The Darkest Touch

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.