DANCE WITH THE DEVIL

by Sherrilyn Keynon

  He nodded.

  She threw herself into his arms. Zarek stumbled backward.

  "Easy, princess. The only reason I'm standing and not sitting is mere strength of will."

  Astrid looked past Zarek and saw Thanatos on the ground, cursing both of them. "Why didn't you kill him?"

  "Not my place. Besides, I'm through being Artemis's lapdog. It's time I told the 'heifer goddess' to get lost."

  Astrid went pale. "You can't just leave, Zarek. She'll kill you."

  He smiled grimly. "Let her try. I'm in the mood to fight." He snorted at that. "Then again, I'm always in the mood to fight."

  Astrid held her breath at his words. They gave her hope.

  "What about us?" she asked.

  For the first time she could see the anguish on his face as he looked at her, see the pain in his midnight eyes. "There is no us, princess. There never was."

  Astrid opened her mouth to argue, but before she could, her mother appeared with Sasha, who was in his human form.

  Astrid gave her a droll look. "You're a little late, Mom."

  "Blame your sisters. Atty told me to stay put. I came as soon as she would let me."

  Sasha curled his lip at Zarek who glared back at him.

  "Sorry, Scooby, I'm all out of LivaSnaps."

  Sasha curled his lips. "I really hate you."

  Zarek gave him a matching sneer. "Feeling's entirely mutual."

  Themis ignored the men as she addressed Astrid. "Have you judged him, daughter?"

  "He's innocent." She pointed to Thanatos, who was still cursing them. "There's the proof of his mercy and humanity."

  An ear-piercing shriek sounded. It was followed by total silence.

  "What the hell was that?" Zarek asked.

  "Artemis," Astrid said in unison with her mother and Sasha.

  Themis sighed. "I wouldn't want to be in Acheron's place tonight."

  "Why?" Zarek asked.

  It was Sasha who answered. "Never piss off a goddess. There's no telling what she'll do to him for getting you off the hook."

  Zarek felt ill as he remembered some of the things Acheron had said to him in the past that hinted at the fact Artemis took her anger out on him. "She doesn't really punish him?"

  The looks on their faces gave him the truth.

  Zarek winced as he remembered all the times Ash had asked him to make it easy on him. All the times he had told Ash to burn in hell.

  Sasha made his way to Thanatos.

  "What's to become of him?" Zarek asked.

  Themis shrugged. "It's up to Artemis. He belongs to her."

  Zarek sighed at that. "Maybe I should have killed him after all."

  Astrid used her sleeve to blot at the blood on his face.

  "No," her mother said. "What you did for Simi and my daughter along with the mercy you showed Thanatos is why I'm allowing her verdict to stand even though she violated her impartiality oath."

  Astrid smiled up at him, but he didn't feel happy with the way things had turned out.

  "Come, Astrid," her mother said. "We need to go home."

  Zarek couldn't take his eyes off her as those words wedged into his heart like a knife.

  Let her go…

  He had to.

  And yet every molecule of his body was screaming at him to keep her. To reach out and take her hand in his.

  "Have you anything to say about that, Dark-Hunter?" her mother asked.

  He did, but the words wouldn't come.

  Zarek had been strong all his life. He would be strong tonight. He would never bind her to him. It wouldn't be right.

  "Sometimes stars do fall to earth."

  He heard Acheron's words in his mind. It was true. They did and then they became commonplace like the rest of the dirt on the planet.

  His star was one of a kind.

  He would never allow her to be like any other. Never allow her to become common or sullied.

  No, her place was in the sky. With her family.

  With her stinking pet wolf.

  Never with him.

  "Have a nice life, princess."

  Astrid's lips trembled. Her eyes were filled with unshed tears. "You too, Prince Charming."

  Her mother took her hand while Sasha collected Thanatos. In the blink of an eye they vanished.

  Everything was the way it had been before she came.

  And yet nothing was the same.

  Zarek stood in the middle of his yard alone. There was no wind. Everything was motionless.

  Still.

  Calm.

  Everything except for his heart, which was breaking.

