With barely a pause, the oldest of the group asked, “Do you know a way out?”
All of the women closed in on her as they spoke, encircling her. They peered at her hopefully, as if she held all the answers and could save them from the vilest of fates.
She held up her hands, palms out. “Everyone slow down.” Kidnapped, Danika had said. Why would Maddox have done such a thing? “Are any of you hunters or bait?” Every time Maddox said those two words, there was disgust in his voice.
“As in, do we hunt treasure? Bait a hook?” Danika’s face scrunched in confusion, but there was a hard glint in her green eyes. “No.”
“As in, I have no idea. I was hoping someone here would know.” Voices of the past began to edge their way into her mind. One conversation after another. “No. No, not again.” She felt herself pale, heat evaporating from her skin, leaving only a cold, trembling shell. Breathe. Just breathe.
“I think she’s getting sick again,” Danika said, concerned. “Can you make it to the bed?” she asked Ashlyn.
“N-no. I just want to sit.”
Suddenly a pair of hands settled on top of her shoulders, easing her to the floor. Ashlyn went willingly, her legs becoming too weak to hold her up. Shuddering, she drew air into her lungs.
They’re going to kill us.
We have to escape.
How? Hysterical laughter.
If we have to jump out the window, then we jump. They want to infect us with some sort of disease.
We jump, we die.
We stay, we die.
The voices belonged to these women, Ashlyn realized. Every word they’d spoken in the room was going to play through her head. Damn it, she’d gotten used to the silence. Had assumed she’d have peace as long as she stayed out of the dungeon. Hopefully, they hadn’t been here long enough to have too many conversations.
I miss Grandpa. He’d know what to do.
Well, he’s not here, is he? We have to figure it out on our own.
A buttered roll and a glass of apple juice were shoved under her nose. “Here,” Danika said gently. “These might help.”
Who’s talking? Who said that?
Who are you talking to, Dani?
Uh, no one.
Ashlyn accepted both with shaky hands. On and on and on their exchange tumbled. Sometimes, as it had been in the dungeon, the conversations seemed one-sided. She couldn’t hear who the women were talking to; she only knew they were talking to someone other than themselves.
She heard Danika say, If—if I am a healer, will you swear to spare my mother, sister and grandmother? They haven’t done anything wrong. We came to Budapest to get away, to say goodbye to my grandpa. We—
But she didn’t hear the comment before it. Or after. Why?
The men were immortal, but she’d heard immortal creatures speak before. Vampires, goblins, shape-shifters, even. Why not the demons here? They had to be the ones Danika had been speaking to.
Ashlyn nibbled at the bread and sipped the juice, trying to tune out each new discussion. She hummed. She meditated. The women attempted to engage her, but she simply couldn’t respond. There were too many voices vying for her attention.
One by one, the women gave up. How many minutes or hours passed after that, she didn’t know. So many times she almost called for Maddox, but she held the pleas back, biting her tongue until she tasted blood. He had chores to do, he’d said. Besides, she didn’t want to be a burden. A nuisance.
That’s what you came here for, she reminded herself. To demand that these men teach you how to control your powers, even if it meant becoming a nuisance to them.
But that had been before Maddox actually entered her life. Now she wanted him to be her lover (if he would, the jerk), not her nursemaid. Again.
You hear a…a…voice? In your mind?
Yes.
And it’s not your own?
Maybe, probably. I don’t know.
Blessedly, the murmurings did stop, ending at the moment of Ashlyn’s entrance. Relieved as she was, she had to admit she had learned several new tidbits of information. The first and most significant: Danika had heard of hunters—she’d told her family about them.
“Hunters,” Ashlyn said, lifting her gaze. Danika was looking out the room’s only window, a window none of the women had been able to pry open. Ashlyn had heard them try and fail. “What are they? Don’t lie to me this time. Please.”
Startled, Danika jumped and turned, hand over heart. “Better again, eh? Why should we trust you? You could be working for those men. They might’ve sent you here to learn something from us, and when you learn it, they’ll storm inside and kill us.”
