The Dark-Hunters (475 page)

Once they realized Donnie was an escaped felon and Aidan did in fact live in the cabin and was the one who’d been attacked, they removed his handcuffs and let him get a cold towel to clean some of the blood off his face and shoulder.

“You sure you don’t want to go to the hospital?” one of the male officers asked.

Aidan shook his head as he watched them haul a semiconscious Donnie out of his living room. There was no helping what really hurt him. Only Leta could do that. “I’ll be all right.”

“You sure?”

For the first time in years, he actually was. “Yeah. That which doesn’t kill us—”

“Requires a lot of therapy to deal with.”

Aidan gave a small laugh as the police officer shrugged.

“Hey, in my business, it’s really true.” The officer suddenly looked awkward as he glanced at the mantel where Aidan kept his Oscars. It was a bashful stance Aidan knew extremely well.

“You want an autograph?”

The officer’s face brightened. “I didn’t want to ask with you bleeding and all, but my wife’s a really big fan of yours and this would score me some major points with her. If I could put that under the tree, I know it would make her Christmas.”

Aidan smiled even though it hurt his split lip. “Hang on.” He went into his office and pulled out a stack of publicity photos Mori had sent that he’d ignored and a Sharpie before he returned to the living room. “What’s her name?”

“Tammy.”

Another officer stepped forward. “Oh, man, can I have one too? I loved that movie
Alabaster.
You kicked major butt in it and the chick who was in it with you … Was she as hot in real life?”

“No, she was even better.”

The officer laughed.

Aidan hesitated as the old joy he used to feel came flooding back. He could still remember the first time someone had asked for his autograph all those years ago. The first time someone had stopped him on the street to tell him how much they loved his work. There was nothing else like it. No matter when or where, he loved to be stopped by his fans. To share a few minutes chatting with them.

Donnie and Heather had tainted it with their poison.
“Those people don’t care about you. They’re just hanger-ons wanting to touch something they’ll never be. God, I hate it whenever they come up to us. I can’t even eat a meal in peace. Why don’t you tell them to go away and leave us alone?”

But Aidan had never minded. Even when it got to the point he couldn’t drive on the street with his windows down or the times he had the press climbing into his backyard, he hadn’t minded it. He was glad he did something that other people enjoyed, and if talking to him made them happy … There was no greater feeling than knowing he’d touched their lives and brought a smile to their faces, even if it was only for a few minutes.

This was what he’d wanted since he was a kid. What he’d fought his ass off to achieve. He’d suffered through enough slings and arrows to make Shakespeare proud.

And he loved every minute of it.

He handed the signed photo for Tammy to the officer before he looked at the other one. “What’s your name?”

“Ricky … and can you make one out for my girlfriend, Tiffany? She’d just die if I came home with that. Oh, and my mom, Sara. She’s been a fan of yours since that weird horror movie you did. I loved that too, but it was a major mind scrambler.”

Aidan laughed at the man’s enthusiasm. “It’d be my pleasure.”

Before it was over, Aidan signed a total of twenty photos for the police and paramedics. Donnie was screaming in outrage from the ambulance, but no one cared.

“You have a Merry Christmas,” Ricky said as he trailed the others out of Aidan’s cabin. He hesitated at the splintered door. “You probably need to call someone to fix this. I don’t think you should be up here without a good door, given what happened today.”

“Thanks. I’ll take care of it.”

Ricky held his hand out. “You’re a decent man, Mr. O’Conner. Thanks so much for the autographs.”

“My pleasure, and call me Aidan.”

Ricky grinned. “Aidan. It was a pleasure meeting you. I just wish the circumstances were better.”

“Yeah, me too. You have a good Christmas and tell your mom and Tiffany I said hi.”

“Will do. Thanks.”

Aidan followed him out to the porch where he watched Ricky walk out to his car before all of them drove off. He could still hear Donnie’s muffled voice cursing him as they pulled onto the road. Pity welled up inside him, but then again, maybe it was a good thing Donnie was still being eaten with hatred. One day Donnie would realize exactly what his jealousy had cost him—that in trying to ruin Aidan, he’d destroyed his entire life.

God help his brother then.