  Astrid was gone.

  It was for her own good.

  So why did he feel so brokenhearted?

  As Zarek hung his head, he noticed the blood that was dripping from his arm.

  He'd best tend the wound before any bears or wolves caught its scent. Sighing, he went into his empty cabin, shut the door and bolted it. He crossed the room to his cupboard and opened it.

  There was really no way to tend the wound here. Since his generator had never been delivered, the water had frozen in the cold and there was no heat to thaw anything out.

  Even his peroxide was frozen solid.

  Zarek cursed and put the peroxide back in his pantry, then grabbed a bottle of vodka instead. It was slushy and thick, but still liquid.

  He heard a faint ringing coming from outside. Going back out into his yard, he retrieved his backpack that Astrid had left. The mink and her kits were still inside and still cranky.

  Ignoring them, Zarek pulled his phone out. "Yeah?" he said, answering it.

  "It's Jess. I just got a call from Acheron telling me and Andy to go home. I wanted to check in with you first, make sure you were still alive."

  Zarek took the mink and her kits into his house and set them back inside the safety of his stove. "Since I answered the phone, my guess is yes, I'm still living."

  "Smart-ass. You still need me to come get Astrid?"

  "No, she's…" He choked on the word. Clearing his throat, he forced it out. "She's gone."

  "I'm sorry."

  "For what?"

  Silence hung between them.

  After a few seconds, Jess spoke again. "By the way, did anyone ever tell you about Sharon? In all the commotion, I didn't have time."

  Zarek paused, his hand on the stove. "What about her?"

  "Thanatos hurt her trying to find you, but she'll be okay. Otto is going to stay up here for a few more days to make sure she gets a new house and has someone to take care of her when she comes home from the hospital. I just thought you'd want to know. I… uh… I sent her some flowers from you."

  He let out a slow breath. It pained him that she'd been hurt and he hadn't even known. He ruined everything he touched. "Thanks, Jess. It was a kind thing you did for me. I appreciate it."

  Something struck the phone's receiver. Hard. It caused Zarek's ear to ring.

  "Excuse me?" Jess asked in disbelief. "This is Frozen Zarek I'm talking to, right? Not some weird pod person?"

  He shook his head at Jess's joking. "It's me, dickless."

  "Hey, now, that's way too personal. I don't need to know that much about you."

  Zarek gave a halfhearted smile. "Shut up."

  "All right, then. I'm going to head out and let Mike take my ass out of here while I still got some of it left unfrozen… Oh, hey, by the way, Spawn headed out a while back. Said to tell you not to worry about returning his phone. You know, he's not half-bad for an Apollite and he's not that far from here. Maybe you ought to call him sometime."

  "You playing matchmaker?"

  "Um, no. Definitely not, and again you're freaking me out with that entire train of thought. I've heard enough stories about you Greeks and all that. In fact, tell you what, forget I said anything at all about Spawn. I'm out of here. You take care, Z. I'll see you online."

  Zarek hung up the phone and turned it off. Might as well. Jess was the only person who ever cal
led him anyway.

  He stood in the center of his cabin, aching so much that he could barely breathe.

  Alone now, he needed Astrid in a way that defied his ability to comprehend. He wanted something of hers.

  No, he needed something.

  Sliding the stove aside, he went back to his tunnel where he could remember holding her. Down here in the darkness, he could pretend she was still with him.

  If he closed his eyes, he could even pretend she was in his dreams.

  But it wasn't her. Not really.

  Zarek let out a ragged breath and picked his coat up from the ground. As he started to pull it on, he caught a whiff of roses.

  Astrid.

  He clutched the coat to his skin, burying his face deep in the fur so that he could capture her scent.

  He held it in trembling hands as emotions and memories crashed through him, racking him.

  He needed her.

  Oh, gods, he loved her. He loved her more than he'd ever imagined possible. He remembered every touch she'd given him. Every laugh she'd had around him.

  The way she'd made him human.

  And he didn't want to live without her. Not for one moment. Not a single one.

  Zarek fell to his knees, unable to deal with the thought of never seeing her again.

