Lords of the Underworld Bundle (96 page)

I
didn't open the box, now did I?

Reyes gave the knife yet another twist, and the tip sliced the bone in two, driving straight into another muscle. At the moment of penetration, a climax ripped through him. He roared loud and long, his muscles contracting, hot seed jetting from him and blending with his blood. Both scalded his skin, like battery acid on silk.

Only when the last surge ended did he lose his last bit of strength and sag, completely depleted. His arms fell to his sides, lifeless. He was panting, could taste metal in his mouth. During orgasm, he'd bitten the inside of his cheek.

Can't stay here. Have to clean up before someone finds me.
Slowly his eyelids cracked open, golden light seeping into his consciousness. He needed to find Torin and—His thoughts skidded to a sickened halt.

Danika stood in the bathroom's doorway, staring down at him in horror.

D
ANIKA DIDN'T KNOW HOW
to assimilate what she'd just witnessed.
That
was what Reyes needed to experience pleasure? Before, part of her had thought she could maybe give him what he craved. But he hadn't just cut skin. He'd cut veins, muscle and even bone. There was so much blood, a seemingly never-ending river pooling and congealing around him.

Now he was looking at her through hooded eyes, lips grim, a crimson splatter on his chin. “What are you doing here?” Cold, no emotion.

“I fo-followed you,” she managed to get out. “I—I—” She was shaking so badly, and her throat kept trying to close around a surge of bile.

Had other women hurt him like this? Pleasured him like that? The thought disturbed her, but not as it should have. She didn't like the thought of other women meeting his needs. She didn't like the thought of other women doing something to him that she had not done—or perhaps could not do.

Reyes lumbered to his feet, swayed. His thigh gushed. She thought she saw the severed bone underneath the muscle and couldn't glance away. Her gaze was held captive and tracked every drop that spilled. His penis rose proudly, still thick and full, smeared with desire and blood, the heavy weight of his testicles drawn tight underneath.

Even possessed as he was by the demon of Pain, she didn't understand how he could find release in so brutal a deed.

“Look at me,” he barked.

“I am.” A broken whisper.

“At my face.” He jerked up his pants and fastened them.

The action released her from the trancelike state. Gradually she dragged her gaze up his body. His navel was surrounded by the faintest dusting of hair—how had she missed it before?—and his stomach was roped with hard lines of muscle, a testament to his inhuman strength.

Her tremors increased the closer she got to his face. A shadow beard dusted his jaw, hardening the angles of his face, making him appear all the more dangerous.

He was scowling at her, his lips peeled back from his teeth. His nostrils flared as he inhaled. “I told you to stay in my room.”

His eyes, normally polished onyx, were tinted red. Glowing. Pulsing. She gulped. “I couldn't, I didn't—”

“Go!”

“Don't talk to me like that. Got it?”

“Leave. Please.” A whisper.

As he stood there, panting, angry, bloody as if he'd just returned from a war, she lost her…whatever it was she'd been feeling. Disgust? Confusion? Shock?
I want to paint him like this,
she thought. He was a thing of beauty. Dark, a combination of cinnamon and honey, with eyes like an eclipsed sun—a person didn't know whether to stare, blind to all else, or look quickly away.

What intrigued her most, however, was his tattoo. That butterfly, with its wings spread in midflight, half consuming his chest and neck, seemed to be watching her, beckoning her closer. It had always been ominous and harsh, almost evil, and yet it now appeared…gentle. The colored skin was glittering, a mix of ruby, onyx and sapphire. The usually sharp-tipped, forged-of-steel wings were somehow softened.

I've seen this before,
she thought.
I've
painted
this before.
Hadn't she? There was something unerringly familiar about it, though not enough to jog her mind completely. Maybe it was the fact that she'd seen a few of the other warriors' tattoos. Each man had worn the mark in a different location and each had been a different color. Maddox was branded on his back, Lucien on his chest. Aeron, she thought with a shudder, all over.

