скачать книгу бесплатно
He’d been in these woods for days, and there’d been no sign of life. Well, other than the carnivorous plants. Now this?
He looked to Keeley. She put her hands on her hips, every bit the annoyed female. Funny thing. Even that was sexy.
He punched the side of his skull in an effort to clear his thoughts, and it actually helped. He palmed a dagger he’d brought from home, ready to face this newest challenge.
The creature arrived, surrounded by a cloud of dust. Realization hit—this is an Unspoken One. Half man, half beast. Rather than hair, snakes danced and hissed from his scalp. And rather than skin, he had what looked to be the charred remains of fur. Two long fangs protruded over his bottom lip like sabers, reaching his chin. Though he had human hands, his feet were razor-sharp hooves.
His black gaze roved over Torin, cataloging every detail, and his forked tongue stroked over his lips. “Mine.”
* * *
KEELEY STUDIED HER newest opponent. Such an ugly thing. The Unspoken One must have heard the prison fall and come running, determined to find out what had happened.
Now he appeared eager to have a nice Torin dinner.
Get in line. She might not be a carnivore like the Unspoken One, but she would have liked a nibble—or ten.
Stop flirting with the idea of seduction and fight! She thought of all the times this creature and his siblings had invaded the prison, frantic to break through the bars and feast on the prisoners. Though they’d never gotten past the bars, they had reached through and managed to grab hold of those who’d stepped too close; she’d heard the horrendous fruits of their labors. The screams. The pleas for mercy that were never granted. The victorious cackles of glee.
Payback was going to hurt.
As she prepared to render her first strike, Torin flew through the dust and sliced the tip of a dagger across the creature’s throat...only to disappear. Where had he gone? He had to be nearby. According to Galen, Torin was not an immortal capable of flashing.
The Unspoken One remained on his feet, healing quickly and growing angrier.
Torin reappeared and struck—again and again and again—inflicting more damage every time. The Unspoken One tried to latch on to him. Tried being the key word. Torin displayed excitement rather than fear, always ducking at the perfect moment.
As much as she hated to admit it, the warrior’s masterful skill impressed her.
The problem was he wouldn’t make actual contact with the beast or throw a punch. Wouldn’t even kick out his legs. Determined to prevent a plague? Even among the vile Unspoken Ones?
Maybe he truly did feel bad about what he’d done to Mari—Keeley flattened her hand against her stomach to slow the sudden churn of sickness—but that wouldn’t change his fate. It couldn’t. She had one redeeming quality: her integrity. She’d promised to end him, and she would.
The Unspoken One swiped a claw at Torin, and this time Keeley took it personally.
Torin was hers to kill. No one else’s. Anyone who so much as thought about harming him automatically signed their own death warrant.
“I’ll give you a five-second head start,” she shouted to the Unspoken One. “I suggest you run—fast.”
At the sound of her voice, the creature froze. His black gaze swung to her and narrowed. “You.”
“Four.” Keeley fluffed her hair. “I’m sure you’ve heard the rumors about my fondness for viscera and my distaste for showing mercy. Well, I assure you, they’re both true. Just ask your brother. Oh, wait. You can’t. He approached my cell and I gutted him. Three.”
Torin dove through the air, slicing through the Unspoken One’s eye. A bellow of pain echoed. The beast at last got his paws on Torin, batting him in the chest. Torin soared over what remained of the drawbridge into the murky moat below.
Death warrant signed, sealed and about to be delivered. “Two. One.”
“Always thought you’d be the tastiest,” the beast crowed, returning his attention to her. He took a step toward her, and though a hundred yards separated them one moment, he was in front of her the next. He towered over her, his fetid breath fanning her face, burning her skin. “Finally get to find out if I was right.”
“No one taught you the value of a good toothbrush, I see.” She waved her hand under her nose.
“Don’t worry. I’ll clean my teeth...with your bones.” He swung at her—Unspoken Ones so enjoyed tenderizing their meals.
She sent a bolt of power slamming into his chest, causing his entire body to seize. She was about to send another bolt when something hard slammed into her side, knocking her out of the way. That something maintained a tight, intractable hold, traveling with her, twisting midair, taking the brunt of impact when they landed.
She caught her breath and regained her equilibrium—only to realize a panting, scowling Torin loomed above her, a muscle flexing in his jaw.
Fool! “Why did you do that?” she demanded.
“What kind of idiot female just stands there while a beast triple her size prepares to knock her brains right out of her ear hole?”
He is...helping me?
But why?
