The Darkest Lie

Suddenly, the writhing, moaning girl became a man. A human.

Galen stopped pounding. Even yelped and jumped away, wings shuddering with the movement.

Scarlet laughed. Oh, this was going to be fun. “More.”

The bathroom was replaced by a long, dark tunnel, and the human disappeared. Galen spun, wild gaze searching his new surroundings, the tips of those wings grazing the walls and scratching.

“What’s going on?” he rasped. “Where am I?”

His words echoed, but that was it, the only sound. Desperate for answers, he kicked into gear, racing forward. The tunnel stretched forever, no end in sight. His panic doubled, tripled, hot breath rasping from him and sweat pouring from his body.

Delicious. Nightmares laughed. Tastes so good.

“More,” she said again.

Do you want the honors?

Sharing was caring, she thought. “Yes. Please.”

Lead him to the edge, and I’ll show him what might one day happen to him. Oh, his fear…none of the others will compare.

Scarlet allowed herself to materialize, though she didn’t show the formidable warrior what she truly looked like. The image she projected was one of a little girl she’d met inside Tartarus. For the single day the child had been allowed inside a cell. A little girl named Fate.

Everyone had been frightened of her, because everything Fate had spoken had come true. Everything. That’s why the Greeks had so quickly put her to death, the poor thing.

But for that one day, she had been Scarlet’s friend.

“If you believe what you see, you’ll lose your husband,” Fate had told her during their only conversation.

Of course Scarlet had believed what she’d seen—Gideon’s absence—so of course Scarlet had lost him.

Many, many years had passed. Perhaps Galen would recognize Fate, perhaps not.

Either way…let the games begin.

As Fate, Scarlet wore a robe streaked with dirt, had big blue eyes, so innocent, and a mouth forever dipped in sadness. Red hair hung in tangles all the way to her ankles.

She appeared a few feet in front of him. “Come,” she said gently, and held out her small, mud-caked hand. “You must see what awaits you.”

He tripped over his own feet but stopped before he hit her, still panting, still sweating. “Who are you?”

As forgetful as Gideon, then. But sometimes ignorance served her best. What people imagined was often far worse than anything she could tell them.

“Come,” she repeated. “You must see.”

“I—Yes. All right.” Galen shakily placed his palm against hers.

Down the corridor she ushered him, Nightmares practically jumping around in her head. Finally, because she willed it, a light appeared, and the significance of that light was not lost on him. Once again, his fear spiked.

He even tried to pull away from her, but she tightened her grip, stronger than she appeared. “You must see,” she told him. “You must know.”

They reached the light, which just happened to be a cliff ledge that overlooked a battlefield. On that battlefield was man after man, woman after woman, an ocean of death and destruction, for each body was bloody, motionless. And on each of their wrists was a tattoo of infinity. The mark of the Hunter.

There, in the center, was Galen. He was still standing, though he, too, was bloody and wounded. His white-feathered wings were outstretched but clearly broken. His strength was drained, his knocking knees threatening to give out.

“No. No!” Beside her, a shaking dream Galen did drop to his knees, dust pluming around him.

On the battlefield, Gideon strode toward him, as menacing as ever. His blue hair danced around his face in the strong wind, and his piercings gleamed in the sunlight. There was a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth where his lip ring had been ripped out. In one hand, he gripped a long, sharp sword. In the other, he clutched a gun.

Laughing, he pointed the latter at Galen and fired. The leader of the Hunters flew backward, landing on his ass, unable to rise as Gideon continued to bear down on him.

“No!” the Galen beside her shouted again. “Stand up. Fight him! I didn’t survive that demon girl’s poisonous bite only to die at the hands of my enemy.”

He didn’t, allowing Gideon to raise his sword and strike. Galen’s head detached, leaving his body behind.

“No! No!” Sky-blue eyes found her, a well of despair. His face was pale, the blue veins underneath his skin arrestingly evident. “Tell me I can change this. Tell me this isn’t my fate.”

“You wish me to lie?” she said in that sweet little-girl voice.

His hands fisted at his sides, useless weapons against what awaited him. “Why did you show me this, then? Why?”

“Because—”

Scarlet came awake with a jolt, sitting up, panting as Galen had done in the dream realm. Damn it. She hadn’t finished with him, but her time there had ended. And there would be no going back for twelve hours.

At least Nightmares was satisfied. The demon had fed on Galen’s terror, terror so much more intense than what humans experienced, and now retreated to the back of her mind.

“Not good. You’re asleep.”

Gideon.

His voice floated over her, into her, burning her up. With anger, with lust. Goodbye fun dream world, hello hated reality.

“Where are we?” she demanded, studying her new surroundings. She’d fallen asleep in his presence—again—and he’d clearly taken full advantage of the situation.

“Someplace shitty.”

Rather than a hotel room, she found herself in a forest, the sun setting in a violet sky. She rested atop a cool bed of moss, and there was a natural, bubbling spring beside her. She still wore the dress he’d given her, but at least he’d removed the cuffs.

Before she’d jacked up the music in the car, he’d tried to ask her what she found most romantic. She hadn’t replied, so he’d obviously taken a guess. And to her consternation, the bastard had guessed correctly. This was amazing. Night birds were chirping, the scent of wildflowers saturated the air and Gideon was gloriously bathed in that violet-tinted light.

Right now, he was sitting in front of her, only a few inches away, leaning against a tree trunk. A lock of hair had fallen onto his forehead, and just as before, she had to curb the urge to brush the strands back in place. His baby blues were all over her, perusing, lingering, savoring. Trying to remember?

His hands were fisted on his lap. Was he trying to stop himself from reaching for her?

Gods help her, but she knew exactly what this man could do to her body. With his hands, his tongue. He could have her writhing, begging, in seconds.

Fight his appeal. “You might as well let me go.” Or you yourself could, I don’t know, finally ditch him. “You’re not going to find any pleasure with me.”