The pain of Donnie’s betrayal rolled off his shoulders now. He really didn’t care. “I am the last man standing.”

The problem was, he was standing alone and for the first time in years that bothered him.

Closing his eyes, he felt the bite of the cold against him as he summoned an image of Leta in his mind. “I miss you, baby.” But there was nothing to be done about it.

Life was what it was.

Defeated, he turned to enter his house and saw that his door had been replaced. “Leta?” he asked with a hopeful note in his voice.

It wasn’t her. Deimos was standing inside the living room, watching him.

Aidan couldn’t understand his presence. “I thought you were playing chess.”

“I was going to, but…” He hesitated as if there were something on his mind.

“But?” Aidan prompted.

Deimos indicated the door with a tilt of his head. “I remembered you had a broken door.”

“Thanks for repairing it.”

“No problem.”

Aidan paused, waiting for Deimos to speak or do something. When he didn’t, Aidan arched a brow. “Is there something I can help you with?”

“Not really. It’s more along the lines of something I can help you with.”

Now he had Aidan’s full attention. “And that is?”

Deimos’s gaze bored into him. “What would you give to have Leta with you?”

Aidan didn’t hesitate. “Everything.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.” Suddenly, everything went black. Aidan jerked around, trying to get his bearings, but he couldn’t see, feel, or hear anything. It was just dark. “Leta?”

This time she didn’t respond. There was no kind hand to ground him. No words of encouragement and he missed that even more.

When the light returned, he saw himself as a kid near a Christmas tree. He was eleven and at his uncle’s house. Aidan frowned as he tried to remember the exact event, but he couldn’t. He only remembered the setting.

“What did you get?” Donnie asked as he came over to where Aidan was playing.

Aidan held up his action figure. “G.I. Joe and some candy.”

Donnie curled his lip. “That’s not fair. I wanted a G.I. Joe.”

Aidan was baffled by his anger. “No you didn’t. You said you wanted Optimus Prime and Grimlock, which you got.”

Donnie reached for the toy in Aidan’s hand and snatched it away.

“Give that back!”

Donnie refused, and when Aidan tried even harder, he punched him with everything he had. Aidan shouted in fury which woke his uncle up from the nap he was taking on the plaid couch a few feet away from them.

Two seconds later, with insults ringing in their ears, all the toys were in the garbage and both of them were grounded. Not to mention bruised from their uncle’s anger.

“It’s all your fault,” Donnie snarled, shoving Aidan up the stairs as they headed to the room the two of them shared.

“I didn’t take your toys, you took mine.”

Donnie curled his lip. “That’s because you need to learn to share. You’re such a selfish scumbag. I hate you. I wish you’d died with Mom and Dad.”

Aidan froze at the hostility on his brother’s face as Donnie trudged past him. His heart heavy, he reversed course and returned to the living room. He sneaked around the corner, afraid of being caught. Luckily his uncle was back on the couch again, passed out from his Christmas drinking binge.

As quietly as he could, Aidan crept to the garbage can and pulled the toys out. Then just as silently, he made his way back upstairs where he handed the toys to Donnie.

“You can have them,” he said, not wanting his brother to hate him anymore.

Donnie smiled.

But even though Aidan had won his brother back, there was no satisfaction in it. He merely felt relieved that Donnie didn’t hate him …

The adult Aidan watched the scene as he finally remembered every buried emotion of that Christmas Day. He’d forgotten it all. Now every bit of it was clear to him. And he remembered other times when Donnie had acted that way. All the times he’d tried to placate him because Donnie didn’t want him to have anything.

The entire world was supposed to be Donnie’s.

Then the scene shifted and he saw his agent Mori at home with his latest wife. Tall, dark-haired, young, and beautiful, Shirley sat on the couch while Mori sat across from her in a brown leather chair.

“Why are you so unhappy?” she asked quietly.

Mori offered her an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry. I was just thinking about Aidan again.”

She rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe he’d walk away from that kind of money.”

Mori’s gaze turned introspective as he cupped his glass of brandy. His expression said that he found it more than plausible. “Money doesn’t buy happiness.”

She scoffed. “Anyone who says that isn’t shopping in the right stores.”

