Free The Darkest Night by Gena Showalter

do they plan for us, then?”
    There would be no reprieve from the bad news. “All I know for sure is that they plan to take an active role in our existence.” The one point in the Greeks’ favor was that they had ignored the warriors after cursing them, allowing them to have some sort of life—tormented though it was.
    Again, Reyes shook his head. “But…why?”
    “I wish I knew.”
    “Is that why they summoned you?” Lucien asked. “To inform you of this change?”
    “No.” He paused, closed his eyes. “They ordered me to…do something.”
    “What?” Paris demanded when he failed to elaborate.
    He studied each of his friends, trying to find the right words.
    Torin stood in the corner, his profile to everyone. Distanced, always distanced. But then, Torin had to be. Reyes sat across from him. Tanned like the sun god, the warrior didn’t look as though he belonged on earth, much less in the room. He was busy slicing grooves into his lower arm as he awaited Aeron’s answer. Every few seconds, Reyes winced. That wince became a satisfied smile as blood trickled, forming tiny crimson rivers over his skin. Pain was the only thing that satisfied him, the only thing that made him feel alive.
    Aeron had no idea how the man might respond to pleasure.
    Paris was sprawled on the couch beside him, hands tucked behind his head as he switched his attention between Aeron and the movie, his demon probably urging him to watch just a little more. A man with his kind of luck should be ugly. At the very least, he should have to struggle to lure a woman into his bed. Instead, he simply looked ata woman with his handsome face and she stripped instantly, willing to be taken anywhere, available bed or not.
    Maddox’s woman hadn’t, though, Aeron recalled. Why?
    Lucien leaned against the pool table, his hideously scarred face revealing nothing. His arms were crossed over his massive chest, and those disconcerting eyes of his watched Aeron intently. “Well?” Lucien prompted.
    He drew in a breath, released it. “I’ve been ordered to slay a group of tourists in Buda. Four humans.” He paused, closed his eyes again. Tried not to feel a single shred of emotion. Cold. To get through this, he’d have to be cold. “All female.”
    “Come again.” Paris jolted upright, frowning over at him, television forgotten.
    Aeron repeated the gods’ command.
    Paler than usual, Paris shook his head. “I can buy that we’re now under new management. I don’t like it, I’m confused as hell by it, but hey. I buy it. What I don’t get is that the Titans ordered you, the possessor of Wrath, to kill four human women in town. Why would they do something like that?” He threw up his arms. “That’s craziness.”
    He might be the most promiscuous man ever to roam the Earth, bedding his partners and forgetting them in the same day, but women of every race, size and age were Paris’s lifeblood. His entire reason for existence. He’d never been able to tolerate seeing a single one of them hurt.
    “They did not give me a reason,” Aeron answered, knowing a reason would not have mattered. He didn’t want to harm those women in any way. He knew how it felt to kill. Oh, yes. He’d killed many, many times before, but always through the undeniable urgings of his demon—a demon that chose its victims well. People who beat or molested theirchildren. People who took joy from the destruction of others. Wrath always knew when a person was deserving of death, their shameful actions playing through his mind.
    When the women had been brought to his attention, the demon had tried them and found them innocent. And yet, he was supposed to murder them.
    If that happened, if he was forced to spill the blood of the undeserving, Aeron would never be the same. He knew it, felt it.
    “Did they give you a time frame for when the deed must be done?” Lucien asked, still seemingly unaffected. He was Death, the Grim Reaper—Lucifer, he’d even been called, not