The Darkest Touch

  She took him all the way to the back of her throat. Yes, yes, that was more... Was better than anything he'd ever... And...can't think. He arched his hips instinctively, again going all the way back to her throat. Over and over she sucked him up and down, moving faster and faster. His blood, already on fire, was only growing hotter. His body was aching and agonized, a live wire of sensation. Everything proved to be too much...not enough...

  "Keeley, please."

  My darling girl. She didn't let up. She cupped his sac while flicking her tongue over his tip on her next upward glide. And that was all it took. With a single moment of rational thought, he managed to pull out of her mouth and turn away, pouring his climax onto the bed.

  When finally he was emptied, he plopped beside her, his heart galloping out of control. Sweat covered every inch of him. He couldn't quite catch his breath. "That was..." Everything. "Thank you."

  Must have been the wrong words because her features lost their dreamy softness. A dark blanket fell over her baby blues, hiding her emotions.

  "Sure," she said stiffly, rising from the bed to dress in the tattered remains of her clothing. "Whatever."

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  THANK YOU.

  After everything Keeley had risked, all she might be forced to endure, those were Torin's first words to her?

  Not...Being with you is worth anything, princess.

  Or...You are a necessary part of my life, Keys. Don't ever leave me.

  But, nooo. She got Thank you.

  Like I'm a waitress and I just delivered his order.

  She safety-pinned the straps of her shirt together. In his haste, Torin had ripped the material. And in her stubbornness, she hadn't packed any of the clothes Hades had provided for her. She'd have to walk around looking like a slutty hobo. Not exactly a testament to her royalty.

  Perhaps I'm overreacting. A wee bit emotional. Simply looking for a reason to fight...a way to guard my--

  No! I refuse to turn this on me.

  Torin sat up, pulled on his gloves and his shirt, and then righted his pants. The shirt was new. It read, "Lucien Came Knockin, But I Was Still Rockin." His hair was sexily mussed and his cheeks still flushed with satisfaction. His eyes were bright, his lips as swollen as hers. He looked every inch the sated male--beautiful, wanton, wicked--and her chest ached, the bond between them crackling with tension.

  She hated that he couldn't feel it.

  Time to tell him.

  No, not yet. But soon.

  He watched her for a long while before breaking the silence that had settled between them. "Did I hurt you?"

  "In what way?"

  He thought before replying. "Physically."

  "No." She adored the rough strength he wielded. Why was that so hard for him to believe?

  "Emotionally?"

  Yes! "I don't want to talk about it." Her feelings were too raw. She'd given him access to her body--maybe even her heart. There. She'd admitted it. Went to battle for his, but might have just given up mine. There was no other explanation for the wild effect he had on her, clouding her common sense, driving her to recklessness time and time again.

  Thank you.

  She'd never thought she would despise those words.

  He's new to this, fighting it--with good reason. Maybe he doesn't know what to say or how to act.

  Maybe she was making excuses for him.

  Bottom line: she was tired of being Miss Right Now. Available, but discardable. Willing, but merely convenient. If Torin could have had his pick of women without having to worry about sickness, would he have chosen Keeley?

  After their argument...after this? She didn't think so.

  What's so wrong with me that no man can value me?

  Worth less than a barrel of whiskey.

  So. Yeah. She was done. She would stay with Torin, but she would no longer attempt to win his affections. Would never again throw herself at him. Would never again allow him to grab her and kiss her and bring her to orgasm. That part of their relationship was over.

  He rested his elbows on his thighs and leaned forward. "Are you feeling sick already?"

  Her stomach twisted at the reminder of what might come. "No."

  What have I done?

  "Keeley," he said. Sighing, he stood.

  No way she'd endure another brush-off. "Hey, no need to try to sell me water when I'm already in the pool. I agree. We're never doing that again."

  He frowned and took a step toward her. "That's not--"

  "No!" She scrambled away. If he neared her, she might fall into his arms and beg. The way she'd begged Hades.

  Never again!

  "Keeley--"

  An unfamiliar male flashed into the center of the room, silencing him.

