The Darkest Passion

CHAPTER NINETEEN

GIDEON, KEEPER OF LIES, tossed and turned atop his bed. His boxers were glued to his sweat-soaked skin, his bandaged hands—or lack thereof—throbbing painfully. Blood had beaded on those bandages and as much as he’d healed, that hadn’t happened in weeks. Regression?

He was asleep but still aware, which was weird as shit, and trapped in the thickest darkness he’d ever come across. Again weird, if not technically true. Not for his demon, at any rate. The darkness inside Pandora’s box had been just like this, suffocating and maddening. Something Lies hadn’t stopped screaming about since entering the strange realm—screams that blended with the ones layering the darkness. Thousands and thousands of discordant shrieks, each one more tortured than the last.

Clawing his way out proved impossible.

“Gideon. Gideon, man, wake up. You’re not supposed to sleep.”

He heard Paris’s voice, wanted to obey, but again, he couldn’t. The darkness was too cloying, wrapping around him, holding tightly, nearly drowning him. And then he did drown, losing that thread of consciousness altogether. Can’t breathe…

The gloom parted, and he sucked in a greedy breath—only to scramble backward. Oh, hell, no. Spider!

Don’t calm, his demon told him.

You don’t calm! Panting, trying not to screech like a pussy, he flattened himself against the wall. The monstrous spider followed, those eight hundred legs stabbing into the ground, those beady eyes practically peering into his soul.

Enemy, Lies said. Meaning, friend.

Hardly. Shit, shit, shit. Every brain cell he possessed—all of which were trapped in that shit-haze of panic—suddenly let him know, in high-def detail, that he would be this creature’s dinner. He’d rather be set on fire. He’d rather be hanged. Hell, he’d rather be gutted.

“I’ll be so tasty,” he said desperately. Truth was, he’d taste like shit, but then, even in his dreams, he couldn’t say what he meant. At least, he didn’t think so. He’d never tried it. And wouldn’t. The consequences could be just as devastating as when he did so in real life. Pain, pain and more pain.

Memories of his last tangle with truth were fresh in his mind. A few weeks ago, he’d told a Hunter what he really felt—hate—and what he really wanted to do—hurt, maim, kill. All because he, who could spot a lie from a few thousand miles away, had been tricked into believing Sabin, keeper of Doubt, was dead, slain by Hunter hands. Stupid of him. But as the pain racked him, he’d thought what’s a little more and had volunteered himself for torture to save his friends from having to endure it.

That’s when he lost his hands to a hacksaw. They were now stubs with a few fingers. Even in his dreams. Therefore, he couldn’t defend himself properly against Mr. Hungry—who was still eyeing him as if he were a slab of beef as he tripped from one corner of the dream room to another.

Those corners closed in on him, the space shrinking.

Hell. No. “Come closer!” Stay away! “You want to do this.” You don’t want to do this.

Don’t calm, Lies repeated.

There was no time to analyze his demon’s odd behavior. One of those hairy legs swiped out. The tip was sharp, bladelike, and sliced his thigh. Maybe that tip had been dipped in poison, because the sting that next exploded through him sent him to his knees, causing his muscles to lock onto his bones, nearly breaking them in half.

“Do that again,” he rasped. Shut up, just shut up! He rarely despised his demon. Most days, he even liked the bastard. Was glad to be a stronger, harder soldier because of the little fiend. But not now. He wanted to curse that damned spider to everlasting hell.

Why he was so afraid of spiders, he didn’t know. The fear had simply always been there.

Another swipe of that leg. Another cut, this one on his back as he tried to spin away from impact. The sting spread quickly, his muscles twisting. The bones in his arm did break this time.

“Again,” he repeated, the word like an arrow as it left his clenched teeth. “Again.”

Don’t calm!

The spider stilled, its disgusting head tilting to the side. Watching him, studying him. Damn it! He couldn’t scramble away, was now locked in place.

“Stay!” Go! The thickness of his breath, beating against the too-close walls, echoed.

“Why do you say the opposite of what your expression tells me you mean?”

The voice came out of nowhere. Or maybe the spider was talking. Except he would have thought a spider that ugly would be male, and this voice had been pure femininity. Familiar somehow. Soft, yet strong. Relax, that voice said.

Lies sighed with contentment.

“Stay!” Gideon shouted to the beast. He wouldn’t be tricked into passivity like his demon.

Slowly, too slowly, the spider faded, shimmering out of view. Another trick. You have to—

A woman stepped from the ensuing murkiness. She was tall and lean, with shoulder-length black hair that possessed not a single curl or hint of wave. There was something as familiar about her face as there’d been about her voice.

Who was she?

She had eyes like black velvet, a regal nose and lips so red they were like thousands of tiny, freshly polished rubies that had been pressed together and cut into a heart. Her cheekbones were sharp, her chin stubborn, but by the gods, she was lovely. A warrior queen.

