Upon the Midnight Clear

Dark-Hunter Series, Book 11

Sherrilyn Kenyon

To Monique for going above and beyond

the call of duty. You are the absolute best!

And to all my friends for being there when

I needed you most. To the RBL's for their

never-ending dedication and support.

Most of all, for you, the reader. Thank you

for taking this trip with me.

The way to overcome the angry man is with gentleness, the evil man with goodness, the miser with generosity and the liar with truth.

—An Indian proverb

It sounds good, doesn't it? If only people and life were that effing easy. Trust me, it takes more than a friendly biscuit to tame a hungry lion. And it's all fun and games until someone gets hurt. Then it's war.

—Savitar, Chthonian god

PROLOGUE

Dolor smiled as he finally felt the call of his summoning ring. For countless centuries he'd been asleep—cursed to wait for another human to grow enough testicles to awaken him. How he hated the dream goddess, Leta, for her abilities to trap him to this fate. To make him the lapdog of a mere mortal. Now the bitch would pay.

But first he'd have to deal with this pathetic mortal who had temporary power over him.

Leaning his head back, he allowed the conscious part of himself to travel through the darkness until he appeared as an apparition before his summoner.

"See! I told you it would work!"

Dolor frowned at the small, round male who had beady blue eyes, glasses, and a bald scalp that gleamed under the grueling fluorescent lights. He stood next to a taller human whose blond hair was cut close to his head. His green eyes were feral with madness and anger.

And those green eyes narrowed suspiciously on Dolor. "Who are you?"

Dolor snorted at the asinine question. "You summoned me. Don't you know?"

The human gaped as the smaller man pushed his glasses back onto his nose with his forefinger. His jowls flapped as he looked up at the taller man. "See, I told you, Donnie. The book of spells and ring worked just like Mark said it would. I told you Mark was a genius about all that weird occult stuff. He's never been wrong before. Now you tell the pain god who you want punished and he'll do it."

"For a price," Dolor added, reminding them that there was more to bringing him back from stasis than just reading the lines from his book and wearing his binding ring. Right now, most of his powers were still bound by Leta's curse.

The blond man crossed his arms over his chest and gave him a tough, smug grimace. "What price?"

Dolor shrugged nonchalantly as if the steep price was nothing at all. "The price of all vengeance—blood sacrifice. I will need you to kill someone in order to awaken me from my slumber."

The one called Donnie nodded as if he agreed to the terms. An instant later, he pulled a small shiv from his back pocket and cut the throat of the man beside him. The smaller man tried to scream, but the cut was too deep to allow it.

Dolor lifted an eyebrow as the shorter man fell to the floor, clasping his neck and jerking until death finally claimed him. Donnie merely watched him die without a single sign of remorse or feeling for the person who'd been his cellmate for the last two years.

Good. Dolor needed someone this soulless to help him.

Smiling, he applauded the human. "Nice gesture, but not what I needed."

Donnie curled his lip. "What do you mean?"

"There is a ritual, you fool. I don't come back without…" Dolor hesitated at revealing too much lest he frighten the human away, "certain requirements."

"And they are?"

Again, Dolor hesitated, but there was no other way for the human to awaken Dolor's powers. Hopefully the human would continue to be heartless and cold. "The blood of a loved one. You must offer me someone important to you and you must utter my curse while you bleed them. When the words are spoken and they lie dead, my powers will be unbound and I'll be able to enter this world."

There was a little more to it than that, but the human didn't need to know the rest until the time came for it.

First things first. If Dolor could get this sacrifice, the rest would be easier… provided the human was serious about his vengeance.

Donnie scowled as if skeptical. "How do I know you're not lying to me?"

"Why would I lie?"

"Because everyone does."

And he would know. It was lies and deception that had landed this piece of trash in prison. Dolor gave him a soothing, if not insincere, smile. "True, but I want my freedom as much as you do."

Donnie scoffed. "And I've seen this movie a few times. You'll kill me once you're free, won't you?"

Dolor laughed. "My venom isn't for you, little human. I have my own person to bleed. Because of her, I have to do what you order me to first. Then and only then will I be free to exact my own revenge. Trust me, you'll live a long time once I'm gone."

Because living with the actions he'd have to take to free Dolor was the worst thing Dolor could do for this human and since he was the god of pain…

Dolor smiled and this time he meant it.

Donnie stepped over the body to approach his shimmering ghost form. "I've been waiting for this for far too long. Since the day I was first arrested, I've been trying any- and everything I could and nothing has worked. What I want more than anything else in this world is my kid brother dead and I want him to suffer unimaginable misery before he dies. We're talking pain of Biblical proportions. The kind that has him screaming out for mercy and begging me to kill him to end it while I laugh at his agony. Can you do that?"

"That is my specialty."

Donnie smiled as the insanity flared deep in his eyes. "Then tell me what I have to do to set you free. I will do anything to see my brother suffer and die, and I do mean anything.'"

Two days later

Dressed in a long, flowing,s white Grecian gown, Leta came awake with a sharp gasp. It took her several seconds to acclimate to her surroundings. She was still in her cushioned pod, asleep in the hall of mirrors on the Vanishing Isle.

But something was wrong. She could sense it. The dark hand of evil slithered over her body with an unmistakable touch.

Dolor, the most vile of all gods, had been summoned back into the human realm which had triggered her own waking. The god of pain had been trapped centuries ago by Leta, who had fought him until they'd both been bloody and spent. Forbidden by Zeus to kill him outright, she'd been forced to trap him so that he would never do to another what he'd done to her.

And once he'd been trapped, she'd placed herself in stasis to heal and await the moment when he would stir.

Now someone had found Dolor's hidden ring and uttered that which was never to be uttered again. Sucking her breath in sharply, she allowed her buried memories to assail her.

Morons! The stupid humans had no idea what they'd unleashed. Pain wasn't content to attack just the one person it was sent after. No, it was bloodthirsty and ruthless. Dolor respected nothing and no one was immune to Pain.

Sure, he'd stalk and kill the one he was sent after, but once that was accomplished, Pain would return to the one who'd summoned it.

May the gods help the summoner then. His torture would be without end.

Closing her eyes, she reawakened her dormant powers. She let her thoughts drift until she found Pain's target.

The target had his back to her, but even so she could tell he was tall and broad shouldered. His blond hair was tousled and wavy as it fell to the top of his black collar.

As a dream god, she could feel his bitter emotions calling out to her. They were so strong she could even feel them as her own.

"Yeah," he said, his deep voice filled with malice. "It never fails to amaze me how a single lie can undo an entire lifetime of good."

And it was then she realized something. This man didn't need Pain. It already lived inside him right alongside Bitterness and Rage. They had him nestled tight against their bosoms and from what she sensed they had no intention of letting him go.

Then she heard it…

That deep, blood-chilling laugh.

"Leta…"

She flashed herself from her sterile pod to stand on the cold marble floor. A bitter wind plastered her gown against her body, exposing her bare feet to the ankles. It made the gold bands on her upper arms bitingly cold. The walls around her were white; no pictures or curtains or anything else to break its sterile quality.

Still she felt the presence of the god of Pain.

"Where are you, you bastard?"

Dolor appeared behind her. Before she could move, he grabbed her by the hair and wrenched her head back against his shoulder. "You didn't really think you could keep me trapped forever, did you?"

She tried to fight, but he released her and vanished. "This isn't over, Dolor," she said, her voice filled with the weight of her promise.

His laughter filled the room. "No, it isn't. You bound me to this curse, and before this is over, you will pay for it. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a human to torture and kill."

She felt him receding all the way down her spine and there was nothing she could do to stop him. By the order of Zeus, her own emotions had been drained. Yet she felt something… some remnant emotions from the past perhaps?

She wasn't sure.

But one thing was certain, there were enough emotions inside her that she wasn't about to allow Pain to hurt another soul if she could help it. It was a solemn vow she'd made and it was one she would keep. So long as she had life in her veins, she would fight.

And as she started forward, Dolor's target turned in the mirror to face her.

Leta froze as she saw the man's features. He was as beautiful as an immortal. Through the mist that separated the Vanishing Isle from the human plane, she could see every curve and line of his perfect face. Sharp brows arched over eyes that were a pale green. Searing with intelligence, they showed her a soul that was tainted by betrayal. One completely devoid of trust.

And in that one single moment, she felt his sorrow inside her own heart. He wanted to trust someone. He wanted to reach out. But he'd forgotten how.

Alone and cold, he was pain personified.

Cocking her head, she realized something else. That pain that burned so fiercely within him was exactly what she needed to use in order to defeat Dolor. If she could channel it, it would meld with her powers and give her the advantage. There was no stronger emotion than rage…

He's been hurt enough…

It didn't matter. She couldn't see his pain for her own. Dolor must be defeated at any cost and if this human paid the price, so what? The life and soul of one would never be worth more than the lives and souls of many. Aidan O'Conner would be her sacrifice and her past would finally be avenged. Pain would be defeated by her hand and laid to rest for all eternity.

CHAPTER 1

Leta was completely baffled by the human world as she stared into the mirrors around her that showed the daily events taking place in the realm of man. Her gaze chased from mirror to mirror as she tried to make sense of the flickering images of people from all over the world. She was beginning to suspect that she'd made a horrible mistake by putting herself in stasis while waiting for Dolor to stir. Everything had changed.

Everything.

There were complicated contraptions—machines—that she couldn't even begin to fathom. And the languages had changed so much… She had to focus to understand the rapidly spoken words, which were riddled with colloquialisms and slang that flew past her understanding. Her head ached from the strain of it all.

"Give yourself time."

She turned to find her older brother M'Adoc behind her. For a creature whose emotions had been brutally taken from her, she felt her heart stirring at his approach. It was a muted joy that only reminded her of what real happiness had felt like. But phantom emotions were better than no emotions at all.

Tall and lithe like her, M'Adoc had black, wavy hair and eyes so pale a blue they were almost luminescent.

She held her hand out to him. "It's good to see you again, brother."

There was the subtlest of softening in his gaze as he took her hand and brought it to his lips.

Leta flinched as an unbidden and unexpected image of his being tortured went through her. Even after thousands of years, she could still hear his screams.

And her own.

As if he knew her thoughts, M'Adoc gathered her into his arms. He cupped her head in his hand and held her face against his shoulder. Leta gasped as he passed onto her the knowledge of the changed world and how it worked.

"You have set yourself a herculean task, little sister," he breathed against her hair. "You should have stayed with the rest of us and not isolated yourself."

"I couldn't." It had been too painful to see them all emotionless when she remembered the way they'd been before Zeus had punished them. The only emotion Zeus had left them with was pain, so that he could control and punish the gods of sleep, and that never-ending pain had eaten a hole inside her.

It was a cold world she'd been forced to live in and that as much as anything else was why she'd been just as content to sleep through eternity.

She stepped back from M'Adoc so that she could meet his gaze. "I have to stop him."

"He's not the only god of pain. Pain permeates everything in our world and that of man."

"I know. But he is ultimate suffering. It's not enough to make his victims cry. He destroys them, mind, body, and soul. You weren't there, brother… you didn't see."

Still, he flinched as if he could in fact see her memories. "Everyone does what they feel they have to do. I respect you for your choices. Doesn't mean I agree with them." His gaze sharpened before he spoke again. "Dolor will kill you if he gets the chance."

She let one side of her mouth curl up into the semblance of a bitter smile. "Good. I relish the fight just as I will relish the feel of his heart in my fist as I crush the life out of him."

M'Adoc inclined his head to her. "Then I leave you to your plans for revenge… except for one thing."

"That is?"

His eyes were haunting. "It's not the pain that's inflicted on us by others that destroys us. It's the pain we let inside our hearts that does that. Don't let the human's anger become yours. It can drive you mad if you do." And with those sage words spoken, he vanished.

Leta drew a deep breath as she considered what he'd said. She knew he was right. But knowing something and doing it were often two entirely different things. She needed Aidan's anger. She wanted it.

Closing her eyes, she focused on the target.

Aidan.

He was asleep in his bed, dreaming that he was lost in a thundering storm. The rain slashed painfully against his skin as he trudged along. His breathing was ragged, his handsome face contorted by rage.

Leta was baffled by his actions. By his will to carry on even as lightning struck the ground, barely missing him. The static from the blasts caused his hair to rise and fan out around his steely features. It was a feral determination that carried him onward. And before she even realized what she'd done, she'd stepped through the portal and entered the dream beside him.

He froze in place as he became aware of her. The cold rain pelted her flesh, plastering her hair against her body as she watched him curiously. In this state, all of his emotions were laid bare to her. She could feel every ounce of his rage, his betrayal.

His unsated need for revenge.

It was so close to her own feelings that it fed her powers and brought her emotions back with a clarity so crisp, it stung.

He uncoiled his arms from around his chest as he stared at her with those icy, probing eyes. "Who are you?"

"A friend," she whispered, catching a chill from the wind that started blowing against them.

He laughed bitterly. "I have no friends. I don't want any."

"Then I'm here to help you."

He snorted in derision. "Help me do what? Freeze? Or is your plan to hold me still in this storm to make sure the lightning kills me?"

Leta snapped her fingers and the rain instantly stopped. The clouds roiled above as they parted to show the sun. The rays illuminated the bleak landscape and painted it in bright greens and yellows.

Aidan wasn't fazed. "Neat trick."

He was a hard man to impress and his jaded causticity made her wonder what had happened to him to cause it. She dried their clothes and hair. "Why did you summon the rain?"

"I didn't summon shit," he growled. "I was minding my own business when it came down on me. All I was trying to do was get through it."

"And now that it's gone?"

He looked up at the clear blue sky above them. "It'll be back. It always comes back and it hits you when you least expect it."

She knew he wasn't just talking about the weather. "You should find shelter."

He scoffed at her. "There isn't any. The storm tears it down and leaves you naked in the hurricane, so why bother?"

And she'd stupidly thought she was bitter. Then again, outside the dream world, she could only feel a twinge of what she felt now. Even so hers was nothing in comparison to his. His bitterness ran so deep, it scalded her tongue with the taste of it.

But beneath that hostility she sensed a raw vulnerability in him. Something about him that had been crushed and yet was still struggling to survive even though he didn't want it to. It reached out to her own grieving heart and made her want to touch him.

Without a second thought, she took a step forward to lay her hand to his cheek.

He hissed at her like a cat before he moved away. "Don't touch me."

"Why not?"

"I don't want your lying kindness. Sure, you'll smile and be so sweet to me that I'll trust you, but the minute I don't give you everything you want the instant you demand it, you'll turn on me and try to crush me. You're just like everyone else in the world. No one matters but you."

And with that, he turned and walked away.

Leta crossed her arms over her chest as she watched him put distance between them.

Oh yeah, she had enough bitter emotions here to more than defeat Dolor. Little did the god know that his current victim was going to be his downfall. Aidan might seem insignificant to the god, but his determination and spirit would be the fuel she needed to avenge them both.

And just like Dolor, she wouldn't show any clemency or weakness. Nothing was going to stop her from destroying him. For once Dolor was going to know exactly what it was like to have someone come for him and leave him quivering on the ground, begging for a mercy that would never come.

She couldn't wait…

CHAPTER 2

It was just another frigid day in hell as far as Aidan O'Conner was concerned. Nothing ever changed and he liked it that way.

At least that was what he was hoping for until his cell phone started ringing. Picking it up from his breakfast counter, he looked at the ID. He started not to answer it, but it was his agent, Mori, and if he didn't answer Mori would worry him like a neurotic puppy with a urinary tract infection needing to go piss in the snow.

Definitely not what he needed in his life or, more importantly, in his current mood.

Aidan flipped the phone open with his chin as he simultaneously turned down his stereo, which was playing his Bauhaus CD. "Hi, Mori."

"Oh, Aidan, there you are. I've been worried about you."

Yeah, right. The only thing Mori ever worried about was where his next check was coming from. The bastard was just like everyone else Aidan had ever known. Greedy, self-serving, narcissistic, and wanting a piece of Aidan's flesh.

Just the sound of his whiny voice telling Aidan what to do made him all warm and toasty inside.

"I have another offer for you, A. They're up to thirty-five million dollars plus a significant share of the profits, and believe me, with the costars in this movie there will be enough profits to make even a Scrooge like you smile."

Aidan remembered a time when he would have choked and died at such an offer. A time when that kind of money had seemed like an unimaginable dream.

And like all his dreams, that one too had been brutally shattered.

"I told you I'm not interested."

Mori scoffed. "Of course you're interested."

"No, Mori, I'm not."

"Oh, come on, you can't keep hiding out on top of your little mountain. Sooner or later you have to come back to the real world. And this will be the perfect comeback. Think of how much money you'd be throwing away if you say no."

Aidan flipped the CD to the song "Crowds" and let it remind him of why he had no interest in going back to Hollywood… or anywhere outside of Knob Creek, Tennessee, for that matter. He didn't like people and he hated the thought of ever doing another movie.

"Thanks, but no thanks. With a hundred million dollars in my bank accounts, I don't ever have to come back to reality again."

Mori made a deep sound of disgust in the back of his throat. "Damn it to hell, Aidan. You've been gone from the scene so long you're lucky anyone is wanting you at any price. Even the tabloids have forgotten you at this point."

"Really?" he said, glancing down at the stack on his coffee table that he'd picked up a week ago when he'd been in the supermarket. His face was plastered all over them. "Funny, but I seem to be the talk of the tabloids. They're speculating on everything from whether I had a disfiguring car wreck to being kidnapped by aliens or an insane fan, to my favorite of all—which claims I'm having a sex change operation at a Swedish clinic. I particularly like the Photoshopped picture of me in a dress. At least I look better than Klinger, huh? But in all honesty, I'd like to think I'd look more like Alexis Mead from Ugly Betty than this hairy yeti they have me pictured as."

Mori cursed again. "You're really not playing with me, are you? This isn't a stunt to get more money from the studio. You really are serious about retiring."

"Yeah, Mori. I'm through. I just want to go back to being a plain, normal guy that no one knows."

Mori snorted. "It's too late for that. There's not a person in the world over the age of two days who doesn't know the name and face of Aidan O'Conner. Christ, you were on more magazine covers than the president."

And that was why he had no intention of leaving his mountain top except for food, beer, and maybe once a year to get laid… then again, given all he'd been through, he might consider using blow-up dolls instead—some of the ones he'd found online were getting seriously high tech. "You're not helping your case. Besides, I thought they'd all forgotten me."

Even over the phone, he could hear Mori blustering in his office. "You know better. I don't get you, man, I really don't. You could own the world if you wanted to. It's yours for the taking."

As if Aidan cared about that… What good was owning the world when he'd have no choice except to defend himself against every person in it? Personally, he'd rather be a beggar with one true friend than a prince surrounded by two-faced assassins.

"I'm hanging up now, Mor. Talk to you later." Aidan clicked the phone off and tossed it back to the counter where it landed oh another photo of him in a bad wig and a dress. God, he remembered when a lie like that would have sent him off on a rage that would have lasted for days.

But that was before the betrayal that had cut so deep it had destroyed every sensitive nerve in his body. Unlike the firestorm he'd been through, these attacks weren't personal and they weren't directed at him by people he'd once called family. These attacks were all highly laughable.

He flicked the lid off his beer and held it up to the photos of his "family" that he kept on his mantel next to his five Oscars. "Fuck you all very much," he said snidely.

But in the end, he knew the truth. He was the only one who'd been royally screwed. He'd put his trust in all the wrong people and now he was left alone to deal with the devastation they'd foisted on him—because he'd dared to love them more than he'd loved himself.

Life was nothing if not pain and he was the king of it.

Two years ago, he'd lived and died for those assholes on the mantel. Had given freely to them, hand over fist, wanting them to have a better life than the hell he'd known growing up.

And even though he'd given all but his life to them, it hadn't been enough. They'd been deceitful and selfish. Unsatisfied with his extravagant gifts, they'd begun taking, and when he'd dared to question them about their theft, they'd gone after the only thing he'd had left.

His reputation and livelihood.

Yeah, people were sick and he was tired of the Judases around him. His days of being used by others for what they could suck out of him were over.

He wanted nothing more of this world or those who were in it.

His gaze slid to the shotgun that he kept in the corner of his cabin for snakes and bears. Sixteen months ago, he'd loaded that gun, intending to kill himself and end his pain for real. The only thing that had kept him here was the fact that he wouldn't give them the satisfaction of knowing they'd weakened him to that point.

No, he was stronger than that. He'd come into this world alone and alone he would stand and defend himself until the day God above saw fit to take him from it. He'd be damned if some two-bit backwoods trash would get the better of him. He hadn't clawed his way out of poverty and built up his life to where it was, to give it all up because of some backstabbing bastards.

He hadn't started this fight, but he was the one who'd ended it.

"The trust of the innocent is the liar's most useful tool." Aidan flinched as he remembered the quote from his favorite Stephen King novel. They'd certainly proven that to be true. And no one had been more innocent than he in all this. Because of them, his gullibility had been slaughtered on the altar of treachery.

But no more. Now there was nothing left except a man so strong he would never again allow anyone that close to him. He'd banished all trust. Banished all tenderness. He now gave to the world what it had given to him.

Anger, hatred, and venom. And that was why he kept their smiling faces on the mantel. It was to remind him how two-faced everyone was.

Aidan paused as he heard a slight banging. It sounded like someone at his door…

No. It wasn't possible. He was too far out and away from everything. No one ever came up the isolated dirt road that led to his log cabin. Cocking his head, he listened again, but the sound seemed to vanish.

He snorted. "Yeah, great, now I'm hearing things."

Aidan took a step, then heard the banging again.

Maybe something had come loose. He reversed course and headed back toward his great room.

"Hello?"

He cursed at the muffled feminine voice. Damn it. The last thing he wanted on his mountain was a woman. Growling, he snatched open the door to find a white, bundled form on his porch step. "Get off my property."

"P-p-please. I'm freezing and my car broke down. I need to call for help."

"Then use your cell phone." He slammed the door in her face.

"I can't get a signal up here." Her voice was faint and the softness of it cut through him.

Don't you dare feel sorry for her, putz. No one takes pity on you. Give only what you're given. Hatred. Contempt. He glanced to the pictures on his mantel.

"Please. I'm freezing. Please help."

If you don't do something she's going to freeze out there. Her death will be on your hands.

