[Rhett]Matthew stopped trying to find me and glared straight in my direction. He found me. His mind must have cleared enough to use his other senses. “She will become my servant and do whatever I order her to do. I will guarantee her safety from the fae, but you will never see her again,” I told him.  “I want help saving my daughter. I don’t want to give her up. What the hell makes you think I would save her from one prison only to have her condemned to another prison?” Matthew growled. “I thought you wanted her safe. Does it really matter? I’ll give her a pup to keep her from sneaking back into the fae’s clutches. I’ve heard werewolves are truly wild lovers and look forward to that part.” I chuckled. “No. Pick something else. I won’t give my daughter to you. She needs a werewolf mate, not some dark witch.” “I’m no dark witch, wolf.” I scoffed. “I’m beyond them. I am more powerful. I could just take her now that you’ve drawn my attention to her. That sounds lovely. I will owe nothing to you and I will have my very own wolf ѕlut. Yes… I think that sounds preferable. Thank you for the information, Matthew Rosen. As a gift, I will release you from my territory without harm.” He dropped to his knees. “Please. Don’t. Don’t do that to my pup. She’s a good girl. I want to save her so she can be everything she’s meant to be. There’s no way she can be happy with a brute like that troll. He’s a monster. I can’t give her to you, but I will be your slave. Help me free her and find her a mate, then I will serve you until the day I die.” This was his true self breaking through. It was true. The fae magic was feeding on his natural feelings. It had corrupted his mind. He would never forgive himself if he did break and take Carmen as his mate. The magic might entirely take over his mind if that happened. Carmen wanted her family to love and accept her and her mate. I wanted that for her. Seeing her new friend, Echo, gave me hope for Carmen. Like me, Echo had been used by her ‘family’ for their own gain. She found the place she belonged and was making a life for herself as someone powerful. As much as I identified with Carmen, I also identified with Echo. There were so many other people out there who suffered and managed to make a life like I did. Perhaps not selling their soul to a dark spirit, but through finding the people who empowered them. Carmen was finding that. I wanted to give her the family she deserved. “Fine, I suppose that may be going a little too far. Hmm…. I know something that will be almost as good. I don’t want an old man serving me. Instead, I want you to feed my darkness. Let it feed on the magic the fae blessed you with and I will save your daughter from the monster who is harming her,” I told him. “Will it kill me?” he asked. “No… well… probably not. If it does, I promise to make sure your daughter has a good mate who will take care of her for the rest of her life and I will make sure the monster never finds her. Will this be amenable to you?” He was silent as he thought about it. I leaned against the tree’s trunk as I waited in the branches for my grand entrance. It would look so cool when I appeared in a swarm of shadows. People were always shocked and impressed when I did that. The fae magic would help replenish most of what I spent helping Carmen before. This would be the last big thing I had to do in order to give her the life I felt she deserved. Either it would kill her father, or it wouldn’t. Without the fae’s fake Beta magic corrupting his mind, perhaps they could convince him to rejoin the pack. If he died, I would drop his body in the woods surrounding the Hallowed Moon Pack. That way his family could bury him in his home. Carmen would be mad if she figured out that I killed her father, so I wouldn’t tell her. Not as if anyone could tell them, unless they pulled Lila in. She’d seen my darkness feed on a person before, she knew what the magic felt like. I didn’t think they would check with her. They would probably ask a witch and it would only look like he was fed on by a dark spirit. “Well? Do we have a deal?” I asked. “The fae magic for your daughter’s happiness?” “Yes,” he said quietly. “Whatever I have to do to save her from that monster.” “You must speak our deal aloud.” “I will let your darkness feed on the fae magic I have if you’ll save my daughter from the monster and ensure her happiness in the future,” Matthew replied. The shadows swallowed me and reformed me at the base of the tree. I paused for a moment to let the wolf take in all of my glory. Removing my gloves, I moved closer to him. “Your daughter will be saved from the monster who is harming her. I will watch over her to ensure her happiness as if she were my own child. Now for my payment.” He stood and shook his head. “Payment after you save her.” “That’s not how this works, Matthew. You feed my darkness now or the deal is off. I need the added boost to my magic. You’re asking me to go against your goddess and the fae. I won’t put myself in that sort of situation without my magic at full power. Plus, you’ve been trying to get to the fae lands. You have to realize how impossible that is. “Decide now, Matthew Rosen. I’m tired of this pussyfooting. You feed me now. I fulfill my promise. You have to the count of five, or I leave. One… two… thr–,”“Yes. Damn it. You can feed on me now. You had better save my daughter. If not, I’m going to kill you,” he growled. I laughed. “You’ll have to find me first, wolf. Take my hand, it will make it easier.” Matthew took my extended hand. The sсream of joy from my darkness was chilling and he shivered as if he could hear it. Some part of him could. It probably told him to run. My darkness wasn’t any normal darkness. It was the remaining magic from a cursed land. It truly was the darkness that people should fear. For most of my childhood, my mother told me the only thing to fear is what you find in the dark, but not the darkness itself. This was different. It didn’t need anything in it. There may not be anything in the dark that isn’t there in the light most of the time, but this was not one of those times. The darkness enveloped Matthew. It tore into him, seeking out the fae magic it wanted to feed on. I gripped his hand firmly, keeping him from pulling it back. I had to add a lot of magic to my stance, so he couldn’t jerk me off my feet. Matthew sсreamed and dropped back onto his knees. My darkness wasn’t gentle. It ripped the magic from him and consumed it. Fae magic and spirits were one of my darkness’ favorite meals. They didn’t exist in our woods, because they were always consumed by the ambient darkness that lived in the shadows of the trees. A few seconds later, my darkness stopped. Matthew was on his side on the ground, wheezing, clutching his stomach. His face was white as a sheet. I let go of his hand and rocked back on my heels. My darkness clung to me, seething.