The Darkest Pleasure

Reyes blinked in surprise as he faced his friend. He trusted this man, respected him, yet he had disappointed him over and over in the past few days. Though he didn’t know what Lucien planned, he offered his hand without reservation.

Without dragging his swirling eyes from Reyes’s gaze, Lucien wrapped his fingers around Reyes’s.

At the moment of contact, a lightning spear slammed through his entire body. Every muscle he possessed clenched and unclenched as though hooked to a generator, volts of pure, electrical power pumping through his bloodstream. Heat slithered around him, a python holding on to a meal, tightening more and more until he could no longer breathe. Felt so good, the pain. He squeezed his lids shut, savoring. His demon purred.

His mind blackened for several heartbeats, a dark shroud covering every corner. Then pinpricks of light formed, growing… growing… An image winked into place, not yet cohesive. Just an outline. And then, suddenly, he could see Danika lying on a bed just as he’d imagined all these weeks. Except she wasn’t a fair goddess spread and waiting for his pleasure. She was shackled to the bed, her once-pale hair cut and dyed.

She was trembling. Tear streaks had dried on her cheeks, and she’d nibbled on her lower lip so forcefully that tiny droplets of blood had beaded. In that moment, rage was like another demon inside him. Danika was a woman meant for pleasure and light, not darkness and fear.

“She does not look well.” Lucien released him and stepped away, taking the vision with him. “The longer she is with them, the more harm they can do to her. I followed the dead Hunter’s body to a funeral home, stayed there in spirit form and watched as Hunters came to visit. They unknowingly led me straight to Danika. They know she killed their friend. Apparently they’ve had her since the night of the stabbing. They have her chained to a bed and have kept her asleep. She is unable to fight them like that, is helpless, vulnerable, a—”

“Yes!” Reyes’s arm fell to his side. He was panting. “Yes,” he repeated. He didn’t have to think about what to do any longer. “Give me Danika and I will give you Aeron.” Perhaps this was the answer to his torment. Save Danika, protect her and help restore Aeron to his former self, reminding the warrior of what he had once been. Though how he would accomplish the latter, he still didn’t know. “But I will have your word that when he is brought here, he will be given the solitude he craves.”

“You have it.” Lucien nodded, grim. “Know that I do this partly because Anya thinks Danika can lead us to one of the artifacts. And doubt me not. When the girl is here, I will use her to find it.”

“And doubt me not. I am not myself when I am with her and do not know how I will react if you willingly place her in harm’s way.” Already he felt feral with the thought. “Take me to her.”

“First tell me you understand that we might save her now, only to lose her later. I will not have you blame me if—”

“She will not die.” He wouldn’t let her. “No more talking. Take me to her.”

I FOUGHT FOR MY LIFE only to lose it like this? Danika laughed bitterly. She’d only just woken up, wasn’t sure how much time had passed or what had been done to her. The thought made her gag.

After the…the…attack—oh, God, don’t think about it— she had raced to her shabby apartment to gather her things. Mistake. She should have left the gun and clothing behind, but without the day’s pay she’d known replacing them would have been too expensive. And since she hadn’t yet mastered the ability to steal without getting caught, she’d felt she had no other recourse.

A group of strange men had been waiting for her, standing in the shadows next to the fire escape as though they’d known what route she most often took. As if they’d been watching her for days and knew her habits.

She could have fought one or two. Even three. But there had been six of them, all bearing the same figure-eight tattoo on their wrists as the man she’d—she’d—she couldn’t even think the word now. They’d possessed the same tattoo as the man who’d died in that dirty alley. They’d overpowered her, knocked her out.

Never helpless again, huh?

When she’d first opened her eyes a little bit ago, her hope that the men were cops and she might make bail was completely dashed. Cops did not chain women to strange beds. Who were these men? What did they want with her?

Nothing good, that much was clear. Panic bloomed inside her chest, freezing her blood. Her ears rang with fear. Her jaw ached from the knock it had taken. Her strength was depleted, hunger gnawing at her. She had trouble drawing in a breath, her airways too constricted.

Don’t make a sound. The chains were cold and heavy, abrading. She tugged at them as her wild gaze circled the room. It was nicely furnished with overstuffed chairs, colorful beaded pillows and a mahogany vanity that boasted a square, gilt-edged mirror.

