Darker Days

Chapter Ten

I found Lukas standing in the fading light on the back deck. “How ya doing?”

Without turning, he shrugged. I didn’t have to ask. I knew he’d heard every word.

“Listen—”

He turned to face me, lips weighted down at the corners. “You don’t have to explain. I already knew.”

“You knew? Then why did you agree to help?”

He shrugged again and turned back to the yard. The crickets were out in force, joined by the distant cry of a hawk. After a few minutes of silence, he said, “July fifteenth, 1864.”

“Huh?”

“My birthday.”

“Wow. You’re an old man,” I joked, but it fell flat.

“Technically, I’m only eighteen. I was trapped in the box in 1882. I don’t age inside.”

I stepped forward and leaned against the railing beside him as the wind kicked up. “You knew Meredith Wells, didn’t you?” It was a risky question considering how he’d reacted earlier, but I wanted to know. Needed to know. “Like, personally?”

He fiddled with a loose piece of wood that had splintered from the railing. Pulling it off, he turned it over several times before flicking it out into the grass below. “Meredith was beautiful. Long, dark hair, eyes the color of the ocean, and a smile that could chase away the rain.”

“Sounds like a swell chick.”

He nodded, picking at another piece of loose wood. “She was amazing. And she was mine—at least, I thought so.”

I stared. “Yours? What, like, your girlfriend?” And Mom wondered why I didn’t date?

“Fiancé, actually.” He swung both legs over the side of the railing and settled on the edge. “We were to be married the spring following my eighteenth birthday.”

I followed suit, letting my legs dangle next to his. It wasn’t until that moment that I realized how much taller he was than me. He had to have at least eight inches on my five-foot three. It was ridiculous timing, but I was tall enough that if I leaned against him, my head would rest perfectly on his shoulder. “And she was a witch?”

With an umpf, Lukas pushed off the railing and landed on the grass below. “A very talented one. Her family was wealthy. Very prominent in Penance. There were whispers about what she was, but no one believed them. A Wells woman would never toy with such things,” he said in a mocking tone. “Fools. Every last one of them.”

I followed him down, feet landing with a slight squish in the soft October grass.

“One evening, I caught her with another man. A local farmer’s son. I was more angry than hurt, really. Her actions chanced ruining a merger that would put both our families in favorable situations. It was selfish, but then, Meredith was a selfish woman. I begged her to see reason—to turn him away. I told her I would treat her like a queen…but it wasn’t enough.”

Lukas tilted his head back, watching the sky for a moment. Fine by me. This presented the opportunity to give him a nice, long, appreciative once over. That Meredith girl must have been nuts. I didn’t know what the standards for hot were in 1882, but in 2013, Lukas was serious real estate. Long, angular face and a generous mop of dark hair. His nose was just slightly off center—he must have broken it at one point—but it completed him so perfectly. It gave the lines of his face character. It fit.

“She chose him over you?”

“She did. But it wasn’t that simple. As I said, our union would have put our families in a favorable place. The marriage was arranged as a merger of wealth and status. Our parents had gone to great lengths to secure the union. I knew if her father found out what she’d done, he’d disown her. That wasn’t something Meredith could have handled. She liked her life of privilege. Her elegant parties and fancy dresses. Being waited on hand and foot. She’d never lifted a finger in her life.”

“So you threatened her.”

He nodded, tearing his gaze from the darkening sky, and started to walk. “I thought it would make her see reason, but she didn’t take it very well. Maybe her emotions were heightened by him, I don’t know.”

“Him? Wait—you mean she was shacking up with the original Wrath? That’s the guy you found her with?”

His expression twisted in pure disgust. “Yes. The farmer’s son was the one infected by Wrath. She’d seen him a thousand times, but he was beneath her notice. Lowly.” A bitter laugh escaped his lips and his fists curled tight. “I can only guess that when they crossed paths, after he’d been infected by Wrath, she saw something in him. Something different—and powerful. Meredith’s reasons for doing anything were always her own, but she craved power above all else. Maybe she thought she could get something from him. Or possibly, she saw him as an amusing distraction. Whatever the reason, it sickens me to think about it. At least, even now, I am still human at my core. He though, he was never human. He was a thing. A soulless demon.”

