The Dark-Hunters (781 page)

“Because you should always keep your promises.”

Jaden scoffed. “Yeah, right. Trust me, babe, that seldom happens.”

Perhaps, but the world shouldn’t work that way. Ever. Then again the world was never perfect.

And that broke her heart even more.

Lydia squeezed her eyes shut as she again saw Seth as Jaden had found him—with that awful bolt in his mouth. She shuddered in revulsion. “I wish you hadn’t shown me any of his past.” Even though he’d warned her … She’d never be able to get it out of her head.

“And neither will Seth,” Jaden said, reminding her that he could read her thoughts. “You asked him why he doesn’t sleep. It’s because he relives it all over again in his dreams. I remember when he was little, he’d wake up crying every night, only to be punished for it. Back then, he had no protection from the others. I did what I could to help him, but I’m limited, too. And like Seth, I spend more time in Noir’s dungeons than I do being free to roam.”

She felt for both men. Trapped here. Forever. She couldn’t imagine anything worse. “Is there any way to break the two of you out of here?”

CHAPTER 12

The look on Jaden’s face was heartbreaking. “I have no way to leave this place. Ever. To protect what I loved, I damned myself completely. But Seth wasn’t so stupid. He can be freed. It won’t be easy, but it can be done.”

That sent the first bit of happiness through Lydia that she’d had in a while. Seth didn’t deserve to be condemned to this place.

If I can free him …

“How?”

“You’d have to teleport him out, and then hide and guard him until his powers recharged to their full level. Until they do, Noir could summon him back if he located him.”

“How long would it take?”

Jaden took a minute to think about it. “A month … maybe a little longer or even a little less. It would depend on how low his powers were when he left here.”

But he could be freed.

That gave her hope.

Jaden leaned down to speak low into her ear. “And to answer the question you’re too afraid to ask, yes. I think he can be saved. But it won’t be easy. He has no reason to believe in or trust anyone. We’ve all betrayed him. Bitterly and repeatedly. We traded his innocence for our own selfishness and hung him out to dry over and over again.”

Tears choked her as she thought back to what little she’d seen. How many more and worse stories were there? She was also too afraid to ask that question.

Jaden had been right. It was a miracle Seth was still sane. How he could show any form of compassion to her or any semblance of kindness to someone else was a testament to his strength.

She had to get him out of here.

“Just don’t lie to him,” Jaden warned. “He would never forgive you for it.”

“Then I should tell him I’m a jackal and—”

“He will eat you for lunch.” Jaden cut her words off angrily. “Listen to me, Lydia. He has centered all of his hatred on the family who lied to him and sold him. He hasn’t forgiven me, but he never loved me or thought that much of me, so he doesn’t hate me for what I’ve done. In his mind, a jackal is the symbol of treachery and ultimate betrayal. He will never trust you if he knows you’re one of them. Since he doesn’t know what you are, he has no reason to ask you about it. So, for the sake of the gods and yourself, don’t tell him.”

If only it were that easy. But her morals were different from Jaden’s. “Omission is a lie in and of itself.”

Jaden growled in frustration. “That’s your decision. However…” This time, he projected Seth’s past to her without touching her.

She saw Seth on his knees in the desert sand, clinging to his adoptive father’s hand as he begged for mercy. “Please, It,” the Egyptian word for father. “Please don’t sell me. I’ll do anything you ask. Have I not always been a dutiful son to you in every way?” He held his hands up to show the cuts and calluses on his palms and fingers from where he’d helped his family with chores. “Never once have I asked for anything. Never have I gone to bed and not told you how grateful I am to have all of you as my family. I don’t understand why you would sell me.”

His father sneered at him as he cruelly wrung his arm out of Seth’s grasp. “You’re pathetic, boy. No wonder your mother left you to die and your father couldn’t be bothered to claim you.” He kicked Seth back, into the arms of the demons who were there to take him.

Seth’s tears flowed down his cheeks. “How can you do this to me? You told me that you loved me. That I
was
your son.”

His father sneered at him. “You were never really one of us.” Then his father turned into a jackal and ran off, leaving him to the demons.