So what! Let her die for being stupid. Sometimes Darwinism was the best way to go…

But no matter how much his anger gnawed at him and his inner voice called him an ass, he couldn't leave her out there to die.

You're a freakin' idiot.

"Ten minutes," he snarled as he snatched open the door. "That's it. Then I want you out of my house."

"Thank you," she said, stepping inside.

Aidan kept his lip curled as he watched her drift toward his fire. She left a trail of snow on his hardwood floors. "Don't mess up the place."

"I'm sorry," she said, her voice still distorted by her pink woolen scarf that she had pulled up over her mouth and nose. All he could see of her face was a pair of eyes so pale a shade of blue they practically glowed. "It's really cold outside."

"Like I care," he said under his breath before he moved to get his cell phone from the countertop. He went back to her and held it out. "Make it quick."

She pulled off her white leather gloves to expose dainty hands that were bright pink from the cold. Shivering, she pulled the scarf down.

Aidan couldn't breathe as he saw her face, and a wave of lust bombed his system. Fine boned and patrician, she was beautiful. But more than that, it was the same woman he'd seen in his dream last night who had stopped the rain.

How freakin' weird…

Without a word, she took the phone from his hand and dialed it.

He couldn't move as he watched her. What were the odds of some unknown person coming out of his dreams and showing up at his door needing a phone? Especially the woman whose face had been haunting him all day.

You should play the lottery…

She shut his phone, then held it out to him. "Yours isn't working either."

"Bullshit." He flipped it open, then realized she was right. There was no signal at all. Baffled, he scowled at it. "I was just on it a minute ago."

She shrugged before she returned to his fire. "Looks like we're both out of luck then."

"I'm not out of luck. I live here. You're the one who's screwed, 'cause you're not staying."

She gaped in disbelief. "You would really throw me out of your house in the middle of a blizzard?"

He scoffed. "There's no…" His voice drifted off as he looked outside and realized she was right. It was a total whiteout.

When had that happened?

"Un-friggin'-believable," he snarled. Then again, it was just his luck. His uncle had always told him he was born under an unlucky star. The man had been more right than either of them had ever guessed.

She turned her haunting eyes toward his. "Should I leave?"

Yes. Something in his soul screamed for him to shove her out the door and then lock it tight. It was that part of him that had been battered to the brink of suicide.

But even after all he'd been through, he couldn't bring himself to cause her death. Unlike him, she most likely had someone out there who would actually mourn for her if she were to die. Bully for her.

She gave him a look that rivaled the freezing temperature outside before she pulled her muffler back over her face and started for the door.

"Don't be stupid," he snarled. "You can't go out there."

She raked him with a stern look, then lowered the muffler. "I don't like staying where I'm not wanted."

"So you want me to lie?" He fell into the acting that had won him his Academy Awards. "Oh, baby, please stay with me and don't leave. I need you here. I can't live without you."

Leta arched a brow at his words, which lacked the sarcastic tone she was certain lay beneath them. Little did he know how true they were. He did need her here because she was the only thing standing between him and death.

"How nice. You practice those lines much?"

"Not really. Usually I just tell people to fuck off and die."

"Ooo," she said in a seductive tone. "That just gives me goose bumps all over. I love it when a man sweet-talks me."

"I'll bet you do." Scratching his jaw, he indicated the wooden tree by the door. "You can hang your coat there until the storm or the phone clears."

She shrugged the coat off and unwound the scarf from around her before she pulled away her hat and tucked it in the pocket of her coat. "What's the gun for?"

"I would lie and say it's for bears or snakes, but mostly I use it for trespassers."

"Wow, Dexter," she said, using the name of the serial killer from the Showtime series M'Adoc had shown her. "I'm impressed. Since we're not in Miami and you haven't a boat to hide the hacked-up bodies at sea, where are you keeping them?"

"Under the woodshed out back."

"Nice." She smiled. "At least that explains the odor I smelled coming up the driveway."

His gaze lightened as if he found her entertaining. "You're right. That's the septic line. I'm not stupid enough to put corpses that close to my house—it'd bring the wildlife too close to my back door. I leave the bodies in the woods for the bears to eat."

"What about when they're hibernating?"

He shrugged. "The coyotes get them."

He was quick, she'd give him that. "Well, then, I guess you need to go ahead and shoot me and get it over with. The coyotes are probably starving in this weather."

Aidan was completely baffled by her lack of fear. "You're not afraid of me, are you?"

"Should I be?"

"You're trapped in the woods during a snowstorm with a man you've never laid eyes on before. My nearest neighbor lives six miles away. I could do anything I wanted to you and no one would ever know."

She looked to the corner behind her. "True, but I'm the one closest to the gun."

"You think you could beat me to it?"

Leta wrinkled her nose at him. She didn't know why but she was enjoying this banter and she shouldn't be capable of enjoying anything at all. "I think I can handle you, Dex. After all, you don't know anything more about me than I know about you. For all you know, I could be a crazed serial killer on the run from the authorities. Might even be a body in the trunk of my car waiting for me to bury it."

Aidan was intrigued by the fact she was playing the same game that he'd started. He admired courage and she seemed to have more than her share of it. "Are you a serial killer?"

She lifted her chin. "You first, Dexter. Who are you and why are you up here alone?"

He stepped around the counter to approach her. Pausing before her, he held out his hand. "Aidan O'Conner. Former actor, but I'm sure you know that."

She shrugged. "It means nothing to me. I'm Leta."

"Leta what?"

"Just Leta." She hesitated a moment longer before she took his hand and shook it. "Nice to meet you, Dexter."

He studied her carefully. Her winter-white clothes, while nice, weren't extravagant. They didn't say much about her except that she was caught in a snowstorm unprepared. She didn't have any jewelry or anything else that marked even the most basic thing about her. She was like a blank slate. "And what do you do for a living, just Leta?"

"I'm a professional bodyguard."

He laughed at her unexpected answer. "Yeah, right."

She shook her head slowly. "Nope. All true. I know seventy-two ways to kill a man and sixty-nine of them look like an accident."

That should probably scare him, but instead he was intrigued. "And what brings a bodyguard to this neck of the woods? Did Mori hire you to protect me from my brother?"

"I don't know any Moris. I'm currently between assignments and was looking for a change. I heard there was work in Nashville and it seemed like a good place to start over. So here I am stuck in the freezing cold with a… serial killer. Has the making for a great horror movie, huh?"

He still wasn't satisfied with her answer. "How are you in the profession of protecting people without knowing who I am? I've been told I have one of the most recognizable faces in the world."

"Wow… Just out of curiosity, when you go to bed at night, do you find yourself ousted off the mattress by that ego?"

"It's not ego. It's the truth."

She folded her arms over her chest as if she didn't believe it for a minute. "Well, then, if I admit I know who you are and really couldn't care less will that assuage your damaged manhood enough that we can get past this and move on to something that ends with your giving me a sandwich?"

He ignored her question. "So you do know me?"

"Yes, Dexter," she said, her voice laden with sarcasm. "I know who you are. You feel better now?"

Not really. Her sarcasm rather sucked all the joy out of being right. It also made him see red. "Then why the lie?"

Leta realized she'd just made a big mistake with him. This was a man who'd been lied to enough, and it was obvious if she were to stay, she'd have to be as honest as possible. "Well, since you're hidden away in the middle of nowhere, I figured you didn't want to advertise the fact you're a world-famous actor, though to be honest the Oscars on the mantel aren't exactly subtle."

A tic worked in his jaw. "Are you a reporter?"

She rolled her eyes. "No. I told you what I am. I protect bodies."

"How do I know I can believe you?"

"You don't. But why would I lie?"

If anything, that made his anger increase. "You lied about knowing me. You could lie about anything. People lie all the time, usually for no reason whatsoever."

"But I'm not lying about being hungry." She gestured toward the loaf of bread on the counter. One of the problems with entering the mortal realm was that it tended to make Dream-Hunters extremely hungry, and right now her stomach was cramping and aching. "Could you toss me a piece of bread before the interrogation continues? Or do I have to beat your butt for a spoonful of peanut butter?"

Aidan grabbed the bread from the counter and chucked it at her. She caught it with one hand. Stepping back, he swept his hand toward the door next to the fridge. "Peanut butter is in the pantry."

She narrowed her eyes on him suspiciously before she moved to open the door and search through his staples. She emerged a few minutes later with the peanut butter. Her gaze unamused, she set it on the counter. "Knife?"

"Drawer in front of you."

After opening it, she twirled the knife in her hand with an expertise that said she wasn't lying about her occupation.

"Who was your last job?" he asked, tucking his hands under his arms.

"Terrence Morrison."

He frowned. "Who?"

"A billionaire playboy who made the mistake of putting his balls on the wrong billiard table."

Aidan could just imagine the trouble something like that could get a man into, especially depending on who thought they had rights to that billiard table. "Why did you leave?"

She spread the peanut butter over a slice of bread. "I took care of the person harassing him. Threat gone. Job eliminated." Her look smug, she took a bite of her sandwich. "Anything else you want to know? Dental records, fingerprints? Retinal scan?"

"Urine sample would work."

She rolled her eyes. "What cup you want me to use?"

He was intrigued by her comebacks and the fact that she didn't appear angry over his questioning and word choice. "Does anything faze you?"

"I fight people for a living. Do you honestly think peeing in a cup is going to frighten me?"

She had a point… providing she wasn't lying about her occupation.

Without a word, Aidan pulled a glass out of his cabinet and handed it to her.

Her jaw dropped. "You've got to be kidding me? You really want a urine sample?"

He actually smiled at her question. "Not hardly, but I thought you might be thirsty. The drinks are in the fridge."

For once he saw relief in her gaze before she went and poured herself a glass of milk. "Thanks for showing some mercy."

"Yeah," he said bitterly. "Just remember to return the favor."

"Is that supposed to mean something?"

He shrugged. "Just in my experience, all people do is take. None of them give a damn about helping someone else."

"And sometimes people can surprise you."

"Yeah. You're right. I'm constantly amazed by the unprovoked treachery they're capable of."

She shook her head. "Wow, you are jaded."

If she only knew. Besides, he had every right and then some to it. He'd had enough knives planted in his spine to make a stegosaurus envious. "Look at you." He indicated her body with his hand. "Do you protect people because they need it or do you protect them because they pay you?"

Leta hesitated. She most certainly didn't get paid for what she did, but he'd never believe a human would be so altruistic. So she opted for a semitruth. "Girl's got to eat."

"And I rest my case. People will knife you in the back for a stinking crumb and then go on with their lives as if you're nothing but a worthless roach."

She let out a slow breath as she saw in his anger exactly what M'Adoc had seen in hers. His was an unreasonable master that wouldn't release him. The worst part was the degree to which he'd embraced his rage. It controlled and distorted everything around him to the point he was unable to see past it. "There are sorry people out there. But I promise you not everyone is like that. For every act of cruelty mankind is capable of, they're just as capable of kindness."

He sneered at her. "You'll forgive me if I ruthlessly disagree." He shook his head as if the mere sight of her disgusted him. "I marvel at the fact you've lived to your age and no one's taken those rose-colored glasses and shoved them up your—"

She held her hands up in surrender to silence his tirade. "You're entitled to your opinion just as I'm entitled not to listen to it."

That set him off even more. He pushed himself away from the counter and headed toward the front door. "You're irritating. If I had to have someone barge into my home, couldn't they at least have been mute?" He picked up the gun and started for the small hallway that led to his den. "Don't make yourself too comfortable. I want you out of here the instant the weather clears."

Her gaze sharpened on the gun in his hands. "Trust me so little?"

"I don't trust you at all." And with that, he went off to his den and left her standing in his kitchen.

Leta took a deep breath as she felt his hostility reaching out to her. Good.

So far Dolor hadn't managed to break into the mortal plane. But it wouldn't be long.

Dolor had been summoned to kill Aidan and he would do everything within his power, which was great, to succeed. There would be no stopping him.

Which meant she wouldn't have long to build up her own powers by feeding from Aidan. She frowned as she felt a twinge of guilt. As a Dream-Hunter, she shouldn't feel anything like that at all and yet she couldn't squelch the part of her that didn't want to hurt Aidan when it was so obvious he'd been cut enough by those around him.

It's for his own good.

Odd how the gods and humanity used that so often to justify brutality.

Zeus had even said that when he'd ordered all the emotions stripped from the Dream-Hunters. When he'd had all of them punished for a crime only one god had committed. And even that hadn't been a crime. It'd been intended as a joke on old Thunderbutt to make him not take everything so seriously. Instead of laughing, Zeus had abused his powers to lash out against everyone who didn't agree with him.

The rest of the dream gods had merely been innocents caught in the crossfire. But Zeus's fear of being overthrown and mocked had caused him to punish them all. How pathetic to live his existence in such paranoia.

However, Zeus's god complex didn't concern her. What she needed to focus on was saving Aidan's life if she could and killing Dolor at any cost.

Dolor's laughter from the past filled her head. "I am Pain. I am eternal. And you are insignificant, Leta. You will never defeat me."

So far he was right. She hadn't defeated him, but she had wounded him.

His arrogance would be the tool she would use to break his strength and Aidan was the hammer she needed to drive her spike right between Dolor's eyes.

Her resolve set, she went to find Aidan and anger him some more.

CHAPTER 3

Aidan sat in his chair, strumming the Indigo Girls' "Strange Fire" on his electric guitar, as he realized tomorrow would be Christmas Eve, and for the third year in a row, he'd be all alone for it. It was why he hadn't bothered decorating anything. All that would do was remind him of just how lonely his life had become.

He sighed wearily as he thought about all he'd been through. How could one man be adored by millions and loved by no one? Yet that was his fate. The only people who claimed to care for him didn't know him at all, and the people he'd once loved with everything he had spent every moment of their lives trying to end his.

"Merry fucking Christmas," he muttered.

Trying to forget the past, he focused on the song in his head. Since the guitar wasn't plugged in, the notes were only a whisper around him but it was enough to soothe his ragged state. Music had always been his sanctuary. No matter how hard life was, it was music and movies that he ran to for comfort and inspiration. They gave him solace when nothing else could.

He was so intent on the song that it took him several minutes to realize he was no longer alone. Opening his eyes, he looked up at Leta and paused mid-strum. The light formed a soft halo around her, making her black hair appear luminescent. For a solid minute he couldn't even breathe. Every hormone in his body was on fire.

It'd been way too long since he'd last touched a woman, other than to hand over his credit card to her in a checkout line. And to think he'd almost convinced himself that he didn't need a woman's softness.

Yeah…

With her looking at him while a beguiling half-smile touched her lips and her bright eyes shone, his resolve shattered. All he wanted to do was set the guitar aside and pull her into his arms for a long, wicked kiss until both of their lips were numb. It was way too easy to imagine her in his lap, naked. That one image seared him from the inside out.

His cock hardened to the point of pain.

"You need something?" He hated that his voice had a hollow note in it and not the venom he wanted to give her.

"I was just curious what you were doing in here by yourself. You're very talented, by the way."

He sneered at the compliment. "Don't flatter me."

"No, you really are."

"Yeah, and don't flatter me," he repeated, finally finding the venom he wanted in his tone. "I don't like or want compliments."

A sharp frown wrinkled her brow. "Are you serious?"

"Deadly." He strummed an idle chord. "See, I know this game. You flatter me, make me laugh and feel good about myself. Then the next thing I know you're walking out the door with your pockets stuffed with my money, telling the world what an asshole I am. Let's just skip straight to the end where you get out of my house and tell everyone I'm a dick." Cradling his guitar, he nodded. "Yeah, that works for me."

Leta couldn't believe what she heard. His anger sharpened her powers even as his words flabbergasted her. She sucked her breath in sharply. "What did they do to you?"

He set the guitar aside before he stood up. "Don't worry about it."

She reached out to touch his arm as he started past her. "Aidan—"

"Don't touch me." His voice was a feral snarl.

But that only made her want to touch him more, even though she knew she should anger him as much as possible in order to strengthen herself. "I'm not here to hurt you."

Aidan wished he could believe that. But he knew better. How many times had he heard that lie? And in the end, they always hurt him and laughed while they did so.

He was tired of falling for it.

"You know, if I had a nickel…" His gaze sharpened on her face. He wanted to reach out and touch her too. But he couldn't bring himself to do it. Not after what had happened with Heather.

"I would never hurt you, baby. You can always trust in me. I'm here for the long haul. You and me, forever. Us against the world. No matter what. You can always be yourself and know that I will love you regardless. I don't care about your career or fame. If it all ended tomorrow, I would still be here for you, with you."

Those words had made his heart soar—they had been a symphony to his ears, which were tired of the liars around him. Most of all, he'd trusted them just as he'd trusted Heather. As an orphan, all he'd ever wanted in his life was a family of his own. Someone who wouldn't hurt him. Betray him.

Someone who would accept him for the man he was, regardless of fame and wealth or even poverty.

Unfortunately, he'd never once found that. The moment he'd started making real money and people had begun to recognize him, Heather had felt threatened by it and by the women who threw themselves at him. She'd become catty and biting. Criticizing everything he did and resenting him for wanting more.

Even now, he could hear her caustic words. "There are two kinds of people in Hollywood. Actors who want to act and those who want fame. The ones who go after fame deserve everything they get, so don't cry to me about the tabloid liars. It's what you wanted, Aidan. Everyone knows who you are. You should have been satisfied with the acting alone. But no, you had to have more. So now you got all you wanted and everything that goes with it."

Ultimately, because she couldn't cope with it all, she'd carved his heart out and handed it to him on a silver platter. Not in private like a decent human being. She had done it publicly by seeking out the same tabloids that had already eviscerated him. Even worse, she'd helped his enemies come after him and had done everything in her power to embarrass him before the world.

And this woman before him now was no exception. He had no doubt. If he let her in, she'd hurt him too. The only person in this world who cared about him was himself.

He indicated the door with a jerk of his chin. "Can't you just stay here for a couple of hours and not speak to me? Is that really too much to ask?"

"I don't like silence."

"Well, I do."

"And it's my house," she said in a deep voice, imitating him with the voice of an irate parent. "While you're under my roof, young lady, you'll do as you're told!"

Aidan wanted to be offended by her mockery. But a smile tormented the edges of his lips. "You're not funny."

"Of course I am." She winked playfully at him. "You wouldn't be smiling inside if I wasn't."

His stomach tightened as he realized that she was charming him with her actions and that only made him angry again. "Look, I really don't want to talk to you. I just want to be left alone. Get out."

She released a tired breath and shook her head. "When was the last time you talked to a friend?"

"Nineteen months ago."

Leta felt her jaw drop at his disclosure. She couldn't believe that. Even with her emotions muted and basically gone, she still confided in others. The only exception being the time she was in stasis. "What?"

"You heard me."

Yes, but hearing and believing were two entirely different things. "You're not serious."

"Oh, I'm serious all right. I called up my best friend to confide in him because I needed someone to talk to and the next thing I knew our conversation was not only in the paparazzi rags, but on blogs and in every industry magazine the bastard could find. 'Aidan O'Conner: The Truth Behind The Legend. Read how his girlfriend betrayed him and left him a drunken sot on the street, begging for change while assaulting his fans.' What killed me most, there was so little truth in what he told them. Instead, he distorted my words and embellished them until I couldn't even recognize what I'd said. Let's just say I learn from my mistakes. So no, I don't talk to friends. Ever."

Well, she could understand that. Back when she'd still had her emotions, she'd once shoved M'Adoc from behind when he'd told their brother M'Ordant that she thought he was a prig at times. She'd been humiliated and mortified that M'Adoc had repeated a private conversation and then used it to hurt someone she loved dearly. It'd made her cautious for weeks about saying anything to anyone, but eventually she'd gotten over it and moved on.

That experience was certainly minor in comparison to what Aidan had been through. Honestly, she couldn't imagine having to cope with something so intrusive or a person so slimy. M'Adoc had only told one person, not the entire world, and he had quoted her verbatim without embellishment.

That being said, it didn't mean Aidan should give up on people and trust no one at all. People needed friends in this world. "Well, one person's betrayal doesn't—"

"We'd been best friends since junior high school," he said between clenched teeth. "We're talking twenty years of friendship flushed away in three seconds because someone was willing to give him five thousand dollars." He curled his lip bitterly. "Five grand. That's all my friendship over the years was worth to him. Funny thing is, I'd have given it to him if he'd just asked."

Leta cringed in sympathy. No wonder he was so bitter. She knew such things went on, but as a rule the gods of dreams didn't betray each other like that—especially now that their emotions were gone. There had been a few over the centuries, but not many, and they had been an exception who had been hunted down and killed.

Aidan narrowed his eyes on her, "Now tell me again how you can be trusted when you just walked through my door."

She held her hands up in surrender. "You're right. You can't trust me or anyone else. Never in my life have I understood why people betray others. I don't guess I ever will."

He scoffed at her words. "Like you've never betrayed anyone."

Leta quickly countered with a simple question. "Have you?"

"Hell, no," he roared as if the very thought sickened him. "My mama taught me better."

"And so did mine." She paused before she added, "Actually, that's not true. My brother taught me better. And when we were under fire, he did his best to protect me no matter the cost to himself."

"Then you're lucky. My brother sits in jail for his attempt to take my life."

That unexpected bit hit her hard. "What?"

"You heard me." His voice broke even though she saw no emotion except anger in his expression. "Didn't you read about it in the papers? For six months, I couldn't watch TV without seeing his face staring at me from his mug shot."

Since she couldn't explain why she hadn't heard it, she simply shook her head "I don't understand. Why did he try to kill you?"

He gave a dark laugh. "Oh, killing me would have been far kinder than what he did. He wanted to take everything in this world that I'd built. He was trying to blackmail me."

"Over what?"

"Nothing more than his own willingness to lie and people's gullibility to believe it. He said he'd make up everything from I was a pedophile to acts of animal sacrifice to brutality against women and children. He even went so far as to accuse me of mocking my fans and attacking the reputations of other actors, producers, and agents. No part of my life was spared from his lies and he didn't hesitate to forge documents or to lie to the courts or the police. Thank God, McCarthy-ism is dead or I'm sure I'd have been blacklisted and imprisoned."

That didn't make sense to her. "But that's just stupid. Who would believe such ridiculous lies?"

