"After you just taunted me with never seeing him again, you expect me to believe you"l escort me back to his room if I give you answers you won"t believe anyway?" Or bring Amun here, she thought, but didn"t say the words aloud. No reason to put ideas into his head if they weren"t already there.
He shrugged. "You"re right. I was merely taunting you. Can you blame me, though? You bring out the worst in me, and I struck back."
She wanted to yel at him to continue but remained silent, waiting.
"So," he prodded. "We gonna do this? Answers in exchange for a little sightseeing?"
"Yes," she gritted out. She had no other recourse. He might be lying, but she was wil ing to risk Hunter secrets on the hope that he"d fol ow through. And that"s what he would demand, she thought. Secrets.
"Let"s hammer out a few details before I start spewing info. When wil you take me to him? A few years from now?" She wouldn"t put such a trick past him.
A muscle ticked below his eye. "I"l take you immediately fol owing our conversation."
"As if you"l keep your word," she said, raising her chin another notch. She might be wil ing to risk everything, but that didn"t mean she would be stupid about it. The terms needed to be laid out flat, ironed and starched. Just in case. To do that, she would have to provoke him. Some things had to be offered without her prompting.
His eyes narrowed to tiny slits, the top and bottom lashes catching and twining. "Chal enge me, then.
Chal enge me to keep it."
Like that. Had she chal enged him on her own, he would have punished her. "Is he even alive?" Even asking, she wanted to cry. You can live without him, she reminded herself. She just didn"t want to.
Oh, G.o.d. He already meant that much to her? Despite who and what he might be? Despite how he would hate her?
"Yes," Defeat said. "He is. Though his condition has worsened."
Her heart thumped against her ribs. "How many questions?
There has to be a limit."
He gave another negligent shrug. "Five. And your answers had better be truthful."
How wil you know if they are or aren"t? she almost asked, just to taunt him as he"d taunted her, but she didn"t. The outcome of this was too important. "Al right. I-I chal enge you to take me to see Micah-Amun-after I answer five questions honestly." If he punished her for the chal enge, anyway, it would be no more than she deserved for al owing him to trick her.
Defeat"s pupils gobbled up his irises as he jerked his head once in a stiff nod. "I accept." His hands fisted. "Satisfied?"
She"d seen that reaction before, recognized it as what he"d claimed. Acceptance. "I"m as satisfied as I can be in a place like this."
Those pupils continued to grow, as if she"d said something provocative. And maybe she had-a virile man would see her words as an invitation to satisfy her physical y, and this man was more virile and invitation-happy than most-but it had been unintentional. She wasn"t attracted to Defeat. He was beautiful, yes, but he lacked Amun"s intensity. She also wanted to throw up in her mouth a little every time she looked at him.
"What"s your first question?" she demanded.
He didn"t hesitate. "What the hel are you?"
She didn"t pretend to misunderstand. "I"m human."
Fast as lightning, he struck out, his fist pounding into the bar and rattling the very foundation of the cel .
"Already you"re lying. You can materialize weapons out of thin air.
That"s not something humans can do."
She gave no reaction to his fury. "If I can, why haven"t I produced one since being here? And I promise you, I would have sliced your throat from end to end if I"d had even the slightest opportunity during our trek."
Now a muscle ticked in his jaw, but at least he didn"t strike out again. "An easy boast, almost believable. Maybe you just wanted a ticket into this fortress."
"To do what? Expedite my torture?"
"You were Bait once. Maybe you"re meant to be Bait again."
"Then you were an idiot to bring me here," she lashed out.
His nostrils flared with the force of his renewed fury, but he said nothing else.
"This is getting us nowhere," she said, as calmly as she was able. "The weapons didn"t simply materialize when we were in the jungle. I hid them from you until I found the opportunity to use them." And that was the G.o.d"s honest truth. "That, and you"re kind of a dumba.s.s."
He exhaled, the breath seeming to drain his fury. "Wel , that"s an improvement over stupid and idiot."
Gentle, amused teasing. From him. Shocking. Or was he trying to throw her off balance? "I answered.
Honestly. So, second question."
The gentleness faded, only a single thread of the amus.e.m.e.nt remaining. "If you"re human, how are you alive?
I watched you die. Which is a nice way of saying I f.u.c.king murdered you!"
"I"ve been reanimated." She didn"t mention how or how many times. He hadn"t asked. "That"s two.
Next."
He shook his head. "Not done with that one yet. If you"ve been reanimated, and I"m guessing that"s just a fancy way of saying you were brought back to life, a G.o.d aided you.
Only a G.o.d has the power to reanimate a body after a beheading. And even then, I"m not sure it"s possible."
Silence enveloped them. He stared at her pointedly. She stared back.
"Wel ?" he demanded, spreading his arms as if he were the last sane man in the universe.
"Wel , what? You didn"t ask a question."
The muscle in his jaw started ticking again. "Who aided you?"
Aided was not the word she would have chosen. Cursed, maybe. "A creature very much like you. I think. I didn"t see it, only know I had a reaction to it the first and only time it touched me." And that"s al she would say on the matter.
Even if he asked for more. "That"s three. Next." Why hadn"t he asked her about the Hunters?
"Rhea, then," he said, as if that explained everything.
