I met Fuery when I returned to my home to see my family and we ended up in danger.” His breath hitched as pain glittered in his eyes and she refused to feel bad for him. Something which became increasingly difficult as his jaw tensed and he looked as if someone had just ripped his heart out, and that feeling she’d had that he had lost members of his family too swept through her again. “A fallen angel attacked the small hamlet where I grew up, a short distance from a farming village. He used some kind of enchantment to seal the area, stopping us from teleporting, and wiped out the other two families. The bastard butchered them. I tried to convince my parents and brother to leave, that I would distract the fallen angel while they ran for it. My mother was terrified, too scared to move. Before I could convince her, the fallen angel burst into our house.”

  She wanted to ask what happened then, but held her tongue, clinging to her mood, refusing to let the tragedy of his past soften her heart. Even when it was. The damned thing betrayed her and turned to mush in her chest as she looked at him, as she saw the pain in his eyes, hurt she felt reflected in her as she thought about her own family and how she had lost them. The two of them weren’t so different after all.

  She growled at that.

  No. They were different. Vastly different in one aspect at least.

  She would never pursue someone else while she was in love with another man.

  “I tried to stop him, but he was too strong. He struck me so hard I almost passed out, sent me slamming into the wall. He cut down my father first… and then turned on my mother. My brother tried to run rather than help her. He didn’t get far. I watched my mother die… couldn’t muster enough strength to stop the male. I thought I was done for.” He looked from her to the sky, closed his eyes as rain fell on his face, and she knew why he was doing it. Like her, he didn’t want someone to see him crying. Her traitorous heart tried to soften again. She hardened it instead. Hartt sighed. “That’s when Fuery appeared. Crazy bastard fought the fallen angel and I ended up finding the courage to help him. Fuery saved me and with all of my ties to the elf kingdom gone, I left that land with him. My journey with Fuery led to me becoming an assassin.”

  She nodded as she took all of that in, as she clung to her anger and her hurt, and boiled everything he had told her down and accidentally omitted the sad parts that had almost turned her heart to mush.

  Iolanthe dumping him at the altar had brought him to a dark place in his life, and that had led to him making some equally dark life choices. She fudged over the fallen angel and losing his family, tried to shut it out of her head, even when a tiny voice somewhere in the deepest darkest depths of her heart quietly screamed at her that they were more alike than she had thought possible.

  He had lost his family too.

  It had been torn from him just as hers had been ripped from her.

  “So… let me get this straight, because I want to be clear about it. You got your heart broken by the love of your life and turned into a murderous psychopath. That’s good to know.”

  His face darkened.

  “It did not happen overnight.” Regret crossed his features and she didn’t need to be psychic to know he wanted to take back what he had said. “I’m not a psycho—”

  He doubled over and braced his hands against his knees, breathing hard.

  “What’s wrong?” She lifted her hand to reach for him but he raised his head. Black eyes locked with hers. Fear skittered through her and she backed off a step. “Are you going murderous psychopath on me again?”

  He growled at her, ratcheting that fear up another notch as her mind supplied a horrific replay of how he had turned on her.

  How he had tried to kill her the last time his eyes had been like that.

  Teleporting was probably the wisest thing to do, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave him as he panted and gasped for air, as he visibly trembled and she sensed pain in him, and fear.

  “No,” he gritted and his fingers tightened against his knees. “Fuery is having a bad day.”

  “Fuery is having a bad day? What’s that got to do with your condition?” She eased back another step when he unleashed an unholy snarl and his nails became short claws.

  He sucked down a breath and then another, panting as he closed his eyes. “We’re bound. When the darkness takes him, I feel it too… and vice versa.”

  “What possessed you to do such a stupid thing?” She had witnessed the darkness in him and the darkness in Fuery, could only imagine how they fed that corruption in each other.

  “I owed him,” he bit out, wheezed in another breath and growled through clenched teeth. “It was the only way to save him.”

  By sacrificing himself.

  It dawned on her that Hartt hadn’t been tainted when he had bound himself to Fuery, but he had become corrupted in the years that bond had existed, had been slowly destroying himself in the hope it would save his friend. Reckless fool. Noble idiot.

  Her heart softened towards him but only for a single beat, before something else dawned on her. If Hartt couldn’t let his friend go, then he would never let his feelings for Iolanthe go either.

  Those feelings had remained alive inside him for centuries without her by the sounds of things.

  A love that just wouldn’t die.

  He lifted his head, his gaze bleak. In it, she saw a hollow sort of yearning, a festering and eternal need for the woman who had left him at the altar, who had built a life without him and now had a mate.