  Holding his coat that smelled of her, he wept.

  Ash pulled away from Zarek, giving him privacy to grieve.

  Artemis was outside in the temple courtyard, having one of her screaming tantrums over the verdict while he was alone in her throne room with Simi safe on his chest.

  "What fools these mortals be," he breathed.

  But then he too had been a fool for love. Love made fools of everyone. Gods and man alike.

  Still, he couldn't believe Zarek had let Astrid go any more than he could believe Astrid had left.

  Och mensch!

  Artemis materialized before him. "How is this possible?" she railed. "Never in the entire history of her life has she judged a man innocent!"

  He looked at her calmly. "Only because she's never before judged an innocent man."

  "I hate you!"

  He laughed bitterly at that. "Oh, please don't get my hopes up. You almost gave me a hard-on with that thought. At least tell me this time your hatred will last more than five minutes."

  She tried to slap him, but he caught her hand. So instead she kissed him, then tore away from his lips shrieking.

  Ash shook his head as she vanished again.

  She would calm down in time. She always did.

  But he had other things to worry about at the moment.

  Closing his eyes, he breached the distance between Olympus and the human world.

  There he found what he was looking for.

  Zarek jerked his head up to find himself in the middle of a white and gold room. It was huge, with a gold-domed ceiling embossed with wildlife scenes. The room was encircled with white marble columns and in the center sat a large ivory settee.

  What surprised him most was to see Acheron standing in front of the settee, staring at him with those strange swirling silver eyes.

  The Atlantean had long, golden-blond hair and looked strangely vulnerable—which for Acheron was an impossibility. He was dressed in a pair of tight black leather pants and wore a long-sleeved black silk shirt that had been left unbuttoned.

  "Thank you for Simi," Acheron said, inclining his head toward him. "I appreciate what you did for her when she was wounded."

  Zarek cleared his throat, rose to his feet, and aimed an angry glare at Acheron. "Why did you fuck with my head?"

  "I had to. There are some things people are better off not knowing."

  "You let me think I had killed my own people."

  "Would the truth have been any easier on you? Instead of the old crone's face, you would have been haunted by the face of a young woman and her husband. Not to mention you would have had the knowledge to kill any Dark-Hunter who got in your way, including Valerius, and had you done that, I wouldn't have been able to save you. Ever."

  Zarek flinched at the mention of his brother. As much as he hated to admit it, Ash was right. He might very well have used his knowledge to kill Valerius. "You have no right to play with people's minds."

  Acheron's agreement stunned him. "No, I don't. And believe it or not, I seldom do. But that's not why you're really mad, now is it?"

  Zarek tensed. "I don't know what you mean."

  "Yes you do, Z." He closed his eyes and cocked his head as if listening to something. "I know every thought inside you. Just as I did that night you slaughtered the Apollites and Daimons after Taberleigh. I tried to give you peace of mind by eliminating your memories, but you wouldn't take it. I couldn't stop your dreams and M'Adoc wouldn't help. For that I apologize. But right now you have a much bigger problem than what I did to you when I tried to help."

  "Yeah? What's that?"

  Acheron held his hand up and projected an image from his palm.

  Zarek's breath caught as he saw Astrid weeping. She sat in a small atrium with three other women who were holding her as she cried.

  He walked toward the image, only to remember he couldn't really touch it.

  "It hurts so much," she sobbed.

  "Atty, do something!" a blond woman said, looking at the redheaded woman who appeared to be the eldest. "Go kill him for hurting her."

  "No," Astrid wailed. "Don't you dare. I'll never forgive you if you hurt him."

  "Who are those women with her?" Zarek asked.

  "The three Fates. Atty, or Atropos, is the one with red hair. Clotho is the one with blond hair holding Astrid, and the dark-headed one is Lachesis, or Lacy."

  Zarek stared at them, his heart breaking at the pain he'd caused Astrid. The last thing he had ever wanted was to hurt her. "Why are you showing me this?"

  Acheron answered his question with one of his own. "Do you remember what I said to you in New Orleans?"

