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Crouched on the sandy floor, Sabin closed the lid of his weapon case with a forceful snap, locked it and turned to the bag of food he’d had Paris bring him.
Darla, Darla, Darla, the demon sang.
“Like I said, you can shut the hell up, you dirty piece of shit. I’ve had all of you I can take.”
Gwen, still in the far corner, jerked as though he’d screamed. “But I didn’t say anything.”
He’d lived among mortals for a long time and had trained himself to converse with Doubt inside his head. That he’d forgotten his training now, in the presence of this skittish yet deadly woman…mortifying.
“I wasn’t speaking to you,” he muttered.
Paler than usual, she drew her arms around her middle. “Then to whom were you speaking? We’re alone.”
He didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Not without lying. Since Doubt’s inability to lie had long ago spread to Sabin, he had to stick to the truth, evade, or he’d be sleeping for the next few days.
Thankfully, Gwen didn’t press the issue. “I want to go home,” she said softly.
“I know.”
Yesterday, Paris had questioned all the freed women about their confinement. They’d indeed been kidnapped, raped, impregnated and told their babies would be taken from them and trained to be defenders against evil. Afterward, Lucien had flashed all but Gwen—who had told Paris nothing—to their families, who would hopefully hide them from Hunters in the peace and comfort that had been denied them during their captivity.
Gwen had asked to be taken to a deserted stretch of ice in Alaska, of all places. Lucien had reached out to take her hand, despite her failure to cooperate, and Sabin had stepped between them.
“Like I said in the cavern, she stays with me,” he’d said.
Gwen had gasped. “No! I want to go.”
“Sorry. Not gonna happen.” He’d refused to face her, afraid he’d cave and release her despite the fact that her strength, speed and savagery could win him this war, thereby saving his friends.
By gods, he’d dreamed of an end, a victorious end, for too many years to count; he couldn’t put Gwen’s needs and wants before that victory.
Too badly did he want Galen, the person he hated most in this world, defeated and imprisoned.
Galen, the once forgotten Lord, was the very man who had convinced the warriors to help steal and open Pandora’s box. He was also the man who had secretly planned to kill them all, then capture the demons they’d freed, becoming a hero in the eyes of the gods. But things hadn’t worked out as the bastard hoped, and he’d been cursed to house a demon—Hope—right alongside the other warriors.
If only that had been the end of things. But as further punishment, they’d all been kicked out of the heavens. Galen, still determined to destroy the men who’d called him friend, had quickly assembled an army of outraged mortals, the Hunters, and this endless blood feud had erupted. A feud that only intensified with every year that passed. If Gwen could aid Sabin in even the smallest way, she was too valuable to release. She, however, thought differently.
“Please,” she had begged. “Please.”
“I’ll take you home one day, but not now,” he’d told her. “You could be useful to us, to our cause.”
“I don’t want to help with any cause. I just want to go home.”
“Sorry. Like I said, it’s not gonna happen any time soon.”
“Bastard,” she’d muttered. Then she’d frozen, as if she hadn’t meant to say that aloud and now thought he would launch forward and beat her. When he didn’t, she’d calmed a bit. “So I’ve traded one captor for another, is that it? You promised you wouldn’t harm me.” Soft, so soft. Even sadly resigned, and that had…hurt him. “Just let me go. Please.”
Obviously, the girl was afraid. Of him, his friends. Of herself and her deadly abilities. Otherwise, she would have tried to ditch him or bargained for her release. But not once had she done so. Did she fear what they would do to her if they caught her? Or what she would do to them?
Or, as Doubt liked to whisper in the dark of night, did she have more sinister plans? Was she Bait, a very convincing trap laid by the Hunters? A trap meant to ruin him?
Not possible, he retorted every time. Such timidity couldn’t be faked. The trembling, the refusal even to eat. Which meant her fears, whatever they were, were real. And the more time she spent with him, the more those fears and doubts would grow. They would become all that she knew, all that she thought about. She would question every word out of her mouth, every word out of his mouth. She would question every action.
Sabin sighed. Others here were already questioning his actions, and not because of his demon. At her plea, Lucien’s expression had hardened—a rare thing, for Lucien was always careful to contain his emotions. After ordering Paris to guard her, he’d whisked Sabin to the home they’d rented in Cairo, where they could talk away from the others. Away from Gwen.
