The Dark-Hunters (631 page)

“Your new commander.”

Zeth snorted. “Got one. Don’t need another, so piss-off.”

“Too late.” Jericho looked around to get an idea of how many Skoti were in the room. It appeared to be several hundred and none looked to be sober. “Are all of your soldiers here?”

Zeth leaned his head back so that one of the women could suckle his neck. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

Jericho pulled the woman off of Zeth, then grabbed him by his shirt and hauled him to his feet. “Focus, asshole. What is wrong with you?”

Zeth’s head lolled back. “I can’t focus. There’s too much sensory overload.” Zeth laughed as he patted Jericho on the shoulder. “You need to get laid.”

Jericho had to force himself not to slap some sense into the man. But it was hard to maintain his control. “You need to sober up. How can you fight the Oneroi like this?”

“We don’t need to fight them. We convert them.”

Disgusted, Jericho let go of him and Zeth sank back to the couch. Without a word, Zeth rolled over on top of the other female while the first one draped herself across his back so that they could resume necking.

Ridiculous.

“Asmodeus!” Jericho called, summoning the demon again.

He appeared instantly. “You rang, Minor Master?”

“I’m looking for a god called Deimos. Is he here?”

Asmodeus screwed his face up before he answered. “Define
here.
”

“Asmodeus!”

“Okay, fine, don’t yell at me. I don’t like being yelled at. He’s not here in this room, obviously, but he is in the realm, if you know what I mean.”

“Take me to him.”

Asmodeus looked around sheepishly. “Am I supposed to do that?”

“If you don’t, you’re going to have something a lot more painful than your wings pulled off.”

He gaped and then cupped himself. “You’re a mean, mean man.”

Jericho had no intention of doing that to him, but he wasn’t about to let the demon know that. “And you’re about to be in pain.”

“Fine. I’ll take you. But if O Great Evil One comes around, I’m blaming you immediately. This is not my heat. Not my bad. I won’t own it, not even for a friend. You’re on your own, bud.”

This time Asmodeus didn’t walk. He touched Jericho’s arm and transported them into a dark, iridescent pit. An unbearable stench permeated the place, as did moans and pleas for final death. Noir would definitely call it homey, but Jericho, in spite of his desire for vengeance, couldn’t call it anything other than hell.

“Where are we?”

Asmodeus created a ball of light in his hand so that they could see the ravaged bodies that were chained and bleeding everywhere. “Noir’s happy place. It’s where he brings the beings he wants to play with.”

“Punish.”

“You say to-may-to, I say to-mah-to. Would you like to see Deimos now?”

Jericho tried not to commiserate with the poor souls trapped in this dismal place. “That’s why we’re here.”

Asmodeus pointed behind him. “He’s the fifth victim on the wall. I think. Kind of hard to tell, really. Once they’ve been beaten enough their features start contorting and swelling, then figuring out who’s who is a bitch. But he had blond streaks in his hair when they brought him in. If the blood hasn’t matted it too badly, that might help you find him.”

Jericho gave him a disgusted look before he started making his way over to the people who were hanging by chains along the wall. Asmodeus was right. He couldn’t tell who they were and that honestly sickened him.

Enemies or not, these were people. And they had been tortured to the brink of death. Having suffered enough abuse to last out eternity, he hated to see them in the same shape he’d been reduced to on countless occasions.

As he reached the fifth one, he saw the blond streaks through the dark hair. Deimos hung as if he were dead. His swollen eyes were closed, his head resting against his bruised arm. Black stylized tattoos zigzagged from his forehead down his face to his chin. His clothes were torn and bloody. In between the tears in the fabric, Jericho could see the deep gashes and wounds.

Noir must have had an excellent time with the Dolophonos who currently bore little resemblance to his twin, Phobos.

The moment Jericho stopped in front of him, Deimos opened his eyes and lunged at him, ready to fight in spite of his pathetic state.

Jericho stepped back and almost hit him out of reflex.

Their gazes met and locked. Deimos’s snarl faded as he recognized him. “Cratus?”

He inclined his head.

“What are you doing here?” His gaze went down Jericho’s undamaged body before he cursed. “Traitor!”

His condemnation set Jericho’s fury to boiling. How dare this bastard look at him like that. “Betrayed.”