His heart continued its frantic beat, even as Lies uttered another of those sighs. The panic left him, leaving behind a white-hot fascination. A trick? Who cared! His mind had surely used his deepest fantasies to create her.

The sweat dried on his body, and the ice left his blood as a consuming fire washed through him, blistering everything it touched. So badly he wanted to reach out, to touch her, to caress her face and run his fingers through her hair. To know if she was as soft and silky as he thought she would be.

“Why do you say the opposite of what you mean?” she asked again.

“Don’t know,” he said, meaning that he did, in fact, know the answer. He could have lied in more detail, allowing her to decipher the truth, but a single thought had stopped him. What if she was Bait, a female sent to help destroy him?

Were Hunters now so powerful they could invade dreams?

Possible. Torin had visited him earlier and told him that Galen had an artifact, that the traitor had successfully bonded the demon of Distrust with a dark-haired female and— A dark-haired female?

He stiffened. Like the one he was staring at?

“Come to the dungeon,” she said. “Alone.”

“Who aren’t you?” he demanded.

“Who aren’t you?” she shot back.

Silence slithered between them, and anger filled those black eyes. Anger and still that churning curiosity.

“Come to the dungeon, or I’ll bring back the spider.” With that, she disappeared.

Gideon’s eyelids flew open, his conscious mind propelled from that dream-state as if riding a rocket.

“Thank the gods,” a frantic Paris said. “Finally.”

Gideon was panting. Unlike in his dream, his sweat was not dried. It poured off him, drenching him. Just like in his dream, however, his arm, thigh and back were throbbing, bleeding from where they’d been cut.

“What happened?” he demanded shakily. “Small, hairless mosquito…”

“Bad dream, as I feared.”

Fading sunlight trickled in through the only window in his room, but his overhead light was on, illuminating his friend. Paris’s hair was multihued, and each of those hues gleamed brightly. His skin was pale, yet it held the shimmer of a pearl.

Now, Gideon might have acted like a pussy, but Paris looked like one, he thought with the first threads of humor returning.

“You fell asleep before we could tell you not to and must’ve met our new guest.”

The girl. “Who isn’t our guest?”

“Scarlet’s her name, and she’s a Lord of the Underworld. Or Lordess, I guess.”

They’d actually found one of the missing links and brought her here? “What’s she not a keeper of?” He would have scrubbed a hand down his face to clear away the remnants of sleep, but couldn’t.

Paris sensed his need and wiped his eyes with the edge of his sleeve. “Nightmares, apparently. Pretty thing, if you like ’em rough, but evidently she’s as crazy as the Hunters.”

Nightmares. For some reason, the word alone was nearly enough to give his own demon an orgasm. And Gideon, well, he was suddenly wondering why the girl had seemed so familiar to him.

Stay, stay, stay, Lies demanded inside his mind.

“Olivia helped us capture her, and she’s locked in the dungeon,” Paris continued.

“She’s hurt, right?” he demanded, throwing his weakened legs over the side of the bed.

“What are you doing, man?”

Gideon managed to stand, swaying but thankfully not falling, his gaze sweeping over his body. He still wore those boxers, was dirty from the sweat and probably smelled.

It wasn’t vanity that propelled him unsteadily toward the bathroom, he told himself, but a sense of politeness. No reason to torture the girl—Scarlet, Paris claimed—when she had yet to do anything wrong. Well, kind of. His newest wounds hurt, dripping blood all over his clean floor. Her fault?

Aeron, housecleaner extraordinaire, would be pissed, a prospect that had his lips twitching. If nothing else, that’d be fun to watch. Aeron with a mop. Classic.

All the Lords had assigned chores. A great thing for his friends, sure, but Gideon kind of excelled at freeloading. A title he’d once worn with pride. Then Paris had guilted him into helping with the shopping. They’d taken turns, each going to the grocery once a week, Paris at the beginning of the week and Gideon at the end.

He wondered if someone else had taken over the chore since his injury and if so, what he’d have to do instead once he recovered fully. Probably help Aeron with maid-service.

His lips stopped twitching.

“So what’d she do to you?” Paris asked, sidling up to him and acting as his crutch the rest of the way to the bathroom. Once there, Paris even started the water. Scalding hot, just as Gideon liked it. “You mentioned a small, hairless mosquito and I gotta tell you, I have no idea what that means.”

With a little more help, Gideon managed to strip. He stepped under the spray. He’d never been modest and he knew Paris, who’d been with thousands and thousands of women, and even the occasional man over the years, wouldn’t care.

For a long while, he simply stood immobile, stubs braced on the wall in front of him, broken arm throbbing as the water poured over him, burning his face and body. Then his good wrist was captured, his bandage upturned and a bar of soap placed atop it.

“No thanks,” he muttered. How was he going to manage this?