A ten-minute argument had ensued. And because flashing always sickened him, causing his stomach to churn, he hadn’t been at his best.
“She’s dangerous,” Lucien had begun.
“She’s strong.”
“She’s a killer.”
“Hello, so are we. Only difference is, she’s better at it than we are.”
Lucien frowned. “How do you know? You’ve only seen her kill one man.”
“And yet you would ban her from our home for that very killing—despite the fact that it was our enemy she killed. Look, Hunters know our faces. They’re always on the lookout for us. But the only ones who knew her are now dead or locked up. She’s our Trojan horse. Our own version of Bait. They’ll welcome her and she’ll slaughter them.”
“Or us,” Lucien had muttered, but Sabin could tell he was considering the point. “She just seems so…fainthearted.”
“I know.”
“Around you, that will only get worse.”
“Again, I know,” he growled.
“Then how can you think to use her as a soldier?”
“Believe me, I’ve weighed the pros and cons. Fainthearted or not, spirit broken down by me or not, she has an innate ability to destroy. We can harness that for our own benefit.”
“Sabin…”
“She’s coming with us, and that’s that. She’s mine.” He hadn’t wanted to claim her, not that way. He didn’t need another responsibility. Especially a beautiful, apprehensive female he could never hope to possess. But it had been the only way. Lucien, Maddox and Reyes had brought females into their home, therefore they could not deny entrance to his.
He shouldn’t have done that to her, should have just let her go for both their sakes. But as he’d reminded himself already, he’d placed his war with the Hunters above everything else, even his best friend, Baden, keeper of Distrust. Now dead, gone forever. He could make no exceptions for Gwen. She was coming to Budapest, like it or not.
First, though, he was going to feed her.
Crouching a few feet in front of her, putting them at eye level, Sabin began unwrapping Twinkies and unsealing Lunchables. He poked a straw in a juice box. Gods, he missed the home-cooked meals Ashlyn prepared and the gourmet cuisine Anya “borrowed” from Buda’s five-star restaurants.
“Have you ever been inside an airplane?” he asked her.
“Wh-what do you care?” She lifted her chin, yellow fire snapping in her eyes. But that hot gaze wasn’t on him. It was on the food he was spreading on the paper plate beside him.
A show of spirit. He liked it. Definitely preferred it over the stoic acceptance she’d displayed earlier. “I don’t. I simply want to ensure you’re not going to—” Shit. How could he phrase this without reminding her of what she’d done to the Hunter?
“Attack you out of fear,” she finished for him, cheeks heating with embarrassment. “Unlike you, I don’t lie. You take me on a plane that isn’t headed to Alaska and there’s a very good chance you’ll meet my…darker half.” The last words were choked.
His eyes slitted dangerously, his mind caught on the beginning of her speech. He wadded up the plastic wrappers scattered around him and shoved them into the cloth trash bag. “What do you mean, unlike me? I’ve never lied to you.” That he was still conscious proved it.
“You said you meant me no harm.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. “And I didn’t. Don’t.”
“Keeping me here is harming me. You said you’d free me.”
“I did free you. From the pyramid.” He shrugged, sheepish. “And as long as you’re uninjured physically, I consider you unharmed.” A sigh slipped from him. “Is it really so bad, being around me?”
Her lips pressed into a thin line.
Ouch. “Doesn’t matter. You’re gonna have to get used to me. The two of us will be spending a lot of time together.”
“But why? You said I could be useful; I haven’t forgotten that. What I don’t understand is what you think I can do.”
Why not tell her everything? he thought. It could soften her toward him and his cause. Or it could frighten her even more and finally send her running. Would he be able to stop her?
Not knowing what he wanted of her had to be torture, though, and she’d suffered enough. “I’ll supply you with any piece of information you want,” he said. “If you eat.”
“No. I—I can’t.”
Sabin lifted the plate, circled it around. She followed every movement as though entranced. Sure that he had her attention, he lifted one of the Twinkies and bit into half.
“Can’t,” she said again, though she sounded exactly as she looked: entranced.
He swallowed before licking away any remaining cream. “See. Still alive. No poison.”
