Free Gena Showalter - [Lords of the Underworld 13] by The Darkest Craving Page A

eyes. If ever she laughed, she wouldn’t remember it. Her friends claimed she had, upon occasion, smiled, but she couldn’t recall a single instance—and never would.
    But. Yes, but. While she couldn’t make her life better, she could make Kane’s better. Surely. Hopefully.
    A few days ago, she’d visited him in his room. He’d worn anguish like a second skin, though he’d tried to mask it. He probably would have succeeded with anyone but Cameo. The misery of others delighted her demon.
    For a moment, only a moment, she had felt better. Lighter. Finally free. Then, she had felt a thousand times worse as her own misery had merged with Kane’s.
    Kane hadn’t seemed to notice. Distracted, he had played with the ends of her hair, the dark strands pretty against the bronze of his skin. “Silver Eyes,” he’d said, using his favorite nickname for her. “I missed you more than I can say.”
    Lovely words. True words. They always missed each other when they were parted. But then he’d stood, not giving her a chance to reply, and padded to the bathroom, shutting himself inside. He hadn’t looked back.
    He always looked back when he walked away from her.
    He always winked at her.
    She always blew him a kiss. Sometimes, when she was mad at him, with bite. He always chuckled.
    Then, he’d left the fortress without saying goodbye to her. He always said goodbye.
    They’d fought together for centuries, and never once had they deviated from their traditions. Traditions that had started because, after they’d first met, they had briefly dated. But his demon, Disaster, and her demon, Misery, had caused far too many problems and they’d eventually broken up. He’d become her best friend. Her confidant. Their traditions were all they had.
    Since his return, something had changed.
    He had changed.
    She should have expected it. He’d spent several weeks in hell, bound and chained and tortured. He hadn’t spilled the details, and she hadn’t needed them. She could guess—and knew the worst of her imaginings wouldn’t even come close to what he’d suffered. She’d wanted only to make him feel better, at least for a little while.
    As if you can do anything to help anyone.
    Gritting her teeth, she blocked her mind to the demon’s manipulations. I can help him, and I will.
    Cameo stood in the center of a bedroom emptied of all furniture. The walls were made of crumbling stone, and peppered with cameras. Torin was fierce about security. The marble floor was cracked—Kane had been here, and recently. The air was cool, but dry, and coated with dust.
    She studied the four artifacts in front of her. Wars had been fought for them. People had killed to find them, to protect them, to steal them. She and her friends had done all of that and more to obtain them.
    Somehow, some way, these seemingly useless things would lead the way to Pandora’s box. To the Lords’ freedom. And their ultimate doom.
    The Cage of Compulsion was a rusted four-by-four cell. However, when trapped inside, a person was compelled to do whatever the owner commanded.
    Then there was the Cloak of Invisibility. A simple piece of fabric. However, when a person draped the material over their shoulders, no one could see them.
    Then there was the Paring Rod, a long, thin spear with a glittering crystal rounding out the top end. When touched, it could steal a spirit from a body, leaving only an empty shell.
    Finally, there was a painting from the All-Seeing Eye, given to Cameo only this morning.
    Danika, the Eye, could sometimes see into the skies and sometimes the abyss. Sometimes the past. Sometimes, as a gift from the Most High, the future. In this painting, Danika had obviously seen into a man’s office—in the present? At the far right wall, there were treasures locked inside a glass case, and one of those treasures was a small box made of bones.
    Could it be Pandora’s box? A container hidden for centuries. A dangerous weapon supposedly constructed from the