“True.” After all, these women only knew she’d been sick and snuggled up to their enemy. “But you saved me. Why would I want you hurt?”
Danika peered over at her but said nothing.
“You’ll just have to trust that I’m not here to trap you or hurt you. We’re in the same situation, you and I.”
“But what about the angry one? Maddox. You’re dating him.”
Dating wasn’t exactly the word she’d use. Ashlyn tried to picture Maddox sitting across from her in some candlelit restaurant, drinking wine and listening to soft music. Her lips lifted in a smile. “Maybe. So?”
“So, that makes you one of them.”
“I’m not,” she insisted. “I just got here. Yesterday, in fact.”
Danika’s eyes widened, her golden lashes hitting her equally golden eyebrows. “Now I know you’re lying. He cares for you, that much was obvious. A man doesn’t show that much compassion to a woman he’s just met.”
Yes, he’d been compassionate. Yes, he’d been kind. Tender. Unerringly sweet. The fiercest man she’d ever met had mopped her brow and cleaned her face. “Again, I can’t explain it. I’m not lying.”
A minute ticked by in silence.
“Fine.” Danika’s shoulders lifted in a deceptively casual shrug. “You want to know about hunters, I’ll tell you. Not like it’s crucial info, anyway.” Inhale, exhale. “When the winged man, Aeron, took me into the city, he spotted a group of men. They were armed like soldiers and they were sneaking around back alleys as if they didn’t want to be seen.”
So far, that told her nothing.
“Aeron muttered Hunters under his breath and whipped out a dagger.” Anger began to color Danika’s soft timbre. The memory obviously wasn’t her favorite. “He would have fought them if he hadn’t been carting me around. He said so. He also said those men had come to kill him and his friends.” She spoke the last in a deep, dark tone, mimicking Aeron. Ashlyn nearly smiled at the gloom-and-doom inflection. “I wanted them to fight, distract him so I could run. But they didn’t. They didn’t see us.”
Ashlyn frowned. Hunters of the immortal. Wasn’t that basically what she did for the Institute? She listened to conversations to find—hunt—those who were not exactly human. Stop right there. The Institute studies, observes, renders aid when needed and takes extreme action only when threatened.
She took comfort in that. The employees were utterly scientific when dealing with the creatures they found, not predatory.
They were not always so fair-minded with her.
The first time an attempt had been made against her, it was because she’d stumbled across a recent conversation a coworker had had with a child. He’d lured that sweet, innocent little girl…he’d threatened…he’d done terrible things. Sickened, Ashlyn had turned him in. He’d retaliated by trying to shoot her. McIntosh, always close by her side, had thrown her down, saving her life.
The second time, she was nearly stabbed in the back—literally—by a woman intent on keeping her affair a secret. McIntosh had once again acted as her bodyguard, shielding her and taking the slice instead.
The third and final time, about eleven months ago, she was poisoned. Luck had been on her side. She’d managed to throw up most of it. Ah, sweet memories. To this day she still didn’t know why, didn’t know which secret
she’d divined that someone had been willing to kill to keep.
McIntosh did everything in his power to protect her. But sometimes that wasn’t enough, so she’d learned to rely only on herself and trust no one—which made her sudden eagerness to depend on Maddox all the more confusing.
“Aeron, uh, was bad-mouthing you, too,” Danika said, breaking into her thoughts.
Ashlyn blinked in surprise. “Me? Why?”
“Said you were bait, whatever that means.”
Her shoulders slumped as she said, “Maddox calls me bait, too. I still don’t know what that is.” How could she refute something she didn’t comprehend? Unless…wait. If she was right about hunters stalking immortals, that had to mean bait was the lure. Dangle it in front of an immortal and a hunter could ensnare him in a trap.
Why that…that…asshole! She’d come here for help, not to draw him out of his lair so that he could be slain. “Idiot!” she fumed.
“Don’t call me names,” Danika snapped.
“I wasn’t talking about you. I was talking about me.” She’d let Maddox kiss her, had let him put his fingers and tongue inside of her, had even been desperate for more. And all the while he’d thought her capable of such a vile, duplicitous act. He probably thought she was easy, too—hence his surprise when he’d discovered she was still a virgin.