Danika found herself reaching out, arm shaking, desperate to feel Reyes's brand, to know the texture and the temperature. Hot and raised? Or cold and smooth?

He jolted backward, slamming into the wall, his arms spread to hold himself up. The sink jostled, the soap slipping and falling to the floor.
Thump.
“Do not touch me, Danika.”

Her cheeks heated with mortification as her hand dropped to her side. “Sorry,” she muttered. “I'm sorry.”
You knew better
.
He's feral right now, so you have to be careful.

“Don't apologize.” Motions clipped, he swiped a towel from beside the sink and bent down. Back and forth he mopped the blood. “
I
am sorry you witnessed that. Please, just…return to my room. Please. I will join you shortly.” The request was disjointed, proving how rattled he really was.

“I'll help you clean up. I—”

“No!”

He shouted so loudly, she cringed. Damn it! Where was her courage? Where was her vow to never back down from another fight?

Immediately after the echo quieted, Reyes stiffened, ceased moving and rushed out, “I
am
sorry. Again. You did nothing wrong, only offered to help. But I always clean up my mess, and I will not allow you to dirty your precious hands.”

Precious? Her? There wasn't a drop of sarcasm in his tone, only absolute sincerity.

He pivoted, keeping his back to her as he skidded into motion. “Please, Danika. Go.”

He was embarrassed by what he'd done, she realized. He was ashamed. She didn't know what to say to soothe him. Didn't know what to
think
to soothe herself.

Danika backed out of the bathroom. She didn't look away from Reyes, who was still cleaning, still avoiding her, until her shoulder rammed into the door frame and she had no other choice. When she reached the hallway, she pressed herself against the wall. Tremors racked her.

She wanted to find Ashlyn, discuss this with someone who just might be able to understand, but her friend had left with Maddox and the others early this morning. Ashlyn had conversations to listen to, she'd said, and it had surprised Danika that the ever-protective Maddox had agreed to the journey. Should she go back as Reyes had ordered? Or stay and wait for him? Both appealed to her, but for different reasons. Leaving would give her time to calm down, to think. Staying would provide an opportunity to go with Reyes when he spoke with Torin about her family.

Admit it. You're worried about Reyes. You
want
to see him again.

She stayed.

Fifteen minutes passed, the sounds of shuffling feet, running water and curses filling her ears. Strangely, impatience kept its distance as her mind rolled and churned like a storm about to break.

She had some major decisions to make.

She was due to contact Stefano later tonight and the tiny cell phone he'd given her was burning a hole in her pocket. What would he do if she failed to call? What did she want him to do? With Reyes seeing to her every need, things were…complicated.

Oh, she still wanted revenge. If she discovered that Aeron truly had killed her grandmother, she would return to his cell and she would not hesitate to cut off his head. But what if he hadn't killed Grandma Mallory?

Don't you dare give up hope.
Reyes's voice whispered through her mind, even though they both knew how evil hope could be.

Could she allow the Hunters to storm into his home, capture the residents, hurt them, lock them away and ultimately slaughter them? Reyes would not be excluded from that. They wanted him, hated him. And she would not be able to warn him because he would warn the others—which totally defeated the goal of keeping Reyes intact, the only true decision she'd made.

She'd thought herself in deep. Now…What should she do? She felt torn between two sides, straddling a fence with no freaking clue as to which way to fall. Something would happen and she'd lean one way. Then something else would happen and she'd lean the other.

“Danika.”

At the sound of Reyes's voice, she blinked open her eyelids. When had she closed them? He loomed in front of her, this warrior who so conflicted her. He'd cleaned himself up, had seemingly scrubbed away his emotions as surely as he'd scrubbed away the blood. His expression was blank, and yet her heart fluttered as it always did when he was near.

“You waited,” he said.

If that pleased or angered him, she couldn't tell. “Yes,” she said, breathing deeply of his fresh pine scent. He wore a black T-shirt and new pants. “I'd like to go with you to speak with Torin.”

