The Darkest Secret

CHAPTER SEVEN

STRIDER FUCKING hurt.

He hurt everywhere but especially his gut. Maybe because Ex had sliced him open from hip to hip, spine to navel. The angels had had to stuff his insides back, well, inside. They’d even stitched him up and tended his feverish, sweat-drenched body for three solid days.

He would have healed sooner if he’d won the fight with Amun and Ex like a big boy. But he hadn’t. He’d lost. And so his pain had been magnified a thousandfold, and he’d been too weak to do a damn thing about it. Talk about humiliating!

Now he was still bed-bound and propped against pillows, but at least he was awake and aware. His demon was silent, too afraid to poke his head from the shadows of Strider’s mind and lose another challenge until they’d recuperated sufficiently.

Torin sat in a chair in the far corner, and Zacharel, the black-haired angel Lysander had left in charge, leaned against one of the metal posters of Strider’s bed. Both were watching him, waiting. Clearly impatient.

Could a guy not suffer in peace?

This room was supposed to be his sanctuary, his private escape, but he’d opened his eyes a little while ago to find Torin pacing beside him—and not out of concern, the curious bastard. Zacharel had been exactly as he was now. Unmoving, gaze penetrating.

“What happened?” Zacharel asked. His voice mesmerized even as it repelled. The undertones were lilting, almost melting—and yeah, it was still embarrassing as shit the way Strider reacted to these angelic beings—but everything else about that voice was cold, uncaring, detached.

Like his eyes. A vivid jade-green, they should have been welcoming, should have reminded Strider of summer. Or hell, even of Torin’s wicked sense of humor. Instead, those eyes were green ice. There was nothing inside them. No emotion of any kind. Not good, not bad, just a spiraling abyss of emptiness.

Strider had met some freaky immortals over the centuries, had thought he’d seen everything, but this one…no. There were none like him. Nothing fazed him. Strider had a feeling he could stab the angel in the heart and Zacharel would merely glance down before continuing on with whatever he’d been doing.

“Demon. Concentrate. What happened?” Zacharel again, and he didn’t raise his voice in the slightest. See? Emotionless.

“For gods’ sake, Strider,” Torin snapped. “Open your damn mouth and form some words. While you’re at it, stop staring at the angel like he’s a tasty treat.” Not so emotionless.

Strider’s cheeks warmed with a flush. He’d leave the tasty treat comment alone since he was too foggy to come up with a decent response. And no, Zacharel didn’t react to it.

“I went to the girl’s room. She wasn’t there, but I saw where she’d peeled back the wallpaper and found an old doorway that led into Amun’s bedroom. She barred it. So I went to his door, but she’d barred it, too. That one I kicked in.” And he’d expected to find Amun headless. Or, at the very least, Haidee under the dark influence of Amun’s new demons.

The rage he’d felt at the prospect…the despair. And yet, neither had compared to the jealousy he’d experienced when he’d discovered the truth. A jealousy that had shamed him. One, he couldn’t be attracted to Ex. Two, Amun was his friend. He should have sheltered him from the temptress’s wiles.

“And?” Torin prompted, exasperated.

“And he was awake, lucid.” At least for a little while. Until Strider had approached the girl. Then Amun the Demonically Insane had returned. “Surprisingly, the black phantoms were gone and stayed gone.” He didn’t mention that Amun had been on top of Ex, with his hand down her pants, his face aflame with pleasure.

Hers had been, too. So much pleasure.

She hadn’t fought the warrior. She had encouraged him, begged for more. A trick, Strider had thought. Surely she had planned to lure Amun into a false sense of security and then strike.

But when Strider had approached her, determined to stop her from hurting his friend, Amun had attacked him. And when Strider had tried to defend himself, Ex had attacked him. To aid Amun.

What the fuck, man? He hadn’t understood at the time; he’d been too busy trying not to die. Now he thought he got it. Ex had wanted to leave with Amun. Which meant she’d planned to take him to her Hunters so they could kill him.

Still. That didn’t explain why Amun had defended her. Why the warrior had touched her so intimately.

