Really, what kind of man allowed such a thing? An asshole, that's who, and he was certainly king of them. After all, he was going to return Scarlet to the dungeon once his questions were answered. For, like, ever. Even if she wasor rather, had beenhis wife.
Yes. He was a bad, bad man.
She was simply too dangerous to be permanently freed, her ability to invade dreams too destructive. Because when you died in one of Scarlet's nightmares, you died for real. That was it. The end. And if she ever decided to aid the Hunters, which could happen, scorned women and all that, the Lords would never be able to sleep soundly again. And they needed their beauty rest or they became snarling beasts.
Case in point: Gideon. He hadn't slept in weeks.
Slow down, his demon suddenly instructed. Moving too fast.
Usually Lies was merely a presence in the back of his mind. There, but silent. Only when the demon's need was great did he speak up. But even then, he had to say the opposite of what he wanted. And now he wanted Gideon to hurry up and reach Scarlet.
Give me wings and it's done, Gideon replied dryly, but damn if he didn't quicken his step. He could and did think what he meant. Always. He never lied to himself or the demon during these private moments. Maybe because he'd had to fight savagely and without mercy for such moments.
Upon possession, he'd been lost to darkness and chaos, a slave to his soul-companion and his evil cravings. He'd tormented humans just to hear them scream. He'd burned homes to the ground, as well as the families inside them. He'd killed indiscriminately, and taunted while doing so.
It had taken a few hundred years, but Gideon had finally clawed his way to the light. He was in control now, and had even managed to tame the beast. For the most part.
Strider heaved a sigh, regaining his attention. "Gideon, man, listen to me. I said it once, but I'll say it again. You can't take the female outside these walls. She'll run from you, you know she will. Hunters are in the city, we know that, too, and they could catch her. Recruit her. Use her. Or, if she refuses them, even hurt her like they hurt you."
One, Strider was speaking as if Gideon couldn't hold on to the wily temptress for a few days. And he could. He knew how to kick ass and take names with the best. Two, Strider was speaking as if Gideon would be unable to find her if he did indeed lose her. And three, Strider was probably speaking correctly, but that didn't soothe Gideon's sudden burst of anger. He may not be the smooth operator that Strider was, but he had some skills with the ladies, damn it.
More than that, Scarlet herself was a warrior. An immortal. She could surround herself with darkness. A darkness so thick no human light, and no immortal eyes, could penetrate it. Losing her wouldn't be as disgraceful as losing, say, an untrained human.
Not that he'd lose her, he told himself again, and not that she would want to run. He was going to seduce her. Was going to pleasure the energy right out of her and make her desperate to stay with him. Which shouldn't be too difficult. She'd liked him enough to marry him, right? Maybe. Damn it!
"I know what you're thinking," Strider said after another sigh. "If she escapes you, so what? You'll find her."
"Wrong." He had thought that, yeah, but he'd soon discarded the idea. So there. What are you? A girl?
"Well, what happens to her while you're looking for her? During the day she needs protection, and if you're not with her, who's going to protect her?"
Fuck. Good point. Scarlet couldn't function during daylight hours. Because of her demon, she slept too deeply. So deeply that nothing and no one could wake her until sunset, a fact he'd discovered after nearly giving her a brain aneurysm while trying and failing to shake her into consciousness.
He had been shocked when, a few hours later, her eyes had popped open and she'd sat up as if she'd just taken a ten-minute power nap.
Which had raised other questions. Why did her demon sleep during the day, when the people around her were awake? Didn't that defeat the purpose of creating nightmares? And what happened when she traveled and the time zone changed?
"We're lucky we found her when we did," Strider continued. "If we hadn't had Aeron's angel on our side, we would've died trying to secure her. Setting her free, no matter the reason, is stupid and danger"
"You haven't said that before." Over and over again. "Besides, Olive's no longer on our team." Meaning, she was. "She can't help us again if needed." Meaning she could. "Now, I hate you, man, but please keep talking." I love you, but shut the hell up! Seriously.