His head tilted to the side, his gaze boring into her. “You are not…scared of me?”

“No.” Truth. She was just more confused than ever.

A sigh slipped from him, and beneath the casual resonance was a rushing river of relief. “I find I am once again helpless against you.”

As helpless as she was against him? “I don't understand this.” Not the connection between them, and not their mutual unwillingness to hurt each other when they were both supposed to do so.

“Neither do I.” He held out his hand. “I will take you to see Torin, but you are not to touch him. You are not even to get within reaching distance of him.”

“O-kay.”

“This is serious. Do you remember the plague that blasted through Buda when you were here?”

She nodded, twining their fingers together. At first contact, warmth speared her.

“One brush of his skin against yours and there will be another one.”

 

R
EYES LOVED THE FEEL
of his fingers intertwined with Danika's. Every time she'd been alone and he'd come upon her, touched her, her skin had been as cold as ice. Seconds after touching her, that ice always melted into him, a deliciously painful prickling.

Painful.

He tried not to think about what Danika had witnessed. The thoughts flowed, anyway. What a monster he must have appeared, taking pleasure in so gory an act. Had he cried out her name? He could not be certain.

He rounded a corner, wanting to look back at her but not allowing himself to do so. She had seen him at his worst, but she hadn't run screaming. He took what little comfort he could in that. Having seen her shocked expression, however, he'd known—he knew—soul-deep that he could never bring Pain into their relationship. Which meant he could not make love to her. Ever.
You already knew that.

He thought perhaps he'd subconsciously entertained a ray of hope that one day he
could
make Danika his, totally and completely, without worrying that he would hurt her, need her to hurt him or that she would become a killer afterward. Foolish hope. Hated hope. Truly a demon.

It's for the best,
he assured himself. His angel deserved only goodness. She deserved a gentle man, someone who would make her laugh. Someone who would not fill her with disgust. With herself, with him.

Just like that, jealousy awoke inside him, a beast far more ferocious than Pain, screaming inside his head, scratching at his skull.

“You're squeezing my hand,” Danika said on a pained gasp.

Instantly he relaxed his grip. “I am sorry.” Would he ever be able to let her go?

“I'm tougher than you think,” she said. “I'd just rather not face one of your friends with my bitch-slap hand broken.”

She meant the words as a joke, probably hoping to lighten his mood, but he took them to heart. Here, in the fortress, she needed every ounce of her strength. His friends were a threat to her well-being, and she would never be welcomed as Ashlyn and Anya ultimately had been. Fighting to bury a swell of emotions, he lifted her palm and placed a gentle kiss on the inside of her wrist. “I will be more careful with you, I swear it.”

A shiver moved through her.

They reached the end of the hall and stopped. Torin's door was closed. Muffled voices carried through the wood. Laughing voices? Reyes's brows drew together as he knocked. The voices ceased abruptly.

Cameo opened the door and Reyes was momentarily rendered speechless with shock. Beautiful as always, petite and dark headed and a vicious warrior only a rare few had been privileged enough to witness in battle—and live to tell the tale—she usually remained alone or in the shadows while at the fortress. Not by choice, he thought, but because the men could not be around her without wanting to kill her. She carried all of the world's misery in her silver eyes and tormented voice.

He'd never heard her laugh before, had never seen her smile. Or not since those long-ago days before they'd opened
dimOuniak.
That he'd now witnessed both here, and with Torin, who could not touch another living thing skin to skin—even an immortal—was shocking. Torin usually avoided women like the very plague he harbored inside his deceptively healthy-looking body. He could not have one, so did not usually tempt himself with the presence of one.

What the hell was going on?

“What do you want?” Cameo asked.

Dear gods, the agony. Listening to her was like sinking into a nightmare.

“Why am I suddenly eyeing the hilt of your dagger and hoping to plunge it into my chest?” Danika whispered, confused and a little dazed as she gazed at the female warrior.