Strider had known the dude a long, long time. They’d fought together, hung out and partied together. And by “partied together” Strider meant that Amun had watched him party and guarded his back. Amun didn’t sleep around, was usually the most reserved of the warriors, and was sometimes as boring as shit. The good kind of boring, though. You knew you could rely on him for anything. He was solid, a rock, and you always knew where you stood with him.

He wasn’t prone to angry fits, was the most levelheaded guy Strider knew. He would rather take a bullet himself than watch his friends take one. Yet, to protect a murderous bitch, he’d attempted to splatter Strider’s brains all over his bedroom floor.

Amun must not have recognized her. Hell, would anyone? Centuries had passed, she no longer looked like an innocent maiden in need of a strong warrior’s aid, and as many freaky places as they’d been, they’d met other women named Haidee. The fact that she’d somehow regrown her head maybe mighta kinda sorta have also prevented his friends from realizing who she was.

Part of Strider was glad she hadn’t been recognized. The stupid part of him that didn’t like the thought of anyone hurting the woman.

You planned to sic Sabin on her. Remember?

Yes. And maybe he would have done it. Maybe not.

Strider hadn’t even told Torin her true identity yet. He didn’t know why. He’d only said she was a Hunter and had left it at that.

And, okay, yeah. Maybe that had been a halfway decent decision. Maybe Ex’s efforts on Amun’s behalf were real rather than faked. The day Strider had captured her, he’d gotten a glimpse of her boyfriend and had been floored to note the similarities between the Hunter and Amun. Was still floored. As swollen and disfigured as Amun’s face currently was, she probably thought the men were one and the same. If that was the case, she wouldn’t have been taking Amun to Hunters to torture him but to save him.

Had she realized the truth yet, since he’d called Amun by name? Or had she been too preoccupied?

“For gods’ sake!” Torin tossed up his arms, dragging him from the thorny pit of his thoughts. “What’s wrong with you, Strider?”

He leveled a brutal scowl on his friend. “I’m healing. Can’t you see the gaping hole in my stomach?”

“You are fine. Now, as you were saying. Amun looked into your eyes during your conflict, yet you felt no evil urges?” Zacharel asked, returning them to the only subject that mattered.

Conflict. Such a mild word for the handing-of-the-ass Strider had received. “Right. No urges.” Then or now.

Torin scrubbed both of his gloved hands down his tired face. “Well, the shadows are back. Came back that very day, in fact, the moment the angels got him back in bed. And now he’s worse. He worsens every hour. Silently moaning, always thrashing.”

“But he was fine when you walked into his bedroom?” Zacharel insisted.

Did he seriously need to repeat himself? “Yes.”

“With the girl?”

Shit! “Yes, damn it. With the girl.”

Zacharel gave no reaction to Strider’s outburst, of course. “While you were absent from the fortress, we tried exorcism, burning him as close to death as possible, hoping the spirits would unbind themselves and leave. They didn’t. We even tried a cloud cleansing, a—”

“A what?”

“Don’t ask,” Torin said dryly.

“But,” Zacharel continued, “none of those things made a difference. Yet if you looked at him and felt no evil, the girl did the impossible. She forced the demons into submission. That means she is the key.”

Confusion caused Strider’s brows to knit together. “The key? The key to what?”

“Amun’s sanity. He needs her. He must be with her.”

Both Strider and Torin gaped at the angel.

Torin was the first to recover. “She’s a Hunter.” Disbelief and fury coated his tone.

“Yet that mattered not to Amun or the demons,” Zacharel pointed out. “Where is your joy? Your friend now has a chance of surviving.”

A chance. Grim words when they should have been hopeful.

The day Strider had busted into Amun’s room, the angels had been talking of finally killing the insane warrior. They’d given the Lords enough time to fix him, they’d said, and the Lords hadn’t fixed him. The phantoms had begun to seep into the hallway, trying to escape the angels, the fortress, and enter the world.

Strider wouldn’t allow that. He wouldn’t allow Amun to be harmed, either. But he really wouldn’t allow Ex near him. “The day I arrived, you said the female was infected. What did you mean by that?” He would have asked before, but after visiting Amun that first time, he’d been kind of busy sandpapering his skin off in an effort to expunge the evil.

“I have not been given permission to share those details,” the angel said, his frostiness not thawing a single degree.