Even though I was sure he didn’t realize it, his words stung like salt crammed into an open wound. Voice remarkably steady, I said, “Not all demons are disgusting. They’re not things. My father’s a demon. I’m—I’m half demon, and I’m not a thing.”

He flinched like I’d slapped him. As I’d suspected, he’d been clueless, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. “I didn’t mean—”

“Whatever,” I said, trying to sound casual. I wouldn’t let him see his less than stellar opinion of demons bothered me. “So then what happened?”

He hesitated, almost as if to make sure I really wanted him to continue. “I don’t know the whole story. She’s long dead, and I will never know the truth behind her motivations. All that is certain is that she devised a way to set Wrath free—to essentially make him human—all she needed was someplace to store his essence.”

“So she damned you to an eternity inside the box? No offense, but your taste in girls sucks.”

“I didn’t choose her. She was chosen for me.”

He didn’t sound happy about it. Understandable. I mean, who would be, right? Getting told who you had to look at for the rest of your life? Who you had to kiss? Barbaric if you asked me—especially when your betrothed was a big fat ho.

“So who would you have chosen? What’s your type?” I started wondering again what it’d be like to kiss him. Actually kiss him. For real. Considering his aversion to demons, I’d probably never find out.

“Type?”

I rolled my eyes. I had to keep reminding myself we had a bit of a language barrier sometimes. “What kind of girl were you interested in?”

He thought about it for a few moments. “I don’t know that I had a type. I could have had anyone I wanted, really.” Expression darkening, he finished with, “If I’d been allowed to choose.”

“Wow. Cocky much?”

He frowned. “It was just fact. I inherited my father’s looks and stood to one day inherit his fortune. It made me desirable. And really, the girls were all the same back then. Demure and obedient.”

I stopped and plucked a leaf off a low hanging branch. Twirling it between my fingers, I said, “So you’re saying they were all snoozeville?”

He cocked an eyebrow and my pulse spiked. Oh, yeah. Meredith was an idiot. Whoever coined the phrase ugly as sin had never set eyes on Lukas Scott.

“Boring,” I supplied, after a deep, brain-clearing breath. “Dull.”

“Ah. I suppose dull is an adequate description. Things are very different now. Free. Women seem to stand equally against men.”

“Careful—normally this is a chick-only household. Estrogen is combustible under the right circumstances. And yeah, men and women are equal.”

“But to allow women to have such freedoms—is it safe? I must admit, the thought of Klaire—or you—doing the things Joseph Darker told me of…”

Good thing it was dark. He probably didn’t see me getting ready to deck him. How was that possible? To go from kissy thoughts to kick-your-ass thoughts in a matter of seconds? I’d never met anyone who could make my head spin on a dime like this before. I loved it and hated it at the same time. “What? Makes you sick? Gives you the creeps?”

“Worries me.”

“Huh?”

“Do the men in this century not look after their women? To allow them to participate in such dangerous things—”

“Whoa. First off, something you’re gonna need to know if you have any hope of not getting creamed in public—women can take care of themselves. We can ass kick with the best of them.” I winked. “In some cases, even better.”

I glanced back toward the house. It was nothing more than a fading silhouette barely visible through the brush. God, had we really gone that far? It felt like we’d just started walking.

It was Lukas. He was easy to talk to. To just be with. He made my brain itch with his backwards thinking and stone-aged comments sometimes, but underneath it all, he had a sense of humor and a kind heart. Not to mention a pair of arms I could see myself dreaming about.

I was about to suggest we start heading back, but Lukas’ eyes widened suddenly and he rushed forward. Whatever caught his attention, I was happy for it. My brain was venturing into places it shouldn’t go.