“It lives,” Paris muttered back. “You never answered my question. What’d she do to you with those mosquitoes?”

“Nothing,” he said, meaning something.

“I know that. Start talking.”

As he scrubbed himself with the soap as best he could, considering he was handless and reduced to using only his right arm, he explained in Gideon-speak. His meaning was clear—Awake, I got to party with my favorite thing ever—even without having to resort to the truth.

“You know what this means, don’t you?” Paris asked grimly.

“Yeah.” No. What the hell? His brain must be addled. All he could think was that Scarlet knew how to conjure insects, but then, a three-year-old could have figured that out by now.

“She knew what scared you most. Only logical conclusion is that the woman can sense our deepest fears and present them to us while we’re sleeping. Hence, nightmares.”

Great. Exactly what his life had been missing. “I’m not going to pay her a visit.”

That earned a No, thanks from Lies.

“Now hold everything.”

“You’re totally going to be able to talk me out of this, so I wouldn’t shut up if I were you.” Took him a bit, but he managed to switch off the water. “Don’t get me a towel.”

A growling Paris tossed a fluffy white bath mat at him. Gideon missed, his bandaged nubs simply not fast enough. He bent down and after several attempts, managed to lift the material. His arm throbbed. Stupid broken bones! He tried to dry himself, he really did, but he didn’t do too good a job.

Finally Paris snatched the cotton and patted him dry. “You’re worse than a baby, you know that?”

“Don’t grab me some clothes.”

Shaking his head, Paris disappeared into the room. A dresser drawer slid open, slammed shut, then another, and then he was striding back into the bathroom, holding out a pair of shorts and a T-shirt.

Gideon had already stepped from the stall. He could have dressed himself, but that would have required the rest of his energy. “I’m not going to let you do it.”

Another shake of that head. “You’re going to go see her, at least take some weapons.” Paris tugged the shirt over his head and helped him pull his arms through. He only cringed once. “Like me.”

“Sure.” Gods, this was embarrassing. Being this helpless. His friend was so matter-of-fact about it, though, that some of the sting eased.

Paris rolled his eyes as he held open the shorts for Gideon to step into. “Just because she’s locked up doesn’t mean she’s harmless.” His gaze dropped pointedly to the still-bleeding wound in Gideon’s thigh.

Gideon shrugged. “Could you have picked anything more masculine for me?” he asked with disgust as he eyed himself. If he hoped to impress Scarlet—which he didn’t, he assured himself—he would fail. A plain white shirt too small for him and gray running shorts. Fabulous.

Paris crossed his arms over his chest. “So you’re thinking about going without me?”

“No.” Alone, she’d said. If he brought a friend, she might zip her pretty lips, and that he wouldn’t tolerate. He wanted answers, damn it. Namely: how the hell did he know her? He wouldn’t be averse to listening to her apologize for slicing him, either.

“Gideon,” Paris warned.

“She’s not locked up, right?” He lumbered into the bedroom, throwing over his shoulder, “I’ll be in danger the entire time.”

“Frustrating ass. Fine, but be careful,” Paris called.

“Won’t.”

After two winding hallways and a flight of stairs, he had to prop himself against a wall to remain standing. Along the way, he’d run into several of his friends, and each had tried to help him back to his room. He’d shooed them away as politely as possible. They were worried about him, and he loved them for it. Not that he could ever tell them that. “I hate you” was the best he could do. But he wasn’t backing down for this.

He forced himself back into motion. As he crossed the threshold into the dungeon, the air changed completely. It was dirty now, laden with blood, sweat and even urine. Hunters had been tortured here, over and over again. How disgusted the girl must be. Perhaps huddled in a corner, shaking. Crying.

What would he do if that were the case? Probably run screaming, he mused. Only thing worse than spiders were feminine tears.

Grappling with dread, he turned the final corner. At last she came into view, and he stilled. Awareness consumed him. First thing he noticed: she wasn’t crying. Or scared. Second: she was far lovelier in person than she’d been in his dream.

She gripped the bars, waiting, expression blank. “You came.” She didn’t sound surprised, just resigned.

“No, I didn’t.” As if in a trance, he closed the distance between them, the scent of night flowers suddenly filling his nose. He breathed deeply. So did Lies.

Her gaze raked him, taking his measure, cataloging his every flaw. “Maybe you shouldn’t have.”

Again he was struck by how familiar she was, both her voice and her face, but he still couldn’t figure out where he’d met her. “Don’t tell me why.”

Her dark eyes narrowed. “Tell me I’m pretty.”

Conceited, was she? Well, she wouldn’t get what she wanted from him. “You’re ugly.”

Part of him expected her to gasp in horror. She didn’t. In that same resigned voice, she said, “Tell me I’m smart.”

“You’re stupid.”

Slowly her lips curled into a smile. “Well, well, well. Lies. It really is you. We’re together again at last.”