The Darkest Night

Even in his days as an elite warrior to the gods, he had never desired a specific woman above all the rest. After, he had always taken what he could get, when he could get it. But Ashlyn, he wanted specifically. Ashlyn, he wanted now.

Where had Lucien placed her? In the room adjoining his? Did she lounge on the bed, naked body wrapped in silks and velvets? That’s how he would take her, Maddox decided then. Not outside as was his custom. Not on a cold, twig-laden ground. But in a bed, face to face, skin to skin, pumping and sliding slowly.

His body burned with the thought—a burn that had nothing to do with the flames.

She means us harm. We’ll harm her first and be the better for it, the spirit urged.

Do not dare suggest it, he commanded, trying to eclipse Violence—who, surprisingly, seemed content to discuss Ashlyn calmly now, rather than roar. I am not a monster.

We are the same, and that woman spells danger.

Yes, she did. Yet he’d never encountered a woman quite as vulnerable as Ashlyn. Alone in the forest, secrets in her pretty eyes. Killers on her trail. Whether they’d meant to ignore her, kill her or use her to kill him and the other Lords, he would find out.

In the morning, when Lucien returned his soul to his healed body, Maddox would find and question her. No, he would touch her first, he decided. Kiss her. Taste her entire body as he so desperately wanted to do right now.

Despite the pain, he found himself grinning with relish. The woman had looked at him with ecstasy in her eyes; she had tried to follow him, to save him. Yes, she had made her own bed. And now she would lie in it. With him.

Only after the loving was done would he question her. And if he discovered that she truly was Bait—there was a pang in his chest—he would deal with her as he’d dealt with the Hunters.

“THE TITANS HAVE OVERTHROWN the Greeks,” Aeron announced. The knowledge had been bubbling inside him since his return to the fortress an hour ago, but with all the commotion he hadn’t had a chance to share. Until now. Things had finally quieted—but he knew the peace would last only until his meaning sank in.

Frowning, he plopped onto the plush red couch, Maddox’s human no longer a concern. If only his words could be dismissed so easily—and what was suddenly making all that noise?

He looked around, scowled and grabbed the TV remote, flicking off the “movie” Paris had just turned on. Titillating moans ceased. The wet slap of man against woman faded from the flat screen. “You have to stop buying that garbage, Paris.”

Paris swiped the remote from him and switched the fleshfest back on. Thankfully, he punched the mute button. “Not pay-per-view, bro,” he said without a hint of remorse. “This one’s from my own personal collection. Oil Wrestlers Gone Wild.”

“You become more human every day,” Aeron muttered. “It’s embarrassing. You know that, right?”

“Aeron, you cannot make an announcement like that and simply change the subject. You mentioned the…Titans?” Lucien said in his ever-calm voice.

Ever-calm. Yes, that described Death perfectly. The immortal maintained an iron lock on his temper—on all of his emotions, really—for when it was unleashed, he was a force even Wrath feared. More than a beast, Lucien became a true demon. Aeron had only witnessed the transformation once, but he’d never forgotten.

“I thought I heard something along those lines, as well.” Reyes shook his head, as if that would help him understand. “What’s happening here? First Torin tells us the Hunters have returned, then Maddox comes home with a woman. And now you say the Titans have taken over? Is something like that even possible?”

“Yes, it is.” Unfortunately. Aeron scrubbed a hand over his chopped hair, the short spikes abrading his palm. How he wished he could next deliver happy news. “Apparently the Titans spent their centuries of imprisonment honing their powers. In recent weeks they escaped Tartarus, ambushed the Greeks, enslaved them and seized the throne. They control us now.”

There was a heavy silence as everyone absorbed the shocking news. No love was lost between the warriors and the Greeks, the very gods who had cursed them. But…

“You are sure?” Lucien asked him.

“Very.” Until tonight, all Aeron had known about the Titans was that they’d ruled Mount Olympus during the Golden Age, a time of “peace” and “harmony”—two words spouted by the Hunters who’d risen in Greece all those years ago. “They placed me in some sort of tribunal chamber, their thrones circling me. Physically, they are smaller than the Greeks. Their power, however, was unmistakable. I could almost see it, like a living entity. And on their faces, I saw only uncompromising determination and dislike.”

