The Darkest Passion lotu-6

by Gena Showalter

She would have said more, but something hard clamped over her mouth. Something else, just as hard, snaked around her waist, jerking her back into a solid wall. She leveled out, began to lift higher, higher still.

  A man, she realized. A man was holding her. Not Aeron and not Lysander. Menace poured from this one. Using all the strength she possessed, she struggled for her freedom, scratching at the skin she couldn’t see but could now feel, kicking at the legs resting atop hers.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he said. The voice from the room.

  “Who are you? What do you want with me?”

  They broke through a layer of clouds, hiding them from view. “I’m hurt, truly. I thought my reputation preceded me.”

  Galen, she realized. Aeron’s greatest enemy. He had found the Cloak of Invisibility; Aeron had said as much to Torin. That’s how he’d entered the fortress undetected. That’s how he’d snuck into Aeron’s bedroom.

  That’s how he would ruin what was left of her life.

  Torin didn’t have cameras in the bedrooms, but there were cameras outside them and those would have captured her jumping and flying. Anyone watching the feed would believe she’d simply been heading back to the heavens. Unless Legion told him what had really happened, Aeron would assume Olivia had lied to him. He would think she’d left him without saying goodbye.

  Blood froze in her veins. She had to convince Galen to take her back. “I’m not sure what you hope to accomplish, but I assure you, you won’t get your wish. Aeron doesn’t care about me.” Not the way she dreamed, hoped. “He’s letting me go.”

  “I highly doubt that, but you weren’t the reason I was in the fortress. You were simply a last resort.”

  “And what did you hope to accomplish?”

  His arms tightened around her. “Do you really think I’ll spill all my secrets?”

  “Are you going to hurt me? Tell me that, at least.”

  “And spoil the surprise?” He chuckled. “No. I’d rather show you.” His wings snapped closed, and they began to fall….

  AERON CAME AWAKE with a jolt. One moment he’d been lost to the burning pain working its way through him, flaming his organs to ashes, and the next a cool rain had swept through him. A cool rain he’d instantly recognized. The River of Life. Olivia was here, and she had healed him once again.

  Except, when he focused, he saw that it was Legion who loomed over him, and he fought a wave of disappointment.

  “It worked.” She smiled, all pearly whites and happiness. “It really worked.”

  Though he badly wanted to ask about his fallen angel, he couldn’t. Not without causing all kinds of problems. “The others?” His voice was rougher than usual, and not because of damage from the smoke inhalation. The water had healed him. But thoughts of Olivia always filled him with need.

  “Who cares? You know,” Legion added, tracing a finger down the line of his breastbone. Her lashes dipped to half-mast, though he could still see her eyes. They weren’t glazed with desire. No, it was determination that swirled in their depths. “Now that you’re healed, we have some unfinished business to attend to.”

  He grabbed her wrist and held her hand at bay. “The others, Legion? How are they?”

  With a sigh, she waved away his concern. “They’re still sick. Okay? All right? But they’ll get better on their own. I’m sure of it.”

  Not with those bullets spurting poison into their systems. “You’re telling me they haven’t been given the River of Life?” Perhaps that’s where Olivia was now, seeing to his friends’ well-being. How like her. Caring, helpful.

  “No, they weren’t.” There was a growing rigidity to Legion’s features. “Now, about that unfinished business…”

  Damn her. She was going to make him ask. “Does Olivia have the vial?”

  Finally giving up her attempts at seduction, Legion looked away from him. At least she hadn’t erupted into a rage because he’d mentioned that—beautiful, perfect—name. “No,” she said. “Because we ran out. Sorry.”

  Hardly. Last time he’d used it, there’d been enough to save an entire army. Aeron sat up and scrubbed a hand down his face. So. If Olivia didn’t have the water, that meant Legion did, since it had just been given to him and she was the only one here.

  But why would Legion— The answer slid into place, and he scowled. Of course. She was saving the rest for him.

  “Why don’t I change into something more comfortable,” she suggested.

  Not done with the seduction, after all. He shuddered. “Give me the water, Legion, and stop trying to sleep with me. I know we have to, just not now.”

