Fear the Darkness (Guardians of Eternity #9)(101)

It wasn’t at all what he’d expected and his pity party was suddenly deflated as effectively as if she’d stuck a pin in a balloon.

She was right. From all reports his brethren had retreated beneath the streets of Paris, ignoring Styx’s call for demons to stand against the Dark Lord. Like rats fleeing a sinking ship. Gargoyles were infamous for bowing to whoever sat on the throne. Loyalty was not a word in their vocabulary.

“I suppose that’s true,” he slowly agreed.

She reached to place her hands on his shoulders, standing close enough he could feel the pulse of her power surrounding him.

“Besides, you have a weapon far more important than muscles or magic.”

Levet found himself lost in the compelling darkness of her eyes. “What weapon?”

“A heart.” Her hand moved to rest in the center of his chest. “The one power that can’t be defeated by evil.”

Chapter 24

The Dark Lord’s prison

Gaius seriously underestimated the instinctive desire of any creature for survival.

He’d been convinced that he had nothing left to hope for. Nothing left but bitter regret and endless days of wishing for a swift death that would at last reunite him with Dara.

But the moment the Dark Lord had turned her attention to creating further rifts, he found his feet carrying himself forward, scouring the godforsaken surroundings for a way to escape.

A frustrating, not to mention, futile waste of time.

Although he still had his medallion, he discovered it no longer obeyed his commands. Not surprising. The Dark Lord wasn’t stupid. She knew he would disappear at the first opportunity.

And while he could sense the doorways she’d ripped through the veils, and occasionally catch the scent of demons as they sought to use the openings to spill from their particular hell dimension, he couldn’t push his way through them.

Perhaps this was his punishment.

To be trapped with the Dark Lord, all the while knowing that freedom lurked just out of reach.

It seemed fitting.

Standing near a stunted tree, Gaius flinched as a flare of heat seared over him, threatening to melt the flesh from his bones.

“Gaius.”

He didn’t want to turn. Not only because he was weary of her taunting, but because it made him nauseous to watch the strange spirit flickering around her.

But what he did or didn’t want no longer mattered. Not since he’d bartered away his soul.

With a slow movement, he stepped around the dead tree and faced the female eyeing him with petulant displeasure. “Yes, Mistress?”

Her eyes smoldered with crimson fire while the misty outline of the Gemini haloed her slender body. “Were you hiding from me?” she demanded.

He wryly glanced around the empty landscape. “Where would I go?”

“I don’t know, but you were plotting something,” she accused. “I can sense it.”

He stoically refused to react. Instead, he tried for a distraction. “Was there something you needed?”

There was a pause before she dismissed any thought of him with a wave of her hand. “The transformation should be complete,” she complained. The lion’s head flickered in and out of focus just behind her, as if being shorted out by some unseen electrical charge.

“Perhaps another sacrifice is needed.”

“No,” she glared at him with malevolent annoyance. As if the spirit’s refusal to complete the binding was his fault. “There is something interfering. Or someone.”

He took an instinctive step backward. “You can’t think that I—”

“Of course not,” she snapped. “Despite the treachery you harbor in your heart, you don’t possess the power to halt my inevitable victory.”

His lips twisted. All true.

Humiliatingly true.

“There’s no one else here.” He pointed out the obvious.

“Which means the interference must be coming from one of the rifts.”

Gaius was motionless, his mind shifting through the unexpected revelation. Of all the possibilities he’d considered, he’d never once given thought to an outside force being able to penetrate this hellhole.

A gift. One he’d have to use with great care.

“Then close them,” he offered the suggestion that she would be expecting. Anything else would immediately rouse her suspicions.

She reached to grasp his arm, branding him with her touch. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

He bowed his head, clenching his teeth against the blazing pain. “My only concern is for your welfare.”

“Your only concern is saving your own skin. Pathetic worm.”

“How can I prove my loyalty?”

“You can’t.”

Abruptly releasing his arm, the Dark Lord turned her attention to the vast expanse of nothingness bathed in a sickly yellow glow, holding out her hand as she walked forward.

Gaius fell into step behind her. Why would she have sought him out if she didn’t want him to play devoted slave? But he was careful not to brush against the shadowy figure that surrounded her.

The thing was . . . unnerving.

They moved in heavy silence, their steps sending up tiny clouds of choking dust. Absently, Gaius wondered if this desolate land had been lurking beneath the white mists, or if the Dark Lord’s almost-transformation had blasted it to this current wasteland.