Darkness & Lies: A Brotherhood Novel (#1) (26 page)

Clasping her hands over her own mouth to stifle the scream inching up her throat, Cheyenne began backing out of the room. She’d rather be in the cell with the
flesh-eating 
rodents the
n
here, but
as she turned to run, she came
face-to-
face with the most horrifying sight her mind could have never thought
up.

With the face of a man, the body of a dragon, the creature had hooves for feet and scales for skin. His ears were tall and pointed and sheer black wings protruded from his back, flapping silently. He wore a sinister smile as he looked down on her.

“Hm, what have we here?”
He circled her, his long, snake-
like tail rubbing against her legs. Burying his face in her hair, he took a long breath
,
then licked his lips. “A h
u
man,” he mused. “Payne brought me a present? How ge
n
erous of him.”

Cheyenne flinched as his tongue licked up
her neck. “Tastes like chicken.” H
e laughed, bearing a row of serra
t
ed teeth.

And this time she did scream. She screamed for all she was worth, thrashing against his hold while he dragged her into his arms and sank his teeth into her neck.

Forced to relinquish her hold on him when her hu
s
band, the big bad, stormed into her bed chambers una
n
nounced, Behr was finally free to go after Erias and explain to him what had happened and try to make amends.

He found him in his room. He looked like shit. Sprawled out across the bed, he lay on his back
,
asleep. Empty bottles of beer, vodka, and rum surrounded the bed looking as if they had been tossed there after they’d been used up.

Kind of like how he treated his
females; Behr mused.

Careful to avoid stepping on any bottles, Behr nudged his
leg to try and rouse him. “Gah.” H
e scrunched his nose and buried his face in the crook of his elbow. “Damn
,
dude
,
you smell!”

Erias stirred a little, but ultimately, he didn’t wake up. Behr shoved at him
again, only
harder this time.

“Wha
—”
Erias grumbled, peeling his eyes open slightly. When he got a look at Behr, all signs of life came back to him. Pure hatred filled his eyes and without
notice,
he came off the bed in a fury, knocking Behr back ten feet and into a
wall.

“
You mother
fucker. I
am going to rip your balls off and shove them down your fucking throat!”

See
, Behr told himself.
I told
you that’s what would happen.
Quick to explain himself before Erias could make good on his promise, Behr bolted across the room, dodging his moves with his cat–like reflexes.

“I’m telling you
,
man, I fucked up
—”

“You sure as hell did, and now you’re going to pay,” Erias growled, taking a swipe at him with his scim
i
tar.

When the hell did he pick that up?

Behr held his hands up in surrender but pulled them back just as quickly as he ducked another swipe that would have taken both his fingers and his head.

“I’m here to make it up to you, E!” he yelled at him, leaping onto the bed and back down the other side.

“Then die.” Erias was seeing red. Every fiber of his being craved bloodshed. After being denied down at the bar earlier this…week? He had been plastering himself to the bed with liquor and every other form of alcohol he could conjure up just to keep him from taking some innocent fools’ life.

“Shit,
man, your eyes are red.” There weren’t many things that could make Behr scared. He had seen it
all, e
s
pecially
in his line of
work, but
when E’s eyes went red, that was a very bad thing.

The demon in him was craving blood and there was only one way to satisfy that particular monster. Kill som
e
thing.

Since he really preferred for that something not to be him, Behr tried for second best.

“I know where she
is,
man. I can get her back, but I need your help if I’m going to succeed.”

Erias bared his teeth and lunged for him again. This time his blade connected with the soft tissue of his sto
m
ach, slicing through his shirt and spilling blood. The sight of it only seemed to make him crazier.

Faster and more focused than ever, Erias came at him with a flurry of upward and downward strokes, slicing through the air so fast Behr could barely see the blade as it skimmed his arm, his head, his chest.

“Listen to me,” he pleaded. “Cheyenne is in Tar
t
a
rus.
Persephone is keeping her there. She needs
you,
man. If you want to save her, you need to calm yourself and li
s
ten.”

That seemed
to get his attention.

She needed him. That was what caught him. Erias’s head was swimming against a tidal wave of alcohol and blood lust, but he had heard her name and for the first time, the need to protect something greater than himself won out.

“Keep talking,” he growled.

Behr
fumbled
for
words. He’d had it all worked out. This huge speech that was supposed to wow him and smooth everything out. Save the friendship, save the girl. Save the cheerleader save the world. It was mad genius. But as he stood there looking at Erias’s rough appearance, both of them sweating and panting from exertion, the weight of what he had done to the man, how thoroughly that one act had torn him down to the shell that stood b
e
fore him, all humor flew out the window.