Zacharel cared about permission? Shocker. “Who do you need permission from?”

“Lysander.”

Of course. The head honcho. “Well, where is he?”

“With his Bianka. They were arguing, and he gave her possession of their cloud. No one is to disturb them for any reason. There are neon signs all around the palace saying so.”

Okay. Strider didn’t really understand a word of that. A cloud palace? Why would Bianka’s possession of it matter? There was no one bigger or stronger than Lysander—except Strider. And unless Bianka went total Harpy on Lysander, which she wouldn’t do because Harpies were supposedly physically incapable of harming their consorts, there was no way the petite stunner could overpower the angel.

Unless, of course, Lysander wanted her to overpower him. Aha. Now Strider understood what Zacharel had meant. The two were engaged in a sexual marathon, and Lysander had given control to Bianka. They may not see him for several years. One thing Strider had learned about the Harpy when she’d visited the fortress was that she enjoyed power and didn’t relinquish it easily.

Lucky Lysander.

Strider could have tasted a Harpy of his own, he supposed, since Bianka had two single sisters. Taliyah and Kaia. Taliyah was the ice princess, as seemingly emotionless as Zacharel, but Strider had never been interested in her. Now, Kaia on the other hand, well, she was the wildfire. He’d been interested. Really interested—until she’d slept with Paris, keeper of Promiscuity. Strider had decided then not to bother with her. Who could compete with a freaking god of sex?

To be honest, Strider was sick of competing in the bedroom all the damn time. Sick of having to be the best lover his partner had ever had. It had gotten old. There was nothing wrong with a guy wanting to lie back and let the woman do all the work for once.

If Defeat had been awake, the demon would have said, “Win.” Strider almost wished the little shit would speak up. Woulda been nice to trample on his feelings by shouting, “Shut the hell up!” The bastard had gotten Strider into this mess, after all.

“And…he’s off again,” Torin muttered wryly.

“Am not.” Strider flipped him off. “Tell me this at least,” he said to the angel. “Can the girl, being infected as she is with something you stupidly won’t tell me about, contaminate Amun? Make him worse?”

A moment passed in silence as the angel considered the question. And wouldn’t you know it? He gave no reaction to the word stupidly. “No.”

All right, then. Strider would forget about Ex’s “infection.” For now.

“So what are we going to do about Amun and the girl?” Torin asked, getting them back on track. Again. He leaned back in his chair, resting his ankle against his knee, hands twined over his middle. A casual pose, if not for the lines of tension branching from his mouth.

Zacharel eyed the keeper of Disease as if he’d lost his brain when he’d gained his demon. “We will test our theory, of course. We will put her back inside Amun’s room.”

“Hell, no!” Strider snarled. And not because those sparks of jealousy had instantly lit back up and now poured through his veins like streams of acid. “He’s defenseless, and she’ll hurt him.”

“She didn’t before.”

“That doesn’t mean she’ll be a tame house cat next time!”

“If things continue as they are, I will kill him.” The words were so simply stated, Strider had no doubt Zacharel meant what he said. “Your choice. I will be satisfied one way or the other.”

Not really a choice at all, the bastard. He had to know that. “I’ll have to clear out Amun’s room and remove…” Shit. “Everything except the bed.” Anything could be used as a weapon. As he’d already learned. “The window will need iron bars.” Hunters were notoriously adept and wily. Look what Ex had done with a simple piece of glass.

His stomach ached in remembrance, the scab pulling tight.

“Maybe we should break her hands, too,” Torin suggested, shocking the sweet loving hell out of Strider. He was usually the voice of semi-reason. “I don’t want her able to snap his neck or pluck his eyes while he’s defenseless.”

Zacharel shrugged, drawing attention to the breadth of his shoulders—and making Strider grit his teeth in annoyance that he’d noticed. What was wrong with him? Men were not his personal preference. “She didn’t before,” the angel remarked.

“That doesn’t mean she’ll be a tame house cat next time,” Torin repeated, mimicking Strider’s earlier you’re-a-moron tone.

“That’s when she thought she could escape with him,” Strider forced himself to say. Because deep down, he still didn’t like the thought of hurting her. He lost more IQ points every day, he decided. “This time, she’ll know there’s no way she can free herself. She’ll know she’s helpless and needs to curry our favor.”

