Burning Dawn (Angels of the Dark #3)(8)
Author: Gena Showalter

This would jeopardize Thane’s future.

He already stood at the corner of Last Chance and Doomed, and with one wrong move, he could lose the only thing he loved.

His boys.

Can’t be parted from them.

But he couldn’t let the Phoenix go, either. Not until their suffering blotted out the hated memories they’d given him.

Thane sat at the back end of his tub, boiling water pouring from the overhead spout, raining over his naked body. His hands clenched the edge of the porcelain so tightly it was already cracked. His legs were bent to his chest, his forehead resting against his knees. It was a position of shame. One he knew well.

He should have already rebounded. He was no stranger to sex and bondage. For almost a century, he’d found a delicious sort of comfort in the way pale, feminine flesh reddened under his ministrations. He’d adored watching wrists and ankles strain against bonds. Delighted in seeing the first gleam of fear in his lover’s eyes…knowing tears would soon follow.

Messed up? Yes. But then, he’d also enjoyed being on the receiving end of such treatment.

He was probably worse than messed up, and it didn’t take a lot of digging to figure out why. The months he’d spent inside a demon prison— Stop. No. Every muscle in his body tensed as his mind fought the abhorrent direction it was traveling, but he forced himself to continue on. Remembering kept his darker emotions at a razor’s edge, each ready to cut him, make him bleed.

He liked to bleed.

He remembered the way clawed hands clutched at him as they dragged him into a dank cell, stripped him, and strapped him to an altar. He remembered Bjorn, a stranger then, being strung up above him—and skinned. He remembered the copper scent of fresh blood, the warmth of it as it dripped onto Thane’s face, chest and legs. He remembered Xerxes, also a stranger, being chained to the wall across from him and raped repeatedly.

A roar of denial clogged his throat. Thane punched the side of the tub, leaving a gaping hole in the porcelain. What do you know. There was a limit to what even he could bear.

The pain of his friends.

As the days passed inside that terrible prison, Thane was never touched. He hurtled threats and insults, but the demons laughed rather than feared. He begged, desperate to remove focus from the other men, but the demons ignored him.

His frustration…

His hatred…

His rage…

Each had slunk to the back of his mind, and just never left him. Eventually, after his escape, his sexual gratification became tied irrevocably to the very things he’d been denied, creating a hell of a lot of crazy.

“I put your human with the barmaids.”

Xerxes’s gentle voice came from inside the bathroom, a comfort to him.

“Thank you.” Thane had questions for his lovely, unlikely savior. How had she, a human, come to live with the Phoenix? What was her name? How old was she? Did she smell as clean and sweet as he remembered?

Did she belong to one of the warriors staked outside, or perhaps to one of the soldiers out hunting with the new king?

How had she helped Thane? His memories were clouded. Why had she helped him?

The moment the urge to touch her faded, Thane would approach her and ask.

Right now, he was too aware of her. Too…absorbed in her. She made him feel soft, protective and tender, something he didn’t just not like; something he despised. And yet, his sexual desires had never been so intense. The urge to throw her down and ravage her was almost blinding.

Why the unlikely juxtaposition?

She wasn’t the type of woman he usually pursued. Line up his last hundred conquests, and each would be tall, leanly muscled and stalwart. This girl was delicate in every way.

It made no sense.

A growl rose from deep in his chest. Instinct demanded he destroy whatever he didn’t understand. What he didn’t understand, he couldn’t control.

Control was more important to him than water.

But he wouldn’t destroy the girl—he didn’t want to destroy her. Not after everything she’d done for him.

He could send her away, he supposed. But she would have zero protection.

Pass.

He could frighten her and—

No. Pass. She would scream.

Once, a screaming female would have aroused him. Now? When the slave girl did it? He experienced only rage.

At least he understood why her voice was so raspy. At some point in her life, she had screamed to such a degree, she had permanently damaged her vocal cords.

“I’ve placed guards around the courtyard.” Bjorn’s statement drew him from his thoughts. The warrior entered the bathroom behind Xerxes. “They will alert us when someone dies.”

Always these men supported him, loved him. Never did they judge him or push him for details he wasn’t yet ready to share. No man had ever had better friends.

Little wonder Thane was willing to die for them.

“Thank you for coming for me,” he said quietly.

“We will always come for you.” Xerxes walked over and shut off the water. “We heard about a Sent One who wreaked havoc in a Phoenix camp weeks before, and so we were in the area, looking for you. But they hid you well. If you hadn’t told us where you were…”

All Sent Ones could direct their thoughts into the minds of their brethren, so, the moment Thane had come to his senses and realized his location, he’d used the mental connection to shout for aid.

“Time to dry off,” Bjorn said. “You’re already waterlogged.”

As Thane stood, Xerxes offered him a towel.

He draped the cloth around his waist, a lance of anger cutting through him. Kendra had dressed him in a loincloth and forced him to parade around her people, a target for any wayward caress.

And her people had caressed him.

“Have Kendra’s robe removed,” he demanded. “Put her in a bra and panties.” Tit for tat. No mercy.

Xerxes nodded. “As soon as I leave you, I’ll see that it’s done.”

To distract himself from his black mood, Thane studied the opulent en suite adjoined to his bedroom. Steam coated the air, curling to the domed ceiling, with its elaborate chandelier hanging in the center, glistening with a unicorn’s petrified teardrops. The walls and floors were made of the same gold-veined marble. Towering archways framed large, alabaster lions and led into a closet—the one storing his…toys. A gilded mirror hung over a sink carved from a melding of rubies, sapphires and emeralds.

He’d designed the space for the women he bedded. And yet, he had never allowed a single woman inside it. Not even Kendra.