The one on the right grabbed Seth by the hair and leered at him. “We’re going to have a lot of fun with you, boy. Don’t worry. As pretty as you are, you’ll have all the love you could ever want.”

“Stop,” she said, holding her hand to Jaden. “Please. I don’t want to see any more.”

“Don’t you know, Seth feels the same way about it. But he had no choice except to endure it, and then to be damned to an eternity of remembering every demeaning, brutal detail. The slightest word or phrase. Sometimes it’s nothing more than a fleeting smell or sound, and all of that floods right back to him with a clarity that leaves him ravaged and aching all over again as if it just happened to him. Just like your memory of the night your mother died. No amount of time fully eases that pain, does it?”

No, it didn’t. As he’d said, one sound or the darkness and she remembered every detail of that night. No matter how hard she tried to forget, it never went away.

It was always there, stalking her and hitting her when she least wanted it to. There was no escape.

Not ever.

Only times of happiness between those memories. At first those times had been so brief as to not matter. But Solin had made her laugh and learn to live so that those moments would be longer and longer, until they finally outnumbered the bad memories.

For that, she owed him everything.

Seth had no one to make him smile. No one to comfort him and tell him that he would learn to live again.

Not that he’d ever had a real life to begin with. He would have to start from scratch to even have a single decent memory to build from.

My poor demon …

All of a sudden, someone was at Jaden’s door.

He stepped away from her as it opened. Prepared to fight, she held her breath, half afraid it was Noir or one of his other minions.

It was Seth.

She started to go to him, but there was an air of such rage and hostility around him that she was afraid he might hurt her if she did.

His armor and lips coated in blood, he had several new wounds and bruises on his face. But as always, he didn’t seem to notice them. A tic beat a fierce rhythm in his jaw as his nostrils flared. He appeared to be one step away from going on a homicidal rampage.

The last thing she wanted to do was be the one who pushed him into it.

His icy glare went past her and straight to Jaden. “I’m being sent to guard the Nether Wall. Can you watch her until I return?”

Jaden gaped at his disclosure. At first she thought it was because he was asking Jaden to keep her longer.

It wasn’t.

“Why are
you
being sent?” Jaden asked.

He gave Jaden a droll stare. “Since when does Noir answer to me?”

Jaden shook his head. “Who’s going to stand at your back?”

Seth scowled at the question as if it baffled him. As if he thought Jaden was stupid for even asking it. “The same as always. No one.” Finally, he looked at her and his features softened ever so slightly, as if he took comfort from seeing her there.

Then he returned his glare to Jaden. “Will you watch over her until I return?”

Jaden nodded. “I will.”

He inclined his head in gratitude before he withdrew and locked the door again.

She turned back to Jaden as she tried to understand what was going on. “What’s the Nether Wall?”

“It’s the boundary between our realm and Thorn’s.”

“And why is that bad?”

Jaden snorted. “It’s not if you don’t have a soul. But if you do … Thorn’s vultures flay you for it. Mentally and physically. Guarding that wall, especially alone, is one of the cruelest things to do to someone. It’s like hanging out a single piece of steak at a rabid dog festival.”

While she had no doubt that he wasn’t exaggerating, she had a hard time believing it would be hard for Seth after everything else he’d been through. “Crueler than having your mouth bolted shut?”

Jaden’s freaky gaze burned her with its sincere heat. “Yes. Physical pain eventually stops hurting. It’s the scars on the soul that never heal and never back off—those ride you with spurs. May the gods help him.”

She knew the truth of that, which made her determined to help Seth any way she could. “Can you get me there?”

“Ah, hell no. Are you out of your mind?”

Maybe. Probably. It definitely wouldn’t be the first time she had a moronic thought, and unfortunately, it wouldn’t be the last. It was that kind of lunacy that had her here right now.

But it didn’t change her conviction. “I can help him fight. Watch his back. You said it yourself, he doesn’t need to be out there alone.”

