The Darkest Pleasure

CHAPTER THREE

"I KNOW WHERE your woman is."
Reyes straightened on the couch, the tip of the knife stilling inside his arm. He'd pushed it deep, so deep he'd sliced the vein in half. But the wound healed all too soon, sealing shut around the blade. Blood dried on his skin.
He'd jumped from the roof three days ago and was only now recovered enough to walk. Unfortunately. Pain was louder and more demanding than ever, wanting something more. What, Reyes didn't know. This cut hadn't helped in the least.
He ripped the weapon free, creating another injury. He licked his bottom lip, trying to savor the pain. This injury healed quickly, as well. Not enough of a sting. Never enough.
"Nothing to say to me?"
"You're as bad as Gideon." He glared over at Lucien, who stood in the doorway. The warrior's dark hair fell in waves to his shoulders and his mismatched eyes gleamed with expectation.
"As if I would lie."
They were alone in the entertainment room. Paris, who could usually be found there watching one of his fleshfests, was now in the city, keeping up his strength by bedding as many women as he could. Maddox and his woman, Ashlyn, were in their bedroom. As always.
Sabin and the other warriors were currently in the kitchen - they'd kicked Reyes out ages ago for bleeding on the table - outlining a plan to raid the Temple of the Unspoken Ones in Rome without humans knowing they were there.
Reyes doubted the temple would lead the way to the All-Seeing Eye, the Cloak of Invisibility or the Paring Rod, whatever that was, but he was in the minority so he kept quiet. Still, he knew he was right. If there were something to be found amid the crumbling rock, moss and seashells, they would have found it by now. Besides, the Cage of Compulsion they'd discovered after searching the Temple of the All Gods hadn't helped them find the box in any way.
Yes, it was a nice weapon to own. Anyone locked inside that cage was magically compelled to do anything the owner commanded of them. But who were they supposed to lock inside it? What were they supposed to command that person to do? Until they learned the answers, he suspected Lucien and Anya would continue to play with it like naughty children.
"Reyes," Lucien said. "We were discussing Danika."
"No, we weren't." He wanted her purged from his mind, but he was beginning to suspect she was a permanent part of him now. Like his demon. Only worse. She had destroyed his precious sense of peace. Peace that had not returned, even while he was lying in bed, broken and throbbing in delicious agony.
"Shall I tell you what I know about her?" Lucien asked.
Do not take the bait. You're better off not knowing. Without Reyes providing a constant stream of tangible pain, his demon would spiral out of control, ravenous for someone's bodily suffering. His - others. It didn't matter. That's one of the reasons he'd sent Danika away. Were he to find her, he might one day hurt her irreparably.
"Tell me," he found himself commanding, his voice hoarse.
"Three days ago, she stabbed a man."
That sweet little angel, hurt a human? Reyes snorted. "Please. Now I'm sure you are lying."
"When I have never lied to you before?"
No, Lucien had never lied to him. Reyes gulped back a surge of bile, his next words emerging hard and strained. "How do you know she harmed a man?"
"More than harmed. She killed him. The victim lingered in the hospital for two days and only died this morning. When I was summoned to take his soul, I saw he bore the mark of a Hunter."
"What!" Reyes popped to his feet, fury washing through him. Hunters had found Danika? She'd been forced to slay one? In that moment, he no longer allowed himself the delusion of disbelief. Hunters hated him. They could have seen her here, at the fortress, followed her and tried to torture her for information about him.
His teeth gnashed together. Damned Hunters! They were so mindlessly fanatic they believed all of the world's evil stemmed from the demons inside the Lords. They were ruthless in their quest to destroy those spirits and the men who harbored them, and they would not hesitate to cut down anyone they considered a friend of the warriors.
Danika was not a friend, but they couldn't know that. Even now, they might be planning to use her as Bait, hoping to draw him out in the open by dangling her in his face.
This changed everything.
"Was she hurt? Did they touch her?" He palmed his second blade before he realized what he was doing: preparing for war.
Lucien continued his story as if Reyes had never spoken. "As I escorted the Hunter's soul to hell, I saw the last few acts of his life inside my mind."
"Was. She. Hurt?" The stilted question hissed out of his throat, from between his clenched teeth.
"Yes."
Pain prowled the corridors of his mind, sharpening its claws against the sides of his skull. "Is she - " Reyes pressed his lips together. He couldn't bring himself to say it. Could barely tolerate thinking it.
"The Darkest Pleasure"
"No," Lucien answered anyway. "She is not dead."
Thank the gods. Relief gobbled up his fury, and his shoulders sagged. "Were any other Hunters involved?"
"Yes."
Again, Lucien did not elaborate.
"How many?"
"One. She broke his nose."
"On purpose?" he asked, shocked.
"Yes."
