blush stained her cheeks. “No, I’m not Bait. Or rather, I wouldn’t have been to any warrior but you. But then, you don’t care who you screw, do you, Promiscuity?” Every word had dripped with disgust, his charming, babbling romance writer long gone. But the grace … oh, that she couldn’t banish.
“Obviously not.” When her blush deepened, he added silkily, just to taunt her further, “Aren’t you afraid I’ll hurt you?”
“No. You haven’t the strength. I made sure of that.”
Her newfound resistance to him, no matter how poorly he acted, irked. Females adored him, always. Well, almost always. “You enjoyed yourself while you were in my arms. Admit it. I know women, and I know passion. You were on fire for me.”
“Shut up,” she snapped.
Good. He was getting to her. “Want to give me a go before your friends show up?”
After that particular jab, she had stomped away from him, but she hadn’t left the room. Remaining a safe distance away, she admitted her status—Hunter—and detailed exactly what her friends planned to do to him.
“We’re going to experiment on you. Observe you. Use you as Bait to capture more demons. And then, when we find Pandora’s box, we’re going to draw out your demon, killing you and trapping the monster inside.”
Warrior that he was, and as many battles as he’d fought, he’d known to show her only indifference. “That it?”
“For now.”
“You might as well kill me then, sweetheart. My friends won’t surrender themselves to save little old me.”
“We’ll see about that, won’t we?”
When he realized antagonizing her wasn’t helping his cause, he switched to seduction, his default setting. He projected sexual images into her head, something he hated to do. Didn’t do anymore. He couldn’t live with himself afterward. And as she had pictured what he wanted her to picture—the two of them together, naked and straining toward climax—her breathing became choppy, her nipples hard underneath her shirt. A white shirt that did nothing to hide the lace of her bra, proving she had a secret sensual side.
He’d almost had her, but in the end, she’d wised up. He’d made the mistake of continuing to call her sweetheart, an endearment he’d used on countless others, and she’d known it. After that, it hadn’t taken her long to figure out he used the term because he couldn’t remember her name—or anyone else’s.
Finally she’d left him for real, only returning a few days later when he was a few breaths away from death. That’s when she at last stripped for him, at last pleasured him.
That’s when he killed her.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE NEXT MORNING, Paris stood at the highest edge of a cliff overlooking the Realm of Blood and Shadows, his body poised for war. Finally, he’d found his destination, hidden in a far corner of Titania, its portal invisible to everyone but William. What do you know? The guy had his uses.
Now Paris would find Sienna.
His blood boiled with the fury he’d suppressed for far too long. His muscles burned with startling ferocity, and his bones vibrated with the need to act, to hurt someone. Multiple someones.
Soon.
Sharp gusts of wind blustered, doing nothing to scatter the shroud of thick, black mist surrounding him, seeping inside of him. The scent of aged copper filled the air, leaving a moist film in his nose. Muted shrieks echoed from every direction, so many shrieks of pain. Above, the moon formed a sallow hook, its ends frayed, hemorrhaging into an endless expanse of unforgiving night. Below, an ocean of crimson tears frothed and hissed, creating a second symphony of anguish.
And there, in the center of it all, perched a nightmare of a castle. Dark stone crumbled. Withered ivy with dagger-sharp tips climbed the walls, every leaf reminding him of a spider. The roof knifed into several points, a body staked through the heart and hanging from each, dripping blood onto the glass panes of every window. There were several balconies guarded by multiple gargoyles of every size.
Gargoyles that would, apparently, come to life.
Writhing shadows, slick and oily in appearance, hovered around the entire structure, but they didn’t touch a single stone. They maintained a generous distance, as if a rod of iron held them in place. The moment they heard the starting bell, whatever that was, Paris suspected they would burst free and attack whoever happened to be nearby.
“She’s inside,” he told his companions. “I know it.” He wanted to go in, guns blazing. Was desperate to go in, guns blazing and knives slashing, but he couldn’t. Not yet, not yet. Information had to come first.
Death was in the details.
“That’s great, wonderful, but why am I here again?” William asked, scratching his head. He consumed the space at Paris’s left, dressed for the runway rather than the front lines. Silk suit, no weapons. A bottle of conditioner in his pocket. Yeah. Conditioner. Again. For split ends. A little jaunt into hell had “damaged some of the precious strands,” so he now carried his “necessary daily treatment” everywhere.
Annnd hearing his voice caused Sex to purr like a kitten. It was disgusting.
“I’m still recovering from agonizing physical and mental trauma,” William added. The warrior had barely escaped from his encounter in hell, true, but being crushed by boulders and clawed by flesh-hungry fiends was hardly agonizing.
“Just, I don’t know, consider this your punishment for abandoning Kane,” Paris said. How many gargoyles would he have to battle? He did a quick head count. Fifty-nine from the front. Probably a similar number waited in back. Half of them were as big as dragons, but some were as small as rats.
As William could probably tell him, size didn’t always matter. Which of the creatures would cause the most damage?
“I didn’t abandon him. Per se.” William brushed a piece of lint from his shoulder. “I was pummeled by falling rock and woke up in a motel in Budapest. In my compromised mental state, I thought some demon damsel in heat had taken one look at my amazing body and rescued us, but then Kane thought to remove her from my rugged animal appeal, and so he dragged her out to get coffee, not yet realizing he was simply energizing her for the mattress marathon to come. A marathon with me, in case I wasn’t clear on that point.”
Paris didn’t bother rolling his eyes. Clearly William was Viola’s male counterpart. Wasn’t that a nice little bouquet of roses?
“Actually, you’re here because you owe Paris a favor.” Zacharel flanked Paris’s other side, the snowstorm now brewing above him. The change had happened the moment he’d stepped into this realm. He still wore his robe, but blades were now strapped all over his muscled body. He was definitely warrior-appropriate. “More than that, you are avoiding your girlfriend.”
William gasped with outrage. “First, I don’t owe anyone a favor. Second, I don’t have a girlfriend, you pansy-ass winged piece of shit.”
“Don’t you?” A blink, all innocence.
