The Darkest Night (Lords of the Underworld #1)(15)
Author: Gena Showalter

Torin stood in the corner, his profile to everyone. Distanced, always distanced. But then, Torin had to be. Reyes sat across from him. Tanned like the sun god, the warrior didn’t look as though he belonged on earth, much less in the room. He was busy slicing grooves into his lower arm as he awaited Aeron’s answer. Every few seconds, Reyes winced. That wince became a satisfied smile as blood trickled, forming tiny crimson rivers over his skin. Pain was the only thing that satisfied him, the only thing that made him feel alive.

Aeron had no idea how the man might respond to pleasure.

Paris was sprawled on the couch beside him, hands tucked behind his head as he switched his attention between Aeron and the movie, his demon probably urging him to watch just a little more. A man with his kind of luck should be ugly. At the very least, he should have to struggle to lure a woman into his bed. Instead, he simply looked at a woman with his handsome face and she stripped instantly, willing to be taken anywhere, available bed or not.

Maddox’s woman hadn’t, though, Aeron recalled. Why?

Lucien leaned against the pool table, his hideously scarred face revealing nothing. His arms were crossed over his massive chest, and those disconcerting eyes of his watched Aeron intently. "Well?" Lucien prompted.

He drew in a breath, released it. "I’ve been ordered to slay a group of tourists in Buda. Four humans." He paused, closed his eyes again. Tried not to feel a single shred of emotion. Cold. To get through this, he’d have to be cold. "All female."

"Come again." Paris jolted upright, frowning over at him, television forgotten.

Aeron repeated the gods’ command.

Paler than usual, Paris shook his head. "I can buy that we’re now under new management. I don’t like it, I’m confused as hell by it, but hey. I buy it. What I don’t get is that the Titans ordered you, the possessor of Wrath, to kill four human women in town. Why would they do something like that?" He threw up his arms. "That’s craziness."

He might be the most promiscuous man ever to roam the Earth, bedding his partners and forgetting them in the same day, but women of every race, size and age were Paris’s lifeblood. His entire reason for existence. He’d never been able to tolerate seeing a single one of them hurt.

"They did not give me a reason," Aeron answered, knowing a reason would not have mattered. He didn’t want to harm those women in any way. He knew how it felt to kill. Oh, yes. He’d killed many, many times before, but always through the undeniable urgings of his demon – a demon that chose its victims well. People who beat or molested their children. People who took joy from the destruction of others. Wrath always knew when a person was deserving of death, their shameful actions playing through his mind.

When the women had been brought to his attention, the demon had tried them and found them innocent. And yet, he was supposed to murder them.

If that happened, if he was forced to spill the blood of the undeserving, Aeron would never be the same. He knew it, felt it.

"Did they give you a time frame for when the deed must be done?" Lucien asked, still seemingly unaffected. He was Death, the Grim Reaper – Lucifer, he’d even been called, not that the people who had called him by that name were still alive – so Aeron’s task was probably nothing to him.

"No, they didn’t. But…"

Lucien arched a dark brow. "But?"

"They did tell me that if I failed to act quickly, blood and death would begin to consume my mind. They said I would kill anything and everything until the day I complied. Just like Maddox." They hadn’t needed to warn him, though. Wrath had overtaken him numerous times. When the spirit decided it was time to act, Aeron always tried to resist, but the cravings for destruction grew and grew until finally he would snap. Even in the worst thrall of Wrath, however, he had never been compelled to kill an innocent. "But unlike Maddox, my torment will not end with the dawn."

Gravely, Paris asked, "How are you to do it? Did they at least tell you that?"

His stomach twisted, cramped. "I am to slit their throats," he said. How he would love to refuse to obey these new gods. Only the horror of being ordered to do something even worse had kept him silent.

"Why are they doing this?" Torin demanded, a question they would each ask at least once, it seemed.

He still did not have an answer.

Paris stared over at him. "Are you going to do it?"

Aeron looked away. He remained silent, but he knew, deep in his bones, that nothing could save the females now. They had been placed on the spirit’s mental kill-list, no matter that they were innocent, and they would eventually be checked off. One by one.

"What can we do to help?" Lucien asked, his eyes sharp.

Aeron slammed his fist into the couch arm. If he did this terrible deed when he already teetered on the brink of depravity, he would crumble. He would lose himself to the spirit completely. "I don’t know. We’re dealing with new gods, new consequences and new circumstances. I’m hot sure how I’ll react once – " say it, just say it" – I’ve killed the women."

"It is possible to change their minds?"

"We are not to even try," he answered, dejected. "They again used Maddox as an example, saying we would be cursed as he is if we dared object."

Paris exploded to booted feet and paced from one wall of the spacious room to the other. "I f**king hate this," he grumbled.

"Well, the rest of us love it," Torin said dryly.

"Perhaps you will be doing the women a favor," Reyes said, his attention remaining fixed on his blade as he carved an X on the center of his palm. Crimson drops trickled onto his thigh.

He was the reason all of the furniture was dark red.

"Perhaps I will be ordered to take your life next," Aeron replied darkly.

"I need to think about this." Lucien worried two fingers over his roughly scarred jaw. "There has to be something we can do."

"Maybe Aeron can just obliterate the entire world," Torin said in that annoyingly wry tone. "That way, all possible future targets will be eliminated and we’ll never have to have this discussion again."

Aeron bared his teeth. "Do not make me hurt you, Disease."

Those piercing green eyes glowed with wicked humor and Torin offered a mockingly feral grin. "Have I hurt your feelings? I’d be happy to kiss you and make you feel better."

Before Aeron could leap across the room – not that he could do anything to Torin – Lucien said, "Stop. We cannot be divided. We don’t know the magnitude of what we’re facing. Now, more than ever, we must stand together. It’s been an eventful night and it’s not over yet. Paris, Reyes, head into town and make sure there are no more Hunters lurking about. Torin – I don’t know. Watch the hill or make us some money."