Reyes’s doing? she wondered, not knowing what to think about that. He had kept her in comfort, too.

No, not Reyes, she decided in the next instant. He wasn’t the kind of man to send others to do his dirty work. He would have been there, would have subdued her himself. So who had taken her? she wondered again. Friends of the man she’d…hurt, obviously. Those tattoos…

Did the men mean to punish her for hurting him? Did they mean to rape her? Torture her? Oh, God. Did they think she was a hooker, too, and plan to sell her services?

Tears burned in her eyes. Right now she was alone. She continued to work at the chains, minute after minute dragging by. Sweat poured from her and soaked the sheets underneath her. The more she moved, the more her clothing pulled away from the metal bands, no longer acting as a block. Soon her skin was sliced and blood oozed from her wrists and ankles.

A knock sounded.

Her heart skipped a beat, and she pursed her lips to silence a whimper. She stilled. Should she pretend to be asleep?

The room’s only door creaked open, revealing a tall, average-looking male. She couldn’t force her eyelids to close. Could only stare at him, taking his measure. He wore a white button-down shirt and black slacks and looked to be in his late thirties. He had brown hair, which was combed from his face. His eyes were large, green like hers. He appeared very professional, very unmurderer-like. Calm, perhaps even friendly.

That didn’t lessen her terror.

Danika swallowed the sudden lump in her throat. Not a sound. She bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood. Don’t reveal fear. In, out, she breathed, slowly, each intake and exhalation precise.

“Good. You’re awake.” With barely a pause, the man added, “Relax, my dear. I have no plans to hurt you.”

“Unchain me, then.” The pleading quality of her voice stripped away every effort she’d made to appear strong.

“I’m sorry.” He sounded genuinely upset. “The chains are a necessity.”

“Just let me go and—”

He held up one hand, silencing her. “I’m afraid we don’t have a lot of time. My name is Dean Stefano. My friends call me Stefano, so I hope that you will, as well. You are Danika Ford.”

“Let me go. Please.”

“I will, just not yet.” His brows disappeared into his hairline. “Let’s cut to the heart of the matter, shall we? What do you know about the Lords of the Underworld?”

The Lords? This was about her other kidnapping? A crazed laugh escaped her. What kind of shit had Reyes and company dragged her into?

“Tell me.”

“Nothing,” she said, because she didn’t know what kind of answer Stefano wanted. “I know nothing about any Lords.”

Irritation flickered in his eyes. “Lying will only get you in trouble, my dear. So let’s try again. You stayed with a group of men in Budapest. Not just any men, but unquestionably the most violent men the world has ever seen. Yet they didn’t harm you. And if they didn’t harm you, that means they considered you a friend.”

“They’re monsters,” she said, and prayed that was what he wanted to hear. “I hate them. I don’t know why they kept me, and I don’t know why they let me go. Amusement, maybe.” Truth and hate blared from every syllable. “Let me go. Please. I didn’t mean to hurt… It was an accident and I…” Tears once again stung her eyes.

Stefano sighed. “We kept you drugged while we decided what to do with you. Drugged yet safe. You took a strong soldier from us, Danika, one of our best. We miss Kevin terribly. His wife hasn’t stopped crying since I told her of his demise; she refuses to eat and prays for death so that she can join him. You owe us now, don’t you agree?”

As he’d probably hoped, his words filled her with white-hot guilt and that guilt cut deeper than the shackles. “Please. I just want to go home.” Not that she had a home anymore. She laughed again, feeling a little crazed and a lot shaky. Dizzy. “Please.”

Stefano’s expression didn’t soften. “The Lords—Maddox, Lucien, Reyes, Sabin, Gideon, they call themselves. Shall I go on? They are demons, created in the heavens yet spawned from hell itself. Did you know that?”

She blinked, breath congealing in her lungs. “D-demons?” A few months ago, she would have rolled her eyes at him. Now, she nodded. That explained so much. She’d seen her captors’ faces morph into skeletal beings. She’d been flown through the city cradled in the arms of a winged man. She’d seen fangs elongate and claws sharpen. She’d heard growls and screams of pain and torture.