Torin’s eyes widened. “You’re actually voting to leave her be? A Hunter? What’d she stab you with? A magic wand laced with Prozac?”

“No, I’m not voting to leave her be.” Damn it! He had. “Fine. We’ll break her hands.” He wasn’t going to argue about her treatment. She deserved what she got, and he would just have to pacify himself with that knowledge.

“One other thing to consider,” Zacharel said. “Amun fought to reach her, and all of my warriors were needed to subdue him. If you hurt her, I think he will object. And if he objects, I think many in this household will be injured. But again, I give the choice to you.”

How magnanimous of him, Strider thought dryly. Zacharel had a gift for ripping your rationale apart with only a few words. But…Torin couldn’t force the issue now.

Still. Prick that he was, Strider wasn’t exactly ready to back down yet, no matter that he was getting what he’d originally wanted. Zacharel irritated him, and part of him hoped to irritate the guy right back. At least garner some kind of reaction.

“If we decided we wanted it done, would you be the one to do the breaking?”

“Of course,” Zacharel said easily.

Strider blinked at him. Not the answer he’d expected. Feet shuffling, maybe. A little waffling, for sure. “But you’re an angel. Aren’t you supposed to be defenders of humanity or something?”

“She is not exactly human.”

“Then what is she?” The question whipped from him, his eagerness to know unparalleled.

“I do not have permission to tell you.”

The eagerness deflated like a balloon, and Strider gnawed the inside of his cheek to keep himself from snarling. When Lysander finally crawled his way out of wild Bianka’s bed, Strider was going to have a long chat with him. He suspected daggers would be used between every word.

“We won’t damage her,” Strider finally said. “And I have a few conditions. I have to be the one to escort her to Amun.” Just as soon as he could walk. He didn’t like the thought of anyone else putting their hands on her. She was—not his. “Also, I want a camera in the room.” The words emerged harder, harsher. “We’ll monitor what goes on twenty-five, eight.”

Torin nodded, his expression half satisfied, half steeped in guilt. “I’ll have them placed and recording within the hour.”

There were cameras strategically hidden throughout the entire fortress just in case Hunters snuck past their gate and traps, but not in any of the bedrooms. They’d all agreed. If the enemy could bypass everything else and enter one of the rooms, the Lords deserved to die. Privacy was that important.

If Amun ever regained his senses completely, he’d be pissed as hell about the new cameras. But better his fury than his murder.

Zacharel straightened from the post. “I’ll inform my men of what is to transpire.” With that, he turned with the fluid grace of a dancer and strode from the room.

A dancer? Seriously?

Strider’s cheeks heated a whole hell of a lot more than before.

When Torin made no comment about his blush, he relaxed against his pillows. As a sigh left him, he realized how tense he’d been in the angel’s presence. Now he scanned the bedroom, allowing the familiarity of his surroundings to comfort him further. His weapon collection decorated the walls, everything from ancient swords to modern-day firearms.

Only thing hanging on the wall that wasn’t a weapon was the portrait just over the bed. No. Not true, he thought then. The portrait was a weapon, too. Of seduction. In it, Strider was utterly naked and whisking through the clouds like an avenging angel. He was holding a teddy bear in one hand and a stream of pink ribbons in the other.

Anya had given him the nearly life-size monstrosity as a joke. But the joke was on her. He loved the damn thing.

“Where are the others?” he finally asked. “The other day you told me they were out and about, but not where exactly. Or why. I’ve had a little time to think this through, and I realized they don’t need to keep the artifacts out of the fortress anymore. The Hunters aren’t swarming us like before. Word on the street is they vanished, which is bizarre, but Cronus says not to worry—and yeah, I talked to him, he just popped in the other day for no apparent reason—so I’m not worried. Which means you aren’t, either. Which means the boyz are away for a different reason. Right?”

Torin’s sigh was an echo of his. “It’s just too dangerous around here, what with the angels being demon assassins and Amun visiting the dark side. Aeron, Olivia, Legion, William and Gilly are the only ones still here. Not because I need help, but because they’re too weak to leave. And well, Aeron has taken the blame for Amun’s condition and refuses to leave him. Not that you’ve paid any of them a visit, you slacker.”

