The Darkest Secret

There would be no comforting Haidee, nor taking comfort from the woman she’d become, for he could never allow himself to leave this room, his sanctuary. His coffin. And that, he found, was what he would mourn most. Whether he’d encountered her soul in hell and absorbed her memories there, or had stumbled upon her years ago, her voice lost in the dark, thorny mire of his mind until now, he would never know. This was it for him.

This was the end.

Flames.

Screams.

Evil.

Once again they battled for his attention and threatened to overwhelm him.

Amun knew he couldn’t hold them off for long. Too demanding, so demanding … He focused on the earthy perfume and cooling breeze, head automatically turning to the left, following invisible threads wafting in the air. Leading from this bedroom … into the one next to it?

Power.

Peace.

Salvation.

Perhaps he could leave this room, he thought then. Perhaps he could be saved. That small sip of salvation, the barest taste … a frosted apricot, juice so sweet his throat would forever rejoice.

He just had to—flames, screams, evil—get there. Must … fight. FLAMES. Amid the growing black thunder in his brain, Amun jerked at his bonds. SCREAMS. Already torn flesh surrendered, and already broken bone dusted to powder. EVIL. But he couldn’t pull himself free. He’d already used up his strength, he realized. He had nothing left.

FLAMES, SCREAMS, EVIL.

As he slumped onto the mattress, he laughed silently, bitterly. He’d lost, and so easily, too. He’d truly, finally lost. He couldn’t even call for his friends. A single word spoken, a single sound made, and everything inside him would spew out, his clash against the evil all for nothing.

FLAMESSCREAMSEVIL.

Closer … closer now …

A shocking burst of hope as that sense of defeat shattered.

If he couldn’t reach whoever was in that bedroom, perhaps he … she … they … could reach him.

As the evil swamped him once more, Amun shouted as soundlessly as he’d laughed. Come to me!

CHAPTER THREE

COME TO ME!

The desperate male voice invaded Haidee Alexander’s mind, a thriving fire amid a raging ice storm, dragging her from a cloying sleep and into total awareness. She jerked upright, panting, wild gaze scanning, mind cataloging her options in seconds, just as she’d trained it to do since being captured by the demon. Unfamiliar bedroom with one window, one door, offering two possible escape routes.

The door, varnished to a luxuriant shine. Scratches around the handle, meaning it was well-used. Probably locked. The window, thick glass, unstreaked by hand or bird. The pane wasn’t nailed shut, then. Couldn’t be, not to maintain that level of cleanliness.

Window, best bet.

Alone. Had to act now.

Riding a cloud of urgency, Haidee threw her legs over the side of the bed and stood. Her knees instantly buckled, too feeble to hold her weight. Not normal. Usually she could awaken and five seconds later be ready to run a marathon. A this-is-the-only-way-to-survive marathon.

This weakness. How long had she been out this time?

She lumbered to a shaky stand, trying to find her balance as she replayed the happenings of the last weeks through her head. She’d been overpowered by Defeat, the demon she’d been hunting. He’d carted her to what seemed a thousand different locations, trying to lose her boyfriend, Micah, and his crew of four. Hunters, all of them.

Don’t think about that right now. You’ll lose focus.

Escape. That’s what mattered.

She tripped her way to the window, but just before she tugged on the pane, she stilled. In all their days together, Defeat had never left her side. He hadn’t even trusted her to go to the bathroom or shower by herself, but here she was, on her own.

So, where was he now?

Two options. Either the demon had reached his final destination and was confident enough in the surrounding security to venture off on his own, or someone had stolen her from him.

Next thought: if someone had stolen her, they wouldn’t have abandoned her. They would have wanted her to know their intentions. Good or bad.

So. Defeat had her where he wanted her. The door and the window were probably wired, so there was a very good chance an alarm would sound the moment she touched either one.

Would an army of demons come gunning for her?

Probably. But she didn’t care. She had to try. Giving up wasn’t in her nature.

