The Darkest Secret (Lords of the Underworld #7)(80)
Author: Gena Showalter

Silence.

Final y he al owed himself to look at her. She was stil watching him, those beautiful gray-gold eyes wide and glassy, as if she was fighting tears. A Harpy, cry? Not bloody likely. She was just disappointed that she wasn’t getting her way, he rationalized, but that didn’t stop the ache from blooming in his chest again.

Didn’t stop a wave of guilt and remorse from winding through him. He had hurt her.

“Kaia,” he began, then paused. He didn’t know what else to say.

In the distance, a twig had snapped.

Both he and Kaia stil ed, not even daring to breathe. They waited…waited…but no other sounds were forthcoming.

Neither relaxed their guard, however. They knew.

The Hunters had final y arrived.

How many men had Haidee’s man brought with him?

Defeat started humming again, prowling through Strider’s head as he focused on the battle. Win. Win, win, win.

Strider leaned into the rifle he’d propped at his side, studying his surroundings through the night-vision scope.

Night-vision was both a blessing and a curse. Using the scope cut through the darkness, sure, but afterward, he wouldn’t be able to see shit without it, even in the light.

There. He spotted…six men inching toward the camp. A slight adjustment of his alignment, and he saw…six more men doing the same on the other side. Twelve soldiers, then. Unless there were more behind him, of course, and he would bet his ass there were.

His heartbeat quickened with a hot surge of excitement.

Much as he’d chastised Kaia, he real y did love to fight. He loved the adrenaline rush, the knowledge that he was one step closer to final y winning the war with the Hunters.

The branch he perched upon suddenly shuddered the slightest bit. His jaw clenched as the leaves rattled together, announcing his location. Kaia had just jumped down. No one seemed to notice her, or him, however.

Win, Defeat said. Win!

I know. I wil .

A shriek rent the air. A Harpy’s high-pitched shriek.

A second later, he heard a pop and a whiz. The sounds of silencers, bul ets. Next he heard a crack. The sound of a target being hit. The lawn chair shook, the dummy’s body jolting.

Strider lined a target of his own in his sights—chest, dead center—and softly squeezed the rifle’s trigger.

There was a scream, then a grunt, and his victim tumbled down, face-first in the dirt.

The rest of the Hunters rushed into the camp, a few attacking the dummy.

“It’s a fake,” someone snapped.

“Ambush?” someone else said.

“Maybe.”

“Stay on alert.”

“Always.”

“Spread out. Anything moves, anything at al , shoot to kil . I don’t give a flying f**k about setting some crazed demon free. I want the host dead. The keeper of Defeat deserves to die.”

“Hate that bastard,” another murmured.

There was another scream, this one shril and desperate.

Kaia must have struck—with her claws. Damn it. He couldn’t al ow her to best him.

Strider angled his gun. Fired. Hit someone else in the chest. Angled. Fired. Hit again. Over and over he repeated the process, quick, so quick, before anyone realized what he was doing or where he hid.

Bodies piled around his tree.

Final y the Hunters gained their bearings and spotted him.

They peppered his branch with round after round. Strider jumped, only one bul et grazing him as he fel .

Fire lanced through his arm, but it wasn’t enough to slow him.

Win!

As anticipated, he only had one good eye, the other shrouded with black. He could see there were quite a few Hunters left standing, and they’d already ferreted out his new locale. They converged, firing as they approached; he fired back. Before meeting them in the middle, he was struck twice, once in the shoulder and once in the stomach.

He mental y blocked the pain.

WIN!

Guns were dropped and knives grabbed. This close together, bul ets were simply too risky. Strider slashed.

Someone screamed. He slashed again. Someone else screamed. A blade slicked through his wrist, but he maintained his grip and ducked, punching, tip extended.

Contact. He hit al the way to the spine.

On and on the lethal dance continued. He was bleeding profusely but stil energized. He was winning. He even managed to toss someone into the fire. Screams, grunts, groans and whimpering abounded. But by the time the last Hunter fel , Strider was losing strength fast.

He was also grinning.

He had done it. He had won.

“Who’s your daddy, bitches?”

Defeat chortled inside his head, jumping up and down, glorying in the victory. Heat fil ed his veins, pumped him up.

In a little bit, he would feel the sting of every slice, the rest of his energy gone, but for now, he felt invincible.

“Strider?” Kaia stepped into his line of sight. Firelight licked at her, il uminating her beautiful skin. The makeup she always wore must have sweated off, because she glimmered with every color of the rainbow.

In seconds, his c**k was painful y hard. It’s just the sexual high, he told himself. You don’t want her.

Not real y. Gods, her skin…his mouth watered for a taste.

Concentrate, he had to concentrate. He hadn’t seen her fight, but he had heard the results. Now her hair was in tangles, and blood was splattered over her cheeks and arms. “Wel ?” he demanded. “How’d you do?”

Frowning at his waspish tone, she gestured behind her. He wanted to curse when he spied the pile of men she’d defeated. He didn’t have to count to know she’d won their chal enge. His stomach tightened with dread as he waited for his knees to buckle and acid to fil his veins, destroying the pleasure.

One minute passed, then another. Nothing happened.

“I didn’t kil any of mine,” she said, buffing her claws. “I just knocked them out. So feel free to do the honors yourself.”

Wait. What? She’d let him win? Surely not. That was as un-Harpylike as, shit, baking an apple pie with ingredients she’d purchased—with money she’d actual y earned. “Kaia

—”

“No, don’t say anything. The main guy, the one who wants you a lot more dead than even these guys did, isn’t here. I checked. I told you he was wily, so there’s no tel ing where he is or what he’s doing.”

“Kaia,” he repeated, trying again. What he would say, though, he didn’t know.

She spun away from him, as if she couldn’t bear to look at him a second more. “I’l leave you to it, then.