by Ford, Lizzy
I don’t think it’s possible. Ever.
She changed clothes quickly, troubled by her latest interaction with her mate.
When she was ready, she walked to the door and paused. “Are you going with me?” she asked curiously and then rushed on. “You don’t have to. I thought I’d ask.”
“I’ll be down,” he replied. “I need to talk to someone about Kris.”
“I don’t think he wanted Wynn to know.”
“I don’t want Wynn to know either.”
She nodded, gaze lingering on his chiseled features. “You know where I’ll be.” She left and went to the first floor and the large chamber filled already with petitioners.
Kiki sat at the table in her place. His eyes lit up when he saw her, and he leapt to his feet to leave.
“Thank god,” he muttered, joining her.
“Does the new guy always get the shit job?” she responded.
“Don’t even think of whining! I’ve been the one listening to petitioners for a year, Steph!” he snapped. “I fucking dream about these people.”
If there was one thing to say about her new family, it was that they were truly the least friendly group of people she’d ever met. Groaning internally, she nonetheless took her seat and began to listen.
Until she saw a familiar figure pass the doorway.
Stephanie blinked and sat up, certain she’d imagined the woman. She stared for a moment then started to relax. She was hung over and high on desire.
Just as she looked down, the figure passed by the entrance again. Her head flew up, and she stood. This time, she was certain she’d seen Olivia. It wasn’t possible, though.
Kris was dead, too. This thought made her gasp. “Excuse me,” she said hastily and rushed away from the table. She darted into the hallway and paused, looking around wildly.
She spotted Olivia turning a corner and raced after her. “Olivia!”
Her former roommate didn’t reappear, and Stephanie continued to run after her, through the halls of the bottom floor, always just missing her. She stopped at the entrance onto the back lawn to catch her breath and spotted Olivia disappearing into the forest on a trail she’d seen without knowing where it went.
There’s something weird about this, she thought and hesitated.
Just then, Olivia turned and waved to her with a grin.
“Olivia, wait!” Stephanie called and started forward.
Olivia gestured for her to follow and took off at a run into the forest.
Stephanie slowed at the entrance to the woods. With a glance over her shoulder at the fortress where her dysfunctional family lived, she plunged into the forest after her friend. She caught glimpses of Olivia’s red hair and followed until she reached a large lake whose flawless surface reflected the cloudless blue sky above.
Olivia was nowhere to be seen, and Stephanie sucked in deep breaths as she studied the gorgeous scene before her.
“Is there a human alive who will not fall for such deception?”
She whirled. Two men with dark eyes and fangs melted from the shadows of the forest. They were accompanied by Olivia.
Only, upon closer inspection, she could see how unlike Olivia the figure really was. The build of the smaller demon was wrong, and Olivia’s features appeared almost … melted. The demons were smiling, armed – and blocking her escape route back to the fortress.
God, I hate demons! “You don’t want to do this,” she blurted out and began backing away.
“We won’t kill you, morsel,” one of them assured her. “Our dark lord would not approve.”
Her heart felt like it dropped to her stomach. Even Deidre feared dealing with the Dark One, her mate. Stephanie thought about a return trip to Hell and made a quick decision.
She turned and bolted. She made it all of ten meters before one of the demons tackled her. Stephanie hit the ground hard enough to knock the air from her lungs. Incapacitated, she didn’t fight him as the demon hauled her to her feet. The other two hung back, and she eyed the melting face of Olivia with a cross between horror and disgust.
“Breathe, human,” the demon holding her growled. He landed a hard smack on her back, and she sucked in a breath and began to cough. The muscular creature held her in place and signaled the other two. He snatched her by the back of the neck and yanked her head up, peering at her features with riveting blue-green eyes. “The Dark One wants you in perfect condition. He has plans for you.”
Stephanie steadied herself and pushed at him.
“Are you certain taking her is in your best interests?”
Her heart soared at Fate’s voice.
The demon twisted to see who spoke, and the other two drew weapons. Spotting the deity, the three grew wary. Fate appeared perfectly at ease, dressed in designer jeans and a gray t-shirt. His eyes whirled with colors, and his chiseled features displayed a bored expression she was starting to realize hid the sharp, dangerous mind of the intelligent godling.
“Name yourself,” ordered the demon holding her.
“Does it matter?” Fate returned. “Whatever I am, it is far more than what you are. Is she worth pissing off a deity?”
“Shut up. Open a portal,” their leader ordered the others. The two hesitated, eyes on the unnamed deity whose casual challenge worked on them as well as it did her.
“Trayern, isn’t it?” Fate asked.
The demon holding her stiffened.
“Back from the depths of Hell, I see. I thought Darkyn would’ve left you there after your previous failures.”
“All the more reason not to fail this time!”
“He values you, so I’ll do you the honor of explaining why you aren’t going to take the human with you,” Fate said with a smile. “If you do, you will start a war your lord does not want.”
The demon Trayern didn’t speak. His grip remained tight on her neck, and she gazed hard at Fate, willing him to win this deceptively simple battle of wills.