"Everyone who's ever been jealous because it's my face in the magazines and not theirs. Every person who can't believe or accept that someone can reach my level of success without being a total prick. Trust me, it's not the lies that hurt people. It's the willingness of everyone else to believe them. And then there are those who come out of the woodwork to back your accuser because it gives them the spotlight for three seconds. They can't stand the fact that you've risen above your past and that they have no excuse for never rising above theirs. In their minds, you need to be taken down a notch and they need to be raised a few, off the lies they tell about you. Because in the end, they know you, they've seen the real you, and by backing your accusers, they make other people think that maybe they were close to you—at least that's what they claim. It's a sick world and I'm disgusted with it."

She flinched at the fury and hurt that bled from every part of him.

He was right; there was no way she could argue with him. Life could be cruel and people were even more so. There was so much agony inside him that she should be grateful for the strength it gave her.

But honestly, she wasn't. His emotions were so potent that they were feeding her even in this realm.

And those emotions made her want to weep for him and the hard layer of ice that encased his heart. No one deserved such isolation. No one.

Wanting to comfort him, she reached out and took his hand in hers.

Aidan closed his eyes at the softness of her skin on his. It burned him to his core. It'd been so long since someone had reached out to him in kindness that he wanted to savor the sensation of her gentle touch.

But he knew better.

Kindness today… a kick in the teeth tomorrow.

Don't you ever forget that again.

No one would protect him. Everyone had shown him that when the fires came blazing down around him. He'd been left alone, bereft of friendship, family, and kindness.

And he was too scarred by it to simply move past it and trust again. The wounds were too deep and damaging.

Reminding himself of Heather, he moved away from Leta to look out the window. Damn the snow. It was still coming down, even faster than before. "You should try the phone again."

"I just did. It's still not getting a signal."

He'd once considered that a drawback. How many times had he wanted to talk to his brother when the signals went down? He was so far away from everything that the phone company had refused to run a line to his cabin. So he'd relied on his cell phone, which was haphazard in this area at best.

Now he wished he lived in the middle of city so he could toss her out on the very ass that was making him crazy with lust. God, how long had it been since he last smelled a woman this close to him? Heard the sound of a feminine voice inside his house, saying his name?

It was heaven.

And the lowest level of hell.

"Look, I admit you seem like a decent person. For all I know you stop and move turtles out of the road whenever you see one to keep someone from running it over. But this turtle is tired of having his guts spattered on the pavement while other people drive right over him. I just want to scrape myself up and hide in the woods, okay?"

She nodded. "I'll leave you alone." Clearing her throat, she stepped back from him, and it took all his strength not to pull her closer.

"Just remember, sometimes people will put you ahead of themselves. It does happen."

He snorted. "Yeah, the whole world is just rainbows and puppies. Boy Scouts really do help old ladies cross the street without mugging them and no one ever ignores a trauma victim's screams."

"Aidan—"

"Don't. It's impossible to believe in the world you describe when your own family sold you out for nothing more than cruelty and money."

He saw the acknowledgment in her gaze before she withdrew from the room.

Yeah, he knew he was a bastard. Just like he knew there were decent people out there. They just didn't exist in his world. When he'd been poor no one had ever helped him. People had gone on with their lives as if he were invisible and that had been fine with him. He didn't mind invisibility.

Actually, that wasn't true. He'd wished repeatedly in his life that he really had been as invisible as other people had made him feel.

Closing his eyes, he could still see Heather's beautiful face. Hear her laughter. When it had all begun, he'd thought losing her would be unbearable. That it would destroy him.

By the end of it, he hadn't missed her at all. Not even a little, which made him realize why they'd been able to turn on him without remorse. There was no such thing as real love. The heart was just another organ, pumping blood through his body. There was no magic to it. No spiritual bonding between friends and family.

People were users, plain and simple. Hoping for anything better only led to bitter disappointment.

No, this was his life. He'd be alone until the day he died. But deep inside him was still that stupid, insipid dream of one day having a family. Ever since his parents had been killed by a drunk driver, he'd missed that sense of bonding. Of family belonging. His parents had loved each other dearly and had had mutual respect—at least it had looked that way to his seven-year-old mind.

Who knew what the truth really was. Maybe they'd hated each other as much as his brother hated him, and like Donnie they'd kept it a secret.

As for Heather, that bitch was the one who should have an Oscar on her mantel instead of him. Her acting had been exceptional right up until the end.

And right outside his door was the first woman to set foot in his house since Heather had walked out of it…

"So what?" he asked himself under his breath. One woman was as good as another and most likely she was twice as treacherous.

Disgusted with it all, he lay down on the couch and turned on his TV to let his Star Wars DVD distract him from the madness of letting a stranger into his home.

Leta paused as she felt the slight unconscious tugging in the back of her mind. There were really no words to describe the sensation, but anytime a human target went to sleep, a dream god could feel it. As quietly as she could, she made her way back to Aidan's den where she found him dozing on the couch.

He was leaning back with one foot still on the floor and one arm draped over his face. Cocking her head, she stared at how strangely attractive his pose was. His faded T-shirt was stretched tight over a chest that was absolutely ripped.

The stubble on his cheeks only emphasized the rugged handsomeness of his features. He looked vulnerable and yet at the same time she had no doubt that if she made the slightest sound, he'd jerk awake, ready for battle.

As she closed her eyes to spy on his dreams, she saw the snowstorm outside that she'd started was permeating his subconscious. Kneeling on the floor by his side, she let her thoughts drift until they connected more fully with his.

Here in the dream world she was an observer who followed his lead.

He stood outside a basic Cape Cod house where lights twinkled against a dark snowy storm. She heard the sounds of laughter and music coming from inside the home.

Curious, she moved to stand beside Aidan as he spied on the party's attendants through a frosted window.

"Look at them," he said as if accepting her presence in his dreams without question. His lips were curled disdainfully.

Leta scowled at the revelers who were toasting each other during a Christmas party. "They seem very happy."

"Yeah, like a nest of scorpions waiting to strike each other down." He jerked his chin toward a thin, pretty woman in the rear of the group. "The blonde in the corner is my ex-fiancée, Heather. The balding guy she's draped over is my brother, Donnie."

The two were making cooing noises at each other before they drank out of the same wine glass. Boy, Freud would have had a field day with Aidan's dreams.

"Why are they together?" she asked him.

"That's an interesting question. After I gave Donnie a job, Heather threw a fit over it. Next thing I knew he'd started snaking on the bitch. The most amazing thing is she always told me she absolutely hated him. She thought he was brainless redneck trash who needed help to tie his own shoes."

He shook his head as he pointed to a brown-haired man at the table across from Heather and Donnie. "That's Bruce. He was the president of my fan club and a longtime personal friend. My nephew Ronald befriended him and the next thing I knew the two of them were off spreading more lies than even my publicist could counter. What kills me is that I know exactly what my nephew really thinks about Bruce. Man, if he only knew what Ronald said about him the minute he was out of earshot. For that matter, all of them. They never hesitated to insult each other to me because they knew I wouldn't betray their trust. A more treacherous bunch of snakes never existed. And what really baffles me about them is that after having seen the way they all turned on me for no other reason than simple jealousy, they're dumb enough to believe that the same people who screwed me over would never do it to them. Unbelievable idiots."

Leta tilted her head as she heard his memories in her mind. As he said, each of the people in the room had said horrible things about one another to him. They'd played against each other and done anything they could to keep their hands in Aidan's fame while trying their best to alienate him from the others in hopes of hanging on to him tighter. It was frightening to think they would be capable of getting along with each other given the things they'd said behind each other's backs to Aidan. "I don't understand. Why would they do this?"

Aidan led her away from the house, through the storm, until they were again inside his cabin. He went to the desk she'd seen just inside his living room. It was a tall, Colonial-style writing desk, complete with leaves and Chippendale trim.

Without a word, he opened a drawer and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. His gaze was dark as he handed to her.

Unfolding it, Leta glanced over the list of names. Some had marks through them while others were marked with stars. "What's this?"

"Donnie's list. He'd gone through all my contacts and friends, systematically trying to befriend them. He kept telling me that I had to pay him whatever he wanted because if I didn't, he'd ruin me since all of my friends were now his. 'They'll believe me over you anytime,'" Aidan mocked in what must have been his brother's voice.

Leta was aghast. "You've got to be kidding me."

"Trust me, I'm not that creative. Everyone from my agent to my banker is on that list. The names with marks through them are the friends he couldn't convert with his lies."

"What happened to them?"

"Donnie and Heather ran them out of my life without my even knowing it. I was off on a trip making my last movie when he ousted my booking manager. Richard had been with me since the very beginning. Apparently something had happened between them and Donnie fired him and threw him out of my house and office. I didn't even find out about it until I'd gotten back weeks after the fact."

"Did you call Richard?"

"I started to when word got back to me of the lies he was then spouting about me to my so-called friends. It wasn't until later that I realized it was Ronald's girlfriend who, at Ronald's behest, was playing as everyone's friend, and she'd goaded Richard into it. She was moving between everyone, spreading crap just to watch all of us fight."

"Why would she do that?"

He sighed wearily. "I've asked myself that a thousand times over and I'm no closer to an answer now than I was when it began. I think that's why I always loved movies so much. In a movie, everything has to make sense. The characters always have to have motivation. Good, solid motivation for everything they do. They can't be a dickhead without reason. If someone turns on a character, they have to have a hardcore, believable reason for it. Unfortunately, in real life you don't. People turn on each other for anything from catching a constipated look on your face when you had gas and thinking it was directed at them, to not liking the brand of shoes you're wearing. People are sick."

Leta glanced down at the list of names in her hand. She couldn't believe anyone would be so cold. So conniving. Surely there was more to it than what Aidan was telling her.

Wasn't there?

Surely he'd done something to deserve it. Yet as she used her powers to look over the situation, she realized that he hadn't. Unlike his brother and nephew, he'd been giving to a fault. Loving to a fault. Unfortunately, he'd given his love and trust to the wrong people.

"The simplest reason," Aidan continued, "is my brother was jealous. He wanted to have my life and he did everything he could to take it. He got Heather on his side and into his bed. Then for a time he'd wooed my fans, even though he kept stirring them up and had them turning on each other more times than he didn't. For whatever reason, he thought he could use them to blackmail or steal my money from me. What he forgot was that I didn't get to where I am by being afraid to stand up for myself. More than that, he wasn't the first person to try and ruin me and I doubt he'll be the last. But I am still standing and it's going to take a lot more than his crap-ass lies to knock me down."

Leta wanted to weep at the conviction she felt inside him. At the raw pain. She didn't know where it came from, but admiration for him swelled deep inside her. He was strength personified.

Everything about him was integrity and honesty, even in the face of such unrelenting hatred and hostility.

His eyes burning, he cupped her cheek in his warm hand. "Why are you here with me?"

Several lies came to her mind, but she didn't want to lie to a man who'd been dealt more than his share of them. And since they were in a dream state, there really was no reason to. "Your brother has summoned a demon out to kill you."

He laughed.

"I'm serious, Aidan. As crazy as it sounds, your brother found a way to summon a god of pain from his slumber and he has commanded him to torture and kill you."

"And you're going to save me." He laughed again, then sobered. "Why would you do that?"

"It's my job."

The expression on his handsome features looked less than convinced. "So you just randomly follow the god of pain around trying to protect his targets. What are you, the antipain fairy?"

"Something like that."

He snorted. "Note to self on waking. Lay off the beer on an empty stomach. This dream is even more screwed up than the time I had a donkey and a corkscrew."

Leta frowned. "Donkey and a corkscrew?"

"I don't know you well enough to fill you in on those details."

Before Leta could ask more, she felt that deep sense of foreboding in the pit of her stomach. She looked around, but the cabin was the same in this realm as it had been in the mortal one.

"Aidan—"

Before she could say anything more, Dolor grabbed him from behind and knocked him to the ground.

CHAPTER 4

Before Leta could move to protect him, Aidan rolled to his feet to confront the god. The rage that roiled through him was so potent that it actually made her gasp as it struck her like a hostile jolt of electricity. She threw her head back as it ripped through her like acid. Never in all eternity had she felt anything like this. It was hot and blazing.

Dolor swung at Aidan who blocked the punch with his arm, then head-butted the god back. Before Dolor could regain his balance, Aidan scissor-kicked him in the ribs. Twisting around, the god fell to the ground.

She knew it was only Dolor's arrogance that had allowed him to be taken by surprise. He hadn't expected Aidan to fight him.

But that was over.

Dolor shot a god-blast at Aidan's head. Aidan ducked it, then flipped to pull Dolor off the ground to hit him again. But this time Dolor saw it coming. He slung Aidan up into a steel wall that appeared out of nowhere.

Leta manifested her two whips—one for each hand. She snapped them briskly to capture Dolor's arms. He hissed in pain before he wrapped his forearms around them and yanked.

She didn't budge even though it felt as if he'd wrenched her arms from their sockets. "Leave him alone."

Dolor laughed at her. "You're a fool to protect him."

"Then I'm a fool." She tried to uncoil her whips from his arms, but he held them firmly in place.

Aidan shook his head to clear it. He could actually taste blood in his mouth. There was a real quality to this fight even though he knew it was a dream. He wiped the blood from his face and frowned as he studied it.

Wasn't it?

He watched as Leta hurled the larger man into a wall an instant before the man turned and kicked her to the ground. He ran for the man and caught him about the waist with his shoulder before the man could attack her again. "Don't you touch her."

The man laughed as he sank his hands into Aidan's hair and wrenched it.

Aidan growled at the agony but it wasn't the yank on his hair that hurt as much as the images that appeared in his head. Images of Heather in bed with Donnie. The lost feeling he'd had the morning they'd all attacked him at once and tried to destroy him.

He cried out as his heart splintered from that one moment in time when all of his delusions of love and family had been shattered.

Suddenly Leta was there, shoving the man back from him. "Stop it, Dolor. Now!"

Dolor turned on her with a smile. He pulled her into his arms. "Hear the baby crying?"

She screamed in horror.

Aidan tried to shove the god back, but he refused to let go of Leta. "Go to hell, you asshole!" He manifested a sword in his hand and stabbed Dolor straight through the heart.

Releasing Leta from his hold, Dolor staggered back. His black eyes were large with disbelief as he disintegrated into a thousand sparkling pieces. They fell slowly to the ground before a feral wind carried them away.

Still Leta continued to scream as if she were caught in the middle of a nightmare she couldn't wake up from. She pulled at her hair as if she couldn't bear whatever images were in her head.

Aidan scooped her up in his arms to hold her close. "Shh," he breathed as she trembled in his arms.

Tears streamed from her eyes. "Make it stop! Please, God, make it all go away. I can't breathe. Can't think. I can't… I can't…"

He winced as he heard the same agonized pleas from her lips that he'd uttered on countless days of bitterness. It made him hold her closer and touched him on a level unimaginable. Whatever her past, it was obvious it was as bad as his own.

"I've got you, Leta," he whispered, rubbing his chin gently against her wet cheek. "I won't let him hurt you." He didn't know why he made that promise, but even more surprising than the words was the fact that he meant them.

Something about the sharing of this moment broke through his own pain. For the first time in over two years, he felt human again and he didn't even know why.

She drew a ragged breath. "He'll be back."

"No he won't. I killed him."

"No," she said, her eyes sparkling from her tears, "you didn't. You can't stop Pain. He's coming back and now he knows…" Her voice faded out as if she were too afraid even to finish her sentence.

"Shh," he repeated as he held her close and let the warmth of her body seep into the coldness that had gripped him for all this time. He hadn't comforted anyone in years. Literally. The last person he'd sat up with all night had been his nephew. Ronald had just broken up with his first fiancée, so the two of them had gone out drinking. Even though Aidan was supposed to be studying a script he'd been prepping for, he'd taken the entire night off to soothe Ronald's grief.

And what had it gotten him?

Ronald had eventually sided with Donnie and turned on Aidan even after all Aidan had done for him over the years—paid for his private school and college, paid for his high school graduation trip to Florida for him and his best friend, given him a job, bought him a car, a house… Nothing had been enough. And this after Ronald had told him how badly his father had treated him growing up.

Now he didn't know if Ronald had ever spoken the truth or if it'd been nothing but lies designed to gain Aidan's sympathy so that he could take more money from him.

And in the end, none of what Aidan had done to help the kid had mattered. Like his father, Ronald had demanded that Aidan give him everything he wanted whether he deserved it or not.

His heart pounding, he looked down at Leta and wondered if she was just as cold inside as they had been.

That was when Aidan made the most grisly discovery about himself.

He still cared.

In spite of everything the scum had put him through. In spite of how carefully he'd sealed himself off from the world, he cared about Leta. He didn't want her hurt and he damn sure didn't want her hurt because she'd tried to help him.

In that moment, he hated himself for the weakness of caring.

How much could one human take?

But it was there. That internal ache that only wanted to tend to her injuries and make sure she was okay. Grinding his teeth, he pressed his lips to her soft, sweet hair and carried her out of the snow to a sandy beach where the sun was shining brightly above them.

With her still cradled against his chest, he fell to his knees in the sand and set her down before him. He cupped her face in his hands and wiped the wet tears that still rolled down her cheeks. "It's okay, Leta. I've got you."

Leta sniffed back her tears as she stared into those eyes that were as green and stormy as a deep sea. For once they weren't filled with hostility. They were open and caring, and that literally stole her breath.

She lifted her hand to lay it to his cheek where the stubble of his whiskers teased her palm. His masculine scent filled her senses… it'd been so long since she last tasted passion. Since she'd been held by a man who wasn't related to her. And in that moment, the pain of her own past overwhelmed her with misery.

Choking on the raw agony inside her, she leaned against him and tucked her head under his chin, against his chest. She didn't like being in this dream. She didn't want these feelings anymore. Not having them was so much better than what she felt now. If only she could banish them forever.

"How do you cope with it all?" she breathed against Aidan's chest.

"Don't think about it."

"Does that work?"

"Sometimes."

"And when it doesn't?"

He shrugged. "There's beer and cheap whiskey but not even that does anything more than add a headache to what already plagues you. Sooner or later you sober up and it starts all over again."

That wasn't the answer she'd wanted from him. "I hate crying."

His eyes scalded her with their intense heat. "Then do what I do. Turn your tears into rage. Crying will only make you sick. But anger… anger infuses you. It strengthens you. It crawls through your body until you're forced to act. There's no dwindling of strength, no mewling blurry vision. It clears your head and focuses your actions. Most of all, it empowers you."

"Is that why you stay angry?"

"Absolutely."

And his rage was strong enough to feed them both. But even so, she didn't understand it. Her anger had always spiked quickly and then faded. More than that, her tears had always negated her anger. The second her tears started, any rage she had evaporated underneath them. "How did you learn to stop crying?"

His expression was harsh. "I nailed my heart shut and learned to stop caring about anyone except me. They can't make you cry when you don't give a shit about them or their opinions. You can only be hurt by the ones you love."

"And by the god of pain," she whispered. "He knows what weakens us. Look at what he's done to me."

"It's because he knows you and where to strike." Aidan shook his head. "He doesn't know anything about me. There's nothing he can use to hurt me anymore. I let it all go except my anger."

Which was why Aidan had been able to fight Dolor even though Aidan was only a mortal man.

But she didn't know how to hold on to anger. Every time she thought of her daughter or her husband, it brought her to her knees. They had been innocent of any crime except belonging to her and they had been coldly executed by Dolor and his ilk. It was why she was here.

No more innocents would die.

Ever.

No one deserved the pain she felt. No one. And she would die before she allowed Dolor to destroy another person this way. To take from them what they loved, and for what? Over one god's vindictiveness because someone else played a prank on him and he lacked any sense of humor? It was cruel and it was wrong.

"Teach me your anger, Aidan. Show me how to hold on to it no matter what."

He nodded grimly before he dropped his hands from her face. "Let go of your pain. If there's any kindness inside you, kill it. Now, remember the only person in this life that matters to you is you. No one else will ever care about you. No one. The only person who can protect you is you. Let everyone else go to hell. In fact, rush them to it."

She couldn't believe what he was telling her. It seemed easy, if she were mad enough, but how did he sustain it? "How do you manage to stay there?"

"Remember that whenever you were being kicked, there was no one standing beside you to soften the blow. No one there to help you lick those wounds or protect you."

But in her case, that hadn't been true. M'Adoc had stayed by her side, trying to protect her family. That was how he'd been captured and then tortured. He would have been able to escape and save himself. Instead, he'd chosen to come warn her and to stand with her when Dolor and his minions had attacked.

They'd almost killed him too.

"And if I wasn't alone?" she asked, her voice only a whisper.

"Then imagine them taking the one who stood with you. Imagine your defender's blood on your hands as they stab him through his heart."

It was enough to make her want to scream and it gave her the rage he spoke of.

Aidan was right. If he could, Dolor would kill M'Adoc in an instant.

"I don't know how to defeat Dolor," she confessed. "The best I could do last time we fought was to freeze him and make him the slave to a human's summons. I thought by doing so no one would be so stupid as to release him. Now that they have… I don't know how to return him to stasis until after he completes his task."

"And that is?"

"To kill you—and I won't let that happen."

Aidan was glad this was a dream. Otherwise he might think himself insane. But as the purple surf crashed against a crystal beach he knew he was safe. There was no reality here. There was just Leta and him.

Still, he was curious about why his subconscious would create all of this. "You said my brother conjured him to kill me."

She nodded.

"He did this from prison?" It made as much sense as anything else.

"He must have. Can you think of anyone else who'd want you dead to the point they'd give up their soul for it?"

Aidan gave a bitter laugh. "The list of those who hate me is lengthy, but those who want it to that extreme is much shorter. You're right. Donnie stands out among the really big haters."

She nodded.

Aidan sat quietly thinking about the tragedy of his past. After the death of their parents, he and Donnie had ended up being raised by their alcoholic uncle. As a single parent, the man had left much to be desired and basically Aidan and Donnie had always joked that they'd been raised by wolves.

All they'd had was each other. He still couldn't believe what something as petty as jealousy had done to his brother. How it could take a guy who'd once taken punches for him and turned him into a cold-blooded user who was willing to do anything to hurt him. It didn't make sense.

And now this…

No wonder his dreams were so whacked out. He was still reeling from the betrayal and obviously his subconscious continued to try and reconcile all of it.

