Race swiped his sweat drenched face with his hand and glanced up at the night sky. “Never fear, old friend, I have your back,” he drawled. “If you get dragged to Tartarus since the witching hour is almost upon you—with you hanging around in the open instead of in confinement—I’ll be happy to take care of your woman. I know she’s here. I can smell her…”
Nik smashed his fist into the warrior’s face, sending him back a step. “Stay away from her or I will kill you.”
Race laughed, swiping his bloody mouth. “You’re one fucking insane bastard.”
“Good, you know that.” Nik flexed his bruised fingers and stilled. Despite his iced-over emotions, the malignance entrenched deep within him battered at his perilously thinning psychic shield with a strength that twisted his gut. The moon above shed a cold, silvery light, but with his ties to Tartarus, he saw more—saw the bloodstains slowly creeping in at the edges.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!Fighting didn’t delay the inevitable.
Jaw clamped tight, Nik flashed from the mountain, heading deep below the monastery’s living quarters to the cells there. He stumbled, but hands steadied him. Race stood at his side.
Both he and Dagan knew some of his shit. Hard to hide his kind of curse.
There was no pity in the warrior’s eyes. No trite words of appeasement. Nik preferred it this way. Nothing in their life would ever be right after Tartarus.
Nik shoved open the heavy iron door he’d installed and stepped into the musty cell. The monks of old had used it for self-isolation, and he sequestrated himself in it every four months or so. It was the only place that would keep him trapped and prevent him from hauling ass back to Tartarus and to his sadistic, amorphous jailors.
Race leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb. “I’ll hang around.”
“No.” Nik scrubbed his face, pacing the five steps to the other side and back again, too jittery to remain still. “There’s nothing you can do.”
With a terse nod, Race shut the door behind him, sealing Nik inside.
Nik continued his relentless traipsing ofthe small cell, his heart beating too fast. The souls inside him, sensing freedom, assaulted at him like a barrage of swords, eager to be free. But there would be no true escape for him or those damned souls in this warded cell. Once the blood moon’s energy waned in three days, they would ram straight back into him because the damn curse from his incarceration still hung over him.
Memories jerked free, dropping him back to their trial in front of the tribunal at the Gates of the Gods—the political powerhouse of all deities—after Inara, the Goddess of Life’s abduction and the massacre of her handmaidens and soldiers…
“For the innocent blood shed of those under your protection by the worst of the odious evil out there, Tartarus will be your beginning and end…”
A rush of power hauled him out of the chamber and through a portal, hurtling him into darkness. He slammed onto a hard, jagged surface. His bones rattled. Pain gushed, spreading through him where he lay, surrounded by darkness and churning mists.
Tartarus.
He was alone. None of the other protectors were with him, but the agony continued. And the truth struck Nik like a sword in the belly. He no longer possessed quick healing. All his powers were gone, along with his protective, serpent-like fog.
An insidious screech coasted over the lands. Invisible hands dragged him to his feet. Eerie red eyes appeared in foggy, skeletal forms.
“You belong to ussss.” A ghostly shriek splintered around him. “Bring back the sssouls we desire.”
How the hell was he supposed to capture souls? “I’m not—”
The fog slammed in his belly like a punch from a Titan. He flew against a rock pillar. Pain exploded through him. Grunting, Nik lifted his head to find his arms spread apart as if nailed to a cross, yet nothing held him up against the obelisk.
“You will learn…” Sinister laughter echoed in his mind. “You cannot escape thisfatewarrior…”
A mind-numbing chill seeped into him from the dark, foggy wasteland where nothing moved.
Time passed. He continued to hang by his frozen arms for endless nights. Forgotten. By his jailors this time. He would have laughed at the irony if he could. But his throat had dried out. Hunger twisted his belly.
Then the icy winds and sleet swept in, lashing him like blades, ripping at his clothes and slicing through skin and flesh. Blood flowed, freezing into icicles.
Unending pain consumed him, but he forced his sealed, dry lips apart. Some of the sulfuric-tasting slushes fell into his mouth, wetting and burning his swollen tongue, barely easing his thirst.
“You belong to ussss, warrior…” The eerie voices hissed as the agitating, ghoulish fogs reappeared. “Seek the sssouls we desire...”
A cyclone hauled him up and tossed him into some dark, dank place with rocky outcrops.
Nik pulled to his feet and stumbled about, the stench of death saturating him. Thick sulfuric air constricted his lungs, burning his nose. He coughed, his slow healing wounds splitting open, warm blood flowing down his sunken stomach.