  Bristling with hostility, she faced off with the newcomer. He had shaggy black hair that framed a face tragically scarred by sword and fire, she would guess. His eyes were mismatched, one blue, one brown. He wore a black tuxedo T-shirt and ripped jeans.

  Overall, he had a rugged quality she couldn't help but admire.

  That didn't mean she would spare him.

  "You popped in on the wrong girl, Scarface," she said, flashing a semiautomatic into her hand. A bullet to the head wouldn't kill him, but it would teach him a lesson. A lesson his damaged brain would probably forget. Oh, well.

  All around her, the room shook.

  Torin rushed in front of her, spreading his arms wide and saying, "Calm down, princess. This guy isn't an enemy. He's Lucien, my friend."

  The name echoed in her mind until she made a connection. Lucien, Lord of the Underworld. Keeper of Death. A by-the-rule-book immortal with a fierce temper--one that might actually rival her own.

  When Galen had told her about his personal experience with each of the warriors, she'd been most interested in meeting this one. But no longer. Lucien had just ushered in the change she'd feared. Torin was no longer hers, and hers alone. If he'd ever been hers at all.

  "Fine. I won't slay him." She flashed the gun to the nightstand as the shaking stopped. "See? I remembered my vow like a good little girl."

  Torin offered her a half smile--of reassurance? or apology?--before turning to face his friend.

  Lucien locked eyes with him and grinned, his joy unmistakable. "It's you. You're really here."

  "I am." Torin's voice held the same note of joy.

  Keeley suddenly felt like a voyeur.

  With their long, powerful legs, they quickly ate up the space between them. Torin reached out, intending to take the other man's hand, but Lucien caught himself first and stopped, remaining just out of reach. Pivoting to give both Lucien and Keeley his profile, Torin dropped his arm to his side.

  He closed his eyes for a moment, breathed deeply. "Sorry," he muttered. When next he focused, he was pale but determined. "I need to retrain myself."

  Meaning, he blamed Keeley for his lack of restraint.

  Must hide my pain.

  "I'm sorry I missed your call," Lucien said. "Ashamed to admit I was helping Anya hide a corpse."

  Anya? Know that name... From Galen? Or one of her spies?

  Torin snickered. "You definitely got the short end of the stick in the bom-chicka-wah-wah department."

  "Speaking of bom chicka wah wah..." Lucien's pointed gaze landed on her, and his head tilted to the side. Curiosity radiated from him.

  "Lucien," Torin said, suddenly edgy. "This is Keeley."

  Lucien nodded a greeting at her. "Nice to meet you."

  "I don't doubt that." But, oh! Why did they have to do the meet-and-greet now? She wasn't at her best. And she needed to be at her best. If Torin's friends didn't like her, they wouldn't tell him he'd found a keeper. They might even tell him to get rid of her.

  Things are over between us, remember?

  True. But it was always nice to be accepted.

  "She's going to help us find Cameo, Viola and Baden, and then destroy Pandora's box," Torin said, not mentioning the Morning Star. Not wanting to ge
t his friend's hopes up?

  He can't even do me the courtesy of introducing me as his friend. Or even as his former pleasure-buddy. Search and rescue is all I am to him.

  Dance, little monkey, dance.

  Irritation sprouted a head and a tail and slithered around her neck, nearly choking her.

  Lucien couldn't hide his disbelief as he asked, "And just how are you going to do all this?"

  "Is this an interrogation?" A strange sizzle in her blood had her shifting from one foot to the other. "And who is Anya?" She marched to the desk and sat, then kicked up her feet, quite aware she was flashing panty. Let Torin see what he would never get again.

  He flew across the distance and draped a blanket over her lap, effectively covering her from waist to toe.

  The action of a jealous lover.

  A lie.

  Lucien watched the exchange and frowned.

  The sizzle drove Keeley back to her feet, the blanket falling and pooling at her feet. "You boys enjoy your reunion." Her gaze sought Torin before skittering away. He was stiff, angry. Why? Doesn't matter. "I'll meet you...wherever later."

  His hand shot out, his fingers becoming a shackle around her wrist.