Those thoughts reminded him of his early years in Hollywood. "One of the first movies I appeared in was a zombie flick. I remember that in the film, if you killed whoever was controlling the zombie, you took out the zombie too. Would this work the same way?"

Leta scowled at him. "Are you willing to kill your own brother?"

He didn't even hesitate with his answer. "Blood stopped binding us the instant he came at my throat. If this thing is stalking me because of him, then I'm more than ready to slash his throat and laugh while he bleeds to death at my feet. Give me the knife and stand back."

Leta let out a slow breath at the hostility in his tone. She should be appalled by his brutality, and yet she understood the sentiment.

"Unfortunately, that doesn't work in this case. Dolor isn't a zombie. He's an ancient god who is only held in check by a curse I put on him."

"Can't you put him back in stasis?"

She shook her head. "Not so long as you're standing. The strongest curse I could find would only work so long as the summons wasn't in place."

He narrowed his gaze on her. "Who the hell came up with this brilliant curse?"

"It was the best I could manage in a hurry," she said defensively.

He rolled his eyes. "With those kinds of critical assessment skills you should consider running for political office."

Before she could respond, a loud growl rent the air. Leta ground her teeth in disgust as she recognized the sound.

"What the hell is that?" Aidan asked.

"Timor."

"I hope old Tim's an ex-boyfriend."

How she wished. "No. He's the personification of human fear."

"Oh, goody," he said in a jovial tone. "Just what I wanted to add to my dream. Should we invite him over for tea?"

While she found his sarcasm entertaining, it still failed to make her laugh or smile given their worsening situation. "Aidan, this isn't a dream. I mean, yes, we're in a dream state, but when you wake up, it doesn't mean that Dolor won't be real. He is real and he's out to kill you."

He moved away from her. "Fine. Bring him on. I will be the last one standing."

"Bravado doesn't defeat a god."

"Then what does?"

She really wished he hadn't asked that particular question. "I don't know. Each one of us has something that will render us weak and allow someone to kill us. But we're not real big on letting other people know what those weaknesses are."

"And neither am I. I have no intention of letting anyone or anything knock me down."

She admired that about him, especially since he was human. "I want you to hold tight to that courage, Aidan. It might be the only thing that saves your life."

And with that she pulled him toward her and kissed him.

Aidan's breath caught at the forgotten sensation of a woman in his arms. She tasted of bliss and woman. Of wicked delights. And God help him, he wanted more of her.

His heart thrumming, he deepened the kiss as he pulled her even tighter against him.

Leta couldn't think straight as her tongue danced with his. It'd been centuries since she'd last kissed a man. Centuries since she felt this compelled to touch a man unless she was throwing a punch at him.

Aidan's desire set fire to her own bound emotions. But more than that, they unleashed the long-buried part of herself that missed her family. Closing her eyes, she remembered her husband and that miraculous feeling of belonging. Of loving someone and being loved by them.

She missed it so much. Craved it even more. No one should have to spend eternity alone, isolated from everyone, devoid of all emotions. What Zeus had done to her kind was deplorable.

Again, she heard the cry of Timor from across the sea that splashed against the crystal sands. Dolor was trying to use him to break through the barrier of the dream world so that he could fight them on the mortal plane where they were weakest. She needed to wake up Aidan and make him understand the threat they posed to him.

"I'll see you on the other side," she breathed before she pushed him away and forced him to wake up.

Aidan jerked awake. His heart pounding, he lifted his arm from his face to try and get his bearings. His movie was still playing in the background as the logs popped and settled around him.

It was then he saw Leta at his feet.

She blinked her eyes open as if she too were just waking up.

"What the hell are you doing here?" he demanded.

Leta started to answer, only to realize that if she told him, he'd toss her out. He would never believe her in this realm.

Dear Zeus, how was she ever going to convince him of the truth?

"Aidan…" She hesitated as she tried to think of something reasonable to say to him.

"Leta…" he mocked. "I told you to stay out of here."

"I know you did. It's just that I wanted to see you for a few minutes and you were asleep. I didn't want to disturb you."

"So you slept at my feet like a puppy? No offense, but that's creepy as hell. Next thing I know, you'll be trying on my clothes and sleeping in my bed."

She scoffed as she pushed herself to her feet. "Brad Pitt you're not."

"You're right. I'm the man who kicked him out of the number-one slot for best-looking actor three years in a row."

Leta rolled her eyes. "That's some ego you've got there."

"Yes it is and it's constantly being reinforced by women willing to do anything to get my attention." He raked her with a cold look. "How far are you willing to go?"

She screwed her face up at him. "Don't let that kiss go to your head. I was just curious."

"Yeah, babe, that's what they all—" Aidan froze as her words permeated his ire. "What kiss?"

Her face went pale. "There was a kiss?"

"In my dreams. How did you know that?"

She became suddenly fidgety. "Lucky guess."

"Yeah, right. The only person who's a worse actor than you is my old roommate whenever he was drunk. How did you know about my dream kiss?"

Leta swallowed as she grappled with what to tell him. But she kept coming back to one truth… "You're not going to believe me."

"Try me."

What the heck? The worst he could do was throw her out and he'd been trying to do that since the moment she arrived. It wasn't like she could die in the storm. For that matter, the storm only existed because she'd created it to give him a reason to invite her in.

"All right. I'm an Oneroi."

His features didn't change as he appeared to accept it. "An honor what?"

"Not honor. Own-nuh-roy. It's a god of sleep and I'm here to protect you."

He didn't even blink at her words. He merely stared at her with a blank expression as he continued to lie on the couch without moving.

Finally, he inhaled deeply. "Why am I having this bad Terminator flashback… My name is Kyle Rhys. Come with me if you want to live."

She crossed her arms over her chest. "This isn't a joke, Aidan."

He shot off the couch and moved to tower over her. Now there was no missing the disdain and disbelief bleeding out of every part of him. "No, it isn't and I don't find you amusing in the least."

"Then how did I know about the kiss you and I shared in your dreams?"

"Wishful thinking on your part."

She shook her head. "I told you in your dream and I'm telling you again… bravado won't defeat a god. If you really want to be the last man standing, you're going to have to trust me at your back."

Aidan reeled at her words.

No. It wasn't possible. Yet he recalled that moment from his dreams when he'd told her that. Clearly. Normally his dreams dissipated whenever he woke up. But he remembered every part of the last few minutes in his mind.

It wasn't possible. She couldn't have been there. She couldn't.

"How much beer did I drink?" he whispered, raking his hand through his hair. "Am I in a coma?"

She shook her head. "You're alive and awake. Fully conscious."

Yeah, right. "No," he said, still shaking his head at her. "I can't be. This is all wrong. You're all wrong. Things like this don't happen in real life." He felt as if he'd been trapped inside one of his movies.

In a script, he'd accept this.

In real life…

Bullshit!

She reached for him, but he quickly moved away from her. "Aidan, listen to me. Everything I told you is the truth. You have to trust in me."

"Uh-huh. If you're a god prove it. Make it stop snowing."

She gave him a peeved glare. "Parlor tricks to entertain humans are beneath us. But since you insist." She snapped her fingers and instantly the snow stopped.

Aidan felt his jaw drop again as he saw the clouds literally part to reveal a bright, sunny day—just like in his dreams. The rolling landscape was completely white as if fully cleansed.

Still his mind wouldn't accept it. This just couldn't happen. "Nice coincidence. Now get the hell out of my house."

"I can't," she said from between clenched teeth. "I need your anger to fight Dolor. If I leave you, he'll cut through you like a hot knife on butter."

"I already kicked his ass."

"In a dream, Aidan. Ever tried to manifest a sword with your thoughts in the real world? It doesn't happen, does it?"

Aidan hated to admit that she had a valid point. But it still didn't change the fact that this was lunacy.

"How do I know you're not lying to me?" he asked. "Show me something I can't argue against."

She spread her arms out, and as soon as she did, a sword appeared in her right hand. She turned the blade around and offered him the hilt. "Test it for yourself."

He did and it felt real enough. Sharp, heavy. There was no way she could have had something like this concealed on her body without his knowing it.

As much as he hated to admit it, it was beginning to look like she was telling the truth and that somehow the impossible was possible.

He lowered the sword. "How can this be?"

"We've always been here. Sometimes living among all of you, sometimes just as innocuous viewers of your lives. I'm one of those who volunteered to protect humanity."

"And why would you do that?"

He saw pain flash across her light eyes before she answered. "Because I have nothing else to live for. You told me of your brother's betrayal. Imagine your own father calling out his hounds to kill your infant daughter and your husband. Imagine what it was like to watch them die and then be taken and punished for something you didn't do. To be stripped of your dignity and emotions because your father was embarrassed by a stupid, insignificant dream he'd had and he blamed everyone who walks in the dreams for it. You feel your pain, Aidan. I feel mine."

He winced at the unimaginable horror she described. "Why would he do such a thing?"

"Because he was a god and he could. He didn't want another dream god in his sleep ever again, playing a prank on him. He thought if he took away all our emotions, we would no longer be creative or derive pleasure from teasing him or anyone else. All that mattered was his life and dignity. Ours was nothing in comparison to his."

Aidan felt a tic begin in his jaw as her words seeped in. "So the Greek gods are just as petty and selfish as humanity. Nice."

"And just like humans, we're not all like that. Some of us are quite aware of our powers and we know better than to abuse them."

Maybe. But it sounded pretty bad to him. Aidan couldn't fathom what she must have gone through—if this wasn't a delusion brought on by a brain tumor and if she wasn't lying. It made his own betrayal seem as insignificant as her father's dream that had caused him to kill her family. "Why would you come to help me?"

"Because you don't deserve to die after all you've been through. Your brother has taken enough from you. And you have so much anger that I'm hoping we'll find some way to kill Dolor and stop him from ever harming another person. Someone has to take a stand against him. All I can hear when I think of him is the way he laughed with pleasure when I begged him to spare my daughter's life. The bastard actually smiled as he suffocated her while his henchmen held me back."

Aidan winced as his heart seized under the weight of what she described.

Her eyes burned him with their own misery. "You want to hurt the people who hurt you, Aidan…Now imagine my need to taste his blood."

He stood there as he tried to sort through this. Could he still be dreaming?

"No. You're not," she said out loud. "This isn't a dream. I swear it."

Aidan frowned at her. "How did you know what I was thinking?"

"I can hear your thoughts when I focus on them."

"Good. Then you know I think you're insane."

She smiled at that. "The truth is, I am. I lost all sanity the night my daughter died and I couldn't prevent it. All I have left in this world is a thirst for vengeance. And the mere fact I can still feel it—when I shouldn't have any emotions, tells you just how badly I need it."

He held his hand out to her. "Then we have a lot in common."

She nodded before she took his hand into hers. That one action sent a chill down his spine and he wasn't sure why.

Her hand tightened on his before she spoke. "We have to find some way to stop him."

"Don't worry. We will. As I said, I will be the last man standing."

Leta closed her eyes as his words ran through her mind. Last man standing. She remembered a time when she'd felt that way too. Now all she wanted was to strike back at Dolor, and if she had to fall to do it, then she was more than willing. She didn't care about surviving so long as he died with her. For that, she would crawl naked over broken glass.

All of a sudden, Aidan started laughing and let go of her.

Leta scowled at him. "What's wrong?"

"Mori said that being up here alone would make me crazy one day. Damned if he wasn't right. I have totally lost my mind."

His misplaced humor wasn't quite enough to ease the pain inside her. "No you haven't. I told you I was a bodyguard and so I am. We're going to get through this together. You and me."

His laughter died instantly as he glared at her. "The last time a woman said that to me, she handed me my heart cut into pieces on a platter. What organ are you going to carve out of me?"

"None, Aidan. I'm going to leave you as I found you. You will be here in your cabin, standing stronger than ever."

"Why don't I believe you?"

"Because people are ever willing to believe the negative over the positive. It's easier for you to think me corrupt and evil than it is for you to see me for what I really am. No one wants to believe that some people are willing to help others out of the goodness of their hearts because they can't stand to see someone suffer. So few people are altruistic that they can't understand or conceive that anyone else in the world could ever put someone else's good above their own."

Aidan froze as those words permeated his mistrust. He was doing to her exactly what everyone had done to him.

Assuming the worst even when she hadn't done anything to warrant it.

The world had wanted to believe he was cold to his family, that he'd done something to warrant their cruelty, because that was a lot less frightening than the truth. No one wanted to think that they could give everything of themselves to someone, only to have the recipient turn on them like a rabid dog for no logical reason.

If they accepted the truth—that Aidan was innocent in all of this, that his only crime had been the fact that he was too giving, open, and kind to someone who didn't deserve his trust—then it left them vulnerable and questioning everyone around them. But in their hearts, they all knew the truth. At some point in their life everyone had been betrayed like this. No rhyme. No reason.

Just human deficiency in some people who were users and abusers.

As his mother used to say, it's people who have no home training.

But as Leta had pointed out not everyone was a user. Aidan had never once betrayed anyone. Never once had he set out to destroy or hurt another human being. It wasn't in him to bring more misery to anyone.

He alone in his world had been loyal and trustworthy. Maybe, just maybe, he wasn't alone after all.

His throat tight, he glared at Leta. "I'm still not sure this isn't a hallucination brought on by carbon monoxide poisoning from my stove or heater, but in case it's not I'm going to trust you, Leta. Don't you dare let me down."

"Don't worry. If I let you down, we both die and our pain ends."

"And if we win?"

The teasing light in her eyes went dead. "I guess we live on to ache some more."

He laughed bitterly. "Not much of an incentive to fight, is it?"

"Not really," she said, her gaze softening. "But it's not in me to lie down and die."

"Me either." He glanced out the window at the world that looked so bright compared to the earlier storm. If only it would stay that way. "So tell me… what do we do now?"

"We are going to see an old friend of mine about some serious pain repellent."

"Do they make such a thing?"

She shrugged. "We're going to find out. And while we're at it, we're going to see exactly what Dolor needs to cross into this plane."

That made sense. "If he crosses over, how strong will he be?"

"You remember the plagues of Egypt?"

"Yeah. I was in that movie too."

She ignored his acidic comment. "That was him just practicing and having fun. If we don't stop him, he'll release all his playmates and they will spread utter misery and torment throughout the world."

"Cool. Can't wait for it." He let out a tired breath before he spoke again. "And what about the other gods? Will they help us?"

She patted his cheek in an almost playful manner. "That, my friend, is what we're about to go and find out. Buckle up, Buttercup. This ride could be bumpy."

The only problem was, he was used to that. It was when things went smoothly that he became scared.

But even as that thought went through his mind, it was followed by the realization that things weren't going to be bumpy.

They were going to be deadly.

CHAPTER 5

"I can't believe you cheated!"

"I can't believe you didn't know it. Man, what kind of god are you? I never knew stupidity had a divine representative. Guess I was wrong, huh?"

"You're such an asshole."

Aidan frowned as Leta took him into a white marble room where two men were playing a game of chess. Everything in the room was sterile white, except for the two men dressed in black and the odd chess pieces who had been dancing and fighting around the board on their arrival—chess pieces that were living, breathing creatures who now watched the arguing gods with great interest.

At a quick glance, the two gods appeared to be twins except that the one cheating had short brown hair with black streaks laced through it. He also had what appeared to be black tattoos running down his face at sharp lightning-bolt-style angles from his tear ducts to his chin. The man across from him had black hair with tribal tattoos covering his arms from wrists to shoulders. They were both dressed in jeans and sleeveless T-shirts. An odd style for two gods.

Then again, what did he know of such creatures?

"Deimos?" Leta called as she led Aidan toward the players.

The one with the facial tats looked up. "Leta, my lovely. What brings you here?" he asked in a jovial tone—as if he hadn't been in the middle of a verbal smackdown with his brother three seconds ago.

The other man stood up as if to leave.

"Sit down, Phobos," Deimos snapped. "We're not through."

"Yeah, we are. I don't play with cheaters and I don't care if you are three seconds older than me, you don't tell me what to do. I'm not your bitch, boy."

Deimos grimaced. "Then stop acting like one. Whoever heard of Fear being a crybaby?"

Phobos crossed his arms over his chest. "The same people who made Dread a cheater."

Deimos scoffed at him. "Oh, go cry to mama, you nancy-boy." Then Deimos looked at Aidan. "You play chess?"

"Extremely not well."

He indicated the chair across from him. "Take a seat while we talk."

"Don't," Phobos warned. "It's like playing against a two-year-old who can blast your soul right out of your body. Last time Demon played a human who beat him, he sliced him open from asshole to appetite."

Aidan arched a brow at the vivid description. "Interesting turn of phrase."

"Consider it a warning."

Leta leaned against Aidan and smiled. "Pay Phobos no attention. His job is stir fear in others. He's good at it, too."

Aidan shrugged her warning away. "Not really. I have no fear of anything."

Phobos grinned as if he enjoyed the thought of a challenge. "I assure you, I can rectify that."

"I'd rather you didn't," Leta said quickly before she waved the god away. "Now go scare an old woman or two."

Phobos saluted her with two fingers before he vanished into a circle of flames.

She turned to Deimos who was in the process of directing the chess pieces back into their starting places. "You got a minute, Demon?"

Deimos laughed. "An eternity of them. Why?"

"I need to know how to stop Dolor."

That got him to finally look up at her with a quizzical expression. "Dolor? When did he wake up?"

"A couple of days ago. Now he's after Aidan here to kill him."

Deimos tsked. "Poor you. It really sucks to be human."

Leta narrowed her gaze at him. "Demon…"

He was unfazed by her chiding tone. "Don't nag me, little cousin. I don't want to hear it."

"You're a Dolophonos, a god of justice. Are you really going to sit there while an innocent man is put to death because someone has PMS?"

Deimos gave her a droll stare. "I'm an executioner, Leta, hence my Demon nickname. They send me in to take the heads off people and gods who've stepped over the line, usually only because someone has PMS. You want justice, Themis's office is down the hall on the left." He flashed an evil grin at her. "You want death and dismemberment, I'm your man… or rather god."

She let out a long-suffering sigh. "So you're not going to answer my question?"

"I don't have the answer for you. Just because I've been drinking buddies with Dolor in the past doesn't mean I know how to stop him, especially since no one has ever sent me in to kill him. I only know he prefers double-shot lime-flavored tequilas with bourbon chasers. Sick, I know, but far be it from me to mock his tastebuds. I'm just glad they're not mine."

Aidan stepped forward with a question of his own. "What about you? Could you stop him?"

Deimos gave him a smug look. "No one stands before me for very long. Dread always trumps pain. Besides, I fight dirty. Chess isn't the only thing I cheat at." He leaned back in his chair and folded his hands behind his head before he returned his gaze to Leta. "If you really want the inside weakness on Dolor, I'd suggest you try his sister, Lyssa."

Aidan could tell by the look on Leta's face that she'd rather not. "Who's Lyssa?"

"Personification of Insanity," they answered simultaneously.

Leta gave Deimos a chiding stare before she elaborated. "She often works as a demon in conjunction with other gods, to incite madness in their victims so that the Erinyes or Furies can do their work. Because of that, she's a little hard to handle and the madness she used to give to others has nicely taken root inside her own mind."

It figured. "Ooo, perfect. I do believe that in the last twenty-four hours she and I have become really good friends."

Deimos laughed. "I can tell you haven't met her."

"Maybe not personally, but I've definitely been skating around her block a lot today."

"Around the block's okay. Just don't stop and knock on her door."

"Why?"

Deimos gave him a sinister smirk. "She's special. We used to unleash her on ancient battlefields just to see soldiers chop their best friends into pieces before falling on their own swords."

Leta screwed her face up at his brutal imagery. "You're so sick, Demon."

He shrugged nonchalantly. "Trust me, they deserved it or I wouldn't have been so mean. Besides, my mother is a Fury and my father War. What more would you expect of me?"

"Compassion," she said softly. "The Erinyes aren't always cruel."

"True, but not for the wicked. Our job is to punish and that, my cousin, I'm more than capable of doing. Grisly though you may think it." He indicated the door with a jerk of his chin. "See Lyssa. If Pain has a weakness, she alone would know it."

"But will she share?"

He shrugged. "You know her as well as I do. Depends on her mood and degree of clarity when you speak to her."

Aidan frowned. "Degree of what?"

Instead of answering, Leta took his arm before she flashed them into an Escheresque garden. It was so complicatedly intricate, with twisting staircases that defied logic, misaligned arches, and backward-growing shrubs, that Aidan couldn't even grasp it. He literally felt as if he'd just stepped into Escher's Other World engraving. It made him dizzy to try and make sense of the nonsense around him.

No wonder Lyssa was nuts. Trying to walk through her garden would drive anyone crazy.

Leta led him up a small set of stairs that twisted into a dragon's scales before dissolving into a river of blood that lapped against the small rock they both stood on.

"What is this place?" he asked.

"Lyssa's home. Like Deimos warned, she's not exactly right in the head and hers is a very unique view of reality. The garden reflects her quirky nature."

Quirky? Yeah, she'd blown right past quirky to dive headfirst into all-out strange. He was beginning to understand that as the rail under his hand licked his palm. Curling his lip in disgust, he jerked his hand away to find eyes watching him instead of the tongue he'd felt an instant before.

Yeah… if this was true insanity, he suddenly felt normal.

"Lyssa, Lyssa," Leta called. "Light and fair, 'tis Leta come to you with words to share."

Well, this was a new side to Leta. That being said, she did have a beautiful voice when she sang out the words. "What are you doing?"

Her smile dazzled him. "Lyssa likes rhymes. She will only speak in them."

"You've got to be kidding me?"

Before she could answer, a swirling blue ball appeared in front of them. The ball moved in a jagged path until it touched the top of the stairs behind him. There it grew until it formed a young, beautiful woman. Her long, curly blond hair shone as if it were made of pure spun gold and she stood with the regal demeanor of a queen. More than that, each feature of her face was so carefully sculpted that she didn't appear real.

Until one looked at her eyes. They were jet black and cold. Soulless. There was no white, or color of any kind. And when she turned them on him, he could feel the chill of madness all the way to his soul.

When she spoke, Lyssa's voice was as light and delicate as the goddess herself. "Leta, Leta, born of dreams,

"Through the centuries you have screamed.."

"Now you come to my fair land,

"Only to ask for my helping hand

Aidan leaned forward to whisper in Leta's ear. "Nice stanza."

