The Darkest Night (Lords of the Underworld #1)(41)
Author: Gena Showalter

Everyone regarded him sharply. "If we’re seen," Aeron said, "the city will turn on us. It will be Greece all over again."

"They won’t see," Reyes insisted. "Torin can monitor the area with his cameras and radio us to let us know the moment someone approaches."

Aeron thought about it, then nodded in approval. The Hunters would be distracted while trying to save Ashlyn, leaving the warriors to pick them off one by one. More important, Aeron wouldn’t have to clean their blood from the walls.

He glanced at Lucien, who looked resigned. "Very well. We will use the girl."

Paris rubbed the back of his neck and Aeron thought he meant to protest. Surprisingly, he didn’t. "I guess all we have to do now is figure out how to keep Maddox from handing us our asses when he finds out."

Danika peered at her mother, her sister and her grandmother. Their familiar faces regarded her with hope and curiosity, dread and fear. She was the youngest, but she’d somehow become their leader.

"What happened?" Her mother wrung her hands together. "What did they do to you?"

What should she tell them? Danika doubted they’d believe the truth: that she’d performed CPR, helped save a woman from dying and then found herself being flown – flown! – into the city by a winged man, where she gathered her purse, listened to Aeron as he commanded another warrior to go home – a warrior who had had a fortyish woman pinned against a wall, screwing her brains out – and then come back here. All in about thirty minutes. And to top it all off, there was the voice that had mysteriously popped into her head earlier this morning, but she didn’t even want to think about that.

She’d lived through all of it, and yet it was unbelievable even to her. Besides, the truth would scare them. And they were scared enough. "I think they’ll let us go soon," she lied.

Grandma Mallory started crying, great sobs of relief. Ginger, Danika’s older sister, collapsed on the bed with a soft "Thank God." Only her mother remained unmoving.

"Did they hurt you, baby?" Tears filled her eyes. "It’s okay, you can tell me. I can take it."

"No, they didn’t," she answered honestly.

"You still have to tell us what happened." Her mom gripped her hands and squeezed. "Okay? All right? I’ve been going crazy, imagining all kinds of things."

Realizing they would actually worry more if she left them in the dark, she finally told them what had happened. The warriors had terrified her, yes. And the dark-eyed one had even managed to – God, she hated to admit this – awaken something inside her with that intense stare of his, causing her to plead for his help.

A plea he’d ignored, the bastard.

But she had to concede that the men had surprised her as much as they’d frightened her. After all, the black-haired man with the strange purple eyes had treated the sick woman, Ashlyn, like a treasure. He’d held her gently. He hadn’t seemed bothered by the vomit in the bowl and the smell in the room. His concern had only been for Ashlyn.

Oh, to have a man treat her like that.

She couldn’t imagine the hard-looking Reyes softening so much. Or caressing so gently, even while making love. Instantly an image of him, naked and straining, slithered into her mind. With a shiver, she forced a blanket of black over the image. She’d reached for him, begged help from him, and he’d denied her. She would not forget that Reyes wasn’t a man to rely on.

"What if these… things don’t let us go?" her mom asked on a choked sob. "What if they decide to kill us like they’ve been talking about?"

Stay strong. Don’t let them see those same fears reflected in you. "They promised to let us live if I helped cure that woman, and I did."

"Men lie all the time," her sister said, sitting up. Ginger was twenty-nine years old and an aerobics instructor. Usually calm and reserved. None of them had ever been in a situation like this, and none of them really knew how to handle it.

They’d led normal lives until now, getting up every morning and going to work, carefree and unconcerned, deceived into believing that nothing bad would happen to them. Before this, the worst thing Danika had ever dealt with was the death of her grandpa two months ago. He’d been a loving man with a zest for life, and she’d felt his loss to the marrow of her bones. They all had. Did.

They’d thought, hoped, vacationing here would help dull the grief and make them feel closer to a man they’d never see again. Granddad had loved it here, had constantly talked about the magical two weeks he’d spent here before marrying Grandma.

He had never mentioned a group of homicidal warriors with wings.

"We’ve searched the room over and over again," her grandma said. Her weathered face was more lined than usual. "The only way out is the front door or the window, and we can’t open either one."

"Why do they want to hurt us?" Ginger cried. Her blue gaze was watery, her pale hair damp from her many bouts of tears. Red splotches stained her skin from forehead to chin.

None of them were pretty criers.

"They didn’t say." Danika sighed. God, what a nightmare. Right before they’d been taken, she and her family had toured the castle district. She’d never seen anything so lovely as the multihued lights shining from hundreds of years of majestic architecture. She’d yearned for her paints, her canvas, wanting to capture the sights.

And that’s exactly what she’d planned to do at the hotel. Paint.

But the moment she’d stepped inside her room, a man – a large, scarred man with dark hair and oddly colored eyes – had accosted her. He’d smelled of flowers, she remembered, the scent somehow comforting her even in the midst of the greatest panic attack of her life. The winged man had been there, too, only his wings had been hidden underneath a T-shirt.

How easily they’d subdued her. Shame still filled her at the thought. Four women against two men, and still the women had lost, had hardly put up a fight. They’d been knocked out and carted here, awakening in this very room.

"Maybe we should try to seduce a key from one of them," Ginger whispered to her.

The dark-skinned, black-eyed warrior immediately pushed his way into Danika’s thoughts. Every time she’d seen him, he’d been bleeding. Clumsy? He hadn’t seemed so, but… Perhaps she should have offered to "doctor" his wounds. Maybe he would have been nicer to her. Maybe he would have helped her when she’d asked.

Maybe he would have kissed her.

The thought alone excited her, damn it. "No woman should have to barter her body to escape a prison," she said, angry at herself. The image of Reyes swam before her eyes again, and she found herself adding, "But I’ll think about it."