Demons. Like the ones in her dreams, her secret paintings. Had she somehow known, even as a little girl, that she’d end up in Budapest with Reyes and his friends? Then later, with this man? Had the nightmares she’d always battled been a means of preparing her for this?

“Yes. Oh, yes. You believe. You see the truth.” Stefano stalked toward her, hate radiating from him. That hate transformed him from calm and friendly to menacing beast. “Death is a demon. Destruction is a demon. Disease is a demon. Every evil deed the world has ever known, every evil that has ever transpired, can be traced to their doorstep.”

The closer he came to her, the more she shrank into the mattress. “Wh-what does this have to do with me?”

“So no one you’ve loved has died? Nothing you’ve owned has been destroyed? No one has ever lied to you? Sickness has never plagued you?”

“I—I—” She didn’t know what to say.

“Still aren’t convinced of their treachery? One of those demons seduced my wife. She was all that was pure and right and never would have betrayed me on her own. Yet somehow, some way, the very demon spawn who tricked her into bed convinced her that she was evil, that she needed to die. So she killed herself, and I was the one to find her body hanging from the rafters of our garage.” Each word sharpened his voice. His jaw had become granite.

Danika knew the pain of discovering a loved one dead. She’d been the one to find her grandfather after his heart attack, and the image of his pale, lifeless body still haunted her, tainting the memories of the vital man he’d once been. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

Stefano gulped, seemed to gather his composure around himself. “That loss gave me a purpose in life—one I share with thousands of others around the globe. While the Lords are darkness, we are light, and we were not meant to endure the evil they have brought into this world. Our world,” he added. He closed his eyes as if he could taste the delicious flavor of his hope. “Once we capture the Lords and contain their evil once and for all, things will be as they were always meant to be. Beautiful…peaceful. Perfect.”

Keep him talking. Keep his thoughts off you. “Why capture? Why not kill them?”

Slowly his eyelids cracked open, the happy glaze already fading from his irises. He stared at her, seeming to probe her soul. The sensation was eerie. “Killing them frees the demons inside them, allowing those vile beasts to roam the earth crazed and unfettered. We need man and spirit bound together.” He shrugged as if he didn’t care, but his gaze razored. “Until we find the box, that is.”

“Box?” Trying to appear relaxed, she wiggled her wrists against the chains. They were still too tight, but her skin was wet with sweat. If she could just slip free… She could, what? Run? Demons were chasing her family. Not humans. Would her loved ones ever truly be safe?

“Pandora’s box,” Stefano said, still watching her intently.

Her eyes widened, and she stilled. Is this a dream, perhaps? Another nightmare? “You’re kidding, right?” Her grandmother used to tell her stories about Pandora and her infamous box. “That’s a myth. A legend.”

He crossed his arms over his chest, stretching the fabric of his shirt and defining the lean line of his muscles. Obviously he trained with weights and weapons, just like the Lords. “And demons do not walk the earth, I suppose?”

Her stomach tightened with dread.

“I’ll tell you a story, all right? Listen closely.”

He paused, waiting. She nodded, hoping that’s what he desired.

Obviously, it was. He said, “A few hundred years after the creation of the earth, a horde of demons escaped hell. They were the vilest creatures Hades and his brother Lucifer had ever spawned. They were uncontrollable, living nightmares. In a bid to save their world, the gods used the bones of the goddess of oppression to create a box. With cunning and precision they were able to capture the demons and lock them inside.”

“I know the rest,” Danika whispered, the tightening in her stomach becoming a sea of sickness.

Stefano arched a brow. “Tell me.”

“The gods asked Pandora to guard the box.”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“Pandora opened it,” she continued, because it was the most well-known version of the story. That wasn’t what her grandmother had told her, however.

“No. That’s where legend is wrong,” Stefano traced a fingertip over the tattoo on his wrist. “Pandora was a warrior, the greatest female warrior of her time. The box was given to her for safekeeping. She wouldn’t have opened it, even upon threat of death.”

Another tug against the chains, this one weaker. Danika found herself suddenly fascinated, listening despite her desire to leave. Stefano had just confirmed what her grandmother had told her, a tale unlike the one the world believed. “And?”

