The Darkest Secret (Lords of the Underworld #7)(2)
Author: Gena Showalter

“Please. I want nothing to do with this raging bitch.” A lie.

During their seemingly eternal trek, he’d found himself desiring her more and more. And hating himself more and more. She might be sex walking, but she was also death waiting.

Too-pretty-to-be-male lips curved in sheer delight. “That’s what Maddox said about Ashlyn. What Lucien said about Anya. What Reyes said about Danika. What Sabin—”

“Okay, okay. I get it.” Strider rol ed his eyes. “You can shut up now.” While he would admit the girl’s punked-out style appealed to him, he’d never be dumb enough to try and tap that.

He liked his women compliant. And sane.

Liar. You like this one. Just as she is. He wished he could blame his demon for that admission, but…

Even now, simply thinking about her, his body was tensing, readying.

Torin crossed his arms over his chest. “So what is she? A human with a supernatural ability? A goddess?

A Harpy?”

The guys here did have a propensity for choosing females of “myth” and “legend.” Females far more powerful than their demons. Ashlyn could hear voices of the past, Anya could start fires with her mind (among other things), Danika could see into heaven and hel , and Sabin’s wife, Gwen…

wel , she had a dark side you saw just before you died.

Painful y.

“My friend, what I’ve got here is a bona fide Hunter.” Strider slapped her ass as if a fly was perched there and he couldn’t live another second without smashing it. The action was a reminder that she meant nothing to him. Although why he didn’t tel his friend which Hunter she was, when he’d been so excited before, he didn’t know. Actual y, he did know. Fatigue. Yeah, he was tired, that was al , and didn’t want to have to deal with al the praise. Tomorrow, after a nice long rest, he’d spil everything.

The girl offered no reaction to his slap, but then, he hadn’t expected her to. He’d repeatedly drugged her as he’d dragged her from one corner of the world to the other. From Rome to Greece to New York to L.A. and final y to Budapest, leading her brethren on a merry chase as they attempted to save her.

Something they would never do.

We won! his demon laughed.

Damn right we did. He shivered in delight.

“Hunter?” Al amusement fled his friend’s face, the light dying in his eyes, turning those emeralds into sharp, deadly blades.

“Afraid so.” Hunters. Their greatest enemy. The fanatics who wanted to destroy them. The bastards who considered them evil, beyond redemption, and the scourge of the earth.

The ass**les who blamed them for al the world’s heartache. Best yet, they were the militia Strider was going to send to the hottest depths of hel , one soldier at a time.

Or, with grenades, a few hundred at a time. Depended on his mood, he supposed.

“You should have offed her already,” Torin remarked. “Now Sabin wil want to talk with her.”

“Talk” equaled torture in Sabin’s mind. “I know he wil .

That’s why she’s stil alive.” She knew things about the gods pul ing their strings, and could do things, impossible things, like cause weapons to materialize from thin air. Something only angel warriors could do. Or so he’d thought. Problem was, she wasn’t an angel. And not just because she lacked wings. Girl had a temper.

Strider wanted to know how much she knew and how she did what she did.

More than that, he hadn’t been able to do his job—aka dispose of Hunter trash—when he’d been alone with her.

Every time he’d tried, he’d looked at her beautiful face and hesitated. The hesitation had given way to desire, and he’d started battling urges to kiss her rather than “off” her.

Sabin wouldn’t let him get away with that shit. Sabin would ride his ass until he acted. Strider would have no choice but to step up to the plate and knock the bal out of the park.

Because… His hands curled into fists. Because this woman, this walking atrocity…

His teeth gritted, and his jaw clenched so tightly the ache shot through his temples and straight into his brain. He experienced the same reaction every time he considered what she’d once done. This woman had helped decapitate his friend Baden, once keeper of the demon of Distrust.

Strider could never forget or forgive that fact.

The savage beheading had taken place thousands of years ago, but the pain inside him was as fresh as if it had happened this morning. Along with his friend, a piece of his own soul had died that day, and as the girl had learned during their trek to this fortress, a good portion of his heart had withered, too.

Mercy wasn’t something he possessed. Not anymore. Most especial y not for her.

He thought he’d kil ed her in vengeance already, al those centuries ago. Recal ed the slash of his blade, the crimson tide of her blood and the metal ic stench of death wafting on the air. The sound of her body slamming into rock, her last gurgle of breath. Yet here she was, alive and wel and driving him flipping insane. Maybe he had kil ed her. Maybe she’d been reborn. Or maybe her soul had been stuffed inside another body. Or maybe this chick was more immortal than he was and had somehow healed after the beheading. He didn’t know, didn’t care.

Al that mattered was that she was Hadiee of ancient Greece. Wel , she cal ed herself Haidee now. From Hade-ay to Hay-dee. Evidently she’d changed the spel ing and pronunciation for “modernization.” Not that he gave a shit.

He cal ed her Ex, short for Demon Executioner, and that was that.

The proof of her crimes rested in her eyes. Those wintry, cal ous gray eyes. In the pride that dripped from her voice every time she spoke of that fateful night—I just loved the way his head rol ed. Didn’t you?—and the stark tattoos etched into her back. Tattoos that kept score. Haidee 1.

Lords 4.

She deserved everything he and Sabin would do to her.

“I’m taking her to the dungeon,” he said, and he’d never heard such a combination of relish and regret in his own voice before. Once again he started forward, throwing over his shoulder, “If you’d be a sweetheart and let Doubty-Poo know…”

“No can do, Stridey-man. There’s, uh, something you gotta see.” A blast of fear mixed with dread and grim expectation accompanied the words.

Strider halted, one foot raised midair. He straightened, stil –

sleeping baggage nearly sliding to the ground. Slowly he turned, adjusting Ex, and faced Torin, his own sense of dread sprouting as he spied his friend’s now pal id skin.