The Darkest Pleasure Read Free

Reyes was not ready to end his permanently.
    “Tell me where he is,” Lucien said, “and I’ll bring him to the fortress. I’ll bolt him inside the dungeon.”
    Reyes snorted. “He escaped once. He could escape again. Even from Maddox’s chains, I’m thinking. His bloodlust giveshim a strength I’ve never encountered before. Better he stay where he is.”
    “He’s your friend. He’s one of us.”
    “He’s warped now, and you know it. Most of the time, he is not aware of his own actions. He would kill you if given the chance.”
    “Reyes—”
    “He’ll destroy her, Lucien.”
    Her. Danika Ford. The girl. Reyes had seen her only a few times, talked to her even less, but still, he craved her with every ounce of his being. Something he didn’t understand. He was dark, she was light. He was anguish, she was innocence. He was wrong for her in every way, and yet, when she looked at him, his entire world felt right.
    He knew beyond any doubt that the next time Aeron reached her, the warrior would savagely murder her. There would be no stopping him. Not again. Aeron had been ordered to kill Danika—and her mother and her sister and her grandmother—and was as helpless against the gods and their powers as everyone else. He would do it.
    Reyes’s temper flared and he had to glance at the rocks below to calm himself. Aeron had resisted the gods’ dark task at first. He was—No. He had been a good man. But with every day that had passed, his demon had grown stronger, louder inside his head, until finally it overtook his mind. Now Aeron was the demon inside him. He was Wrath. He obeyed. He slew. Until those four women were destroyed, he would live only to hunt and kill.
    Except, inside Danika’s temporary apartment those fourteen days, four hours and fifty-six minutes ago, there had been a small part of Aeron that had known the crimes he committed. A small part that hated who and what he had become and desired death above all things. Desired an end to the torment. Why else would Aeron have asked Reyes to kill him?
    And I refused him. Reyes couldn’t bring himself to hurt another warrior. Not again. Still. What kind of monster left his friend to suffer? A friend who had fought for him, killed for him? Loved him?
    There had to be a way to save both Aeron and Danika, he thought for what, the thousandth time? He’d spent countless hours pondering, but still did not see a solution.
    “Do you know where the girl is?” Lucien demanded, cutting into his musings.
    “No, I do not.” Truth. “Aeron found her, I found Aeron, and that’s when we fought. She ran. I didn’t follow her afterward. She could be anywhere by now.” Best that way. He knew it, but he was still desperate to know her location, what she was doing…if she lived.
    “Lucien, man, what’s taking so damn long?”
    At the second intrusion, Reyes finally turned. Paris, keeper of Promiscuity, now stood beside Lucien. Both men were facing him, eyes narrowed. Beams of crimson moonlight fell around them but not on them, as if those colored rays were afraid to touch the evil that even hell itself had been unable to contain.
    Immortal that he was, Reyes saw them clearly, gaze cutting expertly through the darkness.
    Paris was tall, the tallest of the group, with multicolored hair, pale otherworldly skin and eyes so pure a blue not even the most fanciful poetry would do them justice. Human women found him mesmerizing, irresistible, constantly throwing themselves at him and begging for a single touch. A heated kiss.
    Lucien, though mated now, was not so lucky. Human women stayed far away from him. His face was hideously scarred, grotesque even, giving him the appearance of a bedtime monster found only in fairy tales. Didn’t help that he had mismatched eyes—a brown one that saw the natural world and a blue one that saw the spiritual world—and both promised death would soon come knocking.
    Both men were corded with the kind of muscle mass only hours of