“Take him this message,” Fate said, drawing near. Unarmed, powerless, he nonetheless portrayed the calm confidence of someone who had already won this round. “Tell him he has an appointment with destiny. Go now, if you like. I’ll await his response right here.”
“Trayern,” one of the others warned. “The Dark One will not forgive disobedience.”
“He will forgive you,” Fate said, focus on Trayern. “He trusts you. Show him why his trust is well placed. Take my message back to him, and, if he rebukes you, you can take us both with you to Hell.”
Stephanie’s breath caught.
Whatever game he played, it worked. Trayern released her and stepped away.
“I’m leaving them,” Trayern lifted his head towards the other two demons.
“Fine.”
The wary demon summoned a portal and disappeared. Stephanie’s gaze, however, was on Fate.
“Do you know what you’re doing?” she asked quietly.
He winked.
She had the urge to wrap herself in his arms – or maybe run the opposite way. There was never a middle of the road reaction to him. She hugged herself, unable to help the stir of desire and fear his appearance always caused.
“Are you hurt?” Fate asked, searching her features briefly.
“No. Just freaked out.” She glanced towards the remaining demons. “How … did they steal Olivia’s face?”
“It’s a shapeshifter demoness,” Fate explained. “Crudely effective and rarely able to hold their shapes for long.”
“Right.”
His gaze lingered on her, and his quick smile was warm. “You didn’t play the mate card.”
Stephanie had no idea how to respond. Fate and Wynn seemed to be universally distrusted. Would that have made her fate at the hands of the demons better or so much worse?
“You really should,” he advised.
“You have no power!” she whispered.
“Because that’s what’s stopping you.”
She rolled her eyes.
�
�At least you got out of listening to petitions,” he added.
She started to laugh, stopped and then shook her head, uncertain what kind of reaction was appropriate while waiting for the Dark One to drag them to Hell. “You are … amazing,” she said finally. “And I don’t think I mean that in a good way.”
“When you’ve lived as long as I have, you never take a moment to smile or laugh for granted. Especially when you know you’re about to make a deal with the Dark One.”
The somber note in his voice drew her attention from the demons, and she studied him. She didn’t sense self-pity or sorrow in the deity capable of experiencing the futures of billions. “I can’t figure you out.”
“Do you really want to?” he countered, gazing down at her. The rare intensity was displayed once more.
Her cheeks grew warm under his look. She didn’t have an answer.
“You do,” he said. “Good.”
The cool breeze of a portal reached them, and she turned to see a smaller, leaner demon with youthful features and cold, black eyes leading Trayern out of the place-between-places.
“I need you to promise me something,” Fate whispered.
“What?”
“If I miss our date tonight, you’ll meet me Friday night, here, at eight in the evening.”
Her brow furrowed.
“Agreed?” He held out his hand.
“Is an official deal really necessary?” she asked. “You don’t think I’ll show?”
“Agreed?”
Sensing he wasn’t going to reveal anything he didn’t want to – ever – she tapped her hand to his.
Before she could say anything more, the two demons were within earshot, and Fate stepped in front of her to greet them.
“Darkyn. Always a pleasure,” he said smoothly.
Stephanie peered around him to see the demon, not expecting the Dark One to be so much smaller than those around him. Just under six feet tall with a honed frame and black stare, he was intimidating but not like Trayern, who was a head taller and one and a half times as wide.
Darkyn’s gaze rested on her long enough for her to shrink back. He seemed to peer through her to her non-existent soul.
“I know your condition, Fate,” the Dark One snapped. “And I know you are far from helpless even without your power.”
“We both know Wynn allowed you to set foot on the Immortals’ territory,” Fate replied. “You want her. But I’m willing to bet you want me more. Or perhaps Wynn?”
“I have no quarrel with Wynn.”
“Except he managed to elude your prison again. That’s twice in a row this lifetime. You and I both know he should be in Hell.”
The Dark One was quiet momentarily, his gaze going to Stephanie once more.
“I’m willing to negotiate,” Fate added.
“This is business. It’s also personal.” The Dark One signaled to Trayern to leave them. “I will never forget how you fucked with my mate.”
“Delivered her to you, I think you mean.”
Stephanie shrank back, not certain she was ready to hear the types of secrets deities kept. Her thoughts went to Deidre, who had seemed content as the bride of the devil, but only after the trauma of her story. She hadn’t mentioned Fate’s role in the whole ordeal, and Stephanie had the sudden urge to ask her what exactly he meant by delivering a human into Hell to become the mate of the Dark One.
“We will negotiate in private,” the Dark One said and stepped away.
Fate didn’t leave his protective position between them as he trailed the demon.
Stephanie watched them, unable to stop the cold fear spiraling through her. Her eyes were glued to Fate, who appeared unconcerned, in control, as if his powers being gone was an inconvenience rather than the crippling situation she suspected it truly was.
The other two demons eyed her hungrily, and Trayern stood at rapt attention, focus on his master, in case things broke bad.
It was impossible to read either deity to understand how the negotiations were going or even what they were about. It was like watching two master poker players who had ironed out their tells. For all she knew, they were choosing where to eat for dinner.