Gods, he was, wasn’t he? “Thank you for shoving me down the shame spiral. How are they?”

“The guys are still recovering from Hell Week, and the girls are taking care of them. Well, except for Legion. She refuses to get out of bed.”

Aeron must be worried about her, too. Strider really should have checked on him. On all of them. I’m a self-absorbed prick.

“The rest of the crew is spread out,” Torin said, “and I no longer have their locations. I told them not to tell me anymore, to just check in at least once a day so I’d know they were alive.”

“Why don’t you want to know where they are?”

“With the little Hunter here, the less I know about them, the better.”

True. “So, any news? Gossip?”

“You want gossip, you’ve come to the right place, my man.” Some of the tension drained from Torin’s features as well, and he rubbed his hands together. “Ashlyn’s pregnant.”

He rolled his eyes. “I know, moron.”

“Yeah, but did she know she’s carrying twins?”

“No shit?”

“No shit. A boy and a girl. Fire and ice, Olivia said.” Olivia, the angel. She wasn’t like the assassins currently living here, but a joy-bringer. Aeron’s joy-bringer, in fact, and the girl did her job well. The somber bastard had never been so…smiley, for lack of a better word. It was straight up weird. “Can you imagine twin demon hellions running around this place?”

“No.” Strider had never spent any time with kids and wouldn’t even know how to hold one. Or what to say to one. Or what to do when one vomited on his favorite sword. But damn if he didn’t get a kick out of imagining his friends struggling to cope.

“Oh, and get this. Gideon married Scarlet, the keeper of Nightmares.”

“You’re kidding.” Fickle Gideon? Married? Scarlet was gorgeous, yeah, and feisty as hell. Powerful, too. And Gideon had been a tad bit obsessed with her when she’d been locked in their dungeon. But marriage?

Everyone in the fortress had lost IQ points, it seemed.

“He couldn’t have waited until I got back to sign on for double occupancy?” Strider mumbled. “What a great friend.”

“No one was invited to the ceremony, if you catch my meaning.”

“Well, the decision to get hitched is gonna give him nightmares.” Strider snickered. “Get it? Nightmares?”

“Har, har. You’re a borderline fucktard, you know that?”

“Hey, I’m not going to apologize for being on my A game. Why don’t you step up to the plate and join me, Junior League?”

Torin ignored him. “It’s weird, don’t you think? Two demons hooking up?”

Strider peered at him, blinked. “I can’t believe you just said that.”

“Why?”

“One word—Cameo. And you. Okay, so three words.”

Torin snapped his teeth at him. “Whatever. We were talking about Scarlet. Which brings me to more gossip. Turns out she’s the only daughter of…wait for it… Rhea.”

What? Rhea? And he hadn’t known? Strider had been way more self-involved than he’d realized. Rhea was queen of the gods, the estranged wife of Cronus, and the bitch helping Galen, keeper of the demon of Hope—and an all around asshole—leader of the Hunters. “How’d Gideon take the news?”

“Well, he tried to kill his mother-in-law.”

“Sweet. But such romantic gestures aside, our boys have gotta start picking their significant others with more care. Gwen is Galen’s only kid, Scarlet is Rhea’s. What’s next?” A Hunter? A participant in Baden’s killer?

Yes, he was a fucktard.

“I’ll tell you what’s next,” Torin said. “Lucifer’s brother.”

“Come again.”

“Did no one tell you? William is related to Lucifer. And Lucifer is the devil, in case you didn’t know.”

“Come again.”

The corners of Torin’s lips quirked with amusement. “I know. Whacked out as hell, but kind of fitting.”

He wouldn’t ask again. He wouldn’t. “How?” Damn! The question escaped before he could stop it.

“Don’t know. William refused to spill. Needless to say, things have been pretty festive around here. So, anyway. You’re back, and you’re kind of healthy, so I can ask the question I’ve been holding in for three days. Where the hell is the Cloak of Invisibility? I looked through your stuff, your room, but couldn’t find it.”

Oh, shit. Now it was his turn to drop a news bomb. “About that…”