“Fuck you!”

Jericho curled his lip. “Now you know how I felt, brother. Remember the day you turned with them against me?”

“How could you?”

That was laughable. “That’s the same question that has haunted me since I looked at you while Zeus held me on the ground and you looked at the floor at your feet.” Jericho grabbed Deimos’s head and made him meet his gaze. “You held me down while my mother burned her words into my flesh. I can still feel the pain of your arm wrapped around my throat.”

“You earned your punishment.”

Jericho struggled not to strike out at him and add to his pain. How could Deimos not apologize even now for what he’d done? They had been friends before that. It was why he had no pity for any of them. They had none for him.

Screw them all.

“And you’ve earned yours,” he said pitilessly. “Son of the Furies. How many people have you tortured throughout the centuries for your mother and Zeus? It sucks to be you now, huh?”

Deimos tried to head-butt him, but Jericho moved away. “Noir is going to kill us.”

“I’ll make sure you have a nice requiem.”

Deimos shook his head. “So that’s it, then? You have no remorse?”

Jericho held his arms out and shrugged nonchalantly. “We are the products of our past. But if it makes you feel any better, I do feel sorry for you.”

Deimos sneered. “You’ll feel even sorrier when you’re hanging on this wall, too. Don’t think for one minute Noir won’t do this to you. He’s the god who invented betrayal, and I’m sure he already has a space here with your name engraved on it.”

Jericho laughed at his warning. “Oh, brother, you all have taught me well. I will
never
put myself in that position again. Believe me. I learned my lesson at the hands of the Dolophoni you command. I have no intention of giving Noir any reason to turn on me. I am his to command. Forever.”

“Jericho?”

Shocked that someone in this hole knew his adopted name, Jericho looked to his right at the next prisoner hanging on the wall. Like Deimos, he’d been badly beaten. His dark hair hung around a face distorted by swollen lips and a black eye so severe the entire whites of that eye were red from busted blood vessels.

It took him a full minute to recognize him. It was those eyes that gave him away. One dark brown and one a bright green …

Jaden.

Jaden was the one the demons summoned whenever they wanted to barter with Noir or Azura for favors. Jericho had known Jaden lived here with them, but he would have thought the broker would have a lush place to call his own, not be caged with the rest of their victims.

Stunned, Jericho released Deimos and stepped back. “What are you doing here?”

Jaden laughed bitterly. “Do my accommodations offend you? I’ve grown quite used to them. Though a view of something other than mangled bodies might be nice for a change.”

Jericho scowled. “You serve the Source. You’re one of them.”

Jaden shook his head. “I serve Noir and Azura. Word to the wise, don’t ever displease them. For some reason, I can’t seem to stop myself. I guess old habits die hard.” He looked down at his torn and bleeding body that was barely covered by shredded clothes. “As do I. But don’t worry. I’m sure they’ll be kinder to you than they’ve been to me. I held their enmity long before I came here, which is part of the reason they love to gut me every chance they get.”

He looked past Jericho to see Asmodeus hiding in the shadows. The light from his hand was muffled and faint. Jaden called out to him. “Mo, long time no see.”

“Yeah, you looked better last time, too. I told you not to piss off Noir. One day you’re going to listen to me.”

“Why start now?” Jaden asked.

Asmodeus nodded. “Ah, you’re right. Bled so much now, it doesn’t really matter, does it?”

Deimos curled his lip. “You all sicken me.” He jerked at his chains as if trying to break them.

Jaden ignored him as he pinned those mismatched eyes on Jericho. “By the way, your infant lived.”

Jericho had no idea what the man was talking about. He didn’t have a baby. “What?”

“The child you saved all those centuries ago. I just wanted you to know that you never suffered in vain. The baby lived and grew up healthy.”

Bully for the brat. “Do you think I care?”

Jaden shrugged. “You gave up your godhood for her. I thought you might.”

Jericho’s frown deepened. “Her?” Unbelievably enough, he hadn’t bothered to check the infant’s gender before he handed it over. It hadn’t mattered to him back then. All he’d seen was the baby’s smile and its warm eyes.

Jaden nodded. “The Oneroi Delphine is the baby you saved.”

Jericho was floored by the news. The air left his body as those words seared him. He shook his head in disbelief.

It couldn’t be.