Strider growled his renewed frustration as they pounded down the steps that led into the dungeon, stained-glass windows giving way to crumbling, bloodstained walls. The air became musty, tainted with sweat, urine and blood. None of it was Scarlet's, thank the gods. His guilt couldn't have handled that. Fortunatelyor unfortunately, depending on whom you askedshe wasn't the only being locked away. They had several Hunters awaiting payback, aka interrogation, aka torture.
"What if she was lying to you?" his friend asked. The man didn't know when to quit, and yeah, Gideon knew Strider couldn't quit. Which was why he didn't simply punch his friend in the face and beat feet. "What if she's not really your wife?"
Gideon snorted. "Forgot to tell you. Sifting through truth and lies is difficult for me." Except with her, but he wasn't going to issue that reminder just then.
"Yeah, but you also told me you don't know with her."
One of them had a perfect memory. Excellent. "There's no way she can be my wife." The chances were slim, but yeah, they were there. "I don't have to do this."
When Scarlet had first invaded his dreams and demanded he visit her in this dungeon, he'd been helpless to do otherwise, filled with a need to see her, some part of him recognizing her on a level he still didn't understand. When she'd alleged they'd kissed, had sex, even wed each other, that same part of him had hummed in agreement.
Even though he didn't fucking remember her.
Why couldn't he remember her? he wondered for the thousandth time.
He'd been playing with several theories. The first: the gods had erased his memory. But that raised the question of why. Why would they not want him to recall his own wife? Why had they not erased Scarlet's memory, as well?
The second theory: he'd suppressed the memory himself. But again, why would he have done so? How would he have done so? There were a million other things he'd actually like to forget.
The third: his demon had somehow erased the memory when they were paired. But if that were true, why did he recall his life in the heavens, when he'd been a servant to Zeus, tasked with guarding the former god king at every moment of every day?
He and Strider stopped at the first cell, where Scarlet had resided the past few weeks. She was asleep on her cot, as he'd known she would be. And as he'd done each time he'd seen her, he sucked in a breath. Lovely. But...
Mine? Did he want her to be?
No, of course not. That would complicate the hell out of everything. Not that he'd let it matter. He couldn't. His friends came first. That's the way things were, and the way they would always be.
At least she was clean; he'd made sure she had enough water to drink and to bathe. And she was well fed; he'd made sure food was delivered three times a night. He would do the same when he ultimately returned her. That would have to be enough.
Don't hurry, Lies cried, practically jumping from one corner of his skull to the other. Don't hurry!
Cram it, buddy. I'll handle this. But he couldn't force himself to move just yet. He'd been waiting for this moment forever, it seemed, and wanted to bask in it.
Bask? He really was becoming a woman.
Look away before you get an erection, he told himself. All right, now that was more manly. He purposefully shifted his gaze. The walls around her were composed of thick, impenetrable stone. Therefore, she could never see the Hunters imprisoned beside her. Actually, Gideon didn't care about that. He didn't want the Hunters seeing her.
Yeah. He wanted mine. At least for now.
Speaking of the Hunters, they spotted the warriors through their own bars and shrank into the shadows, their murmurs tapering to quiet. They might have stopped breathing as well, so afraid were they of being singled out. Good. He liked that his enemy feared him.
They had every reason to do so.
These men had imprisoned and raped innocent, immortal women in hopes of creating half-breed children they could raise to hate and fight Gideon and his friends. Children who would've been able to help the Hunters find Pandora's box before the Lords could, all in hopes of using the artifact to separate each demon from its host. An act the warriors wouldn't survive, as man was now bound irrevocably to beast.
That, too, was part of their punishment for opening that stupid box.
Gideon withdrew the key to Scarlet's cell, his new fingers stiff and shaky from disuse, and reached out.
"Wait." Strider placed a hard hand on his shoulder, trying to hold him in place. Gideon could have shaken free, but he allowed his friend the illusion of winning this small battle of wills. "You can talk to her here. Get your answers here."
But they had an audience, which meant she couldn't relax. And if she couldn't relax, she wouldn't allow him to touch her. Degenerate that he was, he wanted to touch her. Besides, how else was he going to seduce information from her? By telling her how ugly she was? By telling her what he didn't want to do to her?
"Don't ease off, man. Like I haven't told you countless times, I have no plans to bring her back when I find out what I don't want to know. Okay?"
