The Darkest Secret (Lords of the Underworld #7)(11)
Author: Gena Showalter

She’s fine. And you’l defend her. Or rather, he would defend her until she healed and he had to send her on her way. He wasn’t safe to be around anymore. Not for long.

For now, though, she’s yours.

Suddenly she jolted upright, her gaze swinging left and right. “Who said that?” Without waiting for a reply, she threw her legs over the side of the bed and stood. She raced to the window.

What was she doing? Haidee, he mental y tsked, you shouldn’t be running around like that. You need time to mend.

As if she’d heard the thought, she spun around and faced him. Eyes of the sweetest pearl-gray widened as they studied him from top to bottom. “Oh, baby. You’re getting better. Thank God!”

Baby. She’d cal ed him baby. The first endearment ever to be directed at him, and his ears soaked it up like nectar from the heavens.

“I didn’t mean to fal asleep. I’m so sorry.” She tripped back to his side. “We have to get out of here.

Can you walk?”

I don’t think so. Both of his femurs were cracked, if not broken entirely. He recognized the heavy ache underneath the muscle. Besides that, he was home. He didn’t want to leave.

“Okay, okay. We’l think of another way, then.” Even as she spoke, she scanned the room a second time. “I thought I’d have to fight them from the bed, but they must not have come back.” She offered him a fleeting smile. Fleeting, but like a ray of sunshine al the same. “Their mistake.”

He blinked. That was the second time she’d—correctly—responded to something he hadn’t spoken aloud. You…

hear me?

“Yes. I know, I know. It’s weird.” That gaze never stopped scanning. For weapons? An escape route?

“I was surprised, too. I don’t know how it’s happening, but I’m grateful. If I hadn’t heard you from next door, I would have left without you.”

No one had ever heard him like that. No one. He’d always been the one to know what others were thinking, and he found he was…uncomfortable with this new development.

How was she doing it? Could she hear everything? Al the secrets floating through his head? Could she even hear his whimpering demon? What about the others, the new ones who liked to scream? Or could she only hear what he projected at her?

“Can you stil not speak?” she asked gently.

Test time. He al owed the answer to form in his mind, but he kept a firm mental hold on it.

“Can you?” she insisted. She reached out and traced a fingertip along the seam of his lips, careful, so careful not to hurt him. The you’ve-just-reached-the-freezer-section coolness of her skin delighted him.

She hadn’t heard, he realized, even as he shivered at her silken touch. Such a surreal moment. She acted as if she knew him…liked him. Baby, he thought, dazed al over again.

No. I stil can’t talk. He pushed the words at her, watching for the minutest reaction.

An angry sigh escaped her, and the corner of her lip curled in disgust. “Those bastards. Did they do something to your voice box?” Bastards? No. She’d heard that time. Which meant there were limits.

Thank the gods. No one, especial y such an innocent human, should have to listen to the evil inside his head. No one, especial y such a fragile female, could survive its gloom. Even now, Amun wasn’t sure he could.

“Do you remember what happened?” she asked. “How you got here?”

He shook his head, slow, measured, trying not to open up any more wounds. Problem was, he was utterly covered in abrasions. The smal est action tugged too-tight skin and split scabs.

“Okay, then.” Her next sigh was sorrowful. Her hand remained on him, as if she couldn’t bear to sever contact.

“I’l tel you what I know.”

He nodded to encourage her, winced.

“Be stil , baby,” she said, al concerned mother hen and determined commando. “Just listen, okay, and try not to panic.” She drew in a deep breath, then slowly released it.

“The Lords of the Underworld have us. We’re in a structure on top of a hil . Their fortress in Buda, maybe? I didn’t see any landmarks to verify my suspicions. Though why they’d risk bringing us here, I don’t know. Last I heard, this was where they were keeping two of the artifacts. You think they’d want us as far away from those as possible.”

The artifacts. There were four, and each was needed to locate, and thereby destroy, Pandora’s box, saving him and his friends from certain death. Besides decapitation and other violent demises, that box was the only thing that could separate man from demon, wiping man from existence and unleashing the then-crazed demons on an unsuspecting world. This woman knew two of the artifacts were here—the Al

-Seeing Eye and the Cage of Compulsion—yet she expected the Lords to be upset that Amun, a Lord himself, was near them.

She didn’t know he was a Lord, he realized. She thought he was a…Hunter?

Like…her? Al that disgust, al that anger directed at the Lords…the notion seemed likely. But, if she knew him, why didn’t she know who—what—he was? And if she was a Hunter, why would his friends have placed her inside his room?

His gaze skidded to the hole in the wal . Maybe his friends didn’t know she was here. But…

She thought she knew him, and he definitely recognized her. At least somewhat. He knew her name.

Haidee. Could picture her face softened by sleep, so lovely. He knew they’d met somewhere, interacted in some way, but not where or when.

For once, his demon wasn’t spewing out answers.

This was so damn confusing, and his weakened condition wasn’t helping. Maybe she had tricked him into thinking they’d met, so he’d be more inclined to help her. But again, how? Why? The artifacts?

Would anyone except a Hunter be after them?

His stomach twisted into little knots. There was only one way to find out the truth about this beautiful woman whose presence alone both muddled and cleared his brain. That way was dangerous, the possible consequences severe.

He didn’t want to go that route, but he didn’t feel he had any other choice. Normal y he could read the thoughts of those around him; so far, he’d heard none of hers, despite the fact that she could hear his.

Therefore, he needed to deepen the connection between them, push past any mental shields she might possess and peek into her mind, glimpse her memories.

Amun would be careful. He wouldn’t let his demon wipe her brain clean—the biggest complication of al