The two spoke for a good thirty minutes before their heads lifted, and they touched hands to seal whatever deal they came to. The two approached, neither breaking the stoicism of their features.
“He’s agreed to leave you alone for now,” Fate said. “In exchange for the ability to ask you two questions and verify your condition.”
“Meaning …” she asked, backing away as the Dark One took a step towards her.
“Don’t run,” Darkyn said with a cold smile.
“You last longer if you don’t fight a demon,” Fate explained. “He won’t hurt you.”
She stared at him, recalling what demons had done to Olivia. Fate had stiffened at the Dark One’s approach but made no move to stop him.
Trust me. He mouthed the words to her.
She sucked in a deep breath and nodded, heart hammering and palms clammy.
Darkyn snatched her neck. He made no attempt to be gentle and dragged her into him, staring into her eyes. He didn’t blink, and she started to push at him, freaked out by the expanse of nothingness in his gaze.
Fate shook his head in warning.
She stopped. The Dark One pushed her back onto her feet without releasing her neck and circled her slowly. When he returned to his position facing her, he spoke.
“Describe in extensive detail, your skill, unique to the children of Wynn,” he ordered her.
“I … I can hear or … I don’t know … somehow know people’s secrets,” she said in a whisper.
Fate stepped closer in interest.
“It usually happens when I touch them. Always with humans, mostly with Immortals, not at all with deities,” she continued. “When I first met Kiki and touched him, he was afraid to discover I was who he thought I was. Ileana didn’t want me to pity her for having one hand. Wynn …” She drifted off, alarmed by the reaction of both deities at the mention of the Immortal.
The Dark One she expected to be predatory, but the sudden sharpness in Fate’s colorful gaze left her thinking she was about to fall into a trap lain by both of them.
“Wynn what?” Fate asked.
“Wynn has this gift, too,” she said in a hushed tone. “I couldn’t read him but Kris believed him to have the ability to hide his gift.”
“Kris,” Darkyn hissed.
“Back from the dead-dead. One guess as to who brought him back,” Fate said, his tension easing. “But Kris is only half right.”
“These are not secrets you read in people,” the Dark One said. “It’s fear. You can sense what they fear most the moment you touch them.”
“It’s a critical advantage to someone as resolved as Wynn.”
Fears. Suddenly, she pitied all the people whose hidden fears she’d inadvertently heard. She’d thought them strange for telling her random things, only to realize she alone was privy to something causing those she ran across so much suffering. It was a terrible privilege to be aware of someone else’s deepest fears.
She began to understand why Wynn hadn’t let anyone discover his gift in all the years of his life. Where she empathized with those alone with their fears, Wynn used them to manipulate people. The two deities before her wore similar expressions, and she could guess that they, too, would find such a skill useful.
Darkyn released her. “I’ll save my second question for next time.” He turned and strode towards Trayern.
She released her breath. “That wasn’t so bad,” she said and clenched her trembling hands.
“Not at all,” Fate agreed. “I’m afraid I have to cancel our date tonight.”
She frowned.
“When you’re ready,” Darkyn barked, standing before a portal.
Fate glanced towards him.
“What’s going on?” Stephanie asked. “You’re not going with him, are you?”
“I a
m.”
“I don’t understand.”
“We have some business to conduct,” he replied with a shrug.
“Stop lying to me.” She searched his features. “You didn’t make a deal with him, did you?”
“I guess you could say we made a pre-deal. He leaves you alone, so long as I’m down there with him.”
Stephanie gasped. “You’re joking!”
“It’s temporary.”
“Define temporary.”
“You barely agreed to go on a date with me. You can’t be concerned for my welfare,” he teased.
Rationally, she wanted to agree, but the tiny voice inside her, the one that wanted a chance with him, that had already claimed him, refuted any notion he wasn’t on some level important to her.
“Wynn wants you isolated, alone. As long as I’m here, I can help you,” he said quietly. “But if I don’t go, Darkyn takes you to Hell, and I won’t allow that.”
“You’d go to Hell for me?” she asked.
She saw the answer on his face. However aloof he was, however baffled she remained, she felt like she was truly seeing him for the first time. All his layers, all his jokes, hid something very good, however small that nugget of good was.
“If he’s here for me, it’s my choice,” she said. “You can’t do something like this for me, not after what you went through at Wynn’s hands!”
“No,” he said.
“Free will, remember?”
“No.” His voice was soft, firm. “Sorry. No free will today.”
“But it’s not fair.” Tears of frustration were in her eyes as she realized how perfectly Wynn had set them up.
Fate cupped her face in his hands, his touch calming her panic. Her eyes were riveted to his, her senses filled with him. The idea of losing him, when she’d just started to think she wanted to know more, disturbed her.
“I won’t put you in that kind of danger,” he said.
Stephanie stepped closer and pulled his head down to hers. She kissed him deeply without caring about the demons looking on. Fate looped an arm around her and held her against his hard body, his response as hungry as it had been in her room earlier.