  None of which had stopped him from loving her.

  “This thing you have isn’t healthy,” she said.

  His jaw clenched. “It was the only way to save him. I would gladly sacrifice my life for his… after all he did for me. He saved my life. I owe it to him.”

  “That’s not what I was talking about.” She took another step back and he frowned at her, a strange sort of desperate edge entering his eyes, as if she was killing him a little more with each step further she took away from him. “You’re obsessing over Iolanthe. She left you, has her mate now, but you can’t let h
er go.”

  “You’re wrong.” He tried to straighten, grunted and doubled over again.

  She wasn’t.

  “I’m not blind, Hartt. You are. You clearly still have feelings for Iolanthe, and you’ve been holding on to them for years. You don’t want to let her go, not even now she’s mated to Kyter… her true mate. That just isn’t healthy. You need to let it go.”

  He had the audacity to snarl at her. “That’s not true. Mackenzie—”

  He lowered his head and growled, his short claws pressing into his knees as he bit out vicious sounding words in the elf tongue.

  He wasn’t going to let Iolanthe go, she could see that, so she was going to let him go instead.

  “I don’t have time for this drama. I’m not interested.” She backed off another step.

  This time, he didn’t growl at the distance growing between them. He just stared at her feet.

  “It’s not been fun,” she said with a smile that wobbled on her lips as he lifted his head and locked gazes with her, his irises violet again. She gave him a moment, a chance. When he didn’t take it, she bit out, “Don’t call me.”

  She forced herself to focus when he still said nothing, made herself teleport and leave him because it was clear he wasn’t going to try to make her stay. He had a problem with turning his back on Fuery, couldn’t bring himself to forget Iolanthe, but he didn’t seem to have any issue at all with her leaving.

  She landed in another part of the city, on the outskirts where an impressive country house stood on a large parcel of land. Beneath it, in a cavern, was a fae town, but she wasn’t interested in paying it a visit. Her eyes burned again as she trudged forwards, as she sought the portal that would take her back to Hell.

  Syn was going to be angry with her.

  She dashed her tears away as they began to fall and hardened her heart, refusing to let Hartt break it. Anger began as a tiny flicker of heat in her veins and she stoked it, embraced it and held on to it when hurt tried to overwhelm it. She directed it at herself, but thoughts of Hartt kept crowding her mind, threatening to undo her hard work.

  She cursed him.

  She had broken one of her cardinal rules and look where it had gotten her. She had vowed she would never get involved with a man like this, letting him get under her skin. Starting to depend on him for her happiness.

  Fool.

  That was what she was without a doubt. She was a fool who had been swept up in the moment, who had believed this thing with Hartt would become something more, and now she was miserable and angry, and she hated herself for getting so caught up in him.

  She had lost sight of herself.

  Of her mission.

  It wasn’t like her at all.

  She should have been able to keep him at a distance, should never have let her walls fall away, should have been stronger and denied the feelings that had infiltrated her heart.

  It was too late for should have though.

  Somehow, Hartt had gotten under her skin.

  He had made her feel weak, had exposed a vulnerability and she hated it. She hated him. She growled as she reached the spot where the portal was and felt the power of it wrap around her. She focused again and teleported, using the portal to connect her to Hell, her only way of reaching that realm and her home.

  Gods, Syn was going to be so angry with her and she deserved it.

  She had trusted Hartt and he had gone and broken her heart.

  She landed hard in Hell, in a town close to the one where her guild was, and growled so loud that the people coming and going along the busy cobbled street made a fast exit, leaving her standing alone in the middle of the black stone buildings.

  He hadn’t broken her heart. She didn’t love him. She didn’t!

  He certainly didn’t love her.

  It struck her that was what was hurting her the most.

  He could never love her, because he loved the elf.

  Mackenzie would never have his heart.

  She huffed and teleported again, landing in her bedroom inside the guild and sinking onto the end of the double mattress.

  She didn’t want his heart anyway.

  And he would never have hers. Never. No matter what.

  She swore it.

  Chapter 18

  Rain hammered down on Hartt as he stood in the middle of the alley between the redbrick buildings, feeling numb and not only from the cold. He stared at the spot where Mackenzie had been, reeling and confused, unable to comprehend what had just happened.

  She had left him.

  Had told him she never wanted to see him again.

  An ultimatum that had the primal, darker side of him howling with rage and a fierce need to find her and pull her into his arms sweeping through him.