Thoughts...derailing...
Wet hair clung to Torin’s face, droplets of water trickling down, down, washing away streaks of dirt. Spiky lashes framed emerald eyes glittering with a sensual blend of menace and lust.
He was raw sexuality, his masculinity proving savage enough to batter through every feminine defense she’d ever erected, drawing a hot, carnal response from her. Tremors, breathlessness.
Unending hunger.
Knowing the Unspoken One was out for the count, at least for a few minutes more, she reached up to trace the outline of Torin’s beautiful lips. He stayed put, perhaps trapped by the same desperate need she felt—definitely daring her to do it, to take what she wanted—but at the last second, he reeled backward, as if she’d planned to strike him rather than caress him.
“Don’t,” he snapped. “As long as there are clothes between us, you’ll be fine, but skin-to-skin will destroy even you.”
Anger. With him—and herself. How could she have forgotten his taint?
Relief. Weakness of any kind was not allowed.
Anger again. He was Mari’s killer! The enemy. Desire for Torin could not be stronger than desire for revenge.
Her bones began to vibrate, the ground to shake. The wind whipped into a dangerous frenzy. Thunder boomed as the sky darkened to an oppressive black.
Torin searched for the source of the tumult, not realizing it came from her.
The Unspoken One recovered sooner than expected and flashed to them, swatting the distracted Torin out of the way and grabbing Keeley by the neck. She didn’t struggle as she was lifted off her feet. There was no need.
“Not so haughty now, are you, female?”
“Someone has a toilet-paper word of the day, doesn’t he?”
A sharp lance of pain in her neck. He’d just broken her spine. Oh, well.
“I want you to know the great pleasure I will derive from squeezing you so forcefully your head pops off.” His voice was like razors, slicing at her, his grin slow and triumphant...and all the more evil for it. “I’ll use the wound like a straw and drain you dry.”
Creative. “It’ll take...more than you...to end me.” The vibrations around them intensified, soon spilling into him.
Confusion furrowed his brow just before the ground opened up, threatening to swallow him whole. He released her in a bid to jump to safety, though she didn’t fall so much as an inch. No, she remained in the air, the wind coming harder, lashing the ends of her hair and the hem of her ruined gown.
The night-dark clouds undulated, screaming as they travailed...and finally gave birth to a violent storm. Daggers of ice pelted the land...the Unspoken One. Slash. Slash. Slash. The cuts went deeper than those Torin had given him, his skin tearing, blood leaking.
Grinning, she crooked her finger at him. The Unspoken One tried to plant his heels and remain in place, but he wasn’t strong enough to oppose the lasso of her power, and all too soon he stood only a few inches away from her, at the edge of the rupture. He’d hoped to harm her. Had hoped to harm Torin.
Now he died.
Torin swooped in low, running his dagger across the Unspoken One’s ankles. With a bellow, the beast dropped to his knees. But just before he landed, he twisted and once again swiped a beefy arm at the warrior. He missed. Torin rolled to a crouch several yards away, and even though the ice pelted him, too, causing the same slashing damage, he kept his narrowed gaze on the Unspoken One, preparing to launch another attack.
Can’t let him. My emotions...almost too strong to control...
If she wasn’t careful, Torin would be killed in a moment of chaos.
Where was the justice in that?
Deep breath in...out...but “almost” had already crashed and burned. She’d felt too much for too long, without any kind of outlet. She attempted to flash Torin out of range. Maybe she succeeded. Maybe she didn’t. The rage kicked down the walls of her defenses and burst from her; she lost track of her surroundings. Her spine realigned, healed and arched, causing her body to bow.
Howls of agony erupted—and they did not come from her.
The riiiip of skin.
The crrrack of breaking bones.
The pop of a body bursting. The whoosh of rushing blood. The splatter. The downpour of shredded organs.
Warm liquid splashed over her. Shrapnel beat against her.
But as quickly as the storm had come, it quieted. Keeley floated to the ground. She wiped her eyes to clear her field of vision. The Unspoken One had been reduced to debris—and none of it was identifiable. He would not be able to recover from this. He would never regenerate. This was it for him, the end.
Good riddance.
But...there was no sign of Torin.
Either she’d flashed him away as hoped, or he’d died, his guts mixed in the carnage. Remorse speared her straight through the heart. Because she might not get to exact the kind of revenge she’d hoped. Not because of—no, impossible—an underlying sense of loss.
I can’t miss him.
Or could she? Torin was Mari’s killer, yes, but he was also the only link Keeley had to the girl. Her only link to the land of the living.