“I’m sorry. For everything. I was
weak,
and I couldn’t take being
alone, but
I
never should have done that to
you. I would do anything,
will
do anything, to fix this. You have to know that. Forgive me?”

“Put your money where your mouth is. If we get her out of this alive, then we’ll
talk, but
if she is in Tartarus as you say, then we are going to need a lot more than firepo
w
er and fast reflexes. What did you have in mind?” Erias asked.

Behr grinned. “Ever heard of the Helm of Dar
k
ness?”

Chapter 20

Erias and Behr’s plans to go after the Helm were put on hold when Kris and his team of henchmen burst through his door and started barraging him with accusations about Cheyenne’s whereabouts.

Erias looked up from the table where he and Behr were hunched over an old map of the local terrain that Behr had manifested
,
to see Kris cutting a hot path across the room.

Straightening himself and angered at the intrusion, he was prepared to give him a piece of his mind when Kris cocked his arm back and socked him square in the eye, pu
t
ting enough force behind it to jerk his head sideways.

Behr stood silently watching the scene unfold. This was some shit. A human bursting into E’s room uninvited and knocking his block off wasn’t something you
saw
ev
e
ry day. If he hadn’t been
immortal,
this would have been the time where he would have cut out to save his own hide. E
r
ias was one scary emeffer that even he knew better than to mess with. Well, with the exception of that one tiny mi
s
hap that led to his woman being carted off to a demonic
prison, but
to his credit, he was trying to fix that little situ
a
tion.

As it was, he was prepared to bust out the popcorn and take in the show.

Folding his arms over his chest, he stood there stu
d
ying Erias while he tried to collect himself. His face was red with
fury,
and his eyes were squeezed shut so tight they were practically nonexistent. His mouth was set in a thin, hard
line,
and his fists were clenched on top of the table to the point the knuckles were
turning
white.

Without warning, he slammed his closed fists down, making the table and everyone in the room, besides Behr because he wasn’t a pussy, jump a few feet into the air.

“What the fuck was that
for,
you little shit?” he be
l
lowed, raging so close to Kris’s face that he could feel the heat of his breath wash over his skin.

His insides were
shaking,
and he was seriously wondering what the hell had gotten into him. Was it too late for a do over? Because he was pretty
sure,
this was where his life was going to end. Well, at least there would be wi
t
nesses. Something Cheyenne wasn’t lucky enough to have. And that thought gave him the courage he needed to get back into Erias’s face and challenge him in return.

“You know damn good and well what that was
for,
you sick bastard,” he seethed. “We want to know where Cheyenne is. What did you do to her?”

A little bit of the anger he was feeling toward the little turd fizzled
out,
but he still wasn’t over the fact that he had dared to put his hands on
him. Again.
It wasn’t like Erias to allow anyone to get the better of him let alone live to tell about it. The fact that there were witnesses made his humiliation that much worse. If they had been alone when it
happened,
then there would have been no question how this would have ended up. Dismemberment
,
and him and Behr planning a little side trip to dispose of the evidence.

As it was, there were witnesses and killing them all could prove quite messy. He needed to maintain some an
o
nymity in at least one corner of the world.

“I see what is going on here,” he said
,
studying the group.

The men, Tim and Harold, stood directly behind Kris to lend quiet support. No doubt they would turn tail and run if they got a load of what he could give them. The annoying female
who
seemed to be more interested in wi
t
nessing a good throw down or painting her nails, stood off to the side with a goading smile painted on her overdone face. The remaining two women, Cathy and Hadley if he recalled correctly, were standing just inside the doorway, their faces drawn from worry.

He remembered the way Cheyenne seemed around them. How her face would light up during their convers
a
tions when they took their meals in the mess hall and how she seemed to gravitate to their company wherever the group went. It was plainly obvious that theirs was a close friendship.

They were the only thing that saved the lot of them from being burned to piles of ash where they stood.

“Just because she didn’t come moseying back to you with her tail between her legs
,
that somehow breaks down into me knowing where she is or having done som
e
thing to her?”

Kris was livid as Erias spoke to him in a simpering voice. He was such an egotist. Ignoring his jab about their rocky relationship as of late, he returned a hateful glare.

“You’re damn right. The way I see it, she was terr
i
fied of you. She tried to tell us all
that,
and we didn’t li
s
ten.” He looked back to his friends who all looked as co
n
trite as he felt.

He would never forgive himself if something bad had happened to
her, but
he couldn’t undo the past, the o
n
ly thing he could do now was try to make things right. And if that meant finding her body, he would do that and make sure she got home safely where she could be laid to rest with her family where she belonged.

He
refused to think about that just yet. There was still a good chance that she was roaming about, laying low and avoiding them all. That’s how she got sometimes. When life proved too overwhelming for
Cheyenne, there were times that
she would just take off for a while to get her mind straight.