Free The Darkest Night by Gena Showalter Page B

promised Maddox she’d return to him untouched.”
    “Yeah, I remember. Remind me again why you’d promise such a dumb-ass thing.”
    “Just…leave her alone. She didn’t seem to want you, anyway.”
    “Which is even more shocking than the news about the Titans,” Paris muttered. Then he sighed. “Fine. I’ll keep my hands to myself, but someone needs to feed her. We told her we would.”
    “Perhaps we should starve her,” Reyes suggested. “She’ll be more likely to talk in the morning if she’s weakened from hunger.”
    Lucien nodded. “I agree. She might be more willing to give Maddox the truth if she thinks it will buy her a meal.”
    “I don’t like it, but I won’t protest. And I guess this means I’m going into town without my vitamin D injection,” Paris said on another sigh. “Let’s do this, Pain.”
    Reyes was on his feet a moment later and the two strode out of the room, side by side. Torin followed suit, though he gave them a generous head start. Aeron couldn’t imagine the pressure of making sure no part of himself ever touched another. Had to be hell.
    He snorted. Life for all the warriors here was hell.
    Lucien closed the distance between them and eased into the leather chair opposite him. The fragrance of roses drifted from him. Aeron had never understood why the Grim Reaper smelled like a spring bouquet—surely a curse even worse than Maddox’s.
    “Thoughts?” he asked, studying his friend. For the first time in many, many years, Lucien radiated something other than calm. His forehead was furrowed and there were stress-creases further marring his scarred face.
    Those scars slashed from each of his dark brows all the way to his jawline, thick and puckered. Lucien never talked about how he’d acquired them and Aeron had never asked. While they’d lived in Greece, the warrior had simply returned home one day, pain in his eyes and marks on his cheeks.
    “This is bad,” Lucien said. “Really bad. Hunters, Maddox’s woman—however she fits into this—and the Titans, all in one day. That cannot be an accident.”
    “I know.” Aeron dragged a hand down his face, his fingertip catching and tugging on his eyebrow piercing. “Do the Titans want us dead, do you think? Could they have sent the Hunters here?”
    “Perhaps. But what would they do with our demons once our bodies were destroyed and the spirits released? And why order you to act for them, if they only meant to have you slain?”
    Good questions. “I have no answers for you. I don’t even know how I’m going to do this deed that’s been demanded of me. The women are innocents. Two are young, in their twenties, the third is in her late forties and the fourth is a grandmother. She probably bakes cookies for the homeless in her spare time.”
    Curious about them, he had hunted and found them in a hotel in Buda after he’d left Olympus. Seeing them in the flesh had only intensified his horror.
    “We can’t wait. We must act as soon as possible,” Lucien said. “We can’t allow these Titans to dictate our actions in this or they will attempt to do so over and over again. Surely we can come up with a solution.”
    Aeron thought they would have better luck figuring out a way to patch the charred, tattered remains of his soul when he killed those women. And even that seemed hopeless.
    As it was, they sat in silence for a long while, minds churning with options. Or rather, lack of them. Finally Aeron gave a shake of his head and felt as if he had just welcomed a new demon inside him. Doom.

CHAPTER FIVE
    S OMETIME DURING THE endless night, Ashlyn stood and felt her way around the cramped cell. Her ankle throbbed with every step, a reminder of the hours she’d spent climbing the snowcapped mountains outside and the sense of hope she’d lost with six swings of a sword.
    Her search for a way out had proved fruitless. There was no window like the one in Rapunzel’s tower, no wicked witch’s magic mirror to walk through.