Pandora's Box

by Miller, Gracen

  “Just giving you a taste of what you’ll never have,” Beliel taunted, only for Nix to discover afterward that the one Micah screwed was a pureblood succubus and not Mads.

  Nix shuddered, and blanked his mind at the memory. The screams continued like a macabre chorus. No rest for the wicked…no truer saying in his estimation.

  Nix cried. He doubted he would ever stop crying. The despair leeching into his subconscious from the departed souls became too much for his sanity to bear.

  “Your pity-fest grows old,” Micah remarked, striding toward him where he hovered in the corner of the room.

  The memory of Mads’s smile and laughter fed solace to his regret. Clinging to the way she sounded upon climax helped shutter the pitch of agony a fraction. “Fuck you,” Nix rasped out in a hoarse voice.

  “It’s clear you hang onto the memory of my wife.” Micah’s fist clenched at his sides. He discovered the reason for his actions when the demon said, “Madison is dead. Killed by her friend Zennyo Ryuo.”

  “You lie!” He’d already fallen for one of Micah’s lies. He wouldn’t fall for another.

  “I watched the fucker kill her,” Micah screamed, shifting into his angel appearance. Nix stared into the fallen angel’s eyes, and the hurt blasting from his stony, mournful gaze verified the truth of his words.

  No!

  “This time she was used against me,” the demon growled. “I dislike sharing the same outcome with you, Phoenix.”

  Nix’s gut twisted and his body shook. Curling his fingers into his palms, he prayed he would discover this revelation a new mind-fuck. He could handle the mind-fuck, just not Mads’s death.

  The King traced a claw down Nix’s chest and tears boiled in his fiery eyes. “We suffer together for her loss, a common thread in our pain. Let me train you, and together we can seek revenge.”

  Oh, God, please, not Mads.

  He sobbed, unmanly and loud, no longer from the pain others felt, rather from the loss of someone he adored.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  The sun coming in the windows hurt her eyes, and her already pounding head protested the fractures of light with harder whacks against her skull. Wincing, Madison squinted and touched her head. Dear God, Nix was in Hell because of her. How could she ever hope to live with the knowledge? She couldn’t.

  Zen shifted, drew her attention to where he stood at the window, the curtain slit just enough for him to look out, his expression pensive.

  “I thought you were going to kill me, Zen,” she said, her throat thick with tears fighting to surface. She licked dry lips and gagged back bile at the taste of Micah’s dried blood.

  “I should have.” He dropped the curtain, throwing the room in shadow, and turned to face her.

  Using her elbows, she pushed up and leaned against the headboard. Pulling her tattered shirt together, she clutched it with a fist and glanced about the standard hotel room.

  “Your nudity doesn’t affect me.”

  “I know.” He never showed interest in any woman. His volatile emotions last night proved that snapping open Pandora’s Box disturbed him deeply, however. “Why didn’t you kill me?”

  “Because I’m a colossal fool.”

  He would never admit he actually cared about her. In a brotherly way only because sexual tension never aggravated their relationship.

  “Micah thinks I’m dead?”

  “For now.” He approached the bed, his hands shoved into his pockets, his stare neutral, maybe a shade cooler than normal. “His ignorance won’t remain for long.”

  “Amos?” She whispered his name, terrified her son still suffered after several hours. Daylight now, Nix had opened his hotel door to her at dusk. At least a dozen hours elapsed since.

  “Amos was too distraught.” He grimaced. Their eyes locked and he shrugged. “He knows you live.”

  “Petra’s with him?”

  “Yes.”

  Madison pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “What’d you do to me, Zen?” Besides blow her fucking brains out with immortal finger-shots.

  Zen sat on the edge of the bed, and she watched him. He curled a leg onto the mattress and faced her. “You saw what I am?”

  Some, not nearly all of it. “Yes. An immortal from the Zennyo Ryuo race, once thought to be a dragon from myth and lore. You were created in a different time, one much earlier than any time known to current man, with one ambition…to protect the balance between man and supernatural.”