  Lucien made a strangled sound and reached for her. To rip her away from Torin?

  She held up her hand, releasing a stream of power to root the warrior in place. Or rather, she tried to release. Torin's scars stopped her.

  He glanced at his friend, and for a moment, his expression was all kinds of tortured. "This is between Keeley and me."

  "Torin," Lucien said. "Let her go."

  "Don't talk to him like that," she snapped. Taking up for him? After everything?

  Only this once. Because...because she pitied him. How many times had his friends done something just like this to protect someone from him?

  She could guess: countless.

  Had to tear him up inside, being seen as such a terror by the people who loved him.

  He focused on her, and if eyes were the windows to the soul, his now teemed with menace. "You're staying here. What if you get sick?"

  She gulped. Yeah. There was that. The only thing worse than being sick would be being sick alone.

  Torin released her to rub the spot above his heart. A sure sign of his guilt.

  Never should have pushed him to be with me.

  He cleared his throat, then said to Lucien, "How are the others?" removing the attention from Keeley.

  "I didn't tell anyone you'd called," the scarred warrior admitted. "Not yet. First I wanted to make sure it was really you."

  "Understandable."

  "You've been gone so long. So much has happened since your disappearance." Lucien massaged the back of his neck.

  "So long? I've only been gone a few weeks," Torin said.

  "No. A few months."

  "Time passes differently in different realms," Keeley explained.

  "Well, hell," Torin said.

  "A Phoenix warrior killed William's daughter, White," Lucien said. "She exploded into thousands of tiny bugs and they are sweeping through the world, infecting people with evil. Needless to say, crime is on the rise."

  Torin popped his jaw. "What else have I missed?"

  "Kane married Josephina, the queen of the Fae, and she's pregnant."

  Kane...keeper of Disaster.

  Josephina...didn't ring a bell. Last Keeley had heard, a male blowhard ruled the Fae.

  "Kane is going to be a dad? Talk about surreal." Torin frowned "How will he not kill his child? Last time I saw the man, plaster was falling on his head and a lightbulb was shorting out. And that was a good day."

  "He is no longer possessed," Lucien announced.

  Torin gave a slow, disbelieving shake of his head. "He actually survived the removal of the demon?"

  Lucien nodded. "He did."

  "How?"

  "Josephina. She pulled the fiend out of his body and healed his damaged spirit with love, which is, apparently, something of a spiritual medicine."

  Torin's gaze flipped to Keeley.

  Wondering if she could do the same for him?

  Only if you fall for me, Charming.

  Or when she found the Morning Star.

  "What else?" Torin asked his friend.

  "Taliyah took over our fortress in the Realm of Blood and Shadow; according to a bargain she made with Kane, we have to stay away. Atlas and Nike, the Titan and Greek god and goddess of strength, moved to town. Cameo and Viola are still missing, and no one has heard even a whisper of gossip regarding their whereabouts. Anya is still planning our wedding. Like Kane and Josephina, Gideon and Scarlet are expecting their first kid. Amun and Haidee are discussing opening a halfway house for wayward teens. Gilly is planning a party to celebrate her step into adulthood and when William isn't on a violent rampage about his daughter's death, he's watching Gilly with such intense hunger everyone else wants to pluck out his eyes, then their own."

  The updates seemed to hit Torin like bullets, one after the other.

  A few of the names Keeley had recognized. William, the brutal, savage immortal of mysterious origins was one of Hades's adopted sons. He had lived in the underworld during the time Keeley and Hades had dated. He'd been an unrepentant rogue, seducing his way through the female population. The married population. He'd cared for nothing but pleasure--his own--and his sense of humor had been as dark as a black hole. He'd laughed every time he'd killed an enemy and had chuckled every time he'd stabbed a friend.

  Keeley had always liked him, but had never thought one woman would be able to hold his attention. Especially not a human. She'd heard this Gilly was an emotionally fragile teenage girl whom Danika, the keeper of Pain's wife, had befriended.

  Emotionally fragile...young...single. Not even close to being William's type.