He stopped at the edge of the old railroad tracks that went through the back end of our property. Bending low, he brushed the tips of his fingers along the rusting metal and let out a long sigh. “Are these—I was just a child when these tracks were laid,” he whispered. “Everyone was so excited…”

I couldn’t imagine how displaced he must feel. If it were me, back in the same town I’d grown up in—over a century ago—I was pretty sure there’d be some freaking out. “This has gotta be weird for you.”

He stood and brushed off his jeans, giving the tracks one final look. “Did you know our families were friends? The Scotts and the Darkers?”

“Really?”

“Simon Darker—an ancestor of yours—was very close with my mother.” He laughed. “I do believe I was the one who set the Darker family on its current professional course.”

Ahha! Now we were getting to the good stuff. I leaned against the pine tree behind me. “How so?”

“When I was freed the first time in 1910, it was Simon I sought help from.”

“You’re saying the box was opened before the riots?”

He nodded. “Yes. Just once, and the rest weren’t out long.”

“So, why Simon?”

“I couldn’t go to my mother. She was a devout Catholic and I’d been gone twenty-eight years without aging a day. It would have caused her great stress to see me, and she was very ill. I knew Simon had always been secretly fascinated by the occult. He was my only choice.”

“So you went to Simon and said what? ‘I’ve been trapped in a box all this time—help a guy out?’”

He snorted. “Obviously it wasn’t that simple. At first, it was quite hard to convince him I wasn’t a dem—”

I glared at him.

“Evil,” he finished awkwardly. “But once I did, he was more than eager to help. He always believed that Meredith had something to do with my disappearance, but could never prove it because she disappeared shortly after.”

“So what happened? I mean, you mentioned Meredith’s descendant screwing you over in 1959. The same thing couldn’t have happened in 1910?”

He took a deep breath. “It did. Simon found a member of the Wells family and explained what her ancestor had done. The woman—Margret was her name—was ashamed and vowed to right the injustice. She told him she knew of a spell that could grant me my freedom. The time came and things were going fine, but in the middle of the spell she stopped.”

“Stopped?”

“She was speaking—then silent. I saw the others called back to the box and everything went black.” He thrust both hands into the pockets of his jeans and shrugged. “I don’t know what happened. Not with the spell. Not with Simon…”

“Where were the other Sins while you were working with Simon? They didn’t want out of the box for good?”

“They didn’t find out about the spell to gain their freedom until 1959. Technology was more advanced. I was able to get to Joseph Darker faster than I had Simon. We had more time to search for a Wells witch, and I suppose they became suspicious. They found out about the spell and what we were doing, but it didn’t matter. Mary Wells never intended to free me.” He sighed. “You asked me why I agreed to help—even though I knew Klaire had no intention of freeing me.”

“Yeah…” For an insane, brain-blocked moment, I thought he might declare that I was the reason. That from the moment he’d laid eyes on me, he knew we were destined to be together.

Then he opened his mouth.

He spread his arms wide and flashed me a wicked smile. In the fading light, he looked almost mad. The slight gleam in his eyes, coupled with the tilt of his head and crook of his lip made the whole scene seem surreal somehow. Spinning twice, he said, “Maybe it’s my penance. Eternity in the box. I made mistakes—we all do—and maybe this is my punishment. My destiny. To hold Wrath in my body so no one else has to.”

Seriously. I had to stop letting Kendra drag me to those cheesy romance flicks.

I sighed and stepped closer. “Unless you went on a mad killing spree, I don’t see what you could have done to deserve this. It would take a special kind of asshole to be worthy of getting locked in that box…”

There was something more he wanted to say. I could tell by the way he watched me, but instead, he simply plucked a pinecone from a low hanging branch and crushed it between his palms.

I was about to suggest heading back to the house—standing out here alone in the dark with him was doing strange and confusing things to my stomach—but a loud roar split the air.