Haidee gripped the warm edge of the panel and shoved. Cursed. Nothing, no movement. Not just because her fingers were as weak as her knees, but because the pane was sealed. She’d been wrong about the cleanliness factor, but at least she’d also been wrong about the wire.

Still. She’d have to find another way out. And she would. She’d been in far worse situations than this and survived. Hell, thrived.

Steeling herself, she peered outside to note what she’d have to overcome once she left this place. The sun shone brightly, amber rays causing her eyes to tear. She wiped each drop away with the back of her wrist. No girly weaknesses allowed. Her prison rested high on a mountaintop, a barbed gate—electric?—stretching skyward and wrapping around the perimeter. She’d encountered similar gates in the past and knew this one would be impossible to climb without inflicting so much damage she’d die on the other side. If she even made it over.

Still. There were hundreds of trees, each more lush and green than the last, their limbs stretching in welcome. Those limbs would hide her, their leaves draping her and allowing her to search for a way to bypass that gate. And if there wasn’t a way to bypass it, she’d forgo cover and climb. Bottom line, death was preferable to staying here and being tortured by a demon.

Okay. So. New plan. Shatter the glass and shimmy to land. Easy.

Yeah. Right. I’ve never been that lucky. Haidee twisted and surged through the room, her steps not getting any smoother. Clearly, whatever drug Defeat had repeatedly injected into her vein still poured through her.

Concentrate, woman. The spacious chamber boasted a king-size canopied bed with a white swath overlaying the top and falling to the floor like clouds sprinkled with fairy dust. A floral print love seat and a small glass table perched in a tiny alcove, illuminated by a chandelier weeping with glittering crystal. None of which she could throw.

To the left was a freshly polished desk and matching chair. No paperweights or knickknacks rested on the surface, and the drawers were empty. To the right was a full-length mirror surrounded by an ebony frame. Both were bolted to the wall. Next she tried the door. As she’d suspected, it was locked.

Panting, fury blooming, she kicked the bench at the foot of the bed. The heavy wood didn’t move an inch. And shit, that hurt! She yelped, hopping and rubbing her stinging toe. Someone had removed her shoes, leaving her barefoot. Something she wished she’d noticed before.

Damn, damn, damn. The luxury and wealth here made a mockery of the hovel she’d scrimped and saved and finally managed to buy for herself, yet there wasn’t a damn thing she could use to aid her escape. What the hell was she going to do?

Come to me!

The tortured, pain-filled voice overwhelmed her senses, the words like licks of fire, somehow heating her up. A voice? Heating her? Could be a hallucination, yeah, but she’d seen and experienced all kinds of weirdness throughout her too-long life to simply write this off.

“Who said that?” She spun, fighting a wave of dizziness and automatically reaching for the blades she kept anchored at her thighs.

Only silence greeted her—and she sported no weapons. Defeat had taken her knives, guns and poisons, foolishly thinking he’d triumphed. But that’s what he—it—did. Broke down the opponent through any means necessary, destroying all thoughts of achieving victory, no matter the cost of surrender.

Not that he’d broken her.

He’d learn. Haidee was unbreakable.

Come to … me … Weaker now, riding a tide of despair, but no less urgent.

Not a hallucination, she thought. Couldn’t be. That heat … So, who was he? A prisoner like her? There was something oddly familiar about his voice, as if she’d heard it before and it had made an impression. Yet she couldn’t specifically place it. Was he a Hunter? Had they met during training? At one of the thousand debriefings she’d attended?

Come …

Her ears twitched, and she turned, following the sound of his voice this time, determined to help him, just in case he was a Hunter as she suspected.

Come … please …

There. She frowned. A wall. Was he on the other side? The fact that she’d heard him certainly suggested he was nearby.

Slowly she approached the wall. She padded her hands along the smooth, delicate paper, finding no hint of a doorway, and yet … Haidee dropped to her knees, gaze zeroing in on a tiny gap between crown molding and floor. A small crack of light seeped through.

No, not light. Not fully. Woven with that stream of light and dancing dust motes was a wisp of black, a writhing phantom, curling up, inching toward her.