“Mmm, yes, that was perfect, Matthew. Our agreement is sealed. Your daughter is safe from the monster that threatened her. You. I will leave her with the troll who will love her and care for her for the rest of her life. Now, leave my territory and never return. “If you do come back, I will do far worse than let my darkness devour your fae magic. Next time, my darkness will devour you. As a gift, I will drop you outside of the woods I claim as my own,” I warned. “No! That’s not what you promised! You said you’d get her away from the troll!”I laughed at him. Lying to werewolves was impossible for some, but I had been lying to people for hundreds of years to get what I wanted. All it took was some simple rewording and what I promised was exactly what I gave while he believed it was something else.“Truly? When did I say that I would take her away from the troll? I do recall saying that I would get her away from the monster who was hurting her. That monster was you. Your brain might still be a little corrupted. That’s not my problem anymore, though. My bargain is fulfilled. Remember that in the future. A warlock has no honor. We have no soul. We have no reason to do anything for anyone no matter what they pay.”“You will pay for this, Rhett!”“No, Matthew. I won’t.”I turned and started walking away. I hadn't gone more than a few steps when I heard Matthew curse loudly. I glanced back as he stood up and stared at his hands.“Pray to your goddess that we will not meet again,” I promised him. “Next time, I won’t be so nice.”With a wave of my hand, he was consumed by shadows and safely deposited outside my woods. Though I could track him, if I wanted to, I didn't. That was a wonderful meal. There was a lot of magic needed to make him a Beta.I nodded as I walked through the forest. My darkness was sated and had been empowered by the fae magic it consumed. The moon was a sliver and there was far more darkness than normal. Because of the darkness in me, I didn’t need light to move. It was convenient back when nights were far darker, before electricity lit up the city and its streets. Now, it helped in the forest as the trees blocked out what little moonlight there was. By the time I made it back home, my darkness was curled up inside me like a contented cat. I’d been processing exactly what it took from Matthew. It didn’t kill him, but he might wish for death. It was especially likely since he paid that price without getting what he wanted. The positive was that he was no longer a threat to Carmen. She’d lived her whole life dealing with blindness, but he was new to it. I grinned. Life in darkness for his sins. It wasn’t permanent, but reversing it would be almost impossible if he didn’t make some changes. That wasn’t my concern. I did what I set out to do and made Carmen’s relationship with Rock as safe as I could. When I got into my cabin, I stripped down and headed to bed. I needed rest. My darkness rarely let me sleep, but it was entertained and fed by our interaction with Matthew. As I was lying in my bed, my thoughts turned to Lila. She was looking damned good when I saw her at Echo’s party. Death probably wouldn’t let me take another crack after he went through the trouble of marrying the dark witch. Oh, well. One of the reasons I didn’t have a problem letting her go was because she started getting attached. I couldn’t love anyone and I wasn’t going to let her think she meant more to me than she did. I could care enough to give her that. In all, I was happy for her. Not only had she found a powerful match, she had love. The way he looked at her was reminiscent of how I saw the others looking at their mates. Death may not have a Solus Amor, but Lila was the closest he could hope for. I spied on them a little. I’d never been as interested in her harvesting methods as he was. He seemed to take a great deal of pleasure in watching her carve people up for her magic. It was a little chilling. Not much of me was still human, but there was enough to feel a shiver when I saw her working, coated in the blood of her victims. Lila reveled in the darkness of her magic. I missed that about her. Her darkness called to mine in a very appealing way. It would be a quiet and dull place without her. Stop pondering your cоck and go to sleep. You’re disturbing me. “I can’t sleep. Am I missing out on something by being unable to love? They all look happy. Surely there is someone out there who we could love,” I whispered. If there is, she is not searching for us and we shouldn’t search for her. What could love afford us? A weakness we didn’t have before. Remember how you hurt because the people you loved didn’t love you? “That was different. They used me to hunt but disparaged me when I asked to hunt with them. I didn’t love anyone in the same way Rock loves Carmen or Marius loves Lila. Perhaps I wouldn’t have made this deal if I had.”Then I would have killed you for trespassing and we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Shut up and sleep. You’re not capable of love and neither am I. Enjoy the life we can have and we can take a lover if you’re so desperate for something to fuсk.“It’s not always about ѕex, you know. Having someone care about me, my health, and my well-being, has nothing to do with carnal activities.” If that’s what love is, then I love you. Now sleep. We need to find that other darkness and figure out how to keep the wolf woman from harming us.I sighed and closed my eyes. My darkness was right. We had more pressing things to attend to. So many powerful and beautiful women were amassing in the area. I couldn’t wait to charm them all.