  He nodded, and a thick lock of hair fell across his forehead. “Micah fed you his blood to sway Pandora’s power. I balanced it out by giving you a smidgen of my power.”

  God help them all if what Zen gave her was a ‘smidgen’ of anything. Nothing had ever hurt as much, not even giving birth to Amos without an epidural.

  “For five millennia I kept Pandora’s Box hidden, protecting mortal man from the woes hidden within until Micah hunted the Box down, took me by surprise, and trapped me in the crystal. For fifteen years, I remained there. During the time of my incarceration, Micah and others like him ran rampant with destruction, creating half-breeds like you and Amos. The balance is out of order.”

  “And now I have unbalanced the power more by opening Pandora’s Box?”

  “Yes.” He flicked imaginary lint off his pants.

  “You should have killed me.”

  “Yes.” His silver gaze shifted, met hers. “Micah’s an angel and I should be able to kill him easily. After I put you to sleep, I tried and failed.”

  No emotion touched his face, but she sensed how much his failure disturbed him. “What exactly does that mean? You’ve lost some of your mojo?”

  “No. Micah has gained too much power.”

  Perfect!

  Madison rubbed her knees with her palms and noticed blood encrusted beneath her nails. Micah’s blood. And now Nix had joined him in Hell, for whatever cause he perpetuated.

  Shell-shocked, her hands shook as she plunged her fingers through tangled hair to clasp her head. “Nix is in Hell,” she whispered.

  “I know.”

  She hugged herself with her arms. “He doesn’t belong there, Zen.”

  “He made his choice.”

  “No.” She shook her head. Nix had been tricked. Tricked like all the others who sold their souls to Hell. Agitated by the unfairness of the world, she stood and crossed the room to the bathroom. She threw back the shower curtain. A roach lay on its back, furry legs twitching as if the motion would turn the insect back over.

  Zen had rented a dump.

  “Za vila.” Be gone, she said, and the roach poofed out of existence. She reached in and turned on the shower, twisting the knob all the way to scalding hot. She needed to scrub layers of skin off, to clean her soul, if possible.

  Zen stepped into the doorway of the bathroom and cast a shadow across the room. “I know I encouraged you to use your demonic mojo, but it’s best if you don’t use it further. For now.”

  Facing him, she stripped. He turned his back to her. “I thought my nakedness didn’t affect you?”

  “It doesn’t. He marked you.” His right foot tapped a restless beat against the floor.

  His reaction was…strange.

  She knew Micah had marked her, her own demonic sigil interlaced with a marking she didn’t recognize. As she stepped into the stall and pulled the shower curtain closed, she traced the design Micah had carved over her left breast. Who owned the second sigil? She knew the designs of all the Kings; this one held no meaning for her.

  “I need clean clothes, Zen.” She squirted shampoo into her palm. “I also need my shurikens. The ones with the rhombus engraved on them.” She lathered her hair and used both hands to scrub her scalp. “Oh, and get my knife, the one Nix gave me, and I’ll need my Taurus pistol.”

  “Why do you need your ninja stars?” Leave it to Zen to question the request for the shurikens, but not her knife or pistol. She ignored his question.

  “Someone needs
to get Amos, and tell him to grab the emergency bag.” She leaned into the water spray and watched the bubbles fight to slide down the drain.

  “What are you planning, Madison?”

  She soaped up a washcloth, wasn’t satisfied with the amount of suds, and added more body wash. “I’m getting Nix outta Hell, of course.”

  “You’re not going into Hell,” Zen said reasonably, but she wasn’t in a rational state of mind. Nix resided in Hell, for God’s sake! She fought not to step out of the shower and punch Zen’s caution right out of him. “Not with Pandora power unchecked and in your untutored control.”

  They’d see about that, she thought, using the washcloth to scrub her arms. She could write a book on stubbornness, and Zen hadn’t seen her at her best yet. “I’m getting him out.”

  “This isn’t open for discussion.”

  “Agreed. My mind’s made up.” She rinsed the washcloth and lathered it with another dollop of soap. “You’re welcome to stop me the only way you can.” She ran the cloth down the inside of her leg and let a moment of silence hang between them before she added, “Kill me.”

