The darkest seduction - Showalter Gena. Страница 75

How’d he get here, anyway? Last Paris had heard, Disease had turned down Lucien’s offer for air travel. And when the hell had Torin gotten so ripped? He usually holed up in his room, covered from neck to foot in black. Now, without a shirt, Paris saw the guy had the chiseled body of someone who could kick his ass.

Both men stopped what they were doing when they realized he’d entered. Paris whipped off his shirt, his gun holster and his blades, stored them on a bench and moved to the treadmill beside Strider.

“What’d you want to talk to me about?” He hit a few buttons, and then the thing was lifting and moving, giving him a grueling incline and a sprinting pace that felt unbelievably good. He hadn’t exercised like this in a long time.

“What’s this I hear about you having an invisible Hunter on the premises?” Strider asked, catching a towel Torin had thrown at him. He wiped his face, his gaze remaining on Paris. “The Hunter possessed by Wrath, I might add.”

Shoulda known.“She’s not a Hunter, not anymore, and she’s not up for discussion.”

“Like hell she isn’t. My woman is here.”

“Yeah, and your woman can take care of herself.”

Pride flickered in Strider’s navy eyes. “True enough. Fact remains, though, that an unseen enemy is the most dangerous. Your girl can do all kinds of damage to everyone here.”

He cranked the speed up another thousand notches, until his boots were hammering into the base and rattling the entire machine. “She’s not out to hurt us.”

“Yeah, so, I’ve got some wiring to do,” Torin said from behind them. “You boys have at each other.” Footsteps, and then it was just the two of them.

“You’re telling me the girl who drugged you, who watched your torture, is no longer a threat to you or anyone?” Strider asked skeptically. “Please.”

“We worked it out.” Sweat beaded on his skin, too, dripping, dripping. His muscles burned just right, soaking up the strain, loving it.

“In the sheets, no doubt, but all that means is that you’re thinking with something other than your brain. You gotta know that.”

Don’t challenge him, don’t challenge him, don’t you dare challenge him.You had to be careful around Strider. His demon took exception to any hint of confrontation, and then Strider had to battle it out, doing everything in his power to knock you senseless, or he’d suffer for days as punishment.

“Everyone accepted Haidee,” Paris reminded him, “and she was a Hunter.”

“Now she’s the living embodiment of Love. It’s kinda hard notto like and trust her. Your girl, we can’t see or hear her. Can’t judge her actions and her words for ourselves. Can’t see how she is with you. And do you really need another you’re thinking with your man junkspeech?”

Darkness…rising…“I’m asking you to step off,” Paris said, “before things get nasty and we have to work this out the hard way.” If he had to go the challenge route to stop his friend from verbally slamming his woman, he would.

Silence. Then, a grisly, “I feel—”

“A burning sensation when you pee?” Now you’re just being mean.

“Real mature,” Strider said, but he calmed down a notch. “Me and you, we got history. More than the others know, more than the two of us ever want to acknowledge. But we both know it’s one of the reasons we went our separate ways when the two groups split for while, me with Sabin and you with Lucien.”

Heat seared Paris’s cheeks, and it had nothing to do with physical strain. “We said we’d never talk or think about it.” And he’d always kept up his end of that agreement.

“Apparently, times change. You were weak, dying. There were no humans around, and you refused to let any of us help you.”

“Shut up.” His happy day was going down the drain fast. “Just shut up.”

“So, my demon took up the challenge, and I took care of you. Now I’m asking you to take care of your friends in turn. Get rid of the girl,” Strider went on, ignoring the demand. “We lack one artifact, just one, and once we get it back we can start searching for Pandora’s box. We can finally save ourselves. Not only can she spy on us, steal from us and hurt our more vulnerable members, she could ruin our future. Just think about it. For me.”

Strider threw his towel in the hamper and stomped from the room.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

FOR SIENNA, THE NEXT few days passed in a blissful haze punctuated by moments of mourning. Except for two things, all was right in her world. But she wasn’t going to think about those two things. She would erupt into one of her rare and shocking rages, and rip the entire castle apart.

Instead, she would think about the fact that Paris adoredher. She would think about all the times she and Paris had made love, and how each time he had been more frantic to get inside her than the last. He’d taken her in ways that scandalized, delighted and thrilled, and in the quiet afterglow, they had talked.

No subject had been off-limits. They discussed the Hunters—where certain facilities were, the names of some of the higher officers, the location of the cavern where Galen supposedly met with Rhea and the pair performed rituals for “the greater good.” Then they’d talked about themselves, about where they would travel and what they’d do if there hadn’t been a war to fight.

Paris picked the mountains, with the cold and the snow and a soft rug in front of a fireplace. She picked the beach, wanting to watch him rise from the water, glittering droplets sliding along the ropes of his stomach and catching in her new favorite place on his body—because the waves would have stolen his swimsuit.

Of course, earlier this morning he’d strode out of the shower, dripping wet, no towel in sight, with a wicked smile on his face, and she’d laughed at his antics (after she caught her breath). She was desperately trying to guard her heart against him despite his demand that they stay together, because she knew she still had to leave him for Galen, that she had to stop Rhea from taking the Titan throne, that she couldn’t kill her greatest enemy because doing so would kill Cronus, and as he’d said, if he died, chaos would reign and Pariswould die.

The only way to save him was to control Galen, and thereby Rhea. Not the best revenge, but it was all she could allow herself.

She wished Skye could have met Paris, wished the girl could have seen the good in him, that man and demon were not truly one and the same, that the demon was dark and dangerous, destructive, but the man was fun and caring, worthy of respect. Just like Sienna was not the sum total of Wrath’s deeds, but a woman who fought for what was right.

Once upon a time, Sienna had considered giving the demon back to Aeron. But if she did, she would die—for real and forever—and she would be unable to avenge her sister, even in the smallest way. Plus, she needed him. He still hadn’t figured out what was “wrong” with Skye’s death.

Don’t cry, Enna. Boys are stupid, Mama said so, and if that fathead Todd doesn’t want to go to the dance with you, he’s the stupidest ever!

I miss you so much, Skye.Sienna turned the corner—and barreled into a speeding golf cart. After crash-landing on her butt, she saw the cart was blue with orange flames painted on the sides, and the minor goddess of the Afterlife/keeper of Narcissism was at the wheel.

“Sorry, I’m sorry.” Most times Sienna didn’t bother watching where she was going, because only Paris, Viola and Lucien could see and touch her. Everyone and everything else she ghosted through and no one ever even knew. But because the cart belonged to Viola, Sienna could feel the metal that had just flattened her lungs.

“I’m late,” Viola said, waving a piece of paper in the air. “You, too? Do you need a ride?”

As always, Wrath shot Sienna’s mind full of images. Viola, breaking hearts. Viola, double-crossing others to save herself. Viola, unconcerned by the pain she left in her wake.