“You know it’s true,” Jaden said, his voice deep and sure. “The moment you saw her, you recognized how much she looked like her mother.”

Still, he refused to believe it. What were the odds? “You’re lying to me.”

“Why would I?”

“Everyone lies.”

“I don’t.”

Jericho winced as he felt even more betrayed by this. And yet as he considered it, he knew Jaden wasn’t lying. Somehow he’d known it instinctively.

He’d saved Delphine.…

The woman waiting in his room was the same person he’d given all but his life for.

Fury tore through him. Oh, this was rich irony.

And she owed him a debt he more than intended to collect on. Before this day was over, he was going to get satisfaction from her hide.

CHAPTER 5

His fury riding him hard, Jericho stormed back into his room. Then fell instantly still as he found Delphine asleep on his bed, beneath his blood cloak. Her features pale, her blond hair cascaded around her in a soft, tangled mess that made his hand itch to touch it.

She had the faintest of snores that strangely teased his ears and warmed him.

So instead of yelling at her for something that wasn’t her fault, he crossed the room to kneel beside her. It was hard to reconcile her with that sweet, happy baby who had wrapped its little fingers around his and held on so tight that it touched him when nothing ever had before.

Now he knew why her eyes had given him pause.

They had touched him then as they touched him now. But why? What was it about her that quieted him? Who in his right mind would destroy his entire life and future to save a stranger?

Granted, he’d known her mother, but not well. They had been passing strangers, really. He’d known Leta’s name. That she was a dream god. But honestly, he’d never cared beyond that. Since Leta had never upset Zeus and hadn’t run in the same circles he had, there had been no reason for them to be friendly.

Yet that one night when their worlds had violently collided, they had both lost everything.

Zeus, furious over a dream one of the Oneroi had given him, had demanded all the dream gods be rounded up for punishment. Those like Leta, who were married to humans, were to have their spouses and any progeny they’d produced killed. Zeus had wanted no one to survive who could ever harm him again.

Then the Oneroi had been tortured and stripped of their emotions for eternity. Zeus figured if they had no emotions, they wouldn’t feel compelled for whatever reason to play in anyone’s dreams again.

What he hadn’t realized was that in dreams, they’d be able to channel the sleeper’s emotions. So much so that some of the Oneroi would become addicted to it, since it was the only way they could feel anything but emptiness.

So the Skoti had been born. Then it became the job of the Oneroi to police or kill their brethren so that none of them would suffer again under Zeus’s command.

A part of that vicious cycle, Jericho had harmed Leta even worse than the Dolophoni and Oneroi had harmed him. They had only killed him. He had taken what Leta loved most.

Her husband and daughter.

Leta’s desperate screams still echoed in his memories. She had screamed herself hoarse and he couldn’t blame her for it. Not given what they’d taken from her.

Maybe the past centuries were justified after all. What they’d done to her had been inexcusable. The least he could have done was let her know that he’d saved her daughter. But everything had happened so fast, there hadn’t been enough time. Not to mention had anyone known what he’d done, they would have killed Delphine instantly.

Yet here she was … alive. Because he’d hidden her and had never breathed a word of it.

Jaden was right. His suffering hadn’t been in vain. She was grown and beautiful.

Placing his hand to Delphine’s warm cheek, he cocked his head to study her resting features. She was so similar to her mother. Yet so different. The blond hair made her features softer. Inviting.

His heartbeat raced at the softness of her skin under the pads of his fingertips. He hadn’t really touched a woman in countless centuries.

He ran his hand from her cheek to her hair. A part of him wanted to kiss her so badly that he wasn’t even sure how he kept from doing it. Perhaps because she was asleep and he didn’t want to violate the peace she seemed to have found.

Was she dreaming?

What did Oneroi dream of? His dreams used to be of battle. To his knowledge, he’d never had peace in the dream realm. As an immortal god, he’d been violent and cruel. His dreams had reflected his reality.

As a man, he hadn’t dreamed at all since he’d spent the nights as a corpse. No, that wasn’t true, he’d dreamed while conscious. And in those, he’d escaped to peaceful havens. A quiet beach. A cabin in the woods. A lone temple in the desert. Places that were isolated from the world where no one could make him feel small or worthless. Where no one could kill him or hurt him in any way.