“Neither can I.” Something murky and dangerous shimmered in Torin’s eyes, something bitter, turning the green to a poisonous emerald. “You, at least, won’t obliterate the entire human race by leaving.”
“Torin—”
“You’re not going to win this argument, Maddox, so stop wasting time.”
He tangled a hand through his chin-length hair, frustration mounting. We should leave it out there to die, Violence proclaimed. It—the human.
“If it is a Hunter,” Torin said, as if hearing his thoughts, “if it is Bait? We can’t allow it to live. It must be destroyed.”
“And if it’s innocent and my death-curse strikes?” Maddox countered, tamping down the demon as best he could.
Guilt flashed over Torin’s expression, as though every life he was responsible for taking clamored inside his conscience, begging him to rescue those he could. “That is a chance we have to take. We are not the monsters the demons would have us be.”
Maddox ground his teeth together. He was not a cruel man; he was not a beast. Not heartless. He hated the waves of immorality that constantly threatened to pull him under. Hated what he did, what he was—and what he would become if he ever stopped fighting those black cravings and evil musings.
“Where is the human now?” he asked. He would venture into the night, even if it cost him terribly.
“At the Danube border.”
A fifteen-minute run. He had just enough time to weapon up, find the human, usher it to shelter if it was innocent or kill it if circumstances demanded, and return to the fortress. If anything slowed him down, he could die out in the open. Anyone else foolish enough to venture onto the hill would be placed in danger. Because when the first pain hit, he would be reduced to Violence and those black cravings would consume him.
He would have no other purpose but destruction.
“If I don’t return by midnight, have one of the others search for my body, as well as Lucien’s and Reyes’s.” Both Death and Pain came to him each night at midnight, no matter where Maddox was. Pain rendered the blows and Death escorted his soul to hell, where it would remain, tortured by fire and demons almost as loathsome as Violence, until morning.
Unfortunately, Maddox could not guarantee his friends’ safety out in the open. He might hurt them before they completed their tasks. And if he hurt them, the anguish he would feel would be second only to the agony of the death-curse that visited him every night.
“Promise me,” he said.
Eyes bleak, Torin nodded. “Be careful, my friend.”
He stalked out of the room, his movements rushed. Before he made it halfway down the hall, however, Torin called, “Maddox. You might want to look at this.”
Backtracking, he experienced another slap of dread. What now? Could anything be worse? When he stood in front of the monitors once more, he arched a brow at Torin, a silent command to hurry.
Torin motioned to the screen with a tilt of his chin. “Looks like there are four more of them. All male…or Amazons. They weren’t there earlier.”
“Damn this.” Maddox studied the four new slashes of red, each one bigger than the last. They were closing in on the little one. Yes, things could indeed be worse. “I’ll take care of them,” he said. “All of them.” Once more he leapt into motion, his pace more clipped.
He reached his bedroom and headed straight to the closet, bypassing the bed, the only piece of furniture in the room. He’d destroyed his dresser, mirror and chairs in one fit of violence or another.
At one time, he’d been foolish enough to fill the space with tranquil indoor waterfalls, plants, crosses, anything to promote peace and soothe raw nerves. None of it had worked and all had been smashed beyond repair in a matter of minutes as the demon overtook him. Since then he’d opted for what Paris called a minimalist look.
The only reason he still had a bed was because it was made of metal and Reyes needed something to chain him to as midnight drew near. They kept an abundant supply of mattresses, sheets, chains and metal headboards in one of the bedrooms next door. Just in case.
Hurry! Quickly, he jerked a black T-shirt over his head, pulled on a pair of boots and strapped blades to his wrists, waist and ankles. No guns. He and Violence were in agreement about one thing—enemies needed to die up close and personal.
If any of the humans in the forest proved to be Hunters or Bait, nothing could save them now.
CHAPTER TWO
ASHLYN DARROW SHIVERED against the frigid wind. Strands of light brown hair whipped in front of her eyes; she hooked them behind her throbbing ears with a shaky hand. Not that she could see much, anyway. The night was black, thick with fog and snowflakes. Only a few golden slivers of moonlight were strong enough to peek through the towering, snowcapped trees.
How could a landscape so beautiful be so damaging to the human body?
She sighed, mist forming in front of her face. She should have been relaxing on a flight back to the States, but yesterday she’d learned something too wonderful to resist. Hope had filled her, and earlier this evening she’d raced here without thought, without hesitation, seizing her first chance to find out if it were true.
Somewhere in the vastness of this forest were men with strange abilities no one seemed able to explain. Exactly what they could do, she didn’t know. She only knew that she needed help. Desperately. And she’d risk anything, everything, to speak with those powerful men.
She couldn’t live with the voices anymore.
Ashlyn had only to stand in one location to hear every conversation that had ever taken place there, no matter how much time had passed. Present, past, any and all languages, it didn’t matter. She could hear them in her mind, translate them, even. A gift, some assumed. A nightmare, she knew.
Another chill wind beat against her and she leaned against a tree, using it as a shield. Yesterday, when she’d come to Budapest with several colleagues from the World Institute of Parapsychology, she’d stood in the center of town and begun hearing tidbits of dialogue. Nothing new for her…until she’d deciphered the meaning of the words.
They can enslave you with a glance.
One of them has wings and flies when the moon is full.
The scarred one can disappear at will.
As if those whispers had opened some sort of doorway in her mind, hundreds of years of chatter had slammed into her, a blend of old and new. She’d doubled over from the intensity of it, trying to sort the mundane from the essential.
They never age.
They must be angels.
Even their home is creepy—straight out of a horror movie. Hidden on a hilltop, shadowy corners, and damn, even the birds won’t go near it.
Should we kill them?
They’re magical. They eased my torment.
So many people, present and past, evidently believed these men operated beyond human ability, that they possessed extraordinary skills. Was it possible the men could help her? Eased my torment, someone had said.
“Maybe they can ease mine,” Ashlyn muttered now. Over the years and in all corners of the world she’d listened to rumors of vampires, werewolves, goblins and witches, gods and goddesses, demons and angels, monsters and fairies. She’d even led the Institute’s researchers to many of those creatures’ doorsteps, proving they did, in fact, exist.
The whole purpose of the Institute, after all, was to