The Danika he remembered had been gentle, sweet. He was not sure what to think of this tigress, but he would stake his own life on the fact that she was tormented by her actions.
"Where is she?" He would go to her, check on her, find a way to protect her from future Hunter attacks, and then he would leave her. He would not allow himself to linger, would not even engage her in a conversation. But he had to see her, had to verify that she was alive and well.
Afterward he would find and savagely kill the other Hunter responsible for her pain. A broken nose wasn't nearly enough to satisfy his raging need for vengeance.
Lucien didn't answer him. "We're traveling to Rome in less than a week to search the temple again. We need those artifacts."
So that was the way they were going to play it, huh? "I know."
"I want Aeron brought here before we leave."
"You want to place the entire household in danger, then. You want to ignore Aeron's wishes to appease your own."
"He is one of us. He needs us now more than ever."
Reyes stalked forward, past Lucien and out of the room. Since Anya and Ashlyn had moved in, the old crumbling fortress had been transformed into a home. Flowers now overflowed from colorful vases. The walls had been lined with artwork Anya had stolen - mostly of naked men; she had a wicked sense of humor - and the furniture had been updated.
Haphazardly patched-together couches were out and plush leather was in. Intricately carved and polished chests, wire-rimmed benches and pillowed lounges filled the rooms and adorned the hallways. He'd been leery of the women at first. Now, he wasn't sure what he'd do without them. They were anchors amid a terrible storm.
His boots pounded the staircase, creating a wild thump, thump rhythm. He rounded the corner of the third floor - and stopped abruptly. Lucien waited at his bedroom door, expression determined.
All Death had to do was think of a location and he could flash there in an instant.
"I will not give up," Lucien said. "That should please you. I would not give up were the situation reversed and it was your life I fought for."
Scowling, Reyes propelled back into motion. He shouldered Lucien aside and shoved open his bedroom door. Inside, he marched straight to his favorite cache of weapons.
"The others feel as I do and are angry about your refusal to speak of Aeron. I have asked them for a few days to talk some sense into you. After that..."
After that they would be at his throat constantly. To them, he was choosing Danika over Aeron, and a warrior did not choose a woman over another warrior. Ever. Reyes did not point out that Maddox had chosen Ashlyn and Lucien had chosen Anya. He did not point out - again - that Aeron preferred death over the creature he'd become and would not be happy about returning to the fortress. It would do no good. Worse, part of him felt as Lucien did.
Reyes lifted his Sig Sauer, checked the twenty-round, chrome-plated magazine. Full. Checked the chamber. One already loaded. Good.
"Going to find her, guns blazing?"
"If necessary." Reyes pocketed three other rubber-floored magazines and a box of .45s. There were daggers already strapped to his ankles and throwing stars attached to his belt.
"You don't know where to go."
"That won't stop me. I will find her."
Lucien sighed, loud and long. "I can flash you to her. You can be with her, saving her, in seconds."
Saving her. An admission of the danger she was in or a trick? He anchored the gun at his back and flattened his palms on the velvet-lined table, head bowed. For a long while he remained silent, weighing his options. Waste time searching for Danika or free Aeron, who could already taste her blood in his mouth?
Neither appealed to him.
Reyes sighed, the sound an echo of Lucien's. His king-size bed lay sprawled at his left side, spacious and rumpled. He'd imagined Danika there every night since meeting her, blond hair tumbling, naked body glistening with desire. Nipples pearled, desperate for his tongue. Legs spread, core wet.
Sometimes, though, the fantasy was replaced by his greatest fear, an image of blood and death. Danika's throat cut, her naked body painted crimson...motionless. The likelihood of that fear coming true would increase upon Aeron's release. You knew you could not hold him prisoner forever. Release him, save her and then protect her.
Protecting her would mean keeping her with him rather than walking away from her as planned. That would increase her contact with the death-hungry Aeron, but it would also increase her contact with Reyes. Dangerous though it was, the thought was as sultry and heady as a lover's caress might be - if Reyes had been able to find pleasure in softness.
"The Darkest Pleasure"
To have Danika here...to hold her...Her angel face flashed through his mind. Wide green eyes that had looked at him with a range of emotions: fear, hope, hate - and desire? Small, pert nose. Lush pink lips that cursed him to everlasting hell while silently promising the sweetest rapture. Delicate body deliciously curved and ripe for a man's touch.
He closed his eyes, his nostrils suddenly filled with her scent. Stormy nights and innocence, sugar sweetness edged with something a little dark...perilous. His brow furrowed. Dark? Perilous? She had been neither of those things before.
"Give me your hand," Lucien said, suddenly in front of him, warm breath beating over Reyes's cheeks.
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?
"The Darkest Pleasure"
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.
"The Darkest Pleasure"
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."
"The Darkest Pleasure"
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?"