  Wrath stirred inside his head, stretching and yawning.

  “No, I—”

  “Legion. I’m giving up my life to save yours. The least you can do is give me the water.”

  Frowning, she crossed her arms over her ample chest. “You make it sound like I’m…I don’t know, ruining you.”

  He cocked a brow, his silence answer enough, and her anger increased. Any life without Olivia would indeed be a ruined one. Legion’s your bratty kid. “Baby girl” no longer seemed appropriate. You can’t hate her. Fine. “Give me the water or I’ll finally give you the spanking you deserve.”

  Now Wrath purred.

  The demon liked the idea of punishing her? He never had before.

  “Fine,” she grumbled, and tugged the vial from between her breasts. “They only get one drop each. No more.”

  Because no more than a drop would be needed, he said, “I promise,” and grabbed the glowing blue vial, the glass so cold it seemed refrigerated. He pushed to a stand and gazed down at himself. He was still blood-soaked and soot-covered from head to foot. His jeans were ripped and he wasn’t wearing a shirt. Good enough.

  “Stay here.” With every step toward the door, his blood flowed faster and his strength intensified.

  “If you’re going to look for the angel,” Legion called tightly, “you should know that she left.”

  The purring faded.

  Aeron stopped and turned. “Left? As in went to another room?”

  “Nope. She left the fortress.”

  No. No. She wouldn’t have done that. She’d promised to stay until he returned and they’d spoken.

  Wrath remained deadly quiet.

  “You don’t believe me, I see.” Legion sighed and flopped back against the mattress. “She jumped from the balcony and flew away. She didn’t even tell me to tell you goodbye. Which is rude, if you ask me, but I doubt you will,” she added with a grumble.

  No!

  His own protest echoed the demon’s. He pounded out of the room and down the hall. Legion must have followed him, because she was suddenly beside him, her hand resting in his, trying to drag him to a halt.

  His steps never slowed. “Olivia!” he called.

  Heaven!

  “I told you. She left. She’s gone forever.”

  He jerked free from her hold and his hand curled into fists. Olivia wasn’t a liar. Despite the fact that her voice no longer possessed that ring of truth, she wouldn’t have lied to him. It wasn’t in her nature. He knew that. He knew her. Something must have happened. What, he didn’t know, but he would find out.

  “Olivia!”

  Wrath whimpered.

  We’ll find her. He stopped the first warrior he found—Strider—and tossed the vial of water into his hands, tossing instructions, too, but not slowing in his quest to find his angel.

  “Aeron,” Legion said, a desperate quality to the word. “Please. You were going to lose her anyway. And you better give me back that bottle the moment you’re done, Strider, or I will ensure you never have children!”

  Aeron stormed back into his room and weighed himself down with weapons. “Doesn’t matter if I’m losing her or not.” Olivia, the one woman he realized he would always chase after, pride and circumstances be damned, was out there. “She’s mine. Ours,” he added before Wrath could protest. “And we won’t rest until she’s returned.”r />
  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  SLAP. Her lip split.

  Punch. Air abandoned her lungs.

  Crack. A hard fist slammed into her lower arm, shattering bone.

  Olivia remained mute through it all, enduring, but she couldn’t help the tears that swam in her eyes. The torture had begun an hour ago. An eternity. Her wrists were tied to the arms of a small, wooden chair; she was bruised, bleeding and broken.

  Her hair was soaked from the many times the man called Dean Stefano had held her head underwater, preventing her from breathing, forcing her to suck in mouthful after mouthful of liquid. Now those ice-cold droplets covered her, keeping her awake, ensuring she felt every bit of pain.

  Not as bad as hell, she told herself. You’ll survive. You have to survive.

  “Galen left me in charge of your care,” Stefano said, his face streaked with soot and patches of his skin blistered, “specifically asking that I interrogate you. And I will. I promise you. Your friends did this to me, you see. They burned me and what had become my home. I barely escaped, and owe them one. Or two.”