Several tense minutes passed.

“Dislike aside, is there a chance the Titans can release us from the demons without killing us?” Reyes voiced the question they undoubtedly all were thinking.

Aeron himself had wondered. Had hoped. “I do not think so,” he said, hating to disappoint them. “I asked that very question and they refused to discuss it with me.”

Another silence, this one even more strained.

“This is…this is…” Paris trailed off.

“Unbelievable,” Torin finished for him.

Reyes massaged his jaw. “If they will not free us, what do they plan for us, then?”

There would be no reprieve from the bad news. “All I know for sure is that they plan to take an active role in our existence.” The one point in the Greeks’ favor was that they had ignored the warriors after cursing them, allowing them to have some sort of life—tormented though it was.

Again, Reyes shook his head. “But…why?”

“I wish I knew.”

“Is that why they summoned you?” Lucien asked. “To inform you of this change?”

“No.” He paused, closed his eyes. “They ordered me to…do something.”

“What?” Paris demanded when he failed to elaborate.

He studied each of his friends, trying to find the right words.

Torin stood in the corner, his profile to everyone. Distanced, always distanced. But then, Torin had to be. Reyes sat across from him. Tanned like the sun god, the warrior didn’t look as though he belonged on earth, much less in the room. He was busy slicing grooves into his lower arm as he awaited Aeron’s answer. Every few seconds, Reyes winced. That wince became a satisfied smile as blood trickled, forming tiny crimson rivers over his skin. Pain was the only thing that satisfied him, the only thing that made him feel alive.

Aeron had no idea how the man might respond to pleasure.

Paris was sprawled on the couch beside him, hands tucked behind his head as he switched his attention between Aeron and the movie, his demon probably urging him to watch just a little more. A man with his kind of luck should be ugly. At the very least, he should have to struggle to lure a woman into his bed. Instead, he simply looked at a woman with his handsome face and she stripped instantly, willing to be taken anywhere, available bed or not.

Maddox’s woman hadn’t, though, Aeron recalled. Why?

Lucien leaned against the pool table, his hideously scarred face revealing nothing. His arms were crossed over his massive chest, and those disconcerting eyes of his watched Aeron intently. “Well?” Lucien prompted.

He drew in a breath, released it. “I’ve been ordered to slay a group of tourists in Buda. Four humans.” He paused, closed his eyes again. Tried not to feel a single shred of emotion. Cold. To get through this, he’d have to be cold. “All female.”

“Come again.” Paris jolted upright, frowning over at him, television forgotten.

Aeron repeated the gods’ command.

Paler than usual, Paris shook his head. “I can buy that we’re now under new management. I don’t like it, I’m confused as hell by it, but hey. I buy it. What I don’t get is that the Titans ordered you, the possessor of Wrath, to kill four human women in town. Why would they do something like that?” He threw up his arms. “That’s craziness.”

He might be the most promiscuous man ever to roam the Earth, bedding his partners and forgetting them in the same day, but women of every race, size and age were Paris’s lifeblood. His entire reason for existence. He’d never been able to tolerate seeing a single one of them hurt.

“They did not give me a reason,” Aeron answered, knowing a reason would not have mattered. He didn’t want to harm those women in any way. He knew how it felt to kill. Oh, yes. He’d killed many, many times before, but always through the undeniable urgings of his demon—a demon that chose its victims well. People who beat or molested their children. People who took joy from the destruction of others. Wrath always knew when a person was deserving of death, their shameful actions playing through his mind.

When the women had been brought to his attention, the demon had tried them and found them innocent. And yet, he was supposed to murder them.

If that happened, if he was forced to spill the blood of the undeserving, Aeron would never be the same. He knew it, felt it.

“Did they give you a time frame for when the deed must be done?” Lucien asked, still seemingly unaffected. He was Death, the Grim Reaper—Lucifer, he’d even been called, not that the people who had called him by that name were still alive—so Aeron’s task was probably nothing to him.

“No, they didn’t. But…”

Lucien arched a dark brow. “But?”