With another yelp, she scrambled backward. The black tendril followed her, avoiding her pants and her T-shirt to reach the skin bared at her wrist. But when it touched her, a screech rent the air and the … thing was sucked back through the crack, returning to the other room.

What. The. Hell?

Had she just met one of the demons, stripped of its human cloak? Was that what tormented the man who’d called her? Probably.

Her fight-or-flight instinct screamed flight.

Haidee replied, Screw you, flight! I won’t leave a man behind.

Teeth grinding, she scraped her nails over the wallpaper until she created a groove. Then she began ripping, tossing the pieces she extracted over her shoulder. She worked feverishly and finally revealed enough of the wall to find the outline of the door.

No knob. Of course.

Through faint scrape patterns on the floor, she knew the door had once opened from the right. Which meant there would have been a knob at one point. She had only to find where the demons had spackled over the hole its removal would have left behind….

She scraped the center of the right side, cringing at the grating sound she created, until flecks of white chalk began to embed in her nails. Bingo! Clawing harder, deeper, she removed the spackle as fast as she could. Took half an hour to reach the other side, and by then, ice coated her entire body in a chilly sheen.

Her arms trembled violently, her sense of urgency increasing. She was swiftly using up her reservoir of strength and knew she wouldn’t be able to stay on her feet much longer.

When she collapsed, she wanted to be outside, the man with her.

Haidee latched her fingers around the edges of the hole and jerked. The door eked open a mere fraction of an inch. Fighting disappointment, she gave another jerk—only to be rewarded with another fraction. Get in the game, Alexander. You can do this. Deep breath in, hold, hold … As she exhaled, she tugged so hard she feared her spine would snap. Finally. Real movement. Not much, yet just enough. When the door stopped, it stopped hard. She lost her grip and fell to her ass.

Pinpricks of starlight dotted her gaze, but when the crackling orange and yellow washed away, she focused on the gap she’d created. A sweet sense of victory flooded her as she popped to her feet. Her knees rebelled with every step forward, but she didn’t pause.

She squeezed her way through the opening, shirt snagging on a sharp protrusion, then ripping as she just kind of fell into the other room. When she balanced, she quickly took stock, readying herself for anything. Another bedroom, this one a mix of light and dark. There was a thrashing man on the only bed, smoke rising from him, undulating.

Her gaze locked on the smoke, and she gasped. It was as beautiful as it was horrifying. An ocean of crumbled black diamonds, punctuated by the occasional sparkle of paired rubies—like eyes, watching, lethally intent—and damning flashes of white. Sharp, like fangs.

Come on, come on. Time’s wasting. For some reason, looking away actually hurt, shooting a pain from her temples to her belly, but she did it, refocusing on the man and closing the distance between them. The moment she reached him, bile scalded her throat, and she nearly lost her last meal. Fruit and bread that Defeat had grudgingly given her. All those injuries.

What had the demon done to him? Peeled him? Lit him on fire? He was—

Oh, God. Oh, dear God. Eyes widening, she covered her mouth with shaky hands. No. No!

Despite the savaged body, the swollen, nearly unrecognizable face, she knew who writhed before her. Micah. Her boyfriend. Same dark skin—what remained of it—and same muscled frame. Same inky hair he constantly smoothed from his brow. No wonder she’d recognized that battered voice.

Oh, God. The demon must have caught him while he’d chased after her, trying to save her.

Tears rained down her cheeks, crystallizing into ice as they fell. She almost crumpled into a sobbing heap. She’d dreamed of this man long before she’d ever met him. Had loved him long before she’d ever met him. She’d thought him a memory that hadn’t quite been wiped clean after—

Nope. Don’t go down that road, either. Those kinds of thoughts would paralyze her as nothing else could. Micah. She’d think only about Micah now. He needed her.

About seven months ago, she discovered he wasn’t simply a memory or even a figment of her imagination. He was real. She’d thought, Surely this is a sign we’re meant to be together. A point further proven when they were both assigned to the same demon-hunting mission in Rome, and then again when he’d asked her out, as attracted to her as she was to him. She’d said yes without any hesitation.