Mori didn’t comment on that. “I hate what’s become of him. He is without a doubt one of the finest actors of his generation. I just wish there was something I could do for him.”

“You sent him a ham.”

Mori cut her a bored look. “Not for a present. When I first met him, he was so full of life and laughter. When other actors got jaded by their fame, he didn’t. He always enjoyed it. Even the parts of it that made lesser actors crumble and fall. Now … now he’s a soured recluse. If I had one single wish for Christmas, it would be to see him happy again.”

Aidan was amazed by the fact that Mori wasn’t as cold-blooded as he pretended. Wow. His agent had been keeping quite a secret from him. There really was a heart buried under all that swagger.

But that didn’t change anything. He looked up at the darkness. “Is this supposed to mean something to me?”

His answer came as the scene blanked out again and reemerged, not in his future as he expected, but rather in a place he’d never seen before.

It appeared to be a dark cavern with walls that were bleeding …

Faint screams and moans echoed as he walked toward a large opening, and when he reached it, he froze. There was Leta in a long, flowing white gown, standing before two angry men who glared at her while a third man in white stood to her left.

“You would ask me for mercy for her?” the tall blond man sneered at the man in white. “Do you understand what she has done?”

“Yes, Zeus. I do. But what she did, she did to protect an innocent human.”

Zeus sneered at the answer. “None of them are innocent. What’s the death of one more human in this world?”

Leta started to answer, but the man beside her stopped her by putting his hand on her arm.

When he spoke, his voice was devoid of all emotion. “She was assigned the human by me and she carried out her assignment to the end. It was Dolor who—”

“Don’t you dare defend her,” Zeus snarled. “Because of his death, we have a rupture in the universe. Have you any idea what could have happened? The world could have ended.”

“But it didn’t.”

Zeus blasted him.

“M’Adoc!” Leta said, rushing to where he lay on the ground.

Zeus cocked his head at that. “Are those emotions I hear from you?”

Aidan saw the panic in Leta’s eyes but since her back was to Zeus, he was sure the god hadn’t noticed it.

Instead a strange look passed between M’Adoc and the dark-haired god standing beside Zeus.

“They have no emotions, brother,” the dark-haired man said. “She spent time with the humans and these are the residual effects.”

Zeus’s gaze narrowed dangerously as M’Adoc pushed himself back to his feet. “Are you defending them, Hades?”

Hades shrugged. “Not really. If you want me to punish her I will. It’s what I live for.”

Aidan frowned at the underlying sarcastic tone of the god’s voice.

Zeus nodded. “Very well. Kill her.”

“No!” Aidan lunged forward only to run into an invisible wall.

The gods turned as if they could hear him.

Aidan slammed his hand against the wall. “Don’t you dare touch her!”

He realized that they could in fact hear him as Zeus came forward to stare at him as if he were an insect in a jar. “Have you any idea who I am?”

“I don’t care. Leta did nothing wrong and I won’t see her hurt for me.”

“Nothing wrong?” Zeus asked, his nostrils flaring. “You stupid human. She could have destroyed the entire universe with her actions. The only thing that saved us was the fact that Dolor was in stasis and his powers restricted. Had he not been … We’ll take a moment and be damn grateful for small favors.”

Even though a small voice in Aidan’s head told him not to argue with an ancient god, he couldn’t stop himself. “She’s not the one who killed Dolor. I did it.”

Leta gasped at his words. “Aidan—”

“It’s true,” he said, cutting her off before she contradicted him. “I killed him. So if you’re going to punish anyone, it should be me.”

Zeus considered it.

“Ignore him, my lord,” Leta said quickly. “He’s noble but foolish. I was the one who ignored your mandate to leave Dolor alone. I killed him here while he slept in stasis—against your will. Because of that I’m the one who should be punished.”

Zeus stiffened as if something offended him. “Are those emotions I hear in your voice? Have you feelings for this human?”

Leta shook her head. “No, my lord. It’s only cold, hard logic.”

Her words tore through Aidan, who couldn’t bear the thought of her being false with him. “Leta?”

Her gaze was empty as she met his. “How could I ever have feelings for a human when I’m incapable of them?”

Zeus turned speculative. “So if I killed the human, you wouldn’t care?”