Hesitantly, as though she simply couldn’t help herself any longer, Gwen reached out. Sabin placed the dessert in her hand, and she immediately snatched it to her chest. Several minutes ticked by in silence, and she did nothing but eye him warily.
“So this food is payment for listening to you?” she asked.
“No.” He would not allow her to think bribery was acceptable. “I just want you healthy.”
“Oh,” she said, clearly disappointed.
Why disappointment?
Doubt nearly danced with the urge to crawl out of Sabin’s head and into Gwen’s. Much longer, and he’d lose his hold. One wrong suggestion from the demon, however, and Sabin knew she would throw the tiny morsel to the ground.
Eat it, he projected. Please eat it. It wasn’t the most nutritious of snacks, but at this point he would have been happy if she’d eaten a pile of sand.
Finally, she lifted the golden cake and tentatively nibbled on the edge. Those long, dark lashes closed, and a tiny smile appeared. Absolute ecstasy radiated from her—the kind that usually arrived on the heels of an orgasm.
His body reacted instantly, every muscle hardening. His heartbeat picked up speed; his palms itched to touch. My gods, she’s lovely. Quite possibly the most exquisite thing he’d ever beheld, all carnal pleasure and blissful decadence.
The rest of the cake was inside her mouth a second later, her cheeks puffing with its mass. As she chewed, she reached out, silently commanding him to give her another. He did so without hesitation.
“Shall I take half?” he asked before letting go.
Black began to swirl in her eyes, obliterating gold.
Maybe not. He raised his hands, palms out, and she stuffed the second cake into her mouth. The black faded, the gold returning. Crumbs fell from the corner of her lips.
“Thirsty?” He held up the juice box.
Again she reached out, fingers waving him to hurry.
Within seconds, every drop of juice was gone.
“Slow down, or you’ll make yourself sick.”
Just like that, the black returned to her irises. At least it didn’t bleed into the whites as it had moments before she’d slain the Hunter. Sabin pushed the plate to her, and she polished off the rest of the food.
When she finished, she settled back into the tent, that contented smile making another appearance. Rich pink painted her cheeks. And before his eyes, her body filled out. Her breasts overflowed. Her waist and hips flared perfectly, sinfully. His cock, still hard and aching, twitched in response.
Stop. Now. His erection would probably terrify her, so he remained in the crouch, his knees together, his chest hunched.
What if she liked it? What if she asked you to close the distance and kiss her? Touch her?
Zip it.
But then Gwen began to pale. Her smile fell, becoming a frown.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
Without a word, she jerked up the bottom tent flap, leaned outside and retched, heaving, every drop and crumb leaving her. Sighing, he pushed to his feet and gathered a rag. After soaking it with the contents of a water bottle, he shoved it into her fingers. She eased the rest of the way into the tent and wiped her mouth with a trembling hand.
“Knew better,” she mumbled, returning to her former position. Arms locked around her legs, holding them to her chest.
Knew better than to eat too quickly? Well, yeah. ’Cause he’d warned her.
Sabin cleared his throat and decided to feed her again once her stomach had settled. For now, they could finish their conversation. After all, she’d lived up to her side of the bargain. She had eaten.
“You asked what I needed you to do. Well, I need your help finding and killing the men responsible for your…treatment.” Tread carefully. Don’t rouse her dark side with painful memories. But there was no way around it. “The others, they told us what had been done. The fertility drugs, the rapes. How there were other women once locked in those cages. Women who were raped as well, their babies taken away from them. A few seemed to think this has been going on for years already.”
Gwen’s back was pressed against the sand-colored tent flaps, yet she tried to scoot backward, as though she needed to escape from his words and the images they evoked.
Sabin himself had cringed, hearing the stories. He might be half demon, but he had never done anything as terrible as what had been done to the women in that cavern.
“Those men are vile,” he said. “They need to be destroyed.”
“Yes.” One of her arms fell from her legs, and she drew little circles in the dirt beside her hip. “But I…wasn’t.” The words were so softly spoken, he had to strain to hear them.
“You weren’t, what? Raped?”
Nibbling on her bottom lip—a nervous habit of hers?—she shook her head. “He was too afraid to open my cage, so he left me alone. Physically, at least. He…took the others in front of me.” There was guilt in her tone.
Ah. She felt responsible.