Tears of shame stung her eyes.
“They tricked you, huh?” Danika asked gently.
She nodded. Had Maddox wanted her, even a little, or had he simply wanted to seduce her for information about her obviously nefarious plan? She suspected the latter, and it hurt. Cut deep. How many times had he accused her or questioned her with suspicion in his eyes?
No wonder he’d so easily resisted her bumbling attempt to talk him into finishing what they’d started. No wonder he’d dumped her here. Idiot! she thought again. Yes, that’s what she was. Her only excuse was that she didn’t have a lot of hands-on experience with men. And this is why! They were bastards. Users and seducers.
“Tell me about the voice you’re hearing,” she said to Danika. Anything to get her mind off Maddox—before she burst into sobs of disappointment and resentment.
Danika’s expression iced over. “I haven’t mentioned any voice to you. They’ve been watching us, haven’t they? Is there a camera hidden in here or something?”
“I don’t know.” Ashlyn raised her knees and propped her chin in the dent between them. “Maybe there’s a camera, maybe there isn’t. Given how confused they were by Tylenol, I’m not sure any of them would know how to operate one. In any case, that’s not how I learned about the voice.”
Did Danika have an ability similar to Ashlyn’s? Ashlyn had never met another like herself, but she was learning to expect the unexpected here. “Tell me the rest. Please. We’re in this together. We can help each other.”
“There’s nothing to tell.” Danika stalked through the room, feeling the walls. “I’m going crazy. There, is that what you wanted me to admit? Some guy started talking in my head this morning. We’ve had some real stimulating conversations.”
One voice. A man’s. Not many voices, male and female. Not Ashlyn’s ability, after all. “Tell me,” she urged again. Her stomach chose that moment to rumble, a booming concerto in the uncomfortable silence that followed. “What has he said to you?”
With a scowl, Danika plucked a piece of cheese from the platter perched on the vanity. She tossed it at Ashlyn before commanding her family to help search for cameras. Just in case. “He asked for the 411 on our captors.”
“Like?”
“Like their daily routine, what weapons they have and what security system the fortress has.” She laughed, but there was no humor to the sound. “I think it’s my mind’s crazy way of coping with what’s happened.”
Ashlyn didn’t think so. Those questions were too invasive, too specific, the kind of information a soldier would want to gather on his enemy.
So…if it wasn’t Danika who wanted data on the men, who was it? And who had the power to ask without benefit of a body?
“I’ M SICK OF THIS SHIT,” Paris grumbled. “Just once today, I’d like to stay in town and relax after screwing, rather than rushing back here. Hello, I can’t flash like Lucien.” He plopped in front of the TV screen and turned on his favorite Xbox game. Naked mud wrestling. His color was high and the strain had vanished from his features. “What’s the meeting about this time? And FYI, I didn’t see any Hunters.”
“That’s because all you see are potential bedmates,” Aeron replied.
“And there’s a downside to that?” Paris asked, unperturbed.
“Stop arguing,” Lucien said. “We’ve got some business to take care of, and I don’t think anyone’s going to like what they hear.”
Maddox leaned back on the couch and scrubbed a hand down his face. Violence pounded through him, hot and dark. Hotter than usual. Darker than usual. Barely caged. It didn’t like being away from Ashlyn. The woman who had tried to lure him to bed. The woman he’d turned away. What kind of idiot turned away a woman such as her?
She’d wanted him, for gods’ sake.
He’d wanted her just as badly. Still wanted. Wanted her supple body wrapped around his, wanted her mouth on his. Or on his cock. He wasn’t picky. He wanted her cries of abandon in his ears, her sweet taste in his mouth.
He should have taken her when he’d had the chance. Instead, he’d deposited her in Lucien’s room after removing the barricade—overkill, if you asked him, when there was a perfectly good lock on the knob—and cleaned his own. Then he’d found himself summoned to the entertainment room where there was, apparently, nothing but more bad news to pass around.