  "Well? Why are we just standing here?" she asked. "Let's go see everyone."

  Torin did a double take and stumbled away from her, paling.

  "What?" She glanced down at herself--and gasped. Boils had popped up all over her exposed flesh.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  TORIN HAD ONCE thought he'd plumbed the deepest depths of his guilt, that he'd treated it like a lover, stoking and satisfying its darkest desires. He had been wrong.

  This was guilt.

  I might just be the dumbest kid in class. Apparently I have to have every lesson pounded into my head with a hammer.

  Do not touch a woman skin-to-skin--the path to a regret-free life was as plain and simple as that. But time and time again he'd failed the test.

  Now all he could do was care for Keeley's every need. And yet, like the other times before, it in no way made up for what he'd allowed to happen.

  Idiot!

  He knew exactly how he'd gotten to this point. He'd been enraged with Hades, jealous that the male had kissed her, and the emotions had rammed through his defenses in a matter of seconds. Hardly an excuse. Definitely not good enough. But then, nothing would have been.

  The need to put his mark on Keeley had consumed him. He'd wanted to brand her as surely as a ward. Had wanted to bind her to him in the basest way so that others knew who, exactly, she belonged to. He'd wanted her to crave him above all others. And maybe she had. But it certainly hadn't lasted. Her regret had come even before the illness.

  We're never doing that again.

  The words haunted him.

  He applied the herbal salves Lucien brought to Keeley's raw, oozing skin and poured medicine down her throat, then made sure she soaked in oatmeal baths. She remained in a constant state of delirium. Today he'd entered a new level of hell when she had begun thrashing atop the bed, leaving smears of blood on the sheets.

  "Help me understand," Lucien said, pacing on the other side of the room. "You've touched her before? And then, after she healed, you touched her again, willingly, knowing this would happen? That her life would be forever ruined?"

  Disease laughed inside his head.

  Nothing but a rabid dog, remember? His t
ime is coming.

  But the guilt took Torin deeper and deeper down the pit of despair. "She isn't a carrier. She suffers, and she heals. But she isn't a carrier."

  "Torin--"

  "I love you, my man, but my relationship with Keeley is not your business."

  "It is," Lucien insisted. "I know you. Have known you for centuries. Have watched you spiral every time you've touched someone and had to watch them--and others--die."

  "She's not going to die!" He slammed his fist into the mattress.

  It bounced, and Keeley moaned.

  "Sorry, princess." He smoothed a gloved hand through her hair, careful not to snag on the tangles. "I'm so sorry."

  Her lids parted, revealing eyes dull and feverish, staring blindly. "When will they grow back? I need them to grow back."

  "What, princess? What do you need to grow back?" It shredded him, seeing her like this. In the past, she had refused to sleep in his presence because it would have made her vulnerable. Now? She was as vulnerable as a newborn babe.

  Because of me.

  He would never forgive himself.

  "My hands. I need my hands." Tears cascaded down her cheeks.

  I made her cry.

  "You've got your hands, princess. I promise."

  "Have to remove my feet next. Have to escape the shackles. My hands," she ended, curling onto her side and sobbing.

  His gaze jerked up to Lucien, but he quickly looked away; didn't want to see the reflection of horror in his friend's eyes. Keeley had been bound inside that prison and had somehow found the strength to remove her hands, and then her feet, to free herself.

  But she'd still been trapped.

  The heart he'd regrown wept inside his chest. Sickness churned in his stomach. He had to let her go, didn't he. No more staying with her, "protecting" her. No more playing with temptation--playing with her.

  Lives were at stake, yes. Cameo's. Viola's. Baden's. Everyone he loved, really. But on the other side of the coin, Keeley's life was at stake.

  If he had to flip that coin, she would win. No question. No fifty-fifty odds.

  It was a huge revelation, but one he couldn't allow himself to probe too deeply. Or why even the thought of losing her made him feel as though he were sinking deeper into an ocean of acid and the only thing waiting at the bottom was death. Because honestly? His feelings didn't matter. He had to do what was best for her. For once. Her past was filled with pain and regret. He couldn't fill her future with the same.