“They did tell me that if I failed to act quickly, blood and death would begin to consume my mind. They said I would kill anything and everything until the day I complied. Just like Maddox.” They hadn’t needed to warn him, though. Wrath had overtaken him numerous times. When the spirit decided it was time to act, Aeron always tried to resist, but the cravings for destruction grew and grew until finally he would snap. Even in the worst thrall of Wrath, however, he had never been compelled to kill an innocent. “But unlike Maddox, my torment will not end with the dawn.”

Gravely, Paris asked, “How are you to do it? Did they at least tell you that?”

His stomach twisted, cramped. “I am to slit their throats,” he said. How he would love to refuse to obey these new gods. Only the horror of being ordered to do something even worse had kept him silent.

“Why are they doing this?” Torin demanded, a question they would each ask at least once, it seemed.

He still did not have an answer.

Paris stared over at him. “Are you going to do it?”

Aeron looked away. He remained silent, but he knew, deep in his bones, that nothing could save the females now. They had been placed on the spirit’s mental kill-list, no matter that they were innocent, and they would eventually be checked off. One by one.

“What can we do to help?” Lucien asked, his eyes sharp.

Aeron slammed his fist into the couch arm. If he did this terrible deed when he already teetered on the brink of depravity, he would crumble. He would lose himself to the spirit completely. “I don’t know. We’re dealing with new gods, new consequences and new circumstances. I’m not sure how I’ll react once—” say it, just say it “—I’ve killed the women.”

“It is possible to change their minds?”

“We are not to even try,” he answered, dejected. “They again used Maddox as an example, saying we would be cursed as he is if we dared object.”

Paris exploded to booted feet and paced from one wall of the spacious room to the other. “I fucking hate this,” he grumbled.

“Well, the rest of us love it,” Torin said dryly.

“Perhaps you will be doing the women a favor,” Reyes said, his attention remaining fixed on his blade as he carved an X on the center of his palm. Crimson drops trickled onto his thigh.

He was the reason all of the furniture was dark red.

“Perhaps I will be ordered to take your life next,” Aeron replied darkly.

“I need to think about this.” Lucien worried two fingers over his roughly scarred jaw. “There has to be something we can do.”

“Maybe Aeron can just obliterate the entire world,” Torin said in that annoyingly wry tone. “That way, all possible future targets will be eliminated and we’ll never have to have this discussion again.”

Aeron bared his teeth. “Do not make me hurt you, Disease.”

Those piercing green eyes glowed with wicked humor and Torin offered a mockingly feral grin. “Have I hurt your feelings? I’d be happy to kiss you and make you feel better.”

Before Aeron could leap across the room—not that he could do anything to Torin—Lucien said, “Stop. We cannot be divided. We don’t know the magnitude of what we’re facing. Now, more than ever, we must stand together. It’s been an eventful night and it’s not over yet. Paris, Reyes, head into town and make sure there are no more Hunters lurking about. Torin—I don’t know. Watch the hill or make us some money.”

“What are you going to do?” Paris asked.

“Consider our options,” he replied gravely.

Paris’s brows arched. “What of Maddox’s woman? I will be better able to fight any Hunters if I spend a little time between her—”

“No.” Lucien stared up at the vaulted ceiling. “Not her. Remember, I promised Maddox she’d return to him untouched.”

“Yeah, I remember. Remind me again why you’d promise such a dumb-ass thing.”

“Just…leave her alone. She didn’t seem to want you, anyway.”

“Which is even more shocking than the news about the Titans,” Paris muttered. Then he sighed. “Fine. I’ll keep my hands to myself, but someone needs to feed her. We told her we would.”

“Perhaps we should starve her,” Reyes suggested. “She’ll be more likely to talk in the morning if she’s weakened from hunger.”

Lucien nodded. “I agree. She might be more willing to give Maddox the truth if she thinks it will buy her a meal.”

“I don’t like it, but I won’t protest. And I guess this means I’m going into town without my vitamin D injection,” Paris said on another sigh. “Let’s do this, Pain.”

Reyes was on his feet a moment later and the two strode out of the room, side by side. Torin followed suit, though he gave them a generous head start. Aeron couldn’t imagine the pressure of making sure no part of himself ever touched another. Had to be hell.

He snorted. Life for all the warriors here was hell.