She elbowed him hard in the ribs. "Can you help me, dear cousin?"

A whimsical smile curved Lyssa's red lips.

"Help is all they ever say,."

"Even though it seldom stays.

"It'll leave you too you'll see

"And then alone you will bleed

Infuriated with her cryptic words, Aidan stepped around Leta. "Look, we don't have time for this. We need—" His words stopped instantly as his lips were sealed shut.

Lyssa shook her head in reproach. "Men will ever speak their way,

"Regardless of those who hold sway.

" 'Tis time you pause to listen instead of hear,

"Only that will save what you hold dear."

Leta placed a tender hand on his arm, before she looked back at Lyssa. "Are you telling me that we can defeat Dolor?"

"Pain is here,

"Sharp and clear.

"Even so, it must fade,

"And a new way should be made."

He saw the relief on Leta's face even though he was having a hard time following the nonsense. And not being able to open his mouth was seriously starting to piss him off.

"How do I defeat him?" Leta asked.

Lyssa lifted her hand so that a bird that was flying backward could rest on her extended finger. Picasso would have been proud of the bizarre image the two of them made. "True pain is born,

"When the heart is worn,

"On the sleeve

"For all to see."

By the aggravated look on her face, he could tell Leta wasn't any more satisfied with that answer than he was. "But how does it end?"

"An ending is a beginning in disguise.

"But it is seen only by those who are wise.

"For pain to be returned to its place,

"You must confront it to its face.

Leta shook her head. "I don't understand, Lyssa."

She gave Leta the same look a kindergarten teacher would give an aggravating child. "In time there is clarity to be found.

"But not now on this most hallowed ground.

"You have the answers you have sought.

"Now it is time for battles to be fought."

And with those words, the bird let out the croak of a frog, then dissolved into dust. Lyssa raised her arms skyward before she sank into the ground.

Yeah…

Aidan sucked his breath in sharply as he was finally able to open his mouth again. He gave Leta a deadly stare. "Interesting woman. Must get tiring though trying to always rhyme everything you want to say."

"Not after as much experience as she's had."

He didn't want to argue that point. He was just glad Lyssa was gone. "Did you learn anything from this?"

"Yes. I learned that we can defeat him before he kills you. That's at least a start."

She was definitely an optimist. He on the other hand… "Call me crazy, then again compared to Lyssa, Sybil was normal, but all I got out of this meeting was a headache. Actual directions on how to kill him would have been nice."

"True, but in this case, I think we got the best we could hope for."

"Then why did we waste our time?"

She patted him indulgently on his cheek. "Who said we wasted time?"

"I do, for the record."

"And for the record, you're wrong. Trust me."

Yeah, sure. He wasn't about to make that mistake. "No offense, but the last person I trusted tried to barbecue me—personally and professionally."

Instead of angering her, his words turned her expression soft and gentle. "I'm not a jerk, Aidan. I wouldn't have come to you if I wanted you hurt."

It made sense when she said it, but he couldn't shake the bitterness inside him that didn't want to get burned again. He was so tired of people playing him, using him to get what they wanted, then casting him aside the minute he displeased them.

He wasn't disposable waste. He was a human being with feelings just like everyone else.

Afraid of what Leta might do to him and afraid of his past, he reached out to touch her cheek. Her skin was so soft, her lips inviting. There had been a time in his life when he wouldn't have hesitated to make a move on a woman like this. A time when he'd have had her laughing and naked in his bed.

Now that part of himself was dead. He would never again be so carefree and full of life. His soul had been kicked to the ground where it was still mired by memories and pain so profound that he wondered if he would ever be able to resuscitate any part of the man he'd once been.

Did he even want to?

There was something to be said for being numb. There was no liability. No harm to himself or anyone else. It was a nice place to live once you got past the loneliness.

But as he stared into those eyes so blue and sincere, all the isolation of his life hit him square in the chest.

If I have gone insane would it be so bad to kiss her?

Would it?

And before he could second-guess himself, he dipped his head to taste the sweetest lips he'd ever known.

Leta buried her hands in Aidan's soft hair as her breath mingled with his. For a mortal man, he knew how to kiss. She could feel the steel of his body pressing against hers, feel the heat of his embrace all the way to her immortal soul.

She shouldn't be doing this. Yet she couldn't make herself stop. It'd been way too long since she last touched any man. Since she'd allowed any passion to touch her life. She was supposed to be devoid of emotions, but here she stood, feeling his presence with every part of herself.

Was she siphoning from him? That was the most logical explanation for these emotions and yet that didn't seem right. Her feelings were too vivid. They felt like hers. This wasn't his anger. It wasn't his lust. It was a longing that she, herself, had and it came from deep inside her battered heart. A need to be close to him.

Afraid of losing her feelings, she wrapped her arms around him and transported them back to his cabin. She deepened her kiss as her heartbeat quickened and her blood fired. This was what she needed most.

Aidan.

She pulled back to stare up at him. "I want to be with you, Aidan," she whispered as her hands paused at the hem of his shirt.

Honestly, she expected him to push her away again. She certainly wouldn't blame him if he did after everything he'd been through. No one would blame him for it.

But he didn't. His green eyes blazing with heat, he jerked his shirt off over his head, and pulled her back into his arms to continue their kiss.

Closing her eyes, she savored the taste of him, the feel of his hands skimming over her body as she held him against her. His muscles bunched and tightened under her palms, reminding her of a time long ago when she'd been afraid of touching a man like this. But that had been eons ago and she'd changed so much since then.

For centuries, she'd fought Dolor alone, trying to save as many humans from him as she could. She'd felt it was her duty even though she was numb to everything but pain.

After a while that absence of feeling had worn on her and weakened her resolve. She'd learned to siphon emotions from humans in their dreams. For a time, she'd started relying on those emotions and had been afraid of turning Skoti—one of the dread dream gods who preyed on humans so that they would have feelings. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, except when they took too much and drove the human hosts insane and shattered their lives. It was something she couldn't allow herself to do to an innocent person. The moment she'd truly seen herself slipping into the Skoti mindset, she'd locked Dolor and herself away.

Now she wasn't afraid of her emotions or of Aidan's. She wanted them. Needing to feel more, she flashed them into the bedroom and onto the bed.

Aidan pulled away from her lips as he realized where he was. "Nifty trick."

"I can do one better."

Their clothes vanished.

Aidan laughed deep in his throat. "Yeah, that could definitely come in handy."

She rolled him over, onto his back. He looked up at her, drinking in the sight of her bare body against his. Her breasts were the most beautiful he'd ever seen, and he'd seen some of the best in the world. His mouth watering, he pulled her closer so that he could draw her puckered nipple into his mouth.

Leta shivered at the sensation of his hot tongue teasing her. She cupped his head to her as her mind reeled with forgotten sensations. It'd been too long since she'd been intimate with someone. Too long since any man had touched her…

He growled deep in his throat before he pulled back and rubbed his whiskered cheek against her sensitive breast. She sucked her breath in sharply as chills erupted all over her.

She was drunk with her lust as she skimmed his body with her gaze. Every part of him was sculpted with muscles. There was so much strength to him, inside and out. And all she wanted to do was to touch that strength and hold him close.

More than that, she wanted to taste him.

Aidan watched her as she kissed her way down his body. Her long black hair teased against his skin, giving him chills and setting him on fire. It'd been so long since he'd last had a woman that he was actually afraid of coming before he even really touched her.

That was all his bruised ego needed. He'd rather die than embarrass himself like some jacked-up high school kid seeing his first naked woman.

Closing his eyes, he tried to think of anything else besides those dainty lips that brushed against his flesh. Of her tongue flicking over his body. His heart hammering, he wanted this moment to last.

And when he felt her nibble the tip of his cock, it was all he could do not to scream out in pleasure. He opened his eyes to watch as she took him even deeper into her mouth. It was the most incredible sight he'd ever beheld. Her tongue teased and tormented him to the highest level.

Leta smiled at the salty taste of Aidan and at the joy she could feel coming from inside him. It was unbelievable. And most special of all was the feeling she had from him that he was afraid of disappointing her. The fact that he even cared made her heart light.

His kindness reminded her of a time when she'd been like him. When her feelings had been her own and when she'd owned her life. When she'd been free to make her own decisions. She missed that so much…

Most of all, she'd missed feeling connected to someone else. Being a vital part of them—aching when they were on a trip, knowing that someone was out there missing her and counting the heartbeats until they were back together again. There was nothing else like living and breathing for the smile of someone she loved.

Aidan drew a ragged breath as he cupped her head in his hands. He wanted this to be plain, animal sex. No commitment, no promises. Nothing but the two of them scratching a biological itch.

And yet, as he watched her pleasing him, that disgusting, tender part of himself that he hated stirred. It was the part that wanted a woman who didn't cheat on him. One he could trust not to hurt or betray him. One person who would stand by his side no matter what was thrown his way.

Other people had it. Why couldn't he?

Because you don't deserve it…

He didn't want to believe that. Surely to God, given all he'd been through in his life, he was worthy of someone's loyalty. Someone's love.

"Did you ever cheat on your husband, Leta?" He cringed as the words left his lips.

Mentioning her husband would probably be a sex-kill for her.

But even so, he needed to know if she'd been trustworthy or like Heather, a liar who sold herself to the highest bidder.

Her eyes were pain-filled as she pulled away from him. "No. Never. I loved him completely, and so long as he lived, I didn't even look at other men. There was never anyone else in my world except him."

"Was he a god?"

She shook her head as she made slow circles with her hand over his abs. "He'd been a warrior. A kind man whose dreams I'd once visited. For a soldier, he'd been amazingly artistic and his dreams had been vivid with colors and sounds." She swallowed as if it were almost too much for her to think about. "And when I saw him tremble from holding our daughter for the very first time… every part of me loved him more."

Aidan's stomach tightened. That was what he wanted. Someone to love him like that. "Did he ever cheat on you?"

Her gaze fired. "I would have killed him."

Aidan cupped her cheek in his hand as he stared into those luminescent eyes. "Do you think he ever knew what a lucky bastard he was?"

"I wouldn't call him lucky. Because of me, and for trying to protect my back, he was gutted on the floor like a pig."

Aidan felt sorry for her loss, but it didn't change the fact that he'd kill to have what she'd shared with her husband. "I don't know. I think to have one day of what you described would be worth being gutted."

Leta was amazed as she felt tears for him sting her eyes. "You didn't deserve what happened to you, Aidan."

"Deserving's got nothing to do with anything. You didn't deserve to lose your family. And they definitely didn't deserve to die because Zeus was an idiot."

A single tear fell down her cheek where it was stopped by his finger. Inside, she felt something she hadn't felt in centuries. An emotional bond with someone else. He understood her tragedy. Most of all, he felt for it.

Wanting to take him away from his sadness, to give him even a moment's worth of peace, she crawled up his body so that she could kiss him deeply.

Aidan's head swam at the fierce passion of her kiss. He couldn't remember anyone ever kissing him like this. It was demanding and hot, and it fired every nerve ending in his body. All he wanted was to touch her. To feel her.

To be inside her.

She clutched his body close before she dipped her head to tease his throat. Aidan growled as her tongue danced across his flesh. All thoughts fled his mind. She was the only thing he could focus on, the only thing he could feel. Her touch branded itself into his flesh as he let her take him away from a past he didn't want to dwell on.

Leta rolled him over, onto his back. She was molten inside and all she wanted was to feel him deep inside her body. Unable to wait, she straddled his hips and impaled herself on him.

He threw his head back as if he'd just been electrocuted. "Oh, God, Leta," he breathed. "Don't… stop."

She hesitated at his words. "You want me to stop?"

"No," he all but roared. "You stop now and I swear I'll die."

She laughed at his desperate words before she resumed her strokes.

Aidan couldn't breathe as she thrust against him. He honestly wanted to die in this one perfect moment. Nothing had ever felt better than the woman on top of him. She was like an angel sent to save him from his isolation.

And he never wanted to let her go. He wanted this time to freeze and stay right where it was as he gripped her soft thighs with his hands. He lifted his hips, driving himself even deeper inside her. This was where he wanted to stay. He wanted to pretend there was no world outside this cabin, no one waiting there to rip him to pieces. No one out to do him harm.

There was only Leta and the pleasure she gave him. This, this was heaven.

And when she came, he bit his lip so hard, he tasted blood. An instant later, he joined her release.

Her breathing ragged, she collapsed on top of him. Her sweet breath tickled his chest as he watched shadows moving on the ceiling. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been this relaxed. That he'd been so at peace.

Yeah, he was definitely insane. This entire day, including her presence, had to be some kind of hallucination. He must have fallen and struck his head. Hard.

But honestly, if this was a dream, he didn't want to wake up from it.

Leta pushed herself up on her elbows to stare down at him as he watched her through half-hooded eyes. She cocked her head in curiosity. "What are you thinking?"

He smiled at her very human question as he wound his hand in her silken hair. "I'm thinking about how wonderful you feel in my arms."

Her smile made his heart soar and his groin jerk. "I've only been with you and my husband. I'd forgotten how incredible this could be." Her eyes turned stormy. "Unlike you, I don't like being alone."

His grief and pain gathered in his throat to choke him, and he confided in her something he hadn't confided in anyone—not even himself. "Neither do I. Alone sucks."

She closed her eyes before she covered his hand with hers and turned her face into his palm to kiss it.

That single act shattered him. "If you betray me, Leta… Kill me. Be kind and don't let me live in the shadow of your cruelty. I can't take another blow like that. I'm not that strong."

A tic started in her jaw as she released his hand and gave him a hard stare. "I didn't come this far to betray you, Aidan. I came here to fight for you, not against you."

His vision blurred and he despised the tears he felt welling. He hadn't cried in so long…

He wanted his anger back. Anger didn't hurt. It didn't make him feel worthless or powerless.

Not so with these confusing feelings that he couldn't even sift through enough to identify. They left him vulnerable and weakness was something he'd learned to despise early in his bitter life.

I will be the last one standing. It was the one motto he'd always lived his life by. It was what had gotten him through countless attacks from other actors. Countless brutal reviews that had assaulted everything from his wardrobe, to his looks, to his past, to his abilities as an actor. Reporters and studio execs who'd laughed at him and his ambitions.

He wouldn't let them win.

He would be the last one standing.

Leta frowned as she felt his turmoil inside her own body. He was standing on a precipice. Scared. Furious. Strong and at the same time weak.

"Together we will see this through, Aidan. I promise."

He blinked as if her words had jogged something loose in his memory. "Alabaster."

She scowled at the unexpected response. "Alabaster?" What on earth? "There's no alabaster here."

"No," he said quickly. "It was a movie I was in a couple of years ago. One of the ones I won an Oscar for." A slow smile spread across his face. "It was a movie about a man's wife who was being targeted by an unstoppable serial killer."

That was not a pleasant thought after the sex they'd just had. "Okay…"

He looked at her. "Don't you see? That's what Dolor is—he's a sociopathic serial killer. And in the movie we didn't wait for the killer to come up on us unawares. We took the matter into our own hands. We chose the battleground and we chose the time and place to fight. The killer didn't come to us. We went to him."

It was a brave move. "I've never drawn Dolor into a fight before."

He nodded. "Exactly. It'll surprise him."

Leta froze as she remembered something Lyssa had said to them. "For pain to be returned to its place,

"You must confront it to its face." Maybe this was what Lyssa had meant. "You're brilliant!"

"Not me. Allister Davis is the one who wrote it. I'm just taking a page from his script. You said Dolor needed to come to this realm, but what if instead we fought him in yours?"

"What do you mean?"

"In the mortal realm, he's immortal, right?"

She nodded. "He's immortal in dreams too."

"Yeah, but like you said earlier, in dreams, we can create weapons to fight him with, right? We'd have an ax if we needed it or better yet the fabled Hollywood gun that never needs reloading."

"True. But he's stronger in dreams than he is here. He's had a lot more experience manipulating that realm than you have. If you kill him without knowing his weakness, he will regenerate. If he kills you there, you're dead."

He brushed her hair back from her face before he smiled, then kissed her. "I didn't say it was a perfect plan, but it's the best shot we have. Besides, I have a really good idea…"

"And that is?"

He answered her with another scorching kiss. "Just hang on, dream lady. We're about to take the home team advantage."

CHAPTER 6

Leta stood on the top precipice of the tallest mountain on the Vanishing Isle. She held a vial of sleeping serum that she'd borrowed from her uncle Wink—the Sandman. With it, she and Aidan would be locked into the realm of sleep and Dolor wouldn't be able to throw them out of it. What Aidan planned was so risky…

She shouldn't care. She shouldn't even be able to care, but as she stood there watching the ocean waves crash down on the rocks below she realized that she did. Aidan's pain did more than fire her emotions and powers, it touched her heart.

It had been so long since she last experienced real tenderness. She didn't want to lose it again. She didn't want to lose Aidan. He wasn't just an assignment to her.

He was so much more.

How that could be she couldn't even begin to understand. They'd only known each other in his dreams and for one human day. Yet she knew him on a level that defied logic. Her soul felt him.

And she didn't want to let him go, or worse, watch him die the way she had her family. She couldn't stand to go through that again.

Leaning her head back, she let the salt-scented breeze soothe the restlessness inside her. The weight of the vial lay in her palm like a heavy piece of iron. She didn't want to make a mistake. Trapping Aidan in the dream world might kill him.

He was certain it was their best chance to defeat Dolor. But she wasn't so sure. Dolor could be crafty and, most of all, he was deadly. Aidan had courage, there was no doubt. Unfortunately courage didn't always win the fight.

"Give me strength," she whispered to the gentle breeze that danced around her. In the back of her mind, she saw the slaughtering of her family. Nothing could dull that pain. Nothing.

But at least that pain showed her that she was alive. She wasn't completely empty and devoid of feelings.

Closing her eyes, she tried to channel it to anger. Aidan was right. It was the only way to cope with it. And yet at the mere thought of Aidan, her anger faded and a strange sense of peace overcame it.

"Leta?"

She turned at the sound of M'Adoc's voice behind her. He was dressed in a loose white shirt and white pants. His black hair curled becomingly around his face as he slowly approached her.

"What are you doing here?" she asked him.

"I heard you asked Wink for serum."

She nodded.

There was a deep understanding in his blue eyes as his gaze held hers captive. "It's a brave move to call Dolor out. Highly risky."

She didn't want him to know of her uncertainty. As one of the dream god leaders, he'd be honor bound to tell Zeus of any Dream-Hunter who might be getting their emotions back. That was something she couldn't allow. "Victory never goes to the coward."

He inclined his head respectfully to her as if he agreed with that. "By the way, I should warn you that you're not feeling Aidan's emotions."

A chill of strange apprehension went down her spine. "What do you mean?"

He leaned down to whisper softly in her ear. "Zeus's curse is weakening. Every year more and more of our emotions are coming back."

Leta paled at his disclosure and the ramifications of it. "Does he know?"

M'Adoc shook his head. "And we can't afford to let him learn it either. He will rain down on us with every thunderbolt he has."

Agony poured through her as she remembered the last time Zeus had come for them. Her vision was still tainted by the blood spilled that day and by those that followed as Zeus demanded they each be beaten and stripped of their emotions.

It'd been a harsh time for everyone.

"I thought it was part of your job to report that."

His look was harsh. Cold and determined. "I don't betray my family."

Her heart lightened at his words. Better than anyone, she knew he meant it. He'd already proven those words to her. "Can I trust what I feel?"

He gave the subtlest of nods. "But remember, don't show it. More lives than just your own are on the line with this. I'm one of the three chosen to report anyone who begins to feel and if Zeus ever finds out that I've failed in that he will have no mercy for me."

As if she would be so cold—too bad others weren't so trustworthy. "Have no fear, brother. I would never betray you."

"I know. It's why I came to talk to you. I wanted you to know that everything you feel is your own. I don't want you to get into trouble for it."

"Thank you."

He inclined his head to her before he stepped back and vanished.

Leta stood there, rolling the small vial of purple serum between her palms. So what she'd shared with Aidan hadn't been a farce. These weren't his emotions siphoned.

It was her determination. Her compassion.

Her heart.

Grateful for that fact, she smiled. Kissing the bottle in her hand, she flashed herself back to the cabin where Aidan sat before the fire he must have started in his hearth after she left.

There was an odd look about him. He was somber, but there was something underneath that that hadn't been there before.

"Are you okay?"

He nodded without looking at her. "Tomorrow is Christmas Eve."

"I know." She glanced about the room that had nothing in it to mark the coming human celebration that she'd witnessed in the Hall of Mirrors. "Should we get a tree for you?"

He snorted as if the mere thought offended him. "When I was a kid, my mother used to make us watch that 1950s movie, A Christmas Carol, and then after she died, my uncle would put in Bill Murray's Scrooged every year while we decorated the tree. Do you know the story?"

She shook her head as she sat down beside him.

He turned away from her so that he could stare into the crackling fire. "The basic story is about a miser named Scrooge. In the beginning, he's harsh and unyielding. He hates Christmas and refuses to celebrate it.

"Scrooge gets taken to task for being so selfish and in response he says 'Bah Humbug'! Then during the course of the night, Scrooge is visited by three ghosts—Christmas past, present, and future and they show him the error of his ways. In the morning, he wakes up refreshed and confident in his new, reaffirmed life of giving. He tosses coins to the orphans in the street and he gives gifts and food to his employee, Bob Cratchit's, family." He gave her a hard, steely stare. "But you know, even as a kid there was something about those movies that always bugged me."

"And that was?"

"Why Scrooge was Scrooge. They never really explained to my satisfaction what had made him so miserly. But the toasty little Christmas story stayed with me, and all my life, I wanted to be the man Scrooge had become—always giving to those in need. Do you know, in the course of one year, I donated over a million dollars anonymously to charity? My mother taught me that no one should advertise their good deeds. You do them because you care and you should never accept any kind of benefit from those acts. It belittles them."

Leta smiled at that. There was a lot of truth to his mother's statement. "I can understand her sentiment."

He nodded. "I agreed with it too. But one thing I realized with my brother is that you can't toss your pearls before the swine. I think that's why my mother insisted you give anonymously. The instant anyone sees that you're kind and giving, they immediately take advantage of it. They seem to mistake kindness for weakness and giving for stupidity."

"How do you figure?"