“And the gods’ elite soldiers were angry that they hadn’t been chosen to guard it, their pride slighted. They decided to show the gods their mistake. While the one called Paris seduced Pandora, the others fought her guards. In the end, the soldiers won. Their leader, the one named Lucien, opened the box, releasing those vile demons upon the innocent world once more. Death and Darkness reigned.”

Danika once again sagged into the mattress. She stared up at the ceiling, trying to imagine harsh, rugged Reyes as Stefano claimed he’d been. Prideful, jealous. When Danika had been with him, Reyes hadn’t seemed to care what others thought of him. He’d barked orders and snapped commands. He’d been surly and brooding. “And?”

“The box disappeared. No one knew where it had been taken or who had taken it. Having no other alternative, the gods gathered the demons and placed them inside the warriors responsible for the travesty, then banished them to earth. Those men lost all threads of their humanity; they became their demons, bathing our world in blood. And they continue to be a blight upon us all. As long as they’re roaming free, no one is safe.” Stefano rubbed at his Adam’s apple, his head tilting to the side, expression intense. “I asked you before, but I will ask you again. Can you imagine a world without rage, pain, lies and misery?”

“No.” She couldn’t. For the past two months, those were all she’d known. They’d been her only companions.

“The Lords killed your grandmother, Danika. Are you aware of that?”

“You don’t know that for sure!” she yelled, the words leaving her on a burst. Tears filled her eyes again, but she suppressed them as she had before. “She could be alive.”

“She’s not.”

“How do you know?” The question was panicked, hoarse. “You can’t know unless you’ve…unless you’ve…”

“Seen her.”

Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God. No. Goddamn it, no! “Have you?” She barely heard herself, but didn’t have the strength to ask again.

“Yes and no,” he admitted. “One of my men saw the creature Aeron carrying her limp body over his shoulder. The pair disappeared inside a building, or my agent would have followed.” Stefano pinched the bridge of his nose in regret. “At first, we planned to watch you and wait for the Lords to come for you again. We assumed you meant to aid their cause, and we planned to capture all of you at the same time. But you continually ran as if you didn’t want them to find you. That intrigued me.”

Like she cared about his plans! Was her grandmother dead? A limp body did not a corpse make. Grandma Mallory could very well be alive, laughing, eating a bowl of her favorite soup. She pictured it and nearly cried out in longing, desperate for it to be true.

The image soon morphed, a dagger protruding from her grandmother’s chest. No. No! She wanted to scream, to rail. Emotion does you no good. You know that. You cannot wallow or you’ll collapse.

Hardly matters if I collapse, she thought, nearing hysteria. Not like I can run now.

“You can help us capture them, Danika. Ensure that they never do to others what they’ve done to you and me. You can punish them for hurting your loved one. Your family can finally stop running. You can all be together again.”

Without Grandma Mallory?

This time, she couldn’t stop the sob. Her chin trembled and her jaw ached. Warm tears flowed down her cheeks freely.

“Help me,” Stefano added earnestly. “In return, I’ll help you. I’ll guard you and your family until every single one of the Lords is dead. Those demons will never hurt you again. You have my word of honor.”

To know her family was safe and would remain safe… She wouldn’t have cared about the terms of the deal even if she had to sign her soul over to the devil. The hope that Stefano could help her mother and sister was irresistible. The thought of revenge was overwhelming.

“What do I have to do?”

CHAPTER FOUR

ONE AT A TIME, Lucien flashed most of the warriors to an abandoned building. They were inside the fortress in Budapest one second, night all around them, and someplace sunny and warm the next.

Lucien flashed Reyes last. Last time he’d been transported like this, he’d vomited. This time, his concern for Danika overcame even the slightest bit of nausea.

Inhaling dust and crumbling plaster, Reyes opened his eyes. The silver stone of the fortress had disappeared, the comforts of hearth and home gone. Bare gray walls, cement floors and piles of lumber now greeted him. Several windows were cracked; black garbage bags had been taped to them but now fell halfway, as if bowing, allowing the men to peer into an unknown world of…silence and stillness, he realized, hearing nothing and seeing no one.