Lucien closed the distance between them and eased into the leather chair opposite him. The fragrance of roses drifted from him. Aeron had never understood why the Grim Reaper smelled like a spring bouquet—surely a curse even worse than Maddox’s.

“Thoughts?” he asked, studying his friend. For the first time in many, many years, Lucien radiated something other than calm. His forehead was furrowed and there were stress-creases further marring his scarred face.

Those scars slashed from each of his dark brows all the way to his jawline, thick and puckered. Lucien never talked about how he’d acquired them and Aeron had never asked. While they’d lived in Greece, the warrior had simply returned home one day, pain in his eyes and marks on his cheeks.

“This is bad,” Lucien said. “Really bad. Hunters, Maddox’s woman—however she fits into this—and the Titans, all in one day. That cannot be an accident.”

“I know.” Aeron dragged a hand down his face, his fingertip catching and tugging on his eyebrow piercing. “Do the Titans want us dead, do you think? Could they have sent the Hunters here?”

“Perhaps. But what would they do with our demons once our bodies were destroyed and the spirits released? And why order you to act for them, if they only meant to have you slain?”

Good questions. “I have no answers for you. I don’t even know how I’m going to do this deed that’s been demanded of me. The women are innocents. Two are young, in their twenties, the third is in her late forties and the fourth is a grandmother. She probably bakes cookies for the homeless in her spare time.”

Curious about them, he had hunted and found them in a hotel in Buda after he’d left Olympus. Seeing them in the flesh had only intensified his horror.

“We can’t wait. We must act as soon as possible,” Lucien said. “We can’t allow these Titans to dictate our actions in this or they will attempt to do so over and over again. Surely we can come up with a solution.”

Aeron thought they would have better luck figuring out a way to patch the charred, tattered remains of his soul when he killed those women. And even that seemed hopeless.

As it was, they sat in silence for a long while, minds churning with options. Or rather, lack of them. Finally Aeron gave a shake of his head and felt as if he had just welcomed a new demon inside him. Doom.

CHAPTER FIVE

SOMETIME DURING THE endless night, Ashlyn stood and felt her way around the cramped cell. Her ankle throbbed with every step, a reminder of the hours she’d spent climbing the snowcapped mountains outside and the sense of hope she’d lost with six swings of a sword.

Her search for a way out had proved fruitless. There was no window like the one in Rapunzel’s tower, no wicked witch’s magic mirror to walk through. Nor had she found any bars to squeeze through or tunnels to burrow into like Alice. Somewhere along the way, she’d lost her cell phone. Not that she could get reception in the dungeon of a castle.

As time ticked by, the darkness seemed to close tighter and tighter around her.

The mice had stopped squeaking, at least.

She just wanted to go home, she thought, once again huddling on the floor. She wanted to forget this entire experience. She could live with the voices now. She would live with them. Trying to silence them had cost her too much. Her job, perhaps. Her lifelong friendship with McIntosh, maybe. A piece of her sanity, definitely.

She would never be the same.

Maddox’s lifeless face would haunt her, waking and asleep, for the rest of her life. Oh God. Tears streamed down her cheeks, chilling with the cold. How many would she shed before the ducts dried completely? Before the ache in her chest faded?

Please, just let me go, a voice babbled. Please. I swear. I’ll never return.

Me, too, she thought miserably.

“Have you been here all night, woman?”

A moment passed, the question unanswered as Ashlyn oriented herself. That voice…she would swear it came from the present, not the past. The rough, booming sound of it echoed in her ears.

“Answer me, Ashlyn.”

Another moment passed before she realized it was the voice that had come to haunt her above all others. A voice that was somehow imprinted in her mind, even though she’d only heard it a few times before. She gasped, eyes straining through the darkness, searching…searching…but finding nothing.

“Ashlyn. Answer me.”

“M-Maddox?” No, surely not. It had to be a trick.

“Answer the question.”

Suddenly a door was opened and rays of light flooded the cell. Ashlyn blinked against the orange-gold spots clouding her vision. A man stood in the doorway, a tall, black shadow of menace and muscle.

Sweet silence—silence she’d only encountered once before—enveloped her.