Haidee schooled her features, unwil ing to show him the depth of her confusion. Rhea, the supposed queen of the t.i.tans? Haidee had heard of her, of course. A smal group of Hunters even worshipped her.
But why did Defeat a.s.sume the woman was responsible for Haidee"s curse?
Or "infection," as the Bad Man had cal ed it? "Two more questions to go. Better make them good."
"When I saw you with...him, kissing-" he"d almost said a name, she realized, but had managed to stop himself in time "-were you interested in him as a man or as a possible escape route?"
Of everything Defeat could have asked, why that? "Why the hel do you care?"
His traced the tip of his tongue across the seam of his lips.
"I don"t believe our bargain involved explanations on my part."
Fine. "The man."
There was a beat of silence before he gave her a reaction.
A flash of that fury, quickly gone.
"He"s always been the gentle one, you know," Defeat said almost absently. "He"s rarely ever displayed a temper. Has never hurt one of his friends. And he would be horrified to know what he did to me." As soon as he realized what he"d said, what he"d admitted, he scowled at her, as if the confession was her fault.
She pretended not to notice. "You have one more question.
And did I forget to tel you that if you lied to me, I would personal y reacquaint your spine with a shard of gla.s.s?"
He stared at her for a long while, studying, searching for something. Whether he found it or not, she didn"t know.
Then he spoke, soft, gentle. "Why did you help kil Baden, Haidee?"
She sucked in a breath. Of everything he could have demanded to know...how dare he ask that? As if he didn"t already know the answer. As if he hadn"t ral ied to destroy her, al those centuries ago. As if he would enjoy hearing her pain and her heartbreak.
Just like that, al the hate inside her exploded to the surface, and she stomped to the bars, placing herself within striking distance. She didn"t attack him but dared him to attack her.
He didn"t move, just continued to stare at her.
"Why did I help kil him?" She threw the words at him as if they were weapons, and maybe they were.
"Because he took what I loved most. And don"t try to lie and say he didn"t, that I"m confused, or misremembering. I saw him. I was there."
"He-"
"I"m not done! Why else did I help kil him? Because he represented what I despised most. Because he deserved what I did, and he knew it. He wanted me to do it. And not once, not once in al these years, have I ever regretted it."
Again, silence. Those blue eyes glittered far more dangerously than before as he reached inside his pocket.
Haidee expected a dagger to the stomach but stil didn"t back down. Physical pain might dul her emotional anguish.
He merely keyed the lock. The cel door swung open, the hinges squeaking. "For some reason, you calmed...our boy before. He"s worse now, and we need to know if you can calm him again."
Him. Amun. So, she thought, furious al over again, Defeat had meant to take her to the warrior al along.
She hadn"t had to answer a single question. She"d been tricked, just not the way she"d thought. What a fool she was. "And what is it, exactly, that I calm him from? How is he worse? What the hel did you do to him?"
"I"m going to take you to him," the demon went on, ignoring her. Either he was unaware of her volatile emotions or he just didn"t care. "But if you harm him, Haidee, I wil kil you.
And I"l make it hurt in a way you can"t even imagine."
THE MOMENT DEFEAT led her down the hal way to Amun"s bedroom-a hal way stil fil ed with towering angels and their outspread wings-she heard the warrior"s voice inside her head and forgot everything else.
Haidee! That single word was a tormented wail. Need...
you...please...
How long had he been cal ing for her? Why hadn"t she heard him before now?
Haidee!
She"d uncover those details later. Right now, he was in pain, so much pain, and nothing but helping him mattered.
Wrenching away with al her strength, she broke free of Defeat"s hold and rushed forward. No one tried to stop her.
Not the angels and not the Lord. She expected Amun"s doorway to stil be splintered from Defeat"s vicious kick, but someone had fixed the metal and wood, both now blocking her entrance.
She twisted the k.n.o.b-unlocked, thank G.o.d-and raced into the bedroom, quickly slamming the door shut behind her. She tried to flip the lock in place and noticed it had been removed. s.h.i.t! Something else to worry about later.
Tiny beads of ice dotted her skin, and her knees knocked shakily as she pivoted. Then she saw him. He was thrashing atop the bed, just like last time.
Final y, she was with him again. He was alive. But for how long? He was worse, Defeat had said, and Amun had barely survived the last set of wounds.
Haidee...please...
So weak, suffused with al that pain. "I"m here, baby. I"m here." Acid flowed through her as she stumbled toward him.
Some distant part of her brain noticed that every piece of furniture but the bed had been carted out.
Then she was standing at the edge of the mattress, peering down at him, and al thoughts fled.
He moaned inside her head.
"I know. I know you hurt."
Haidee? Not quite so pained now.
"Yes, baby. Haidee"s here."
He sighed with the barest hint of relief.
The shadows had returned, were even then dancing around his once again savaged body. His eyes were swol en shut, his hands b.l.o.o.d.y and torn. The wings of his b.u.t.terfly tattoo were...moving, breaking apart, forming hundreds of other b.u.t.terflies. Those, too, danced over him, up his thighs, on his stomach, his pectorals, his arms, then disappearing behind his back.
In that moment, she was absolutely certain the man she watched was Amun rather than Micah. Which meant the Lords wouldn"t hurt him. Thank G.o.d. The intensity of her relief was stunning.