She attempted to flash to him. When she stayed put, panic snuck in, an assassin to her calm. She could lock on anyone...except the dead.
Well, he wasn’t dead. He was a fearsome Lord of the Underworld, and he could simply be moving too quickly for her to pinpoint.
Yes, that had to be it.
She marched forward. He was out there, and she would find him. No matter where he hid. They would finish their war, and she would find another link to the land of the living.
Life, meet perfection.
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_3b5c8b6a-b750-5140-8398-740fa2aa0973)
TORIN RACED THROUGH the forest, careful to avoid the traps he’d set—traps he would have set even without Keeley’s suggestion, thanks. Limbs slapped at his face and leaves tried to bite his cheeks, but he hardly noticed. One second he’d been preparing to launch a final attack against the Unspoken One, the next he’d been a good distance from the action. Keeley must have flashed him.
Why would she do such a thing? She wanted him dead, right?
Does the answer really matter? He needed his backpack, like, yesterday. He couldn’t let Keeley near his friends—his only family—and if that meant he had to put a bullet in her brain, so be it.
And the Worst Enemy in the History of Ever award goes to...the Red Queen.
Not because she was powerful enough to topple a building—though that certainly put her in the top tier—but because she could make a beast burst apart at the seams, raining blood and guts.
Seriously. She’d beaten that Unspoken One like morning wood with the same end result: an explosion.
Torin could imagine Keeley’s acceptance speech. I’d like to thank my victim. Without him and his internal organs, I wouldn’t be here.
In all the centuries of his life, he’d thought he’d seen the worst of the worst when it came to gruesome.
He’d been wrong.
He smashed through a wall of snapping foliage he’d spent hours erecting yesterday morning. A pitiful defense, but a guy had to work with what he had. Three of the prisoners he’d freed waited in camp despite his threats to kill first and ask questions later if anyone neared him. They expected him to find a way out of the realm.
So far he’d had no luck. Never mind Keeley’s threat.
Torin knew there were hundreds of different realms, some beside each other, some stacked on top of each other, and some even wrapped around the others. He just wasn’t sure how to get from one to another without the ability to flash.
“Hallo, mate,” Cameron said. “So nice of you to join us.”
The trio consisted of two males and one female. Cameron, the keeper of Obsession. Irish, the keeper of Indifference. And Winter, the keeper of Selfishness.
They were cursed with demons even though they hadn’t been among the immortals who’d opened Pandora’s box. But. When it came to evil, there was always a “but.” At the time, they were prisoners of the underground realm of Tartarus. And since there’d been more demons than Lords, a good chunk of the inmates were given the leftovers.
“Time to abandon ship,” he said. Keeley would be coming after him, and if the trio was anywhere near him, they would be nailed in the cross fire.
No one seemed to catch his urgency.
Whatever. He hadn’t signed on as their custodian. If they wouldn’t listen, they deserved what they got.
Cameron eased beside Winter, offering her a bowl of forage stew. The two were siblings, maybe even twins. Both had the same lavender eyes rimmed with silver, the same bronzed skin and hair.
“This little clearing has the best cold spring in the entire forest,” Cameron said, “and daddy needs his happy bath times.” He picked up the tattoo gun he’d created with metal parts he’d found lying on the ground and continued inking a currently indistinguishable picture on his wrist. Apparently he had a compulsion—obsession—to chronicle each of his imprisonments in his flesh. “We’re not leaving.”
“Then you’ll soon experience the joys of self-combustion.” It was as simple as that.
Irish perched on a horizontal tree stump, busy carving a branch into an arrow. He wasn’t as civilized in appearance as his friends. Two horns stretched from the crown of his head. Dark, straight-as-a-board hair hung to his waist, multiple razors woven into the strands. He had sharp cheekbones. Black, mysterious eyes. Hands permanently clawed. And while—for the most part—he had the top half of a man, he had the bottom half of a goat. Fur and hooves.
He was part satyr, part something else, and sensing Torin’s scrutiny, he glanced up. “Fack aff,” he said in his Isle-rich brogue. Hence the nickname. Real name—Puck something. Or maybe Puke something. Hard to tell when you couldn’t care less.
Torin shrugged. “Like I said, it’s your funeral. Enjoy it. Or not.” He dropped to his knees in front of his backpack and emptied his pockets. When he’d thrown Keeley to the ground, he’d frisked her and stolen—he frowned as he looked over the only item she’d carried—a hunk of bloody, scarred skin.