"If you can bring her back. We discussed that little problem already, too. Remember?"
Kinda hard to forget. Unfortunately. "I won't be careful. You don't have my word. But I don't need to do this. It's not important to me."
That hard hand never left him. "Now isn't the time to leave us. We have three artifacts, and Galen's pissed as hell. He's gonna want revenge for the one we took from him."
Galen was leader of the Hunters, as well as a demon-possessed warrior. Only, he looked angelic and was paired with the demon of Hope, so all of his human followers thought he was, indeed, an angel. Because of him, they blamed each of the Lords for the world's evil. Because of him, they expected a future free of that evil, and fought to the death to achieve it.
Aeron's new woman, Olivia, who actually was an honest-to-her-God angel, had stolen that third artifact from the bastard. The Cloak of Invisibility. As there were four artifacts needed to lead the way to Pandora's boxthe All-Seeing Eye (check), the Cage of Compulsion (check), the Cloak of Invisibility (as stated, check) and the Paring Rod (check coming soon)Galen was desperate to win back the Cloak, as well as confiscate all the others.
Which meant their war was really heating up.
Didn't matter, though. Nothing was going to deter Gideon from his present course of action. Mainly because part of him felt like his very life depended on this. "Gid. Dude."
He flicked his friend a narrowed glance, lips pulling back in a snarl. "You're begging to be kissed." Beaten to hell.
A moment passed in heavy silence.
"Fine," Strider finally muttered, raising his arms, palms out. "Take her."
Jeez. "Wasn't planning on it, but many thanks for the approval." But why wasn't Strider collapsed on the ground, out for the count? He'd just lost a challenge, hadn't he?
"When will you return?"
Gideon shrugged. "I wasn't thinking...a week?" Surely seven days was plenty of time to soften Scarlet toward him and get her to open up about their past. Right now, she seemed to hate his guts. He didn't know why, but he would. It was a vow. But still. She clearly preferred dangerous men. Why else would she have supposedly married him? So he fit the bill.
"Three days," Strider said.
Ah. Negotiation time. That was why Strider hadn't fallen to his demon. He wasn't defeated, merely trying another strategy. Gideon could dig. He felt just as guilty about leaving his boys behind as he did about leaving Scarlet in this cell. They needed him, and if they were hurt while he was gone, he would completely flip his lid.
"I'm not thinking five now," he compromised.
"Four."
"No deal."
Grinning, Strider nodded. "Good."
So. He had four days to soften Scarlet. He'd fought more difficult battles in less time, he was sure. Funny that he couldn't recall them at the moment, though.
Hell, maybe he just suffered from selective memory loss. Maybe fights and Scarletwhom he'd probably fought with a lot, since she was opinionated, bossy and mouthy as shitwere the biggest casualties of that loss.
He would've liked to remember the sex, though. Mind-blowing. He just knew it.
"I'll inform the others," Strider said. "But in the meantime, I'll drive you to wherever you want to take her."
"Sure thing." Gideon finally inserted the key and unlocked Scarlet's cell, the door swinging open with a whine. "I'm not gonna drive her myself. I want everyone to know where we're going."
Strider gave another growl, this one just as frustrated but now laced with anger. "Stubborn jackass. I have to know you made it safely to wherever you're going or I won't be able to concentrate enough to kill anyone. And you know I'm on a strict, at-least-one-Hunter-a-day diet."
"That's why you won't be getting a phone call from me." Gideon approached Scarlet's still-sleeping form. She no longer surrounded herself in that impermeable darkness while she slept. As if she wanted Gideon to always be able to see her. As if she trusted him not to hurt her.
At least, that's what he told himself.
"Gods. I can't believe you talked me into this. Did I tell you already that you're a shithead?"
"Nope." Gently he scooped Scarlet into his arms.
Sighing, she rubbed her cheek against his heart. A heart that was now beating against his ribs like a sledgehammer. She must have liked the erratic rhythm, because she cuddled closer. Nice.
She was five-nine to his six-three, slender, but leanly muscled. She had refused the clothes he'd offered her, so she wore the T-shirt and jeans Aeron had found her in.