Darkyn's Mate

"I'm serious about taking you to the underworld, if he hurts you," he reasserted. "Immortal Laws be damned. If I'd had the balls to …" he stopped.

She rested her temple on one knee, eyes on him. She smiled, touched by his concern. She almost told him that - of the two of them - she was the one with nothing to fear from Darkyn.

"It's scary to be with him," she admitted. "But … he doesn't mistreat me and there's potential for me to do good from Hell. I helped Rhyn already. We stopped Darkyn's demons from massacring the kids."

"He told me it was over," Gabriel said, gaze intent. "How did you convince Darkyn to stop?"

"I asked him."

Gabriel snorted. "You make it sound easy."

"Well, it was," she replied. "I don't understand his motivation."

"You were right yesterday about saying I wouldn't take a chance," he started. "I want to clear the air, though. There's more to the story than what you know."

"Gabe …" she said, sighing. She hoped he'd drop the subject, that they could start over.

"I have to." He took a deep breath. "I didn't take a chance on you for the reason you think. It had to do with the tumor. Wynn said your happiness made it grow. You were so close to the end, we couldn't take a chance. It had nothing to do with you or how I felt."

"Instead of making my last days happy, you decided to make me miserable in the hopes you could find a solution," she said.

"Pretty much," he replied. "I was going to Darkyn myself to make a deal to save you."

"Really?"

"You beat me to it."

Deidre was quiet for a moment. "I think we both did things imperfectly."

He chuckled.

"Up until today, I wasn't convinced that this might have been destiny from the beginning," she began. "This will sound weird, but bear with me. Hell has a library, and the librarian has been teaching me about the deities through these little video tutorial things."

"You've been sitting in Hell watching movies?" He smiled.

"It's like these books and when you open them, these movies spring up," she said, motioning with her hands. "I don't know how to explain it."

"It's called an Oracle. Hell has one, and Death does as well. The book houses the spirit of a dead Oracle from the time-before-time that records history, among other things."

"You mean it's possessed?"

"Yeah."

Deidre stared at him, surprised.

"Voluntarily. The Oracles wanted to be put in books," he explained. "Though saying it that way does sound strange."

"It's totally bizarre." She felt bad for the Oracle trapped in a book.