He sighed. "My brother sent my nephew to me for a job when Ronald was still in high school. Donnie told me that he couldn't afford the tuition for Ronald's private school and asked if Ronald could work for me part-time while he went to school. Like a fool, I agreed, and even though I didn't have that much money back then, I started paying his tuition for him. Six years later, Donnie came to me telling me that he was getting divorced and that his wife was taking everything from him. He was about to lose his house, his car, everything. He told me he didn't want a handout, but wanted to know if I had some work he could do."

"So you hired him."

Every emotion left his face except for the harsh twist of his lips. Even so, she could feel his bitterness burning inside his heart. "Yeah. I seriously overpaid him to be my manager. God knows, I didn't want my own brother out on the street. And for a about a year, everything was great."

"Until?"

"I started noticing that money was missing. Mysterious charges were being made with no explanation. Worse, neither one of them would do their job. They always had some excuse for why they were about to get to what I needed them to do or why it wasn't done yet. Time after time, I'd walk into the office and find Ronald asleep in my chair—at least on the days he actually showed up to work. It was unbelievable. I told them that if they didn't straighten up, I was going to fire them."

"And what did they say?"

He curled his lip before he mocked in a gruff tone, " 'You can't fire me. If you do, I'll ruin you. I know all your fans, all your friends, and all your business associates. I'm untouchable, hah, hah.'"

Aidan cursed before he spoke in a normal tone again. "At first I thought it was a joke at best and an idle threat at worst—until I looked around and realized that they really had ingratiated themselves with everyone in my life. Methodically. One by one. They went after them all. Those who wouldn't befriend them and fall in line with their vicious insanity, they cut out and kicked to the curb. Then in a show of power right before Christmas, they turned six of them solidly against me, cut one of them completely out of my life, and it was then they turned really brazen."

"How so?"

" 'Give us five million dollars or we'll take everything you have. By the time we're through with you, every fan and friend you have will hate your guts and never pay a dime to see another movie of yours again. You'll be ruined.'"

He drew a ragged, angry breath. "That was my Christmas gift from my brother. After I'd bought him and his son a car each and a house each, paid them far more than their skill levels warranted. It still wasn't enough for them. They had to take more because I had it and they didn't. Of course I was the one working twenty hours a day for months on end at shoots, attending publicity functions and interviews, and busting my ass reading and learning scripts while I was at home while they stayed up all night partying, playing games online, and then slept until noon or later. Blowing money on women, beer, and expensive toys. Gee, I can't imagine why they had so little, huh? As my mother used to say about Donnie, a hard day's work would have killed him."

She leaned against his arm, wanting to comfort him. "I'm so sorry, Aidan."

"Don't be. I should have known. Scrooge was right. You can't let people know anything about you. You can't give freely to them, because it's never enough. They always want more of you than any human being can give. If you let them, they'll suck your soul right out of your body. The golden rule really is if you give an inch, they take a mile." He shook his head bitterly. "There was a movie last year that I was in called 300. It was about the ancient battle of Thermopylae—"

She frowned as he finally mentioned a reference she completely understood. "Where King Leonidas and his band of three hundred warriors held off the Persian army?"

He looked shocked by her question. "You know the story?"

She gave him a chiding smile. "I'm a Greek god, Aidan. Of course I know the story."

There was a light in his eyes that said he still had a hard time accepting who and what she was. "Yeah… anyway, I was curious about the history of the battle, and unlike you, I wasn't fortunate enough to be an eyewitness to it. When I looked it up, I learned that they were betrayed by a fellow Spartan soldier."

"Ephialtes."

Aidan nodded. "He wanted money, so for that, he sold out his own countrymen and fellow soldiers and told the Persians about the small goat path that allowed them to slaughter all of Leonidas's men. Men who had protected his back in battle. Men with families to feed. Men who fought to protect his own homeland and his own family and son that he'd left behind with theirs. A family that would suffer under Persian occupation. But none of that mattered to the greedy, selfish bastard. All he wanted was more and the rest of the world be damned. It appalled me when I found out about that. I didn't understand then and I still don't understand how someone could do such a thing."

Unfortunately, she understood. She'd seen people do it time and again over the course of history. "Simple. There's always some sorry human being who wants what other people have and they don't want to have to work to earn it."

"Exactly, and the part that kills me is the lengths to which they're willing to go and how they feel so justified in their theft. If they'd apply half the effort to earning the money that they spent trying to steal it, they'd be far richer than me."

Leta couldn't agree more. Such people had always angered her too. "Familiarity breeds contempt. By bringing them in close, they realize that you're just as human as they are. That's when the madness sets in. They can't understand why you have more than they do when you're just a regular human being the same as them. Then they hate you for it."

"Yeah, but why?"

Leta sighed. "I truly don't know. Humans are capable of so much creativity and goodness and at the same time they are destructive and cruel. It's as if your kind needs adversity in order to achieve."

"No, we don't. That's just a lie people tell themselves to feel better about all the people who kick them in their teeth when it's just as easy to help a man up as it is to knock him to the ground. That's why I've withdrawn from this world. I don't want to have to watch my back all the time and I'm tired of trying to figure out if the loyalty someone professes is real and true, or just another lie that will crumble the instant they taste jealousy."

"I'm incapable of being jealous."

"Are you?"

She cupped his chin and forced him to meet her gaze. "Seriously, Aidan. In my world, jealousy is a man, Phthonos. He walks in the court of Aphrodite and he has never taken root in my heart. He never will. Even when I had all my emotions, I never let him in."

He pulled her to his lips for a kiss so wickedly sweet it literally made her toes curl. That kiss was the most incredible one she'd ever known and the knowledge that this couldn't last made her ache.

As if he sensed her fear, Aidan stiffened an instant before he pulled back from her. "I just thought of something. What happens to you when this is over?"

Leta looked away, unable to answer that question. The pain of it was unbearable.

Aidan cursed before he answered for her. "You'll have to leave, won't you? I mean, you're really a goddess. I can't exactly keep you, can I?"

"Would you want to?"

He shot up off the couch so that he could pace the floor in front of her. His entire body was tense as he moved, and it showed off every corded muscle in that lean, hard body. She could feel his turmoil. "I don't know, Leta. I really don't. But you're the only person I haven't wanted to throw out of here in a really long time."

She smiled at him. "Well, that wasn't from lack of trying on your part."

"Yeah, but I brought you back."

"True…" She sobered as she considered what lay before them. "I don't know either. I personally think we should focus on surviving the next few days and then we'll see where we stand… if we're still intact."

He paused before he raked his hand through his tousled blond hair. "What aren't you telling me about what we're up against?"

She pulled the small square pillow under her arm into her lap. "Our only option with Dolor might be putting him back to sleep again."

"And?"

"The last time I did that, my injuries were so extensive that I had to go into stasis with him in order to heal. That was almost two thousand years ago."

No part of him moved except for his gaze, which fell to the floor in front of her. "I see."

Her heart shredded at all the meaning in those two simple words. "Don't, Aidan. Don't look like that." His hurt made her ache too. "I need you angry. Your anger feeds my powers and makes me stronger. The stronger I am, the less he's capable of hurting me or you."

He laughed at the irony. "I've never had a woman ask for my anger before."

She tossed the pillow aside before she rose and crossed the short distance between them. "I'm not your typical woman."

"In more ways than one." He lifted her hand that still held the vial. "So what do we need to do?"

"We need a bed."

He arched a brow at that. "Really?"

She laughed. "Stop that. You know why. We need to be comfy because one shot of this will put us out for a full night… or longer."

He gave her a becoming pout. "You take all the fun out of this."

His words confused her. "Fighting is fun?"

"Oh, yeah. The adrenaline rush ranks up there right below sex."

Uh-huh… "It's a man thing, isn't it?"

"I would say yes, but I've known enough women to say that it's not unique to my gender. I've met plenty of marathon sluggers in high heels."

She rolled her eyes at him. Stepping back, she held her hand out. "C'mon, soldier. Let's go feed your need."

He slid his gaze hungrily over her body. "Which one?"

"Let's save your life, then we'll worry about your body."

He let out a sound of disgust. "There are some pleasures worth dying for."

"Yes. But I don't want to be one of them."

He was still pouting as she tugged him toward the bedroom. Leta made him lie down first so that she could place three drops of the serum on his tongue.

Aidan made a terrible face. "Ack, that's bitter."

"I know."

She watched as he started blinking, trying to stay awake.

"Don't fight it. I'll see you on the other side."

His green gaze met hers. "You better. I'm trusting you to be there, Leta. I need you there." And with that, he was out.

Leta took a moment to run her gaze over him. He really was beautiful. Wanting nothing more than to save him, she lay down by his side and rested her head on his shoulder before she drank the serum.

She didn't know what awaited them in the dream realm, but it would be harsh and it would be cold.

Even so, they would face it together.

"I won't betray you, Aidan." Yet even as she said the words, she wasn't sure she would be able to keep that promise. The one thing she'd learned in her long life was that the best intentions were often the most lethal.

All she hoped was that Aidan wouldn't be her next regret.

CHAPTER 7

Aidan stood in the center of a blinding gale. Harsh winds cut against him, howling in his ears. All around him was darkness so bitter that it permeated every part of him. He didn't know where to turn. Every move was buffeted by winds so brutal that they all but suffocated him. He didn't dare take a step for fear of it getting worse.

Panic set in as he struggled for his footing and bearings. He hadn't felt like this since the day his brother had turned on him and taken from him every person he'd ever trusted and left him standing alone. Rage clouded his sight, but it didn't do him any good. His anger was nothing now against the lost feeling that overwhelmed his entire being.

And still the winds tore at him.

Save me .. . please . .. The call inside his weary heart was weak, like that of a small child, and he hated that part of himself that felt so lost and abandoned.

Save yourself.

The anger was trying to surface again. That was what he knew. That was who and what he was. Yet he was so tired of being alone. Tired of fighting on his own.

How could he keep going alone?

"Aidan?"

His heart clenched at the soft call of Leta's voice that somehow drove back the madness seeping into him. Then he felt it… that tender touch that cut him soul-deep. It steadied him and jerked him back from the edge of panic.

Acting on instinct, he pulled her against him and held her tight. He let the scent of her settle him even more. This was what he needed—someone to balance the insanity. Someone he could believe in even during the most brutal of attacks. Someone who wouldn't flee in fear, anger, or jealousy.

And she was here, standing by his side without flinching or adding to the pain of it. That knowledge seared him.

Leta closed her eyes, amazed by the way Aidan held on to her—as if she were sacred to him. More than that, he actually trembled in her arms. It was a vulnerability she was sure he would have shielded from anyone else. She was the only one he still trusted to show this part of himself to and it filled her with an unbelievable joy.

"You didn't doubt me, did you?" she teased.

His grip on her tightened. "Everyone else has deserted me, why wouldn't you?"

She heard the ragged, raw emotion in his voice and it brought tears to her eyes. "I will always be here."

"Yeah, right."

She pulled back to cup his face in her hands. "Look at me, Aidan. Don't you ever doubt my sincerity. I don't make promises I can't keep."

And there in the meager light she saw the most incredible thing of all, the glimmer of trust in his green eyes an instant before he gave her a kiss so powerful, it stole her breath.

Elated over it, she snapped her fingers and pulled them away from the storm into a quiet meadow. Still, she felt his uncertainty as he looked about as if expecting the storm to return. He needed distraction. An enemy he could focus on to take his mind off the fact that he'd exposed himself to her and let her see a part of him that he preferred to keep secret.

"Shall we summon Dolor?"

He shook his head. "Not here. It's too open. In a fair fight, he might take us."

She hated to admit it, but she was grateful he understood the danger they were facing. "Then what do you suggest?"

The world shifted until they were again in Lyssa's garden. Leta scowled as she looked around—everything was completely different than it'd been earlier. Now the colors were muted and the shrubbery looked to be made out of water. It still twisted and turned in sharp angles that made no logical sense. "What are you doing?"

His smile dazzled her as he stepped away and released her hand. "Unnerving my opponent."

She cast a suspicious glance to a shrub that turned from a whale into shark shape—one that tried to bite her as she walked past it. "What about us? Won't it do the same?"

Aidan shrugged. "I don't know about you, but I've been living in madness for years now. I find this place kind of comforting."

"That's not what you said earlier."

"I wasn't planning on fighting here earlier. If we're going to do something as insane as calling out the god of pain to fight him to the death, what better place than this?"

He did have a strange point with that logic. "Are you sure you want to do this?" she asked.

"It's a little late to doubt ourselves, isn't it?"

Perhaps, but she still had the bad feeling this was a mistake. If it was, then she intended to make sure that Aidan was shielded. And in the back of her mind, she knew this was the best shot they had. This environment, they had some control over.

"All right then." She took a deep breath before she bellowed. "Dolor!"

The god flashed in before them and this time he wasn't alone.

Aidan felt a tic begin in his jaw as he glared at the two gods.

Dolor stood a good foot taller than him with a bald head and intricate tattoos that covered his entire face and body. While he was tall and lean, the man to his left was short and beefy with hands that would easily make two of Aidan's fists.

Aidan looked over at Leta for confirmation of the other god's identity. "Timor?"

She nodded glumly.

Nice to know his usual luck was holding. He now wished he'd stayed home. Then again, he wasn't about to lie down in this fight and let them roll over him. He'd been born two months prematurely and his mother had always said that even as an infant he'd had more fight in him than a ring of boxers. He'd come into this world as a scrapper, and if he was going to leave it, then he'd go down swinging.

Dolor arched a brow as a cruel smile twisted his lips. "I'm impressed, Leta. You said you'd be quick bringing him to me, but this is fast even for you. Nice work."

A chill went down Aidan's spine as his old mistrust burned through him. "What?"

Timor smirked. "Didn't you know she was working with us to lead you straight into our hands?"

"Liar!" Leta snapped. She turned toward Aidan with large, fear-filled eyes. "Don't listen to them. They're just trying to hurt you."

But it was hard not to believe it as old scars and fears were ripped open with a brutality that left him feeling naked in front of them. Everyone else had betrayed him… his own flesh and blood had thrown him to the dogs and laughed while they did so. It wasn't a big leap of faith for him to think she'd toss him to the dogs too.

"Aidan," she said, reaching out for him. "Trust me. Please."

He wanted to, and when her hand touched his face, he felt himself coming undone at the emotions that tangled deep inside him. Fear. Anger. Agony. And yet beneath all that was a glimmer of something he hadn't felt in years. Hope. He wanted desperately to believe in her.

Was she lying?

Closing his eyes, he covered her hand with his and savored the softness of that touch. But did he dare believe in it?

Did he?

Taking a deep breath for courage, he braced himself for a brutal moment of truth.

"You know what?" he asked, opening his eyes to glare at Timor and Dolor. "When I spoke the truth no one wanted to believe me even though I gave them no reason to doubt me. Even though they had seen the truth about me time and again. They wanted to believe the trash and the lies about my character. It's so much easier to believe the lies over honesty. So much easier and safer to blame than to love."

He took her hand from his face and looked into her eyes that were filled with apprehension. "Until you give me a reason not to, Leta, I trust you." He kissed her hand before he reluctantly let it go.

Leta's emotions choked her as she realized what he'd just given her. But she didn't have time to dwell on it before Dolor bellowed in rage and launched himself at Aidan. The two of them tangled and fell to the ground.

She barely had time to duck the punch Timor swung at her. Stepping back, she elbowed him hard in the ribs. The sky above them darkened dangerously, as if it were responding to their fight. Leta rained blows on Timor as he blocked and returned punch for punch. When he landed one solid blow to her chin, she tasted blood. Her face stung from the solid hit, but she couldn't let it faze her.

Growling at him, she pulled out a short staff and blocked his backhand. He came back with a sword that he manifested out of thin air. She rolled to the grass that began slithering like snakes as he lunged and lunged again. One swing came so close to her that she felt the blade graze her skin. She kicked up, catching him in the ribs again and knocking him back.

Timor staggered sideways.

Aidan took a second to check on Leta. It literally pained him that he couldn't help her, yet she seemed to be holding her own against the larger god.

Because of Aidan's distraction, Dolor landed a solid blow to his jaw. Before he could recover, the ground under his feet shifted. He cursed as the blades of grass wrapped around his feet like long, skeletal fingers, clutching him and holding him in place. Aidan tried to shake them off, but they were persistent.

Dolor laughed. "Thank you, Sister Lyssa."

Aidan narrowed his eyes before he flung his hands out. Using his imagination, he conjured a sticky solution to blast from his palms. It wrapped around Dolor like a rope. He jerked the god forward to head-butt him. "Yeah," he said with a sinister laugh. "Thanks, Lyssa, for reminding me I'm in a dream."

Dolor let out a bellow of rage. Aidan laughed again before he flipped away from the grass. He ran up the side of the nearest wall and manifested a long staff.

When Dolor tried to follow, Aidan used the staff to knock the god off his feet. Dolor shot a blast at him. Aidan held his arm up and used his mind to block it with an invisible shield.

"Damned if it doesn't work," Aidan laughed.

Oh, yeah, this was making him feel better. He was beginning to think they might stand a chance after all. If only he could find some way to kill the beast.

"Aidan!"

He turned at Leta's call to see eight more Dolors coming at him.

And all of them looked pissed off.

The first one caught him about his waist and knocked him to the ground, flat on his back. Before he could move another one brought a sledgehammer down on his head. He managed to block it with his arm, but he swore he felt the bone shatter.

Cursing, Aidan tried to clone himself, but he couldn't focus on his goal enough to accomplish it as they hit him over and over again and his entire being ached from the attacks. So much for not being able to feel pain in a dream, huh? His body throbbing, he tried to manifest a shield, a weapon, anything.

But he couldn't.

He heard more laughter.

Suddenly, Leta was there, trying to pull him away from the others. He felt her cover him with her body as Dolor's clones continued to beat him with the sledgehammers.

The ground below them was trying to swallow them. "We're losing," she breathed in his ear.

"No shit," was all he could manage.

The skies above them opened up with rain so strong it slashed against his body like needles lacerating him. Yeah, this wasn't looking good for the home team.

He rolled with Leta, trying to keep her from taking any more damage from Dolor. The blows continued down his back until he feared they'd broken it.

His only thought to protect her, he cradled her under him even as she fought to shield him. "Stay safe, Leta," he breathed in her ear. "Don't fight me."

"Dolor's going to kill you."

Strangely, that didn't matter to him. It wasn't like he had anything to live for anyway.

Tired from the fight and weary from the loneliness, he laid his head down against her shoulder and waited for death. But as he did so and caught a teasing scent of her feminine skin, he realized that there was something left in this world that mattered to him. Something that was worth fighting for.

Leta.

His blood fueled by his fight, he let out a feral growl and closed his eyes. He would not be defeated.

Last man standing.

With his mind, he splintered the sledgehammers and sent the gods flying. He shoved himself to his feet and spun around to face a single Dolor whose eyes were widened.

"Shove it up your ass." Aidan delivered a blow to his jaw that lifted the god up two feet from the ground. In slow motion, the god arced over before he landed on his back with a solid thump.

Timor ran at him. Aidan clotheslined him and followed him to the ground so that he could punch Timor in the chest. Dolor came at his back, but before he could reach him, Leta kicked the god back. Still the rain poured down on them while lightning flashed. The shrubs around them began to bleed.

Timor splashed in the mud that covered them before he sprang to his feet and flew at Aidan and caught him in the shoulder. Aidan heard the fabric of his shirt tearing. He tasted blood from his nose an instant before both gods blasted him.

"Side with us, Leta," Dolor growled. "We'll get your emotions back for you."

She answered by blasting him with a bolt that took some of the pain away from Aidan.

Aidan manifested another sword. Twisting around, he lifted it to strike down at Timor who caught the blade with his left hand. He moved to kick Aidan. Releasing the sword, Aidan flipped around and manifested another sword to cut deep into Timor's side.

The god went down with a bright flash of lightning. Dolor threw Leta into Aidan's arms an instant before the god drove his own sword through her.

Aidan bellowed in pain as he saw the blood pouring out of her body. "You bastard!"

Dolor laughed as he launched himself at Aidan.

But he never made it.

Just as he would have reached him, Dolor vanished. Aidan scowled as he looked around, expecting the god to attack from another area. "Dolor?"

There was no answer, except for the torrential rain that spattered the grass around them.

Forgetting about the god for a moment and focusing on the woman who was bleeding in his arms, Aidan lowered Leta to the ground. He felt sick at the sight of her blood mixing with the mud.

How could this be?

"Leta?" he asked, not bothering to cover the note of fear in his voice.

"Sh," she said, touching his lips. "I'm immortal. I won't die from this."

"Then why are you bleeding?"

She smiled wanly. "Because this is your fear. Let it go, Aidan."

That was easier said than done. "I don't know how."

"Yes you do. Think back to the time before your brother turned on you. What was your fear then?"

That he'd lose his career and the studios would stop calling him. That the fans who paid to see his movies would turn on him and no longer show up at the box office. That he'd be alone in the world with no one to rely on.

"I was afraid of bad publicity. Of people hating me."

"Now?"

He hadn't been hurt by it. Even though the world had heard the lies, had seen his family come for his throat, the fans had stayed and seen the truth of him. He'd even won the Academy Award that year and had starred in one of the highest-grossing movies. A movie that had set him free to retire if he wanted to. Professionally, no one had cared what lies his brother had spewed.

As for being alone, he'd learned that it wasn't so bad. It'd taught him self-reliance. He'd come away from Donnie's machinations even stronger than he'd been before.

He'd become fearless, with an inner strength and clarity that was unrivaled.

But that wasn't the same as Leta bleeding and hurt. "I don't want to lose you, Leta."

"Then don't fear it. Believe that I'll be here with you, always."

Again, that was easier said than done. But he had to put faith in her. Believe in her even though the hurt part of himself didn't want to have faith in anyone but himself.

He pulled her against him and laid his head against the hollow of her throat. "I believe in you, Leta."

She lifted her hand to bury it deep in his hair as she kissed him. And with every heartbeat inside him, he felt her growing stronger.

He broke off the kiss to find her smiling at him.

"Your fears have power. It's what feeds Dolor and Timor. Don't give them a power they don't deserve."

Nodding, he glanced around. "Speaking of Timor, what happened to him?"

She shook her head. "I'm not sure."

"Did we defeat them?"