  Zarek looked at him wryly. "You said a lot of shit to me then."

  So Acheron repeated it." ' The past is dead, Z. Tomorrow will become whatever decision you make.' "

  Acheron's gaze burned into him. "With Dionysus's help you blew it that night in New Orleans when you attacked the cops, but you bought yourself another chance when you saved Sunshine." Ash indicated Astrid. "You have another crucial choice here, Z. What will you decide?"

  Acheron closed his hand and the image of Astrid and her sisters vanished. "Everyone deserves to be loved, Zarek. Even you."

  "Shut up!" he snarled. "You don't know what you're talking about, Your Highness." Zarek spat the title out. He was so sick of people lecturing him when they were ignorant of what he'd been through.

  It was easy for someone like Acheron to tell him about love. What did a prince know about people hating him? Despising him?

  When had anyone ever spat on the Atlantean?

  But Acheron didn't speak.

  At least not with words.

  Instead, an image came into Zarek's mind. One of a blond teenager in chains in the middle of an ancient Greek home. The boy was bloody while being beaten.

  He was begging those around him for mercy.

  Zarek's breath caught as he recognized the youth…

  "I understand you in a way no one else can," Acheron said quietly. "You have a rare chance, Z. Don't fuck it up."

  For the first time ever, he listened to Acheron. And he looked on him with a newfound respect.

  They were far more alike than he could have guessed and he wondered how Acheron had found the humanity that had abandoned Zarek so long ago.

  "What if I hurt her?" Zarek asked.

  "Do you plan on hurting her?"

  "No, but I can't live here and she—"

  "Why don't you ask her, Z?"

  "What about her mother?"

  "What about her? You were willing to fight Artemis for Thanatos. Isn't Astrid worth just as much?"

  "More." He met Ash's gaze with fired determination. "Where is she?
"

  Before Zarek could blink, he found himself in the atrium Acheron had shown him.

  Atty looked up with a hiss. "No man is allowed here!"

  The one Acheron had called Clotho started to attack him. But she pulled up sharply as Acheron appeared beside him.

  Zarek ignored them as he concentrated on Astrid who sat there with tears in her eyes, staring at him as if he were an apparition.

  His heart pounding, he walked over to her and knelt down before her chair.

  "Stars aren't supposed to cry," he whispered so that only she could hear him. "They're supposed to laugh."

  "How can I laugh when I have no heart?"

  He took her hand into his and kissed the tip of every finger. "You have a heart." He placed her hand over his. "One that only beats for you, princess."

  She offered him a trembling smile. "Why are you here, Zarek?"

  He brushed the tears from her cheeks. "I'm here to collect my rose, if she'll come home with me."

  "Don't even go there," Atty cried. "Astrid, please don't tell me you're going to listen to that drivel?"

  "He's a man, baby sister," Lacy chimed in. "If his lips are moving, he's lying."

  "Why don't the three of you stay out of this?" Acheron said.

  Atty stiffened. "Excuse me? We're the Fates and—"

  A sideways glare from Acheron cut her off midstream.

  "Why don't we leave them alone?" Atty said to her sisters. The three of them hurried off while Acheron watched Zarek and Astrid with his arms folded over his chest.

  Zarek still hadn't taken his gaze off Astrid. "You going to be a voyeur, Ash?"

  "Depends. You going to give me something to look at?"

  "If you keep standing there, I am." He looked over his shoulder then.

  Acheron inclined his head to him and turned around to leave. As he did so, the breeze caught a portion of his shirt and blew it back, showing a flash of one shoulder.

  Zarek started at the red welts it revealed. Welts he knew from experience came from a whip.

  "Wait!" Astrid said, stopping Acheron. "What about Zarek's soul?"

  Acheron stiffened ever so slightly before he called out, "Artemis?"

  She shimmered in beside him.

  "What?" she snarled back.

  He nodded toward them. "Astrid wants Zarek's soul."

  "Oh, like I care, and what is he doing here anyway?" She narrowed her eyes at Astrid. "You should know better than to bring him here."