The Darkest Night (Lords of the Underworld #1)(53)
Author: Gena Showalter

Everyone blinked at him in silent surprise. He’d never offered to go into the city before.

"Someone has to stay here and protect the women," Reyes finally said.

"I agree." He couldn’t, wouldn’t, leave Ashlyn alone, defenseless. What if she became sick again? What if Hunters were able to breach the fortress and hurt her?

"Well, I don’t agree." Lucien gave them both an apologetic smile. "Killing the Hunters is more important than guarding the women."

Since they’ll be dead soon, anyway. He didn’t have to say it when they were all thinking it.

Reyes’s hands fisted. Maddox ground his teeth together.

"Someone stays behind to guard," he said, "or you fight without me." Aeron might be Wrath and Lucien might be Death, but no one fought like Violence. Taking him into battle all but guaranteed their victory..

"We’ll go without you," Lucien said, finality in his tone.

So be it. He wasn’t leaving Ashlyn unprotected. The fortress was well-fortified, yes, but it couldn’t stab an opponent, rendering him ineffective. It couldn’t sweep her away from danger and into safety’s arms. "Tell me what you intend to do, then, to ensure victory."

A pause. Lucien and Aeron exchanged a tense look. Before he could comment, Lucien bent down and picked up a long, rolled-up paper that had fallen to the floor during Maddox’s tirade. He strode to the couch and unrolled it, anchoring it on the edge. "Would’ve been nice to do this on the coffee table," he muttered. "Even the pool table. As thorough as you are, though, you overturned and cracked both."

"I have already apologized," Maddox said, guilt increasing. "And tomorrow I will repair them."

"Good." Lucien pointed to the paper. "As you can see, this is a printed map of the city. Earlier, when we were planning and you were otherwise occupied, we decided to set a trap in this abandoned area." His finger circled a bumpy-looking stretch of land to the south. "There are hills and no houses, which makes it the perfect place to strike. We’ll wait there and let the Hunters come to us."

"That’s it? That is your plan?"

"Well, that and kill them." The fragrance of roses became stronger as Lucien’s eyes glittered menacingly. "It’s a good plan."

"They may not come. They may be at the cemetery."

"They’ll come," Lucien insisted.

"How do you know?"

He paused, glanced at Aeron once more. "I have a gut feeling."

Maddox snorted. "Your gut could be wrong. We should at least secure the hill before you go so that no one sneaks up while you’re gone and I’m dead."

"Fine," Lucien said with a sigh. "Let’s get to work."

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Hotel Taverna, Budapest

Sabin, keeper of Doubt, lay on his bed, staring up the suite’s virginal white ceiling. He’d traveled from New York to Budapest with one goal: finding Pandora’s box and destroying it. All right, two goals. So far, no luck. But he had found the warriors who had walked away from him thousands of years ago. Men he’d once fought beside. Men he’d once loved.

Men who now hated him.

He sighed. Since his arrival three days ago, he’d caught a glimpse of Paris here and there, but hadn’t made his presence known, unsure of the reception he’d receive. Would he be attacked on sight or embraced as the prodigal son?

Damn, but he almost feared finding out. He’d nearly decapitated Aeron when the warrior tried to stop him from burning Athens to the ground in an effort to draw out the Hunters responsible for their friend Baden’s death.

A few times since coming here, Sabin had tried to stealthily infiltrate their midst, to learn everything he could about these warriors he’d once considered brothers yet who were now strangers to him. They had revealed nothing. So he had turned his attentions to the humans surrounding them. Only one had heard him. A woman. She hadn’t given him any new information, either.

All he knew was that six warriors were alive and kicking in that massive fortress on the hill, and they were armed out the ass.

That, he’d already learned from a Hunter he’d interrogated a month ago. The very Hunter who had told him, with great reluctance, about the search for Pandora’s box. How finding the box would mean the end of the Lords of the Underworld, for the demons would be sucked back inside its walls and the warriors unable to survive without them.

Apparently, Hunters had been planning for weeks to storm the fortress and capture the warriors inside, but hadn’t found a way in yet. The fact that they wanted to capture rather than destroy plagued Sabin with questions. Did the warriors here know where the box was? Did they care? How did they feel about Hunters these days? They’d walked away from the fight once. Would they do so again?

He uttered another sigh. There’d be time for thinking on that later. Right now, he had another mystery to solve. The changing of the guard, so to speak. From the hands-off Greeks to the control-freak Titans – a worry he hadn’t expected.

He didn’t know these new gods, but he didn’t think he liked them. There’d been murmurs of war and domination all through the heavens when they’d summoned him, forcing him to stand in a circle of unfamiliar faces and answer their questions.

What is your ultimate goal?

What are you willing to do to reach it?

Are you afraid of dying?

Why they’d summoned him and not the others, he didn’t know. He didn’t know anything, really. Not anymore. He wasn’t even sure Maddox would tell the others to visit the cemetery.

He hoped they came. The time had come to make his presence known; he simply wanted to have the advantage when he did so.

If only I could lie… It would have made things a whole lot easier.

But Sabin couldn’t lie – if he tried, the demon went crazy and Sabin passed out cold. Strange reaction to wickedness, but he could not stop it. What he could do was project his thoughts into another’s mind, filling them with mistrust and worry as he wove a web of doubt through questions and observations.

Neither questions nor observations were lies, now were they?

Plugged in as his demon was to doubt, Sabin had heard Maddox praying for the human girl and had swooped in, creating even more doubt about whether she could survive without the aid of a god. That she had survived worked in Sabin’s favor, allowing him to demand payment.

On the off chance the warriors arrived – they’d be armed despite his command, he was sure – Sabin and his men were going to be there, waiting. Hoping. How would they react to this unexpected reunion?

With hatred, most likely.

"Shut the hell up," he told the spirit. He didn’t mind using it against others, but he hated when the stupid thing tried to weaken him.