  Curtain hooks shrieked across the metal rod. Startled, she jerked up and stumbled. Zen reached out, caught her wrist, and steadied her.

  “Thanks,” she mumbled, pressing her palm between her breasts and attempting to calm her racing heart.

  Zen’s fingers squeezed her wrist. “If you go to Hell, Micah gets his wet dream….His demonic Queen, his son, and Pandora’s Box. The power to level the planet.” His grip tightened.

  She wondered if he realized how tightly he gripped her, as her fingers started to tingle from the lack of blood flow.

  “I should have separated the Box from you when we first met. It would have been the wisest course, but I wanted to believe Pandora’s Box safer with you, since no supernatural creature would dare come after you, except for Micah. And I thought I could defeat him. I…respect you, Madison.” He looked away and scrunched up his face as if admitting to human emotions made him uncomfortable. “In the end, my emotions do not matter. I will not allow Micah to win.”

  Madison twisted her arm, freeing her wrist. She rubbed the red finger marks and opened and closed her hand in an attempt to work the blood back into her nerveless fingers. She held his stare.

  “No one is expendable. If I have to kill you to protect the balance, I will.”

  “Like you killed me earlier?”

  “Don’t push me, Madison.” His eyes swept her nude body. “You’re fragile, half-mortal, and I can kill you without touching you.”

  “Don’t tell me no, Zen. Don’t you dare!” She threw the body wash bottle at his head because it was the nearest thing in her reach. He dodged it. “You owe me. I busted you out of your crystal jail. You fucking owe me!”

  “Owe you? I taught you how to defend yourself.”

  Madison laughed and shoved him—hard. The irritating immortal didn’t even have the decency to stumble. She stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around her dripping body. “You taught me self-defense to amuse yourself. You knew none of the paranormal creatures would dare touch me, thanks to Micah’s mandate.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest. Mutiny stark in his posture, he said, “Phoenix is not worth the risk.”

  “Not worth the—fuck you, Zen!” She gulped a deep breath. Her temper soared as she realized Zen didn’t value Nix’s life the way she did. That hurt her feelings. “I’m starting to think you weren’t worth the risk of saving.”

  Zen sucked in a harsh breath. She hoped the statement hit the mark.

  “You fight nothing, Zen. You just blast it all to smithereens. Effective, and boring. You value nothing and no one, care only about your stupid balance of power. Some people are worth fighting for, regardless if the odds aren’t in your favor. Nix is one of those people. I wouldn’t expect you to understand any of my human emotions, though.”

  Zen clutched her arms and stopped her from brushing past him in an angry huff. Refusing to look at him, she jerked to get out of his clutches. His insufferable grip held. He pulled her back into his personal space, and they just stood there, her seething and ready to take his head off. Him…well, who really knew what he thought.

  “Release me, Zen.”

  “No.”

  She glared, ready to blast him, except he spoke before she could. “If I believed no mortal worthy of fighting for, I wouldn’t give a damn about protecting the balance. And I would have killed you in the crystal cave. When I stared into your eyes, I saw a woman who possessed the bravery to change the world. A woman capable of fighting the odds against her and flipping destiny off with a smile on her face.”

  Stunned, she stared at him. For him to open up this way…kind of like the second coming of Christ.

  “Tonight, I saw the same woman. Nothing changed in your eyes, even though Micah upped the odds in his favor with his blood. Again, I stayed my killing hand. I have faith in you, Madison. You’re the first and only mortal to gain my faith.”

  He released his hold. She swayed. Remained silent, waiting, as Zen tugged his fingers through his hair. An indecisive move and totally out of character for him.

  “If you believe Phoenix is worth the risk—” Zen closed his eyes and expelled a tired breath “—I may live to regret this…you have my support. I’ll help you bust into Hell and save him, but we have to do this the smart way.”

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  There was a smart way to bust into Hell?

  Madison doubted it. After a month, the question tormented her. They were planning a coup that would never make the history books, except for maybe a handbook of the scariest creatures. The enemies they would gain would spread further than the paranormal world. If they succeeded—and survived—no guessing how many Sherlocks would hunt their asses. No telling how many already hunted them.