Jaden shook his head in disbelief. “And you will get him punished beyond belief if anyone sees you. Don’t you understand, Lydia? By having you here without Noir’s knowledge, he has all but declared war on Noir. If Noir finds out what Seth has done…”

“Why did he capture me, then?” Why put himself into more conflict with the god who hated him so?

“That is his job. He’s supposed to capture anyone who comes here without an invitation. Then they are to be taken to Noir, who decides what to do with them.”

She could just imagine what that demon did to anyone dumb enough to venture here.

By keeping her safe and hidden, Seth risked his own neck.

“Why would he take such a chance?”

“I have no idea. Honestly, I wouldn’t have done it for anything. If I didn’t owe him so much, I’d be handing you over right now.” By the tone of his voice, she had no doubt he meant every word of it.

Thank the gods, he wasn’t the one who’d found her, trying to help Solin escape.

Now, Lydia tried to understand what had motivated Seth to such stupidity. Yet for her life, she couldn’t imagine why he’d risked his flesh for her—a nobody, an enemy—after all Noir had done to him.

It made no sense.

*   *   *

Seth took his post at the gate and widened his stance into his fiercest Guardian’s pose. He dug the tip of his sword into the ground and rested his hands on the hilt. With any luck, the night predators would think twice about taking him on.

Though if the past was any indicator, they wouldn’t give a shit. They would attack Noir himself. Anything for a drop of blood.

Here, demon, demons. Fresh meat. Come get some.

And all too soon, they would.

From here, he could see the tiniest bit of outline from Thorn’s manor. It looked so harmless from a distance. But his one trip to it had tutored him well on Thorn’s brutality. The ancient demon lord wasn’t a bit kinder than Noir.

Bloody effing bastard. It hadn’t been much of a fight, but Seth had done his best. Too young, too new to his powers, and drained from Noir’s cruelty, he’d run there, hoping to find a haven.

What he’d found was a one-way trip back to Noir’s lap … and his fist. Apparently the two demon lords had made a pact that they wouldn’t keep runaways.

Look on the bright side
 … At least Azura wouldn’t summon him while he was here, any more than Noir would. Given that lovely benefit, unlike Jaden, he didn’t mind this duty as much as some of the others he’d been forced to do.

Yeah, it was emotionally grueling, but then so was life.

Even now he could hear Noir in his head.
“You pathetic wretch. You’re worthless. Stupid beyond stupid. Go stand at the Wall for a couple of nights. Maybe then you’ll learn how to fight.”

All in all, he thought he’d done pretty well, given the fact they were outnumbered twenty to one, and he was still drained by Noir and Azura’s last feeding. Not to mention their latest round of Beat the Holy Shit Out of Him.

But what did he know?

And come tomorrow, he was sure Noir would beat him again for not having more information about the key he was supposed to find while protecting the Wall and doing everything else they wanted.

Yeah …

They’re not what you want to think about anyway.

No, he wanted to think about glowing topaz eyes that danced with humor and sparkled with fiery spirit. Of soft, long black hair. Of moist lips that begged him for a kiss.

Closing his eyes, he conjured an image of Lydia in his bed. Yeah, that was what he wanted to focus on. Much better than all the other crap he had to deal with. He could almost smell the warm scent of her skin. It actually banished the chill from the cold winds that blew against his armor, freezing him to the marrow of his bones.

“Seth?”

He opened his eyes as he heard the sound of her voice. Glancing around, he saw no trace of her.

It’s not her.
She didn’t know his name. Must be one of the predators screwing with him.

“Can you hear me?”

He realized it was inside his head. “Lydia?”

“Yes. Jaden explained to me what you would be facing. I wanted to come and help, but I understand why I can’t. I don’t want to get you into trouble.”

Those words touched him so deeply that it left him temporarily immobile.
She doesn’t care for you. How could she?

It was most likely true.

It’s definitely true, you imbecile. Noir’s right. You are the dumbest idiot ever born.

Only a rank moron would think for even a second that his captive cared for him.

Even so, he wanted to hear her voice. Feel her next to him while he waited for attack. “How are you able to talk to me?”

“Don’t be mad, okay? Jaden restored enough of my powers that I could sit with you while you stand post.”