“You don’t hurt her,” Galen said, menace a strong undercurrent. “Ever.”
Confusion joined the disappointment. He’d just…defended her.
Fox ran her tongue over her teeth. “She do this to you?”
“No. Now help me to the bed.”
As Fox sheathed her weapons, her gaze remained locked on Legion, narrowed and hate-filled. Even as she approached Galen, wound her arm around the warrior and eased him to his feet, she kept Legion in her sights. He leaned his weight into her, and they inched their way to the bed. Slowly, carefully, he sat at the edge of the mattress.
Were they lovers? Legion wondered.
Visibly weakening, now wheezing, Galen said, “Get your tools and get this shit out of me.”
With one last warning glare in Legion’s direction, Fox flew out the door.
“Will she obey you?” Legion asked softly. “About me?”
Sky-blue eyes found her, the lids heavy, casting his face into the come-to-bed sexy realm, and she hated herself for noticing. “Yes. The only person you need to worry about is me.”
So.He planned to save her torturing all for himself. And he would torture her. She had no doubt about that.
— something slicing between each of her ribs—
— rotted breath fanning her ear, trailing down her chest—
She wrapped her arms around her middle. Distract yourself.“Did the Lords do that to you?”
“Yes,” he repeated. “As promised, I let them go without hurting them back.”
“Th-thank you.” Worry for them was another constant in her life.
A long moment passed in silence, allowing her thoughts to once again careen out of control. Soon she was imagining what would happen to her once Galen healed. “Why do you hate them so much?” she asked, just to fill the void.
“I don’t hate them.” He balanced his elbows on his knees and his weight on his elbows. “I’m simply looking out for myself.”
“Why?”
“Who else will?” Then, “Enough about me. What happened to you in hell?”
The blood drained from her face, then the rest of her, leaving her cold and empty. “I can’t…talk about it, please don’t make me talk about it.”
He stared at her, different emotions washing over his face. Fury, regret, hope, jealousy, fury again.
Fox rushed back in, the black bag she held slamming into her thigh with a loud thump.Legion curled her knees into her chest, doing her best to become a smaller target, but Fox was through intimidating, her focus on Galen.
She crouched in front of him, set down the bag, and dug inside. After cutting away his robe, she whistled as she looked him over. “This is going to hurt like a son of a bitch.”
“Don’t care. Do what’s needed.”
As she worked, Legion kept her attention on the back of her head. Maybe because Galen kept his on her,still staring at her, trying to see past her skin and into her soul.
Fox was demon-possessed, she realized. Having grown up among the dark lords of hell, Legion sensed the evil inside her, could feel the ooze of her…distrust. Yes. That’s what she felt rubbing her nerve endings raw.
Distrust. A High Lord. The strongest of the strong, a leader of many minions. Legion was a minion of Strife, and the two demons had warred constantly, pitting their armies against each other. Distrust was no longer…right, though. The malice seeping from the girl’s pores was warped, almost frantic. No wonder her skin was grayish and her face bruised. She must have to fight the demon every hour of every day to remain sane herself.
“So, you want to tell me what happened?” Fox asked. “What’s going on?”
“No,” Galen replied tartly. “I don’t.”
“Do it anyway. You take off for Rome to deal with the Unspoken Ones and get the Cloak, and I don’t hear from you for weeks. I thought you were dead. Then suddenly you’re back, and you practically are dead.”
She’d removed everything that didn’t belong, and was now cleaning the blood from his chest. As the crimson was wiped away, she began to piece together the tattoos on his chest, stitching his skin in place. A butterfly over his left pectoral, and one over his right.
Two butterflies?
Legion’s gaze jolted up and clashed with his. He was still eyeing her through those narrowed lids, daring her to say something. She gulped, kept quiet.
“I got the Cloak, stole Maddox’s woman and traded her for this one.” He motioned to Legion with a tilt of his chin. “Hey! Can you at least pretend to be a woman and try for gentle?”
“Wuss. Why her?” Fox demanded, spreading some kind of paste over each of the wounds.
“Don’t worry about her. She’s mine, and she’s not going to hurt me. Are you, Legion?”
If only.She shook her head.
“Say it. Say the words.”
A tremor moved through her. “I’m not going to hurt you.” She couldn’t. Even if he chained her up and did…and did… Bile, spreading faster and faster…
“Because I’m commanding you to take care of me, and you have to obey me, don’t you.” Not a question.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Calm down, Gay Man,” Fox told him. “Your heartbeat is jacked up, and it’s causing you to bleed more heavily.”
“You know I hate when you call me that.”
He’d grumbled the admonishment, but he hadn’t struck at her, and that shocked Legion to the bone. He must really like the woman, she thought. And was that…could that be…jealousy swimming through her?
No way. Legion wanted nothing to do with Galen. Nothing! Hate him.For what he’d done to Aeron, to Ashlyn.
A short while later, Fox had him bandaged up and lying flat on the mattress. She tucked the covers around him and stood there, brushing his hair from his face until he fell asleep with a last shuddering command. “Don’t hurt her.”
That’s when Fox turned and leveled Legion with the evilest stare she’d ever seen—and she’d been chained to the devil himself a few times.
“Galen might think of you as his, little girl, but heis mine.And I protect, and avenge, what’s mine. You harm him in any way, and not even he will be able to stop me from harming you in kind.”
CHAPTER FORTY
CRONUS SEETHED WHEN he discovered his Lords had found his hiding place, the Realm of Blood and Shadows, where he kept Sienna and the three demon-possessed warriors he’d locked there. They’d invaded his private castle. All except for Torin, the keeper of Disease, who was back at the fortress in Budapest, having refused to let Lucien flash him. Too much risk, he’d said, even if he was draped from head to toe with protective gear.
One touch of Torin’s skin against his, and Lucien would be infected with the very disease running rampant in the other warrior’s veins. Torin put his friends before himself, always, an attitude Cronus did not understand or respect. But the thought reminded Cronus there was a way to work this situation to his favor.
Torin would do anything to touch a female human without hurting her. Even accept a gift that wasn’t a gift. A gift that was a curse. A gift that was a death sentence. A gift that would ruin Rhea’s own plans. Not that he would know it. Cronus grinned.
Unlike Lucien, Cronus did not have to touch an individual to move him. Cronus simply spoke, and Torin appeared in front of him.
The warrior palmed two blades in his gloved hands and spun, searching for the culprit, even as he oriented himself to his new surroundings. He stilled when he noticed Cronus, though his gaze continued to rove, memorizing the details, the exits.
A field of ambrosia stretched for miles, scenting the air oh, so sweetly, the violet petals glistening under the gleam of a sun that offered the perfect amount of light and heat.
“Cronus,” Torin said with a nod of his head. If he was upset or even thrilled about being pulled from his Budapest fortress for the first time in centuries, he didn’t show it. No bowing, either, so of course, no scraping.