"I wish I could say yes, but I don't think so."

Damn…

"You didn't beat them… yet." They looked up to find Deimos standing over them with a cold, gloomy expression.

"What are you doing here?" Leta asked.

He let out a tired breath even though there was a hint of amusement in his eyes. "Getting involved in something I should leave alone but thought I ought to stick my neck out for it anyway. What the hell? Pissing off gods is what I do best."

Leta frowned at him. "And what exactly are you talking about?"

"In short, Dolor found a human sacrifice to the other side. He's now in human form. His highly nonentertaining birth is why he vanished from here so abruptly. He's on his way to kill Aidan's body while his consciousness is trapped here."

Leta cursed to learn that Dolor had found a body donor. Most people tended to pull back from being killed so that a god could use their body to murder their enemies. Apparently they weren't so lucky this time. "Who was the sacrifice?"

He jerked his chin toward Aidan. "His nephew. Donnie gave the kid up to the ghost to provide a body for Dolor's use."

Aidan went cold at the news. "No way!"

He shook his head grimly. "You want the god of pain to do your bidding, you have to pay a steep price for it. Blood and bone, my friend. Blood and bone."

That sent Aidan's senses reeling. He knew his brother hated him, but not this much… Surely to God, Donnie wouldn't have killed his own son just to get back at him.

Would he?

No, it wasn't possible. "He couldn't have done something like that."

But by the light in Deimos's eyes, he knew the truth he wanted only to deny. "You're talking about a man who set out to ruin the doting brother who gave his lazy ass a free ride. Why do you think this is beyond him?"

Because Aidan remembered when they were kids together. He remembered the laughter they'd shared. The hard times when they had been a united front against a world that was out to beat them down. Without Donnie, he wouldn't have made it through the death of their parents. He wouldn't have had the confidence to go out and make it on his own.

How could that boy who used to laugh with him have turned into the kind of monster who could kill his own son? "I can't believe this. I just can't. How could jealousy do this? How? It can't sour someone to this extreme, can it? I mean really…"

Deimos gave him a sympathetic look, but there was no relief or comfort in that stare. No peaceful understanding to such a brutal reality. "It can and it does. Believe me. I've seen a lot worse than this in my billion or so years of existence—the first murder man committed was one brother against the other for no other reason than that one petty emotion. Jealousy turns to hatred which then turns to poison. It infects and it destroys until it eats someone alive. Your brother was so angry that you made something out of your life, that you had fans who would do anything for you. He couldn't take it; he couldn't understand why you would have something like that while he didn't. His only goal has been to take you down a notch and put you back where you belong… underneath him. If he can't have it, then damned if you will."

It still didn't make sense to him why Donnie felt like that about him. "But I never let the fame get to me. I never changed. I've always remembered who I am and where I come from."

"Yeah," Deimos said. "And do you remember the old Joe Walsh song 'Life's Been Good'?"

"What of it?"

"Everybody's so different, I haven't changed."

Aidan stood there in silence as the words echoed in his head. He hadn't thought about that song in years, but Deimos was right. He was still the same boy who'd run barefoot in the summer because they needed to save their shoes for school. He still said "please" and "thank you" to everyone around him, regardless of who they were.

But Donnie… he wasn't the man he'd once been. The minute Aidan had given him a taste of wealth, he'd begun to treat people like they were beneath him. Like he was somehow better even though he wasn't the one who'd earned it.

And Donnie wasn't the only one who'd changed. So many people had come and gone through Aidan's life. Those who'd had no use for him when he'd been a starving actor trying to get a break had become his bosom buddy the moment he'd begun getting choice roles. Suddenly he was important and people wanted to meet him. But Aidan still felt like the young actor who'd been left outside of hot nightclubs because he didn't rate. The same actor others had brushed off as insignificant.

And then there had been Heather…

Damn, old Joe had been a prophet with that song. It made him wonder who had screwed over the songwriter so that he'd been able to express it so eloquently.

Deimos stepped forward. "We have to get the two of you awake. Dolor is on his way to your place to hit the two of you while you're unconscious."

Leta cursed. "We're sleeping ducks."

Deimos nodded. "It's a good plan on his end."

Yes, it was. Aidan glanced to Leta before he asked Deimos, "Can you wake us?"

"I don't know. But here's to trying." The god vanished.

Aidan turned toward Leta who watched him carefully. She had a red spot on her face from a backhand one of the other gods had given her. Her hair was tousled and her pale eyes were filled with admiration. That look tore through him and it made him ache.

He held his hand out to her.

Her gentle touch set him on fire as she wrapped her fingers around his. His cock hardened instantly, making him wish they had a moment alone. He couldn't believe she'd infiltrated his life so easily, but he was so glad she had.

"If I end up dead tonight, I just want to say thank you."

She gave him an arch stare. "For what?"

"Knocking on my door and forcing your way into my life."

She smiled at him. "No problem. I'm just sorry I didn't do a better job of saving you."

Those words were a symphony to his ears. "You know, in a weird way, I think you did."

"What do you mean?"

He tugged her closer to him so that he could feel her body heat against his skin. It set his nerves on edge and reminded him exactly what she had brought into his life. "I've been asleep for a long time. Living in an empty place. I don't feel so empty now. There's something else there."

"Something else?"

He nodded, wrapping his arms around her. "It's you." He touched his heart. "You woke me up and I feel again. It's actually kind of nice, and if this is the last chance I have to say it, I just thought you should know."

Leta's heart pounded at the words she knew were so hard for him to utter. They meant everything to her. And she felt the same way. "After my husband died, I never thought I would be able to care for another person. And then I found you. I won't let them have you, Aidan. I won't."

He kissed her hand before he cupped her face in his hands and placed the tenderest of kisses on her lips. Her senses spun. If she could, she would stay right here with him. There was nothing she wanted more than to be human and to stay by his side.

If only she could…

"Leta?" She heard Deimos's voice as a faint whisper in her head.

One more minute.

But it wasn't meant to be. She felt something pulling her back, away from Aidan.

No!

And still she felt herself slipping, falling down a dark tunnel until she was again waking up in the human plane. So groggy she could barely move, she blinked open her eyes to find Deimos staring at her.

"Aidan?"

He indicated the area beside her with a lift of his chin. "I can't get him to wake up."

"Where's Dolor?"

As if in answer to her question, she heard someone coming up the stairs outside.

Her heart hammering, she rolled over to shake Aidan. "Aidan!" she snapped.

He didn't move.

Deimos grimaced. "How much did you give him?"

"Apparently more than I should have. I wanted to make sure that neither of us pulled out of the dream early." Leta shook her head as she stared at Aidan lying there in perfect repose. In spite of the turmoil and battle in his dream, his handsome features were so peaceful, his body still and relaxed. However, the time for dreaming was behind them. They now had an enemy to face in this realm.

"Please wake up," she breathed, but she knew better. He was too far under. There wouldn't be any more waking for him. At least not for a long time.

Someone was kicking against the cabin door, trying to break it down.

She brushed her hand against Aidan's whiskered cheek before she rose from the bed. "We have to defeat them."

"I'm right here by your side."

She impulsively kissed Deimos' cheek. "Thank you."

He inclined his head before he flashed himself to the living room. Leta followed after him, knowing they were the only thing standing between Aidan and death.

She glanced back to the bedroom where he slept before she whispered a solemn vow. "I won't let you down, Aidan. I swear it."

Aidan jerked back in surprise as he heard Leta's voice in his dream state. He hovered in the room, unable to wake up. It was as if he were caught between the dream and reality. That strange nether realm where lucid dreams were made. He could see her and Deimos, see Dolor and Donnie as they broke through his door and spilled into his living room.

"I have to wake up." But no matter what he tried, he couldn't. It was the most frustrating thing he could imagine.

He looked at his brother, whose blond hair was shaved close to his head. Donnie had beefed up in prison and his green eyes were insane as he looked about. Aidan wasn't sure how Dolor had gotten his brother out of jail, but then it probably wasn't hard for a god to do whatever he wanted to.

"Where is he?" Donnie snarled. "Aidan!"

Leta braced herself in the middle of the room. "You're not getting him."

Donnie turned on her with a look of steel. "Like hell, bitch. He's mine, and if you don't move, I'm going through you to get him."

She closed her eyes an instant before a staff appeared in her hands. "Then let's dance because the only way to get to him is through me."

Dolor, who was in Ronald's body, stared at Deimos. "You don't belong in this fight, Demon. You sure you want to stand there?"

"No place I'd rather be."

Ronald/Dolor blasted him off his feet. Deimos rolled with it before he returned the blast with one of his own.

Leta scissor-kicked Donnie and drove him back from Aidan's room.

Aidan watched the fighting with bated breath. It was inconceivable to him that the two of them were willing to be battered to protect him. No one had ever done that for him before.

Donnie swept Leta off her feet. As he went to kick her, she rolled away and twisted her body to knock him down. Damn, the woman was a better fighter than Jackie Chan. But Donnie was no slacker and obviously jail had taught him a few things.

Deimos and Dolor were locked in a massive battle as they slammed from wall to floor to wall again. They were equally matched, and there wouldn't be an easy victor in that fight.

And just when he was certain Leta would take Donnie, Donnie caught her from behind with a garroting chord.

Aidan's heart stilled as he watched her struggle.

"I can't flash out," she called to Deimos.

Dolor laughed. "It's one of Artemis's toys. You're snared."

"No," Donnie laughed in a sinister tone. "You're dead."

Aidan felt his rage building to an unbelievable level. There was no way in hell he was going to let her die because of him. He threw his head back and roared with the ferocity of everything he felt.

His adrenaline pumping, he ordered himself awake.

Still Donnie tightened the chord.

"Leta!" Aidan shouted.

Her face was turning blue as she fought for breath. He reached out to touch her, but it was too late.

Leta slumped in Donnie's arms.

CHAPTER 8

Aidan came awake with the taste of rage bitter on his tongue. As he heard the fighting outside his bedroom, his anger built to a stellar level.

"Leta," he snarled, throwing himself toward the door. He snatched it open to see her on the floor at Donnie's feet.

Without stopping, he dove at his brother, catching him about the shoulders before they fell to the ground. His gaze turning red, Aidan slugged him with everything he was worth, over and over again. Donnie tried to throw him off, but he was having none of it. He was through with his brother's crap.

"I hate you," Donnie shouted.

"Feeling's mutual," Aidan said an instant before he slammed Donnie's head against the slate floor as hard as he could. Blood exploded over the hardwood floor. His brother's blood should have appeased him. It didn't.

And as he looked into his brother's dilated eyes that were an exact match to the shade of his own, Aidan wanted to weep.

How had they come to this? How?

That moment of weakness cost him as Donnie kicked him back. His brother grabbed him by the shoulders and rolled until Aidan was pinned to the floor. There was no mercy in Donnie's eyes as he rained blows on Aidan.

"How could you?" Aidan demanded furiously as he blocked most of the hits.

"Because I hate you, you piece of shit. You got everything that should have been mine. Everything! The looks, the money, the hot girlfriend. It's not fair for you to have so much and for me to have so little."

That was so not true. Donnie had been even better looking than Aidan when he'd been younger. Where Aidan had been lean and had to work for muscle tone, Donnie had always been naturally muscled. Donnie had been the one to get married and have a family. Tracy had only left him because he'd cheated on her. As for the money, Donnie could have had that too, but rather than start a business for himself, he'd been content to make the steady salary of a cable installer. Good money that he'd spent on drugs, alcohol, and strippers—which had also caused the break-up of his marriage. "You're insane."

"Yeah and you're a dick. Do you have any idea what it's like to watch your wife lust after your kid brother? To listen to her sing your brother's praises and tell you how you don't measure up?"

What was he talking about? Tracy had never seen him as anything more than a little brother. Donnie's wife had barely even spoken to him the handful of times he'd been around her.

"You stole Heather from me."

"No," Donnie said bitterly. "The bitch still loved you even after we hooked up. All she could talk about was you and how good-looking you were. How much money you made and all the great places you'd taken her when you dated. How you couldn't go out without being mobbed by people who loved you. She was as obsessed with you as Tracy was. It's why I offered her soul to Dolor first."

Aidan was so stunned by the words that he allowed Donnie to land a solid punch on his jaw. He tasted blood before he kicked him back. "What?"

Donnie caught himself. He stood before Aidan with twisted lips, clenching and unclenching his fists. "Whiny fucking bitch. The only reason she even went with me was to hurt you. She didn't care about me. She just wanted you to think there was someone out there who didn't find you irresistible. She thought you'd come crawling back to her, begging for her to take you back. So I broke out of jail, cut her throat, and used her blood to wake Dolor."

Aidan cursed. His heart bleak, he rushed at Donnie and caught him in a headlock. He glanced to Leta on the floor who appeared to be breathing easier than she had before. He wanted to check on her, but knew better than to try. Donnie wouldn't let him near her until he was down for the count.

Aidan tightened his hold on Donnie's neck. "How could you kill Ronald? He was your son!"

"He may have been my blood," he said in a raspy tone, "but he wasn't my son. He loved you more than me. He always did. My house wasn't as fancy as Uncle Aidan's. My money wasn't as good. He wanted to apologize to you. Tell you how sorry he was for everything we'd done. He said we had no right to hurt you, so I told Dolor to take him out and use his body to get to you."

Aidan felt sick at the words. How could his brother be reduced to this? "I loved you, Donnie. I would have done anything in the world for you." His grip loosened as he tried to reach through the hatred to find the brother he'd once known and loved.

"Then die." Donnie spun on him with a kick that landed hard on Aidan's ribs.

Aidan grunted as he caught his balance.

Donnie pulled a knife out of his pocket and flipped it open. Aidan caught his wrist before Donnie could plunge it into him. He wrenched Donnie's hand and sent the knife flying before he backhanded him and kicked him down.

Aidan sneered at him. "I never once in my life thought I was better than you until now. I could never have hurt my family the way you have. Loyalty is everything to me. It always has been and always will be. But you… you don't know how to love. Your jealousy won't even let you recognize it when you have it. I can't hate you anymore, you wretched excuse for a human. All I can do is feel sorry for you."

Donnie shrieked before he ran at him.

Aidan caught him and slung him back to the ground.

"You're pathetic."

Donnie pushed himself up. "You're the one who's pathetic. You got nothing now."

"Not true. I have my dignity and a million people in this world who love me. The only thing you have in your life is anger, bitterness, and a mistrust that you'll never overcome. All you know how to do is envy other people. You'll never have anything. Your hatred and greed won't let you."

Donnie launched himself at Aidan, but before he could reach him, Leta was there between them. She kicked Donnie back.

Aidan kissed her hand before he stepped around her. "Thank you, Donnie, for allowing me to recognize and appreciate real friendship. Had you not screwed me over, I would have married Heather and allowed her to make me miserable for the rest of my life, because unlike you, I don't walk away from important relationships. I don't turn my back on the people I love. Hell, I was even one step away from signing my entire estate over to her before we married. More than that, you flushed all the snakes out of my garden and set me free."

He looked at Leta and Deimos. "Now I know who I can depend on. I understand what real love is and what it means to put someone else above my own pettiness. I'm grateful to God that you're wretched and in trying to ruin me, all you did was make my life a hell of a lot better. Thank you."

He screamed and Aidan laughed.

The minute he did, Dolor looked up with a frown.

Donnie gestured toward the god. "Kill the bastard!"

Aidan braced himself for the fight, but didn't feel his anger rekindle. All he felt was pity for the brother who'd allowed his petty jealousy to ruin his entire life. More than that, Donnie's jealousy had caused him to kill the very people who loved him most.

His stomach wrenched at the thought of what Donnie had done to himself.

There was no more pain inside him now. No bitterness or hatred. Aidan felt nothing except gratitude that he wasn't Donnie. More than that, he was grateful that Leta had kept him from becoming his brother's shadow.

Dolor, who looked exactly like Donnie had when Aidan had left home to seek his fortune, stepped forward. Aidan wanted to weep over the fact that his nephew was dead. But there were no tears. Again, it was pity he felt for Donnie. For the first time since Donnie had turned on him, he didn't want revenge.

He was through with it.

"You're not fighting me," Dolor growled.

Aidan shook his head slowly. "I'll fight only for what matters." He looked over his shoulder at Leta. "Her safety."

Dolor's gaze followed his until it rested on Leta. Rage darkened his brow. He stepped forward, then froze.

Aidan frowned as he saw the god struggle, as if held in place by some invisible force. Dolor reached for him, then shattered into a shimmery dust that drifted down to the ground where it sparkled against the floor.

He looked around the room, expecting the god to rematerialize.

Dolor didn't.

Confused, Aidan turned to Leta. "What happened?"

"He's gone," Deimos said, brushing his hands against his pants. "You defeated him."

"How?"

Leta spoke in a quiet tone. " 'Pain is here,

" 'sharp and clear.

" 'Even so, it must fade,

"And a new way should he made'" She stepped forward. "That's what Lyssa was trying to tell us. You released the pain and betrayal inside you… the fear… and it left him powerless to fight you."

"No!" Donnie shouted, rushing at Aidan.

Aidan turned to face him, but before he could he felt a sharp, stinging pain in his shoulder. He flipped his brother over his arm, and pinned him to the ground. It was only then he saw the knife in Donnie's hand. With a feral grimace, Aidan disarmed him.

Fury gripped him, but it didn't stay. Donnie wasn't worth it. He wasn't worth anything.

Deimos picked the knife up from the floor. "You want me to kill him for you?"

Aidan shook his head. "I want him to live with the knowledge that he destroyed everything and everyone in his life who loved him." He caught Donnie's hand as he tried to hit him and held it in his fist.

Donnie tried to spit, but Aidan dodged it.

Aidan swallowed against the lump in his throat that choked him. Even after everything that had gone on between them, there was still a part of him that wanted to love Donnie… to forgive him.

But in the end, he couldn't. Donnie would never allow that and he knew it.

"You were my brother, Donnie. I would have died for you. Done anything in this world you asked. But the problem is, you weren't satisfied with that. You had to take. May God have mercy on you."

"I don't need your pity, you prick."

Those words squelched any mercy that was left inside him where his brother was concerned. There were people out there that no amount of compassion or love could save and it was time he faced the fact that Donnie was a lost cause. "And I don't need trash in my life." He glanced to Leta. "Any chance the cell phone will work?"

"Yes, why?"

"Because I want to call the cops to come get this sack of shit out of my house."

"This isn't over!" Donnie snarled.

Aidan shook his head. "Oh, yes it is. You're going to leave here in a few minutes and I will never again think about you and what you've done. I really don't care about you. You're not worth the salt in my tears or the brain power it would take me to even conjure your face."

"I won't let you rest."

Aidan snorted. "Believe me, I will sleep well at night. I have the resources and the drive to fight you to the bitter end for what matters most—my life and"—he looked at Leta—"my heart… I'm through with you."

"You—"

Deimos ended his words with a swift kick to his head that rendered Donnie unconscious. "Anyone else getting bored with his crap?"

Leta raised her hand.

Aidan stood up. "Did you kill him?"

"Nah. Against my better judgment, he's breathing. Still say you should let me cut a few parts off his body."

"No. I want him intact so that the only thing he'll focus on is what he's done to himself. Sooner or later his lies will fade and he will see the truth. I'm not the one who hurt him. He is."

Deimos looked disappointed by the fact he couldn't kill Donnie. "Since this appears to be over, I'm going to head back and force Phobos to play another round with me. Later." He vanished.

Aidan let out an irritated breath at his abrupt departure. "I didn't have a chance to thank him."

"Don't worry about it. Demon hates thank-yous."

"Really?"

She nodded. "Like someone else I know, he gets uncomfortable whenever he's praised."

Aidan felt one corner of his mouth lift as he pulled her closer to him. "I think I'm getting over that."

"Are you?"

"Yeah, but only when it comes from you."

She returned his smile with one that left him weak in his knees. "I summoned the police a second ago. They'll be here in a few minutes."

"Cool." At least that was his thought until he realized something. "What happens to you now that Dolor's gone?"

"I have to leave."

His stomach shrank as a sick feeling went through him. "Leave?"

She glanced away as if unable to meet his gaze. "I'm a goddess, Aidan. I can't stay in the human realm. I don't belong here."

He wanted to beg her to stay with him, but he couldn't. She'd already told him why she couldn't stay. All begging would do was make her feel bad for something neither of them could help.

As she said, she was a goddess.

Maybe she could become mortal. But he didn't want that. She would grow old and die.

How could he ask that of someone who was forever young and beautiful? It would be selfish. "I'm going to miss you."

Leta swallowed at the pain she heard in his voice. He was trying so hard to be strong, but inside he was shattered. She could feel it.

Fear marked his brow. "Will Dolor be there, waiting for you?"

"No. When he failed to kill you and his human body disintegrated, he was rendered powerless. He's back in stasis now. It'll take another human sacrifice to reawaken him." At least that was what she believed had happened to him. The truth was, she didn't know and wouldn't know for sure until she returned home.

Aidan scowled. "Why does he have to have a human sacrifice to appear as a human when you don't?"

"With the help of Hades, I cursed him to it. My thought was that no one would be vicious enough to kill someone they loved in order to set him free. I thought I'd found a way to lock him out of the human world for all eternity."

Aidan looked to his brother, who was still unconscious on the floor. "I guess we both overestimated Donnie's humanity."

"Perhaps, but remember, not everyone else in the world is as sick as he is."

"But you're not really in this world, are you?"

"Aidan—"

He silenced her words by placing one finger over her lips. "Don't prolong the hurt, Leta. Just rip the Band-Aid off my skin and let the burn remind me that for one day, I had something more than misery. I told you earlier that I'd rather have one moment of incredible bliss than a lifetime of nothing." He placed a tender kiss to her forehead. "Now go. Just leave."

The problem was, she didn't want to leave him. She wanted to stay, but there was no way she could. Her temporary body wouldn't last in this plane of existence. "I'll visit you in your dreams."

"No," he said, his voice catching. "That would only make it worse. I couldn't stand seeing you there, knowing that I'm not really touching you. Let the wound heal. Let me be able to think back on this day and remember the woman who saved my life."

He was right, and it was killing her to admit it. "I won't forget you, Aidan."

Aidan didn't respond verbally, but the tormented light in those green eyes said more than words ever could.

He would remember her too.