“Tell them, Aeron,” Lucien said on a sigh.
Pause. Then, “I’ve felt the first stirrings of Wrath. Nothing drastic. Yet.” He propped himself against the far wall. He pounded a fist into the stone behind him as if to punctuate his admission. “It’s manageable, but I’m not sure how long that will last.”
“He can smell the humans now, and their scents won’t leave his nose,” Reyes said.
Maddox wondered at the fury in the man’s tone.
Paris paled. “Fuck. That was fast.”
“No one knows that better than me,” Aeron replied.
Maddox suppressed a growl. How much more would he and the others be forced to endure? He’d learned a bit ago that there were other Hunters out there, hiding in town. According to Aeron, they appeared even stronger and more capable than their predecessors.
Because of what Ashlyn had revealed about her ability, Maddox had to wonder if they were here for her, too. A woman whose job it was to listen for nonhuman creatures would be a valuable tool indeed. The very notion infuriated his demon, made them both want to torture, maim, kill.
“I’m not sure how much longer I can go without hurting them.” Aeron rubbed the back of his neck. “Already I see their bloody bodies in my mind and I like it.” There at the end, his voice cracked. A slight change, but there all the same.
“Does no one have an idea?” Reyes tossed his knife in the air, caught it and tossed it again. “Anything that might save them?”
Silence.
“Talking about it is pointless,” Torin finally said. “We’re only tormenting ourselves, trying to come up with a solution that isn’t there. We can’t approach the Titans; they’ll give us all another curse. We can’t set the women free and tell them to hide. Aeron will only be forced to follow them. So, I say let him do it.”
Reyes glared at him. “That’s a little callous even for you, Disease.”
What would he do if Aeron were ever ordered to kill Ashlyn? Maddox wondered. Cruel as he was learning these new gods were, he suspected they’d issue the command without hesitation. He leapt to his feet with a roar, smashing his fist into the wall.
All conversation stopped.
The act felt good, so he did it again. And again. His hands had yet to fully heal from his battle with Aeron, and this didn�
��t help. The spirit must truly feel bonded to Ashlyn, too, because even it wanted to kill something at the thought of losing her. Go get her. She’s ours. She belongs to us.
Almost always before, he and the spirit had disagreed. Man and beast, each against the other. To share a common desire was shocking. He punched the wall again and stone crumbled to the ground.
“The little woman isn’t calming us, I see,” Torin said with a short laugh.
Maddox turned away from him in time to catch Aeron exchange a loaded glance with Lucien. “What?” he snapped at them.
Lucien held up his hands, all innocence.
“Nothing,” Aeron said. “Just…nothing.”
“How many times do you have to be told? She’s Bait, man.” Reyes gave his dagger a final toss, end over end, and the tip embedded just above Maddox’s shoulder. “Surely you know that by now.”
“If you don’t, you’re a fool,” Aeron said, maintaining that conversational tone. “Maybe I’ll kill your precious Ashlyn when I kill the others, and break her spell over you once and for all.”
Just like that, the spirit erupted fully, washing over him, consuming him. No one threatens our woman. No one. Black spots winked over his vision, followed quickly by red.
“Ah, hell,” Lucien said. “Look at his face. You knew better, Aeron.”
Knocking over tables and kicking chairs, Maddox fought his way toward Aeron. He left a trail of destruction in his wake, even picked up the plasma screen and tossed it to the ground, shattering it.
“Hey,” Paris protested, as his game went silent. “I was winning.”
Only one word drifted through his mind: kill. Kill, kill, kill. Kill. Woe to anyone who was foolish enough to get in his way. When he reached Aeron, the man had already unsheathed two blades. Maddox didn’t bother with a weapon; he would flay the bastard with his bare hands. He wanted blood soaking his fingers, wanted bones scattered on the—Ashlyn’s face suddenly flashed through his mind.
Her head was thrown back, her golden hair wet and cascading down her back. Water droplets slid over her stomach and caught in her navel. Pleasure shuddered through her.
Lords of the Underworld Bundle Page 24