The others stalked the building, searching for a hidden enemy, blades and guns raised and ready for action. All but Anya, who’d come in place of Maddox, wore expressions of confusion. A few muttered, “Where are the Hunters?”

“Not here,” Lucien answered.

“Where are we?” Reyes asked quietly. His own blades were pressed against his thighs. Urgency swam laps in his bloodstream.

“The States.” Sabin closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. “L.A. is my guess. No place else has the stench of Hollywood.”

“Correct,” Lucien said with a grim nod.

“Hunters have a large faction here.” There was relish in the undertones of Sabin’s voice. “A faction I despise with every ounce of my being. The leader and I have history, and he despises me, too, so be ready for anything. He joined the Hunters after his wife and I…” He shrugged, some of his anticipation muted by sorrow. “We were together, but I’m not good for humans and things ended badly. Hunters recruited him, and he’s been gunning for me ever since.”

Sabin and his men had been battling Hunters far longer than Lucien and his group had. Paris, Maddox, Torin, Aeron and Reyes had split with Sabin, Strider, Gideon, Cameo, Amun and Kane several thousand years ago.

Their friend Baden, keeper of Distrust, had been brutally murdered by Hunters. After revenge had been meted out, half of the Lords had desired peace. What was better for a battered soul than a cessation of the constant struggle between good and evil, darkness and light? The other half had desired Hunter blood spilling into the streets of ancient Greece, crimson rivers of pain and terror.

Unable to come to terms, they’d gone their separate ways. Until Sabin brought the blood feud to Budapest, that is.

Though Reyes had walked away all those years ago, he would not, could not, do so now. He was involved, the illusion of peace forever shattered. Hunters had recently cut Torin’s throat, attempting to weaken him and capture everyone else. Thankfully, those Hunters had failed.

Reyes would not fail in his mission.

Whatever he had to do to destroy his enemy, he would do. And if he had to destroy the gods who might very well support the Hunters’ quest, eventually he would find a way to do that, too.

It was hard to know the gods’ ultimate goal, however. Fickle and mysterious, they were like a puzzle missing several key pieces. While the silent Greeks had angered Reyes with their neglect, the cryptic Titans edged him toward a murderous rage. They claimed to want harmony for the world, both in the heavens and below. They claimed to desire worship and adoration, freedom from death and destruction. And yet they had ordered Danika’s execution. They’d even ordered Anya’s execution, though they’d since changed their minds. And what they were doing to Aeron…

Do not venture down this path. Not here, not now. Already his nails were elongated, pinpricks pressing into his palms. Red spots winked over his vision, and the demon whispered seductively: Cut yourself. Hurt.

“No,” he gritted out.

“This way,” Lucien was saying, but he paused when Reyes spoke and peered at him quizzically. “Is something wrong?”

“No. I am fine.” When Danika was safe and tucked in his bed, he would feed his demon. Until then, there would be no hurting himself. Blood loss ultimately would weaken him, and he needed to be at top strength for the coming combat.

But for every second he resisted, the demon would grow louder and louder. Reyes knew that well. He would become more and more distracted. That was the bane of his demon-curse. He needed to cut himself, but in the end he weakened like any other being when injured, albeit temporarily.

“What were you saying?” he asked Lucien.

Every gaze shifted to him.

Lucien rolled his eyes. “The girl is being held one street over. Innocents fill the area, so we will have to be careful.”

He didn’t care about innocents. Cold and callous of him, but then, he’d never been a soft, easy man. Well, that wasn’t true. In the years before his pairing with Pain, he remembered laughing and joking with his friends. “How many Hunters are with her?” A muscle ticked in his jaw as he thought of the suffering she might even now be enduring.

Whatever was done to Danika, Reyes would retaliate a hundredfold when facing the Hunters. He might hate his demon for the torment he constantly endured, but he wouldn’t hesitate to hand over the reins of control so that the creature could unleash its powers. Not today. Pain could look into a human’s soul, find every vulnerability, even the tiniest chink, and systematically scrape each one with poisoned arrows until the human was screaming, writhing, clawing at his skin to stop the agony.

“Earlier today,” Lucien said, “there were twenty-three in the building.”

“They multiply like rabbits.” Sabin grinned, and the sight of it was pure wickedness. “Could be a hundred more by now.”