She flattened her palms against the wall behind her and inched to a stand. Shock pounded through her and her knees wobbled. He wasn’t… He couldn’t be… This wasn’t possible. Wasn’t even fathomable. Only in fairy tales did something like this happen.

“Answer me,” the man said yet again. There was violence in his tone now, as if he spoke with two voices. Both dark, thick and thunderous.

She opened her mouth to respond, but no sound emerged. That double voice was guttural, turbulent and yet sensual beyond her wildest dreams. Maddox. She hadn’t been mistaken. Shivering, she wiped at her tearstained cheeks with the back of her hand.

“I don’t understand,” she breathed. Am I dreaming?

Maddox—no, the man, for he couldn’t possibly be Maddox, no matter how similar the voices—stepped into the cell. His attention jerked to the side, away from her, as if he needed a moment to compose himself.

Golden rays of sunlight danced over him, reverently caressing his beautiful face. Same dark eyebrows, same thickly lashed violet eyes. Same blade of a nose and lush lips.

How could this be? How had her captors produced the exact likeness of the man she’d met last night, down to that same feral edge? A man who stopped the voices of the past with his mere presence?

A twin?

Her eyes widened. A twin. Of course. Finally, something made sense. “They killed your brother,” she blurted out. Maybe he already knew. Maybe he was glad. But maybe, just maybe, he’d take her into town and she could report the horrendous crime she’d witnessed. Justice could be served.

“I do not have a brother,” he said. “Not by blood.”

“But…but…” Maddox will be fine, the gorgeous man had said. She shook her head. Impossible. She’d watched him die. But an angel could have been resurrected, right? A hard lump formed in her throat. The men of this household were most definitely not angels, no matter what the townspeople claimed.

His gaze swept back to her, down her body in a possessive appraisal and up again. He scowled. “Did they leave you here all night?” Countenance darker by the second, he scanned the rest of the cell. “Tell me they gave you blankets and water and only removed them this morning.”

Shaking still, she smoothed a hand over her face and through her hair, wincing at the tangles she encountered. Dirt probably caked her from head to toe. Like that matters. “Who are you? What are you?”

For a long while, he didn’t speak. Just studied her as though she were a bug under a microscope. She knew that look well. It was a favorite of everyone at the Institute. “You know who I am.”

“But you can’t be him,” she insisted, not wanting to accept the other alternative. He was not like the others, the demons who had slain him. “My Maddox is dead.”

“Your Maddox?” Something fiery flickered in his eyes. “Yours?”

She lifted her chin, refusing to answer.

Lips inching into what might have been a smile, he held out one arm and beckoned her over. “Come. We will clean you up, warm you and feed you. Then I will…explain.”

That hesitation made it clear he wouldn’t be explaining anything. He had something else in mind and his tone suggested that something would be intense. She remained in place, scared to the core. “Let me see your stomach,” she said, stalling for time.

His fingers gave a swift jerk. “Come.”

A part of her wanted to go to him, to follow wherever he would lead. Because he did look like Maddox, and whatever else Maddox was, he’d still been the best thing to ever happen to her. But once again she held her ground. “No.”

“Come.”

She shook her head. “I’m staying here until you show me your stomach.”

“I won’t hurt you, Ashlyn.” The words not yet echoed from the walls—unsaid, but there all the same. Even more unnerving, the sound of her name on his tongue was decadent, as if he couldn’t help but savor it. And desire another taste. “Ashlyn,” he repeated.

Another shiver raked her and she frowned. He shouldn’t desire her, and she damn sure shouldn’t desire him. “You can’t be my Maddox. You just can’t.”

That intense, fiery something flashed over his face again. “That’s twice now you’ve claimed me as yours.”

“I-I’m sorry.” She didn’t know what else to say. Maddox had saved her from the voices, for a little while at least. She had watched him die. They were connected. He was hers.

“Don’t be sorry.” He sounded almost tender just then. “I am Maddox,” he insisted. “Now come.”

“No.”

Tired of her refusal, the man closed the rest of the distance between them. He smelled of wanton heat and primitive rituals performed in the moonlight. “I’ll carry you over my shoulder if I must, just as I did last night. If I’m forced to do it, however, I cannot guarantee you’ll make it out of this cell with your clothes on. Understand?”