Except the real man hadn’t lived up to her imaginings.

There’d been no bone-deep connection. No earth-shattering awareness. She’d blamed herself, and rightly so, and had tried to force the bond. Because of her visions, she’d known—knew—on a level she didn’t quite understand that he would make her happy. That he was her future. That he could at last melt the unnatural ice that still swirled inside her.

So she’d stayed with him, all the while thinking the connection would soon spark. It never had. And though they were still seeing each other and were totally exclusive, she’d always held a little piece of herself back. She hadn’t even slept with him yet. But now … connection. Sizzle. And it was everything she’d expected to feel for him.

Here, now, she thought she might never again be whole without him. As if she’d finally found the last piece of a puzzle.

Guilt suddenly swarmed her. She hadn’t been the best girlfriend, holding herself back as she had, yet still he’d searched for her, still he’d challenged a Lord of the Underworld for her. And now, he might die for her.

“Oh, baby,” she managed to croak past a constricted throat. “What did he—” they? “—do to you?”

She reached out, the shadows hissing as they inched backward, away from her, away from him, as if afraid to be near her. She paid them no heed. As gently as she was able, she slid one of Micah’s pulverized hands through the steel cuff that bound him. The amount of blood and the crushed bone allowed for an easy glide and also had her swallowing bile at an astonishing rate.

Could he recover from this? Could anyone?

Thankfully, her touch seemed to calm him rather than hurt him further. The thrashing became less violent, and he eventually relaxed against the mattress. Haidee moved to the other side and freed his other wrist. By the time his ankles were unchained, the slightest hint of a smile curled his lips.

Her chest contracted at the sight of it, both an agony and a blessing. He was damaged, but he was alive. Would he be grateful for that, though? He might never be able to fight again.

Didn’t matter. She had to save him.

Biggest problem: she couldn’t carry him. He was too heavy. And he certainly couldn’t walk. She didn’t have a medical degree, but she’d bet a fortune that half the bones in his body were broken. Still. She couldn’t leave him behind, either.

She studied him more intently, praying for a solution. Instead, what she found had her gasping in outrage. Those bastards! Of all the cruel things they’d done, this was the worst. They’d branded him. Etched a jagged-winged butterfly—the mark of their demons—into his calf. Just to taunt him.

“I’ll make them pay, baby.” Her hands coiled into tight fists, ready to strike. “I swear it.”

At the sound of her voice, he shifted, angling toward her. He even tried to reach out, the muscles in his forearm bunching with the strain. The action proved to be too much for him, and the arm hung uselessly. A second later, the thrashing started up again.

Cooing, Haidee eased beside him and smoothed away the hair sticking to his brow, just as she knew he liked. The first moment of contact, she experienced a jolt of undiluted heat. The ice that was her constant companion, a part of who and what she was, cracked. Droplets melted, dripping. Instantly Micah calmed, his sweat drying as if he’d absorbed her deepest chill.

Nothing like that had ever happened before, and the sensation disconcerted her. A side effect of what had been done to him, perhaps?

Bastards, she thought again, her molars gnashing together. In this life or the next—and she was always given a “next”—she would punish them.

Spiderwebs suddenly wove in front of her eyes, gossamer threads laced with a shot of fatigue. Determined, she swept them away. She couldn’t deteriorate. Not now. Micah needed her.

Haidee?

His voice startled her, but she quickly recovered. “I’m here, baby. I’m here.”

A soft sigh echoed, a whisper of contentment. The breathy sound stroked her—even though his mouth had never moved and his lips had never parted. Impossible.

Right?

“Micah? How are you talking to me?” Sweet, sweet, Haidee.

Again, his mouth hadn’t moved, but again, she’d heard him. And she knew she wasn’t imagining his voice. She couldn’t be. She’d heard him before ever entering the room.

That could only mean … Her eyes widened in astonishment. He was speaking inside her mind. Had been speaking inside her mind the entire time. That was new for them, too, and far more disconcerting than the heat.

How was he doing it? How could the Lords have caused this?