  Madison parked her Land Rover and took in the Circle D Ranch. Well-tended lawn spread as far as her eye could see, a gentle roll to the landscape. She climbed out of the driver’s seat and pocketed her keys. Horses nickered from the stable yard and workers milled around, seeming busy while sending surreptitious glances their way.

  A wary sheep dog watched them. A cowboy tipped his wide-brimmed hat in greeting, his chaps creaking as he walked past her. “Afternoon, ma’am.”

  Madison smiled a greeting. She wondered what type of impression they made, as she guessed it wasn’t every day someone with Alabama license plates drove to this isolated location in Oregon. They weren’t horsemen, either.

  “Can I help you?” a feminine voice with a Northern accent asked, maybe holding a bit of a Canadian twinge as well.

  Madison spun on her heels and greeted the black-haired woman. “We’re looking for Alessa D’Angelo.”

  The woman glanced between the four of them, her eyes lingering on Petra before moving on to Zen and staring the longest at him. Physically, he wasn’t imposing, but his heavy presence intimidated folks.

  “I’m Alessandra,” she said, a guarded lilt marring her voice. Madison thought her green gaze too perceptive to miss anything. “I only know of two people who call me Alessa. One is dead. The other….”

  “Phoenix Birmingham talked about you.” She held her hand out and displayed the ring Nix always wore. Because it remained in her possession, she protected him from every demon. Only Micah and the other Kings could torment him. Whatever Micah’s purpose with him, she hoped torture was not on the menu. “The dead man would be your husband, killed by a werewolf. Phoenix saved you from becoming the werewolf’s next victim.”

  Madison stared at the woman Nix held feelings for, the way his eyes warmed and glazed over when he talked about Alessa told her the depth of his emotions. Meeting the woman, she understood Nix’s fondness. Very attractive, with black hair, green eyes, and a curvy figure. Alessa possessed a sultry sexiness no blonde like herself could pull off.

  “Where’d you get this?” Alessa indicated the ring.

  “From Nix.” She sl
id the ring back on her thumb.

  “Is Nix okay? “

  “He’s dead,” Madison said bluntly, feeling no need to sugarcoat anything. Alessa sucked in a harsh rasp at her abruptness, and tears glimmered in her eyes. Her job to save Nix wouldn’t allow for pussyfooting around about his predicament. “He made a blood covenant with a King of Hell to save Gage and Zoe.” She dragged in a long breath. “And me.” She cleared away the sudden knot in her throat. It failed to eliminate the gruff hint of emotion from her voice. “I have a plan to get him out.”

  Alessa laughed, a nervous sound, drawing curious looks from the workers. Madison took in the suede chaps Alessa wore over her jeans, a plain white T-shirt, which brought out the fabulous color of her tanned skin, and steel-toed work boots. No debutante like Madison in her former life, Alessa held all the qualities of a hardworking gal. Just the kind of woman Nix needed in his life, someone strong and tough, nothing like herself. With any luck, Nix would be free soon and able to pursue this woman.

  “You’re serious?” Alessa asked, when none of them laughed with her. The horsewoman recovered well. The glint of moisture on her eyelashes the only evidence she’d shed a tear for Nix.

  “Dead serious,” Zen said.

  Madison would probably be dead when all ended.

  “Let me introduce myself. I’m Madison Wescott. Nix helped me—”

  “You’re Mads.” Surprised by Alessa’s knowledge, Madison nodded. The woman smiled at her and explained, “I talked to Nix off and on over the past six years. He visited on occasion.” Her smile turned sultry, and Madison easily guessed she and Nix were lovers. “He mentioned you more than once, came by about two months ago and told me if I needed anything to call you. Said he doubted Gage, Zoe, Georgie, or James would be up to helping me for a while. He gave me your number, said you had a son named Amos, and for me to keep an open mind when meeting you both.” She nodded at Amos. “Is he your son?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I thought Nix was acting out of sorts; he refused to stay the night. Unusual for him.”