The Darkest Night (Lords of the Underworld #1)(95)

Please let her survive. He wanted to stay with her, guard her, watch over her. Take care of her. More than anything, he wanted her with him. But he walked away from her then, and into the night. Midnight approached.

In the morning, he would return. Woe to the world - woe to the gods - if she was not here, alive and well.

Reyes cursed as he searched the airport, nearby hotels. Medical clinics. He'd seen more of the city in two days than in all his centuries living here. He felt like a caged animal, seething with a need to act but ultimately powerless. Danika was still out there. Maybe sick, like Ashlyn. Maybe dying. And he could not find a single sign of her.

Night had fallen once again, and he was surprised to realize he'd raced to the same alleyway he and Maddox had discovered last night. He could see where Maddox had punched the wall in rage. The stone was cracked and dented.

Reyes was close to hopping on a plane to New York, but knew he could not stray very far from Maddox's side. When the gods had cursed Maddox to die every night, they had cursed him, as well, tethering him to the warrior as surely as if they'd used iron chains. Why him, rather than Aeron, he did not know. All he knew was that, at midnight, he would be forced to return to the fortress. Always he would return.

He'd taken off several times before, testing his boundaries, testing the gods' reaction, but always he was pulled to Maddox at midnight.

"Damn this!" He unsheathed one of his daggers and slashed the tip across his thigh. Fabric tore and blood leaked from the wound. What was he going to do? There was a need inside him, a deep need he'd never experienced before, to save, to rescue. To protect. But only Danika. Only to look into those angel eyes again and feel another flicker of pleasure.

A pleasure he was never supposed to experience.

But he had experienced it, and now he wanted more.

The gods would not have ordered Aeron to hunt her down and kill her if she could die from Torin's disease or if Hunters were destined to render the final blow. The thought brought both comfort and anger.

Perhaps Reyes should release Aeron - whom he had locked in the dungeon before leaving the fortress - and follow him to Danika, for surely Wrath would be able to scent her out so Reyes could free her from the Hunters.

No, he realized. Reyes would not be able to follow him if Danika were not close by. And if Aeron reached her first she would die, no doubt about it.

Forget her. She's a human. There are thousands. Millions. You can find another woman who looks like an angel.

"I don't want to find another," he shouted. But he could not keep Aeron chained forever, and he knew it. "Damn this."

Stop acting like a baby, a female voice said inside his mind, surprising; him. Look on the hill and shut the hell up already. You're giving me a major headache.

His shoulders stiffened. He scanned the area, knife at the ready. He saw no one.

What are you waiting for? the voice said again. Hurry.

A god? One of his own kind? Couldn't be Doubt, for the speaker was clearly female. Reyes didn't waste any more time trying to reason it out. He sprinted into motion, and ten minutes later, he stood at the edge of the hill.

Danika was there. She and a man - Kane, he realized - were lying on the ground, both of them moaning.

Anger filled him at the notion that she was injured, even as relief poured through him. Shockingly, she looked as if she'd been climbing back up, trying to reach the fortress. Rocks were scattered around the pair as if they'd fallen from the sky, the couple the target.

Reyes scooped her up, never wanting to let her go, and nudged Kane with the toe of his boot to wake him. He kept the hilt of his dagger at hand, just in case. He wasn't entirely comfortable having the other Lords back in his life.

Kane grunted. Opened his eyes. Grabbed for the gun sheathed in his waistband. Reyes kicked it out of his hand.

"Go ahead and kill each other," Danika said weakly. Her blond hair was matted with blood. In that instant, Reyes thought he knew the dark, consuming violence Maddox must experience whenever he thought of Ashlyn being hurt.

"How are you hurt?" If Disaster had -

"Rocks fell," she said, cutting off his furious thoughts. "From a mountain, I guess. He pushed me out of the way to avoid the worst of it and I tripped, hit my head."

Reyes relaxed, but only slightly. "Thank you," he said to Kane.

The man nodded, rubbed his temple as if in regret, and stood.

"Where's your family?" Reyes asked Danika. He could have remained just as he was for all eternity.

"Flying somewhere you'll never think to find them." She wouldn't meet his eyes and struggled against his hold. "Now put me down."

Never, he wanted to say. "No. You're too weak to walk."

Turning to Kane, he switched to Hungarian so that Danika would not understand. He hoped. "How did you save her? And do not answer in English." He only prayed Kane understood him.

"Hunters were on their way to the fortress when Torin and I ran into them," was the reply, also in Hungarian. Of course the man would speak it, Reyes thought. He would not have traveled to Buda unprepared. "We fought, but there were so many... He was cut and I was taken. They made the mistake of putting her in the same van they'd stashed me in. The tires blew and the vehicle flew off the road."

"And the Hunters are now...?"

"Dead."