  She looked away from his wild eyes. She was in a warehouse of some sort. A warehouse with a concrete floor and metal walls. The room she now occupied was small. There was a table piled high with knives she fully expected the bastard to begin using any moment now. There was a basin of water deep enough to drown her in, which she’d already gotten up close and personal with more times than she could count, and the chair she sat upon.

  “Ready to talk now, angel?” How calm he suddenly sounded. Not at all like the cruel man he was.

  If only she’d tell him what he wanted to know, she would be saving the Lords the agony of losing a war, she thought, then bit her tongue. No. No! Galen must be nearby. His demon, Hope, must be playing with her, for that thought had not belonged to her.

  Stay strong.

  “All you have to do is tell me where the Lords have hidden the Cage and this stops.” Stefano offered her a kind smile. “Surely you want that.”

  Did she want it to stop? Yes. Who wouldn’t? But once she told him what he wanted to know, he would kill her. Don’t forget that fact. She pressed her lips into a mulish line.

  He plucked a feather that had fallen to the floor when Galen dumped her here and caressed the tip along her jaw. “The Cage. Where is it? Tell me. Please. I don’t want to hurt you anymore.”

  You know what you have to do, a voice suddenly growled through her head. Not Lucifer, not Galen. The third that day. This time, she fought back a sob of relief. Lysander. He was here. She couldn’t see him, couldn’t sense him, but she knew he was there.

  She wasn’t alone in this any longer.

  “Angel,” Stefano snapped. Directly in front of her, he curled his hand into a fist, preparing to hit her already-shattered arm. The feather had floated to the floor and now mocked her with its softness. “Talk.”

  “I don’t…I don’t know where it is,” she rasped. A lie. She’d never thought she would be grateful for the ability to tell them, but she was now. Of course, that meant the human could choose not to believe her.

  Olivia. Say the words, and I’ll take you home.

  Oh, she knew she could leave. Knew she could return to the heavens as planned and escape this. All of it. The pain, the humiliation. But she’d made a promise to Aeron, and it was a promise she intended to keep. She had to tell him goodbye. She would tell him goodbye.

  “You do know,” Stefano said. “You traipsed that fortress for weeks without anyone knowing you were there. You had to have seen it.”

  Olivia, please. Return with me. I can’t stand to see you like this. I can’t stand this sense of helplessness, of knowing I can save you but being unable to act.

  “I can’t,” she told him.

  Stefano punched her arm, just as she’d known he would, and a small cry finally found its way free. Stars winked over her vision, and dizziness rushed through her head, slamming from one temple to the other.

  Olivia!

  “I can’t,” she said again, gasping for breath.

  Slap. “You can,” the human replied, thinking she had spoken to him. “You’re not giving me enough credit for what I can and will do to you, and that hurts my feelings.”

  The sting inside her already-cut mouth spread.

  Olivia, Lysander snarled again. This is madness. Nothing is worth this. Come home. Please. I can’t help you any more until you do.

  “Your wife…would not have…wanted this.” This time she was speaking to Stefano and ignoring Lysander. She was glad he was here, yes, but she wouldn’t cave in this matter.

  Through her spying, Olivia knew that Darla, the wife in question, had committed suicide. Because of Sabin, keeper of Doubt, and Stefano—the two men who had loved her. She’d been locked in a tug-of-war between them, death her only escape.

  Stefano’s eyes narrowed, shielding the darkness of his irises. “She was tricked. The demons tricked her into liking them.” He leaned down, flattening his palms on her bound arms—on her broken bone—and pressed. “If she’d been in her right mind, she would’ve wanted me to do more.”

  Another cry escaped her. The pain was so sharp, it traveled through her entire body before collecting in her stomach and burning.

  Olivia!

  “Aeron will hate me more than ever, as well, when I send him one of your fingers,” Stefano said, as calm as when he’d caressed her with that feather. “Then he’ll come for you. He’ll end up dying for you. Is that a price you’re willing to pay? Tell me where the Cage is, and I’ll spare his life.”

  There it was again. That hope for a better future. If she told Stefano what he wanted to know, she would go free, return to Aeron, and they could be together forever. They could make love again, and even start a family.

  Did Galen know what his man was doing in a bid for the answers he sought? Did he care? Did he realize what his nearness was doing to her?

