The Devil's Daughter (Hidden Sins #1)(28)

“Sacrifice.” He said it like it was a dirty word.

She shared the sentiment. Eden took a deep breath because she could, because the budding pressure around her chest was all in her head and not because she was literally trapped. “Over the centuries, the methods ranged from slitting a bull’s throat to killing virgins to creating a straw man and tossing him in a bonfire before an orgy.” She knew. She’d done the research after she’d left. Martha didn’t share the why of any particular Elysian practice, preferring to have her followers believe they originated with her.

Eden knew better.

She also had known, in her heart of hearts, that someday she’d have to come back—would be drawn back, if only to right a wrong her mother perpetuated—and she’d wanted to have every weapon possible in her arsenal of knowledge.

“Which ones does Elysia participate in?”

She’d known the question was coming, but it still took her several seconds to find her voice again. “They pick a girl from Martha’s followers, and after a ritual cleansing, they . . .” God, it’s been ten years. You should be able to talk about this. You lived through it. “They bury her alive.”

“What?”

His fury centered her, and her next breath came easier. She couldn’t sit still, though. Eden pushed to her feet and started pacing, the words coming faster now. “There’s no coffin to speak of. They cover her with dirt, and she fights her way to the surface. Then there’s a feast where they celebrate the triumph of Demeter over Hades.” The triumph of Martha.

Sitting at the head of that table, covered in dirt, still tasting it on her tongue and feeling the dried tracks on her face where tears had turned it to mud had been the breaking point for Eden.

She’d been gone the next morning.

Zach joined her on her feet. “I’m going to need you to go over that again. You’re saying that every spring, Martha puts some girl into the ground, and she fights free, and the people out in Elysia just let it happen.”

She spun and nearly ran into him. “It’s considered a great honor.”

“That’s bullshit. That’s not an honor—that’s torture.” Something was there on his face, a memory of horror that called to the part of her where she kept everything locked up tight.

She couldn’t afford to think too closely about what had been done to her while she was in Elysia’s tender care, not if she wanted to be a halfway functioning adult, let alone an FBI agent. She’d been doing just fine blocking out the memories and moving on with her life. As much as anyone moved on from that sort of thing.

The truth was she used the skills Martha had taught her, inadvertently or not.

Eden didn’t much like to think about that, either.

Every time she’d turned around since she’d gotten back into town, she was facing down yet another nightmare. She just flat out wasn’t equipped to deal with it. She’d thought she was prepared.

She’d been wrong.

It was all too much. And here was Zach Owens, whom she’d never thought to have a single thing in common with, looking at her like he knew exactly what it was like to be on the receiving end of torture. She suddenly realized they were standing close—too close. She licked her lips, and his gaze followed the movement. Words came, words she had no intention of voicing, but her control had shattered right around the time she relived the moment her mother put her in the ground. “Who hurt you?”

He didn’t pretend to misunderstand, which only made her like him a little bit more. “A lot of bad shit went down in the desert. Things I do my damnedest not to think about.”

Everyone had their way of dealing—and not dealing. “Nightmares?”

His mouth tightened. “More often than I care to admit.”

And now they were too close in an entirely different kind of way. She didn’t want the empathy that flowed through her at his words, didn’t want any kind of connection that might tie her to this place, no matter how fragile.

Hell, she didn’t want to think at all anymore.

So Eden went and did something impulsive and downright stupid. She leaned forward, placed her hands on Zach’s well-defined chest, and kissed him. It was only meant to break the moment they’d suddenly found themselves in the middle of. A distraction, and a short one at that.

Except the second his hands settled on her hips and his mouth teased hers open, it turned into something else altogether. She froze, her mind scrambling to reassign their roles, to put him back into the neat little box she’d created for him when they met.

Zach was having none of it. He took possession of her mouth, each move telegraphing a barely contained desperation that called to things deep inside her—things she didn’t allow anyone access to.

It was too late to worry about that, though. She skated her hands up his chest to drag her fingers through his short hair, earning a growl that she felt more than heard. His tongue stroked hers, lighting a string of fireworks along her nerve endings and making her knees go weak.

It’s just been a long time . . .

Rational thought had no place there. Then he was lifting her, turning and pinning her against the wall. Somehow her legs had ended up wrapped around his waist, but she was at a loss to figure out when it had happened.

Zach broke the kiss, his hands in her hair, his body lining up deliciously against hers. He didn’t quite move back, but he gave her a moment to breathe.