Reason it out later. “I’m going to look for weapons, okay? Something, anything.” Could she even stand? Her muscles were vibrating, her veins filling with sludge. “And then I’m going to find a way—”

No! Don’t leave. There was a panicked pause. Need you. Please.

“I won’t leave the room, I swear, not without you, but I have to—”

No! No, no, no! Babbling now, his body tensing. You have to stay.

“Okay, baby, okay. I’m here. I’ll stay.” Soft, gentle, the promise left her before she could consider the consequences. Not that they would matter. She would rather hand herself over to Defeat, gift wrapped on a silver platter, than cause this man any more grief. “I won’t budge from this spot. Promise.”

Need you, he said again, barely audible this time.

“You’ve got me. You’ve always got me.” She stretched out, mindful of his injuries, and curled herself around his fragile frame, offering what comfort she could. She knew what it was like to suffer alone. She didn’t want that for him. Ever.

Perhaps this was even a blessing in disguise. Micah probably wouldn’t survive his wounds if he left the bed anytime soon. And this way, when the demons returned—and they would return, they wouldn’t leave her for long—she would be here to fight them, to keep them from hurting him even more.

Yeah, they’d strike back and probably kill her. And yeah, she gagged, thinking of what would happen to her after that death, a fate so much worse than being stabbed, shot, or even burned alive. All of which she’d endured before.

She’d told herself she wouldn’t consider what happened after she died, but she didn’t stop herself this time. Not even when fear swept through her, consuming her, chilling her.

If she managed to kill any of the Lords, they would be eternally lost, but she would be reformed, returned to the age she was now, minus any good memories she’d built of this lifetime, consumed only with the bad, with the hate. It was an agonizing process that made her scream and beg and pray for an eternal death of her own.

A process that had taught her to avoid death at all costs. But this time … she would die willingly, eagerly, taking as many Lords as she could with her. And then, then she could return for the rest of them.

Then she could avenge Micah.

CHAPTER FOUR

AMUN BLINKED OPEN HIS EYES. Or tried to. The action proved difficult, since his lashes felt as if they’d been glued together. And maybe they had been. If one of his friends had punked him, he was going to retaliate. With scissors. He kept tugging and finally managed to separate top from bottom. Immediately his eyeballs burned and watered, everything around him seemingly smeared with Vaseline.

Worse, the light seeping in from the only window still managed to lance his retinas like blade-tipped lasers. He turned his head away from the reflective glass and studied his surroundings as best he could.

He frowned—and damn, that hurt, tugging and splitting multiple cuts on his lips. He was in his own bedroom, but … there was a hole in the wall. A hole that led into the chamber next door. A hole he hadn’t made, and to his knowledge, his friends hadn’t, either. He liked to think they would have asked his permission before redesigning his room like that.

How was he here, anyway?

Last thing he remembered, he’d been deep inside hell, fire crackling all around him as he fought evil spirits and basically got the shit kicked out of both his body and his mind. Demon thoughts and human memories had bombarded him, like bombs going off inside his head, and they—

Were still there, he realized, frown deepening. The dark thoughts and memories were still there, but though they were churning, agitated, they remained at a distance, as if afraid to gain his attention. Why?

A feminine moan stroked his ears, shocking him into concentrating.

Amun stiffened, his attention shifting again, this time landing on his mattress. Or what should have been mattress. Beside him was a woman. A very beautiful woman who was curled on her side, facing him, her warm breath caressing him. One of her arms was bent over his stomach, as if she couldn’t bear to let him go, with her hand resting over his heart. Monitoring the beat?

That arm was tattooed from wrist to shoulder, completely sleeving her. He saw faces—human—each one glowing with life and love. Numbers, too. And dates, maybe? Though, if so, some of those dates were from way back. There were also names: Micah, Viola, Skye. And phrases: Darkness always loses to light and You have loved and been loved.

He knew her. Somehow he knew her. How—

The answer slid into place. Haidee, the one from his visions, or whatever they’d been. The little girl he’d yearned to comfort, and the woman he’d longed to touch. She was here.