The Darkest Pleasure (Lords of the Underworld #3)(56)

"I am not happy. Your pain hurts me."

"And you love to be hurt, right?"

"Danika, I - " A pause, heavy, oppressive. "Aeron said he thinks he killed her. Perhaps he did not. Perhaps she survived."

"An eighty-year-old woman against a supernaturally strong demon?" She laughed without humor. "Please."

Reyes's fingers bit deeper, almost painfully, as he shook her. "Don't you dare give up hope."

"Hope." She uttered another of those humorless laughs. "Hope is a demon worse than your Pain."

Reyes released her as if she'd suddenly sprouted horns and stabbed him with them. Wait. He would have liked that, she thought darkly, and wouldn't have moved away. Guess he'd released her as if she'd tried to kiss him again.

"Answer me true. Did you make that comparison because of your hate for what might have been done or because you believe Hope truly is a demon?"

"Does it matter?"

"Yes."

She shrugged, going numb again, so numb she couldn't make herself care about the conversation anymore. "Both." What a roller coaster she'd been on these past two days. It was too much.

"How do you know Hope is a demon?" he demanded. "Humans always think of Hope as good and wonderful and right."

"So it's true?" What else was out there, stealing joy and destroying lives? "I should be surprised."

"How?"

Another shrug. "Grandma Mallory used to tell me stories. I thought they were harmless, her mind's way of coping with the chaos of her life."

"In this," he admitted reluctantly, "she was right. Hope is indeed a demon. A monster now housed inside an equally treacherous immortal warrior."

Like you, she almost said but stopped herself. Reyes had not proven himself to be evil. "You know him - it?" Her lips curled in distaste. "Again, why aren't I surprised? Grandma told me Hope purposely raises expectations, makes people believe there's a potential for a miracle, and then he crushes those expectations, leaving nothing but ash and despair." Stefano was right. The world would be a better place without a demon like that.

"We are not all like that," Reyes said, as though he'd read her mind. "Hope was given to a warrior like me, yes. Galen was his name. But he was a corrupt man possessed by a corrupt demon and combined they are more dangerous than anything in this fortress. When I knew them, they delighted in uplifting and then crushing those around them."

She wrapped her arms around her middle, cold again. So cold. From fury to nothing to this. A torturous gamut. She'd feared this day for two weeks, dreaded learning that her amazing grandmother had been murdered while Danika was too busy running to help her.

Reyes's gaze bored into her, piercing like a laser. "I need honesty from you, Danika. Did you hear any of what you've just told me from the Hunters?"

"No." They'd mentioned nothing about either Galen or Hope.

A moment passed in silence, she and Reyes staring at each other. What he was thinking, she could only guess. That she had to die now and there could be no more saving her? That she would go back on her word now that she knew her grandmother was dead?

Sweet Grandma Mallory. Memories of a long-ago night played through her mind. Stars had twinkled from the sky as she and her grandmother made camp inside her tree house.

Lie back, baby girl, and Grandma will tell you another story.

Shuddering, Danika had climbed into her sleeping bag. Cool night scents floated on the breeze, but they had failed to calm her. Grandma's stories were not like the fairy tales her sister liked to read her. "Will this one scare me?"

"Maybe. But it's okay to be scared sometimes. I don't want you to be like me. I want you stronger, better equipped to deal."

"I don't want to deal. I don't like to be scared."

"No one does, but feeling the emotion is good. Gives you a chance to prove you're stronger than it is."

"O-okay. I'll listen to the story."

"That's my girl."

Those tales of demons had frightened her back then - and that was when she'd considered them simple fiction - but she hadn't let them keep her up at night or stop her from enjoying life. Because of her grandmother. When her parents would have coddled her because of her nightmares, Grandma Mallory had helped her find a core of strength so Danika wouldn't one day fall under the pressure as she had done. She'd taught Danika how to fight the evil inside her head. How to win.

"The Darkest Pleasure"

And it had worked...until Reyes and his friends had entered her life. Now, she was that frightened little girl again. Sadly, there would be no more deluding herself into thinking those bedtime stories had been make-believe. Her grandmother had seen things. Ugly things, evil things. Real things.

"What other stories did she relay to you?" Reyes asked.

"If I tell you, will you help me find her...her...body? Help me give her a proper burial?"

"Yes. If she is dead. I still think there's a good chance she's alive."

Don't you dare start to hope. You just admitted Hope is a demon. Danika allowed the stories to occupy every available space in her mind, sorting through them, trying to pull the most important facts front and center. How much time passed, she didn't know. But when she focused, Reyes was sitting in a chair directly across from her - close enough to touch - patiently and silently waiting.