Blaéz rose in a squeak of wet leathers and pulled her up with him, and out of the cubicle. He took the bath towel from the rail and rubbed her dry.
“What do you mean that I don’t know what you are?” she asked, her gaze roaming his pale features. He didn’t look at her, just gave her a gentle push in response. “Go. Change. We’ll talk after.”
Her wariness growing, Darci walked into the dressing room then glanced back. Blaéz’d opened the vanity cupboard and pulled out a glass bottle with brown liquid, like the one Týr had given him when he’d gotten hurt. Uncorked it and took a drink.
She undressed and changed into a zip-front khaki skirt and a white top. Retrieving her cell from her wet jeans, she pushed it into her pocket. As she tied her damp hair into a ponytail, Blaéz emerged from the bathroom, completely naked and slowly made his way to the closet.
He was leaner than the other warriors, but powerfully built. All smooth, hard muscles, and coiled violence. And yet he moved like an old man. Her chest tightened. What had happened to him?
He pulled on a pair of jeans, buttoned up and then he just stood there. Hands gripping the shelf, knuckles bone-white, he stared at a stack of t-shirts.
She crossed to him. “I like this color the best,” she teased and drew out a black tee from the all black pile, hoping to lighten his mood. A nerve twitched in his rigid jaw. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be as bad as losing his soul, could it?
“Blaéz, talk to me.”
The muscles on his arms and back bunched as if only his skin held him together. The bumpy, crisscrossing scars on his back made her heart ache knowing how he’d gotten them. She studied the new lash across the width of his back. A red scab was forming. It looked a lot like his old scars. Her breath caught. “Blaéz!” She grasped his arm, her voice cracking in fear. “That new wound on your back—it’s just like the others. What happened?”
After an endless moment of silence, he said, “I was in Hell.”
“I know. It’s where you lost your soul—”
“No. I mean when I left you three days ago, I was back in Hell.”
A chill swept through her. She stepped away from him. “You went backthere? God in heaven, why—whywould you do this to yourself?”
He exhaled roughly and finally faced her. “It’s not something I can avoid, and trust me, I have tried. I cannot escape it because Maloch has me by the bal—he has my soul.” He stared past her as if drawn back into his past.
“After centuries in Tartarus, I remember little else, except mind-numbing pain. My first jailor was a sadistic son-of-a-bitch who inflicted pain any way he could. Maloch came across me in the last century of my incarceration. Changed places. He’d usually come to me with suggestions to join him… At first I thought it was for the armies he controlled. As young as I was, I was the Hand, the most dangerous in The Morrigan’s army. When I rejected his offer, he strung me up and whipped me.” Blaéz’s expression became stone. “Then I realized, he wanted more, he wantedme…”
“Blaéz, no,” she whispered, distraught.
The nerve on his jaw pulsed harder. “It didn’t go that far, but I was tied down and played with. For some reason, he wanted my “yes” more. I wanted to kill the bastard many times over. When Michael’s first attempt to free us fell flat, I was punished. Maloch was furious. I was his fucking plaything, one he refused to let go. I got strung up and paid the price. No healing this time. Those scars remained. Soon after, we did escape. Then the first red lunar appeared quarter ways into the year, and I realized the truth.”
“Red lunar?”
“It’s a demon’s blood moon, one that I can see being tied to Hell. I cannot fight the compulsion. I can hold it off for a while, but in the end, I am still drawn back because of my soul…” He took the t-shirt from her limp fingers and pulled it on. His movement’s jerky, nothing like the suave man she knew. He picked up another pair of boots from his closet.
Darci rubbed her shaky hands down her skirt. “What happens then?”
“When I’m yanked back there?”
“Yes.”
“He likes to see me break my Guardian’s oath, torture the damned. He can’t touch me now, the way he used to, so he found other ways to try and break me.” He stared at the boots he held. “At first it just used to be torturing the damned—they mattered little to me—then he took to capturing humans. He’d brutalize them to get me to do what he wanted. I may be a cold, soulless bastard, but I couldn’t leave the innocent in that hellish place…”
“To set them free, you killed them,” she said in understanding. Her heart ached for him, for the indignities he’d suffered, and continued to suffer because of a perverse, narcissistic demon. So she simply slid her arms around his waist and hugged him.
He stiffened for a second, then the boots he held hit the floor in a thud and his arms wrapped around her. He buried his face in her neck, a shudder wracking his big body. She could barely breathe at his tight hold. Didn’t care.
“It’s all a fucking game to him. A sick joke he indulges in.”
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. God, she wanted to go down to Hell, find the demon bastard, and kill him herself. No more, she’d never allow Blaéz to suffer such humiliations again. Ever.
* * *
She was sorry?It floored Blaéz that Darci would comfort him after what he’d revealed. She was mortal, she should run from him, but she didn’t. A tenderness grew, took hold of him.
After basking in her warmth a moment longer, he eased back and sat on the scarred, wooden chest. As he pulled on his boots, he worried about the danger she’d be in now. “Darci, I hurt him this time, Maloch won’t forget that. Being with me will only put you in the crosshairs—”