  That need to track her down and be close to her, to hold her to him and refuse to let her go had been born in him the moment he had realised she had left Underworld without a word. Slipped out into the cold night like the assassin she was. He hadn’t noticed she was gone until he had felt bad about leaving her out of the conversation and had turned to include her.

  The weight that had settled in his gut, a writhing and wretched feeling, had only grown worse when Kyter had told him she had been gone for at least five minutes. He had wanted to throttle the male for not telling him.

  Had wanted to throttle himself for not noticing.

  He couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed.

  But, gods, he noticed her absence now. It cut at him, clawed at his heart and his ribs, beat at his mind, until he felt like a savage animal caged within his own body, desperate and wild with a need to hunt her.

  To have her back at his side.

  He needed her close to him again.

  He clenched his fists and denied that need, just as he had denied the need to stop her from leaving, even when he had wanted to make her stay. He had wanted that with all of his heart—the same heart she believed belonged to another.

  That was the reason he had held himself back. That and the messed-up instincts or whatever it was that kept plaguing him whenever he was around her, and whenever he was away from her.

  This primal need that roared at him to find her.

  It was growing clearer with every passing moment, with each minute he spent in her company and every agonising second they were apart, and he couldn’t ignore it any longer. Mackenzie was right. It was time he took a good, hard look at his feelings. That was the reason he had let her go.

  He couldn’t think clearly when she was around him and he needed clarity.

  He needed to think things over and think hard about what she had said.

  Did he love Iolanthe? He thought he did, but what if he was wrong? What if he wasn’t? He had loved Iolanthe for as long as he could remember, and while there was a time where he had put her to the back of his mind, those feelings had roared back to life inside him again when he had seen her that fateful night in Underworld. They had remained strong since then, had kept his mind on her and kept him distracted.

  He debated going back to Underworld, a test to see how he would react to Iolanthe, and how she would react to him if she saw he was hurting.

  Saw the wound Mackenzie had made in his chest by leaving him.

  He shut down that need because no good would come of it. He needed distance from both of them, needed solitude and quiet, a place to think and get his head straight. Seeing Iolanthe or Mackenzie would sway him one way or another, and he was in no mood to be pulled apart in an emotional tug of war.

  So instead of returning to Underworld, he returned home, teleporting not to his room but to the main entrance of the guild. The impressive gothic façade towered above him and he tilted his head back, running his gaze up the huge arched wooden door of the cross-shaped building to the circular stained-glass window that sat above it. Light flickered behind it, illuminating the colourful depiction of a battle featuring both him and Fuery.

  He lifted his gaze higher, to the steep pitched black roof and the
two five-storey tall towers that flanked it, and the dull grey sky speared by their conical roofs.

  This was home. This was where he belonged. His guild. This had been his life—steady and dependable—for centuries and it was all he needed. He was sure of it. He and Fuery had carved this place out of nothing, had worked hard to elevate it to the position it occupied as the best assassin’s guild in Hell and he wouldn’t allow females to distract him from his work here.

  He huffed as a need to find Mackenzie ran through him, shoved it back down and stomped forwards. He pushed the double doors open and entered, deeply aware of every soul in the building. Harbin was back, which should have been a relief, but Hartt felt nothing as he moved forwards, his boots loud on the polished black stone floor as he made his way along the broad arched corridor that led to the main reception room.

  The space opened out into a huge black-walled room. Movement to his left caught his eye. Harbin stood from the horseshoe of onyx velvet couches that nestled around the large marble fireplace, a flicker of concern in his silver eyes. Fuery rose from the couch opposite him and twisted to face Hartt.

  Hartt spared him a smile and turned away, banking right towards the door in the wall there that led to the wing where his quarters were located.

  “Fuery told me about the witch,” Harbin started.

  Hartt sensed the male closing in on him, together with Fuery.

  “We shall discuss it tomorrow.” Hartt waved him away, felt it when Harbin glared at his back.

  He didn’t bother making an excuse for his curt dismissal, just kept on walking, heading for that door that beckoned him. Solitude would be his just beyond that door. All he had to do was navigate the maze of corridors while avoiding any of his assassins and he could lock himself in his room. Fuery would leave him alone then. Everyone would leave him alone.

  He wanted to be alone.

  To do what? Think things through?

  Pine for Mackenzie?

  He growled and clenched his fists, relished the sharp sting as his nails bit into his palms. She had left him and maybe it was for the best. He had work to do, needed to concentrate on this mission and finding the witch, couldn’t afford to be distracted. The darker, more primal side of him snarled at the thought of leaving her alone in the world, raged with a need to see her and know she was safe, uncaring of how angry she had been with him.