  Olivia, damn you. You don’t have to tell him and you don’t have to endure. Just come home.

  In and out she breathed. Fighting herself, her desires. Fighting that silly hope. Fighting the pain. She opened her mouth. What she planned to say, she might never know. Stefano hit her and she couldn’t form a single word…was fading…sinking…blessedly lost…

  “IT’S GOING TO TAKE A WHILE and could yield no results.”

  Aeron studied his friend, barely able to stop himself from latching onto those massive shoulders and shaking. Lucien’s mismatched eyes, one brown, one blue, were regarding him with grim resolve. “I don’t care how long it takes. Just do it.”

  He wanted to shake himself for not thinking of this sooner.

  Everyone here thought that Olivia had returned to the heavens, as Legion had claimed. Hell, they’d all watched the video Torin’s camera had recorded. The one of her jumping from the balcony in his bedroom.

  The scene played through his mind constantly. She’d been standing inside his room, staring out at the night. She’d stiffened, turned. Then she’d turned again, walking outside, her mouth moving as if she were talking to someone—Legion said she’d been mumbling about her excitement to rejoin her friends—but it had been terror that had bled from her expression. Then she’d leapt. Fallen, fallen, begun to soar. Without her wings.

  How could she have flown without her wings? Why had she been afraid?

  The others assumed that terror stemmed from the unknown, of wondering how the angels would receive her. Aeron knew better. Olivia wouldn’t fear that. She’d told him the angels were forgiving—patient, had been her word—and that they would welcome her with open arms.

  The only rational conclusion was that Legion was lying. Again. Which meant Olivia had been taken, as he’d first assumed. And there was only one way that could’ve happened. Galen. Galen had used the Cloak of Invisibility.

  Save her. Punish him.

  That the demon wished to save first and punish second proved the depths of his affection.

  Aeron had scoured
the entire city of Buda. He had raided buildings, terrorized citizens and killed. Oh, had he killed, and happily, too, no trace of guilt, having discovered many Hunters still lingering nearby. He might never be able to remove the blood from his hands. But there’d been no sign of Olivia. No hint of her scent. No rumors, no sightings. He. Was. Desperate. And only growing more so.

  “Come. There’s no better time to begin.” He led Lucien down the hallway to his bedroom, where he threw open the door.

  Legion, who was once again lounging on the bed, sat up. The sheet fell to her waist, revealing bare breasts. “Finally. Are you ready to do this or what?”

  He ignored her—as he had since tossing that vial at Strider—so angry with her he no longer knew how to treat her, and stepped aside, allowing Lucien deeper inside the room.

  Legion released a frustrated sigh. “Company? Now?”

  Wrath hissed at her.

  Aeron sensed that the demon liked her still, as he did, despite his rage, because there were no urges to hurt her. But no longer was Wrath calmed by her. She’d destroyed their piece of “heaven,” and neither of them could forget.

  Lucien was careful not to glance toward the bed. He stopped in the center of the room and spun slowly. He was here to lock on to Olivia’s spirit trail—a trail he could then follow to wherever she was being held. Aeron’s hands fisted.

  “Gods,” Lucien said, the awe in his tone clear. “She has the purest spirit I’ve ever beheld.”

  Aeron couldn’t see it, but he could feel it, and nodded. “I know.”

  “Who?” Legion asked with a pout.

  Again, he ignored her. Six days left until he had to be with her, but just then he wasn’t sure he could do it, even to save his friends.

  “I’ll follow it as far as it goes,” Lucien told him, “and if I—”

  “When you,” Aeron corrected, a low growl forming in his throat. She is fine. She has to be fine.

  The warrior nodded. “When I find her, I’ll come back for you.” With that, Lucien disappeared into the spirit realm to follow that trail.

  Gods, he felt helpless. He wanted—needed—to be out there, actively looking for her himself. But his first attempt had wielded no results, and deep down he knew his second wouldn’t, either. Galen could have taken her anywhere, and Lucien would reach her much faster. If Aeron left the fortress now, Lucien would then have to hunt him down, once the warrior discovered her location.