The Darkest Touch

“Oh,” she said again. She fell on the bed, bouncing.

So badly did he want to take her into his arms. He couldn’t do it, but he could take care of her in other ways. “It’s been too long since you’ve eaten,” he said. “Stay here.” He paused, adding, “Please. Please, don’t leave me, and please don’t put me in the Time Out box. Get comfortable. I’ll be right back and I’ll wear my favorite hoodie and we’ll cuddle.”

She gave him a dazed nod.

He hurried to the kitchen where he swiftly prepared a feast of fruits, raisins—gross!—nuts and breads. The only thing missing were bugs. He refused to hunt creepy crawlers...unless she asked. He had a feeling he would do anything she asked.

What is that girl doing to me?

He added candy and flowers to the tray and returned to the room, as promised. She hadn’t left, hadn’t moved an inch.

“Thank you,” she said softly, sniffing one of the flowers.

He sat beside her. “So...Galen, huh?” he asked, smoothing a lock of hair from her brow.

She chewed a raisin, nodded. What a change in their relationship. She no longer eschewed the food he provided but trusted him enough to eat. Sweet moments like this made all the dark ones worth it.

“He’s a liar, a betrayer. You know that, right?”

“Wrong. He was. People change.”

Rarely. “If he’s using you to get to us—”

She tossed a raisin at him, and he made her laugh when he acted like she’d lobbed a bomb.

“I’m likable, you know,” she said. “My association with Galen has nothing to do with you.”

“You are likable, that’s for sure.” And lickable. And, clearly, his mouth needed a distraction; he tossed in a grape. The juice was sweet—but not nearly as sweet as his Keeley. “Just...be careful with him, all right? I trusted him, too, and he—”

Torin blinked. Keeley and the bedroom had vanished, a wealth of blackness suddenly surrounding him.

Confusion hit him. He blinked a second time and new surroundings appeared. One with metal bars. Lots and lots of bars. They were above him and beside him. Behind him and beneath him.

He was trapped inside a cell. It was different from the one he’d shared with Mari, smaller, and wasn’t inside a dungeon. It was out in the open, in the center of mile after mile of dirt. Underground?

What. The. Hell?

* * *

KEELEY JUMPED TO her feet. “Torin?” He couldn’t flash and yet he’d been with her one second, gone the next. “Torin!”

“I did not poison the girl Cameo.”

At the sound of Hades’s voice, black rage overwhelmed her, and the walls of the fortress shook. He had taken Torin from her—he would pay!

“It was Lucifer,” he continued. “We are at war. Knowing him, he planned to come to you, tell you he’d rescue Cameo from my clutches if only you’d join him in the fight against me.”

“Of course it was Lucifer,” she mocked. “Always blame the other bad guy.”

Hades leaned against the door, his arms crossed over his chest.

“What did you do with Torin?” she asked.

He snapped his teeth at her. “You should be nicer to me, pet. I hold his fate in my hands.”

“Return him. Unharmed.”

Ignoring her, he said, “I brought you a gift.”

The walls shook more intensely. Steady. “Oh, goody,” she replied dryly. “Something else for me to return to sender.”

“This you’ll want, I promise you.”

“All I want is Torin. And if you dare tell me your gift is your penis, I will shove another dagger between your ribs.”

His pearly whites flashed in an unrepentant grin. “Do you want my penis? Because all you have to do is ask, and I will give it to you. Over and over again.”

Men! “Torin. Now.”

His smile did not dim. “One day you’ll change your mind about me.”

Not likely. “Return Torin.”

“Return the competition? Not wise. And I am a very wise man.”

“Your presence here proves just how wrong that statement is. You lied to me, used me, tricked me, humiliated me, destroyed me and stole centuries of my life. I will never want you again.”

“Give me a reason to free him, then.”

“I just gave you six. But here are a few more. Because you owe me. Because he’s done nothing to you. Because he makes me happy, and I deserve a little happiness. Just because! Take your pick.”

A flicker of pain in his dark eyes—an emotion she’d never before seen from him. A trick, surely.

Can’t soften.

“Keeley,” he said on a sigh. He scrubbed a hand down his face. “I truly regret what I did to you.”

“You think that’s good enough? That it erases centuries of agony? Clears your ledger of crimes?” She flew to him and slapped him. Hard. Then, because it had felt so good, she slapped him again. “Return Torin.”

Hades could have stopped her, but he didn’t. He took it.

She slapped him again. “Return Torin!” Again. “I mean it.”

As she raised her hand to deliver a fifth strike, Hades flashed to the table beside the bed and placed two metal armbands on top. Both were gold, the head of a snake at one end, its tail at the other. A pair of serpentine wreaths. “For you to use however you see fit.”

“And what payment do you expect?”