The sound of police sirens pierced the air.

"Go, Leta."

She stepped back with her heart in her throat. All she wanted was to be with him. If only it could be. But the gods had decreed a different fate for them. There was no need to fight a battle they couldn't win.

"I love you, Aidan," she said before she flashed herself back to the Vanishing Isle.

Aidan stood there in the center of his cabin, staring at the space where Leta had been. It was only then that he let the tears he felt surface. The pain of them burned in his chest and choked him.

Eventually she would have betrayed you too. Everyone betrays you.

Perhaps, but he no longer believed that. Leta had taught him better.

He heard the thunder of the police running onto his porch. "Put your hands behind your head! Get down on your knees!"

Aidan didn't flinch as the cops flooded through his broken door with their weapons drawn. He obeyed their orders and knelt on the floor while one of the officers ran behind him and cuffed his hands together.

"For the record, I'm the victim."

But since they didn't know for sure, they followed standard protocol of securing him before they called an ambulance for Donnie.

Once they realized Donnie was an escaped felon and Aidan did in fact live in the cabin and was the one who'd been attacked, they removed his handcuffs and let him get a cold towel to clean some of the blood off his face and shoulder.

"You sure you don't want to go to the hospital?" one of the male officers asked.

Aidan shook his head as he watched them haul a semiconscious Donnie out of his living room. There was no helping what really hurt him. Only Leta could do that. "I'll be all right."

"You sure?"

For the first time in years, he actually was. "Yeah. That which doesn't kill us—"

"Requires a lot of therapy to deal with."

Aidan gave a small laugh as the police officer shrugged.

"Hey, in my business, it's really true." The officer suddenly looked awkward as he glanced at the mantel where Aidan kept his Oscars. It was a bashful stance Aidan knew extremely well.

"You want an autograph?"

The officer's face brightened. "I didn't want to ask with you bleeding and all, but my wife's a really big fan of yours and this would score me some major points with her. If I could put that under the tree, I know it would make her Christmas."

Aidan smiled even though it hurt his split lip. "Hang on." He went into his office and pulled out a stack of publicity photos Mori had sent that he'd ignored and a Sharpie before he returned to the living room. "What's her name?"

"Tammy."

Another officer stepped forward. "Oh, man, can I have one too? I loved that movie Alabaster. You kicked major butt in it and the chick who was in it with you… Was she as hot in real life?"

"No, she was even better."

The officer laughed.

Aidan hesitated as the old joy he used to feel came flooding back. He could still remember the first time someone had asked for his autograph all those years ago. The first time someone had stopped him on the street to tell him how much they loved his work. There was nothing else like it. No matter when or where, he loved to be stopped by his fans. To share a few minutes chatting with them.

Donnie and Heather had tainted it with their poison. "Those people don't care about you. They're just hanger-ons wanting to touch something they'll never be. God, I hate it whenever they come up to us. I can't even eat a meal in peace. Why don't you tell them to go away and leave us alone?"

But Aidan had never minded. Even when it got to the point he couldn't drive on the street with his windows down or the times he had the press climbing into his backyard, he hadn't minded it. He was glad he did something that other people enjoyed, and if talking to him made them happy… There was no greater feeling than knowing he'd touched their lives and brought a smile to their faces, even if it was only for a few minutes.

This was what he'd wanted since he was a kid. What he'd fought his ass off to achieve. He'd suffered through enough slings and arrows to make Shakespeare proud.

And he loved every minute of it.

He handed the signed photo for Tammy to the officer before he looked at the other one. "What's your name?"

"Ricky… and can you make one out for my girlfriend, Tiffany? She'd just die if I came home with that. Oh, and my mom, Sara. She's been a fan of yours since that weird horror movie you did. I loved that too, but it was a major mind scrambler."

Aidan laughed at the man's enthusiasm. "It'd be my pleasure."

Before it was over, Aidan signed a total of twenty photos for the police and paramedics. Donnie was screaming in outrage from the ambulance, but no one cared.

"You have a Merry Christmas," Ricky said as he trailed the others out of Aidan's cabin. He hesitated at the splintered door. "You probably need to call someone to fix this. I don't think you should be up here without a good door, given what happened today."

"Thanks. I'll take care of it."

Ricky held his hand out. "You're a decent man, Mr. O'Conner. Thanks so much for the autographs."

"My pleasure, and call me Aidan."

Ricky grinned. "Aidan. It was a pleasure meeting you. I just wish the circumstances were better."

"Yeah, me too. You have a good Christmas and tell your mom and Tiffany I said hi."

"Will do. Thanks."

Aidan followed him out to the porch where he watched Ricky walk out to his car before all of them drove off. He could still hear Donnie's muffled voice cursing him as they pulled onto the road. Pity welled up inside him, but then again, maybe it was a good thing Donnie was still being eaten with hatred. One day Donnie would realize exactly what his jealousy had cost him—that in trying to ruin Aidan, he'd destroyed his entire life.

God help his brother then.

The pain of Donnie's betrayal rolled off his shoulders now. He really didn't care. "I am the last man standing."

The problem was, he was standing alone and for the first time in years that bothered him.

Closing his eyes, he felt the bite of the cold against him as he summoned an image of Leta in his mind. "I miss you, baby." But there was nothing to be done about it.

Life was what it was.

Defeated, he turned to enter his house and saw that his door had been replaced. "Leta?" he asked with a hopeful note in his voice.

It wasn't her. Deimos was standing inside the living room, watching him.

Aidan couldn't understand his presence. "I thought you were playing chess."

"I was going to, but…" He hesitated as if there were something on his mind.

"But?" Aidan prompted.

Deimos indicated the door with a tilt of his head. "I remembered you had a broken door."

"Thanks for repairing it."

"No problem."

Aidan paused, waiting for Deimos to speak or do something. When he didn't, Aidan arched a brow. "Is there something I can help you with?"

"Not really. It's more along the lines of something I can help you with."

Now he had Aidan's full attention. "And that is?"

Deimos's gaze bored into him. "What would you give to have Leta with you?"

Aidan didn't hesitate. "Everything."

"You sure?"

"Yes." Suddenly, everything went black. Aidan jerked around, trying to get his bearings, but he couldn't see, feel, or hear anything. It was just dark. "Leta?"

This time she didn't respond. There was no kind hand to ground him. No words of encouragement and he missed that even more.

When the light returned, he saw himself as a kid near a Christmas tree. He was eleven and at his uncle's house. Aidan frowned as he tried to remember the exact event, but he couldn't. He only remembered the setting.

"What did you get?" Donnie asked as he came over to where Aidan was playing.

Aidan held up his action figure. "G.I. Joe and some candy."

Donnie curled his lip. "That's not fair. I wanted a G.I. Joe."

Aidan was baffled by his anger. "No you didn't. You said you wanted Optimus Prime and Grimlock, which you got."

Donnie reached for the toy in Aidan's hand and snatched it away.

"Give that back!"

Donnie refused, and when Aidan tried even harder, he punched him with everything he had. Aidan shouted in fury which woke his uncle up from the nap he was taking on the plaid couch a few feet away from them.

Two seconds later, with insults ringing in their ears, all the toys were in the garbage and both of them were grounded. Not to mention bruised from their uncle's anger.

"It's all your fault," Donnie snarled, shoving Aidan up the stairs as they headed to the room the two of them shared.

"I didn't take your toys, you took mine."

Donnie curled his lip. "That's because you need to learn to share. You're such a selfish scumbag. I hate you. I wish you'd died with Mom and Dad."

Aidan froze at the hostility on his brother's face as Donnie trudged past him. His heart heavy, he reversed course and returned to the living room. He sneaked around the corner, afraid of being caught. Luckily his uncle was back on the couch again, passed out from his Christmas drinking binge.

As quietly as he could, Aidan crept to the garbage can and pulled the toys out. Then just as silently, he made his way back upstairs where he handed the toys to Donnie.

"You can have them," he said, not wanting his brother to hate him anymore.

Donnie smiled.

But even though Aidan had won his brother back, there was no satisfaction in it. He merely felt relieved that Donnie didn't hate him…

The adult Aidan watched the scene as he finally remembered every buried emotion of that Christmas Day. He'd forgotten it all. Now every bit of it was clear to him. And he remembered other times when Donnie had acted that way. All the times he'd tried to placate him because Donnie didn't want him to have anything.

The entire world was supposed to be Donnie's.

Then the scene shifted and he saw his agent Mori at home with his latest wife. Tall, dark-haired, young, and beautiful, Shirley sat on the couch while Mori sat across from her in a brown leather chair.

"Why are you so unhappy?" she asked quietly.

Mori offered her an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry. I was just thinking about Aidan again."

She rolled her eyes. "I can't believe he'd walk away from that kind of money."

Mori's gaze turned introspective as he cupped his glass of brandy. His expression said that he found it more than plausible. "Money doesn't buy happiness."

She scoffed. "Anyone who says that isn't shopping in the right stores."

Mori didn't comment on that. "I hate what's become of him. He is without a doubt one of the finest actors of his generation. I just wish there was something I could do for him."

"You sent him a ham."

Mori cut her a bored look. "Not for a present. When I first met him, he was so full of life and laughter. When other actors got jaded by their fame, he didn't. He always enjoyed it. Even the parts of it that made lesser actors crumble and fall. Now… now he's a soured recluse. If I had one single wish for Christmas, it would be to see him happy again."

Aidan was amazed by the fact that Mori wasn't as cold-blooded as he pretended. Wow. His agent had been keeping quite a secret from him. There really was a heart buried under all that swagger.

But that didn't change anything. He looked up at the darkness. "Is this supposed to mean something to me?"

His answer came as the scene blanked out again and reemerged, not in his future as he expected, but rather in a place he'd never seen before.

It appeared to be a dark cavern with walls that were bleeding…

Faint screams and moans echoed as he walked toward a large opening, and when he reached it, he froze. There was Leta in a long, flowing white gown, standing before two angry men who glared at her while a third man in white stood to her left.

"You would ask me for mercy for her?" the tall blond man sneered at the man in white. "Do you understand what she has done?"

"Yes, Zeus. I do. But what she did, she did to protect an innocent human."

Zeus sneered at the answer. "None of them are innocent. What's the death of one more human in this world?"

Leta started to answer, but the man beside her stopped her by putting his hand on her arm.

When he spoke, his voice was devoid of all emotion. "She was assigned the human by me and she carried out her assignment to the end. It was Dolor who—"

"Don't you dare defend her," Zeus snarled. "Because of his death, we have a rupture in the universe. Have you any idea what could have happened? The world could have ended."

"But it didn't."

Zeus blasted him.

"M'Adoc!" Leta said, rushing to where he lay on the ground.

Zeus cocked his head at that. "Are those emotions I hear from you?"

Aidan saw the panic in Leta's eyes but since her back was to Zeus, he was sure the god hadn't noticed it.

Instead a strange look passed between M'Adoc and the dark-haired god standing beside Zeus.

"They have no emotions, brother," the dark-haired man said. "She spent time with the humans and these are the residual effects."

Zeus's gaze narrowed dangerously as M'Adoc pushed himself back to his feet. "Are you defending them, Hades?"

Hades shrugged. "Not really. If you want me to punish her I will. It's what I live for."

Aidan frowned at the underlying sarcastic tone of the god's voice.

Zeus nodded. "Very well. Kill her."

"No!" Aidan lunged forward only to run into an invisible wall.

The gods turned as if they could hear him.

Aidan slammed his hand against the wall. "Don't you dare touch her!"

He realized that they could in fact hear him as Zeus came forward to stare at him as if he were an insect in a jar. "Have you any idea who I am?"

"I don't care. Leta did nothing wrong and I won't see her hurt for me."

"Nothing wrong?" Zeus asked, his nostrils flaring. "You stupid human. She could have destroyed the entire universe with her actions. The only thing that saved us was the fact that Dolor was in stasis and his powers restricted. Had he not been… We'll take a moment and be damn grateful for small favors."

Even though a small voice in Aidan's head told him not to argue with an ancient god, he couldn't stop himself. "She's not the one who killed Dolor. I did it."

Leta gasped at his words. "Aidan—"

"It's true," he said, cutting her off before she contradicted him. "I killed him. So if you're going to punish anyone, it should be me."

Zeus considered it.

"Ignore him, my lord," Leta said quickly. "He's noble but foolish. I was the one who ignored your mandate to leave Dolor alone. I killed him here while he slept in stasis—against your will. Because of that I'm the one who should be punished."

Zeus stiffened as if something offended him. "Are those emotions I hear in your voice? Have you feelings for this human?"

Leta shook her head. "No, my lord. It's only cold, hard logic."

Her words tore through Aidan, who couldn't bear the thought of her being false with him. "Leta?"

Her gaze was empty as she met his. "How could I ever have feelings for a human when I'm incapable of them?"

Zeus turned speculative. "So if I killed the human, you wouldn't care?"

Aidan wouldn't have thought her face could get colder, but he was wrong.

Even so, she didn't answer.

"She wouldn't care," M'Adoc answered for her. "She's not capable of it."

"Very well. Since the human was supposed to die anyway…" Zeus shot a lightning bolt out of his hand, straight at Aidan's heart.

CHAPTER 9

Aidan staggered yet remained standing even as his entire body was shoved backward. He looked down, expecting to see blood from Zeus's attack. But there was no wound. In fact, there was no pain.

Confused, he glanced around until he saw Leta lying on the floor a few feet from him. "Oh, my God," he breathed, scrambling to reach her. She must have thrown herself in front of him to protect him.

He knelt on the floor and rolled her over, to see her struggling to breathe as blood coated her entire body.

"Leta?"

She coughed up blood before she spoke in a raspy tone. "I couldn't let you die, Aidan. I'm sorry."

Sorry? Why was she apologizing to him for saving his life? It didn't even make sense.

Zeus turned on M'Adoc. "I thought you said she was incapable of caring?"

M'Adoc maintained his stoicism. "She must have gone Skoti without our knowing."

Fury darkened Zeus's brow. He held his hand up and M'Adoc was instantly drawn forward into his grasp. "You don't make those kinds of mistakes."

Hades made a sound of extreme boredom. "You're wasting your time, Zeus. You stripped their emotions so if you're trying to make him afraid now—"

"Shut up," Zeus snapped at Hades before he shoved M'Adoc away from him. He stiffened before he gave M'Adoc a dire warning. "You better keep a wary eye on your brethren. I'm holding you personally responsible. You fail to corral them and it'll be your blood I bathe in."

Aidan saw the fury and fear flash in M'Adoc's eyes before he straightened and faced Zeus. Then his face was as blank as it'd been before Zeus attacked him. "I understand, my lord. Your will be done."

"You're damn right my will be done." Zeus glared at all of them. "Now get that human out of here and clean up this mess." With those words spoken, he dissolved into a light bronze dust and evaporated.

Still on the floor, Aidan held Leta close to him as she struggled to breathe. "You're going to heal again, right?"

"No," Hades said as he stepped forward. "She was hit with a god bolt from Zeus himself. There's no coming back from that."

Aidan frowned. "I don't understand."

"She's dying," Hades said in a tone that was devoid of all feeling.

It took several seconds for those words to permeate the fog in Aidan's head. "She can't die. She's an immortal goddess."

"Who was just assaulted by the king of the gods." Hades said in the tone of a teacher talking to a dense student. "Yes, she can die."

Aidan couldn't breathe as he looked down at her. "Why? Why would you have done this?"

"I love you, Aidan," she said as her eyes teared up. "I couldn't let Zeus kill you. I could never watch someone else I love die in front of me." She lifted her hand to lay it gently to his cheek. "It was why I had to kill Dolor. I knew Donnie would only summon him again and I didn't want him to hurt you anymore. I couldn't chance it."

His own tears swelled at her words. He crushed her against him before he looked up at Hades and M'Adoc. "We have to save her. Tell me what to do."

Hades let out a tired breath. "Thunder-Bluster wants her dead. There's nothing we can do. We heal her and he will rain down on her all kinds of pain. The kindest thing you can do is let her go."

"No! Save her!"

But the god wasn't listening. Hades stepped back and looked at M'Adoc. "Let's give them privacy to say goodbye."

Aidan saw the sympathy in M'Adoc's eyes before he faded away. Hades followed suit.

Alone now, he breathed in the scent of Leta's hair.

"I wish I'd been born human," she breathed against his neck.

"I would have changed nothing about you."

He felt her smiling as she tightened her grip in his hair. An instant later, she expelled her last breath and fell limp in his arms.

For three full heartbeats, Aidan didn't move. He couldn't. It took that long for reality to set in.

Leta was dead. She'd given her life to save his.

He refused to believe it. Pulling back, he looked at her. Her eyes were partially open, her face grayish. There was no life in her eyes. Blood coated both of them.

"Wake up," he breathed, knowing it was an impossible request. "Don't leave me, Leta. Please."

But all the begging in the world changed nothing. She was gone and he was alone.

His heart shattering, he pulled her against him and did the one thing he hadn't done since the night his parents had died. He sobbed.

Rocking her in his arms, he held her for what seemed to be forever as he cried. All he wanted was to go back in time and change all of this. To start fresh and new.

To tell her he loved her too.

"I love you, Leta," he whispered into her ear, knowing she couldn't hear him.

Why hadn't he said it earlier?

But then he knew. He'd been afraid to voice it. Afraid she would somehow use that to hurt him. Now she would never know just how much she'd meant to him. It was so unfair.

"She knows."

He looked up to find a tall, beautiful blond woman standing over him. "Who are you?"

"Persephone." She knelt by his side with sympathy in her eyes. "I'm sorry for your loss. Leta was a wonderful woman." Pulling out a small black handkerchief, she wiped his eyes. "You need to return home now. I'll take care of her for you."

"No!"

"Aidan," she said quietly. "You can't stay here. Believe me, you don't really want to. I will make sure Leta is taken care of, but you have to go."

Aching deep inside his soul, Aidan knew she was right. He pressed his lips to Leta's cold temple before he allowed Persephone to take her body from his arms. "Will you bury her with her family? She doesn't like to be alone."

Tears welled in her eyes as she nodded. "You do love her, don't you?"

"More than my life. I wish to God she'd let me die in her place."

Persephone sniffed as she took Leta from his arms. "Deimos," she said, summoning the god to appear in front of them. "Can you take him back to his world?"

Deimos nodded before he and Aidan vanished.

As soon as he was home again, Aidan turned on him. "Why did you take me there?"

"I wanted you to know how much she cared for you."

"Why? So that it would haunt me for the rest of eternity? No offense, Deimos, but as the ghost of Christmas Present, you suck. At least Scrooge was given a chance to fix his life. I can't fix this. Why the hell did you show it to me?"

Deimos shrugged. "Zeus was going to kill her anyway. As you told Persephone, she didn't like to be alone. I thought it would be nice for her if you were at least there when she died. She needed you."

He was right, but it did nothing to stop the pain inside Aidan. "Thank you, Demon. For everything."

He saw the sympathy on the god's face before he left.

Alone, Aidan stood in the center of his living room, feeling bereft. Closing his eyes, he could feel Leta here. Hear her laughter. Her jacket was still on his tree where she'd left it.

Needing to be closer to her, he walked over to it so that he could touch its softness. "I wish I had you back, Leta. If I did, I'd take better care of you than anyone you've ever known."

And if wishes were horses, even beggars would ride.

Aidan pulled the small hat out of her pocket and lifted it to his nose. It contained her scent and that brought another set of tears to his eyes. His chest tight, he went to the mantel where he had pictures of Donnie, Heather, and Ronald. One by one, he plucked them off and tossed them into the fire where the glass heated and shattered and the pictures burned.

The only photo he left was the one of his parents. He set Leta's knit hat beside it and stepped back.

Yeah. That was his family, and only they deserved a place of honor on his shelf.

Aidan woke up to the sound of someone knocking on his front door. He looked at the clock… it was just after noon on Christmas Eve.

"Leta?" he breathed, tossing back his covers to run to the front door. Wearing nothing more than a loose pair of green boxer shorts, he threw the door open to find Mori and his wife with a medium-sized suitcase.

Shirley raked a hungry and amused look over his body. "I know it does nothing for you, Mor, but that just made getting on an airplane and coming to this godforsaken place worthwhile. Thanks!"

Mori rolled his eyes as he pushed past his wife and came into the house. "Merry Christmas, Aidan."

Aidan stepped back and allowed Shirley to sashay in behind her husband before he closed the door. "What are you doing here?"

He'd barely closed the door before another knock sounded. Frowning, Aidan saw Theresa and Robert on the porch, holding a small tree between them.

He'd hired Robert to be his manager two weeks before Donnie had started blackmailing him. Short and tiny with brown hair and bright blue eyes, Theresa was his publicist. "And again I say, no offense, but what are you doing here?"

"We couldn't stand the thought of you spending one more Christmas alone," Robert said. "Mori called and asked if we could come out to make you a decent meal on Christmas Eve and we agreed. It's time you realized that there are people in this world who do love you, Aidan."

Before Leta had come into his life, he would have tossed them out of his house and locked the door behind them.

Today, they were more than welcome.

"Come on in. Let me go get some clothes on."

"I don't know," Theresa said with a laugh. "I kind of like your Christmas suit."

Shirley laughed. "You mean 'birthday suit,' don't you?"

Theresa set the tree in the corner by his fireplace. "I'd like that even better, but he is dressed in holiday green. Christmas suit."

Aidan smiled before he went to his bedroom and pulled on jeans and a sweater. By he time he returned, Shirley had poured eggnog for everyone while Robert and Mori decorated the tree with tinsel and Theresa unwrapped a HoneyBaked ham in the kitchen.

He was amazed by their actions. "You know you guys don't have to do this. I know all of you have family you'd rather be with."

Robert scoffed. "Your surly butt or my klepto aunt Coco who always steals the silver by putting it in her purse when no one's looking… hard choice, buddy."

Theresa chided him. "You're our family too, Aidan. And this year, I think you need us the most."

She had no idea just how right she was. "Thank you, guys."

Robert grinned. "You say thank you until we burn your house down with these Christmas lights."

Aidan laughed at him as Shirley handed him a glass of eggnog.

"To Aidan," she said cheerfully. "Which reminds me of an old toast my grandfather used to give."

"And that is?" Aidan asked.

"To those who know and love me, I wish you well. All the rest may go to hell."

"Here, here," Mori said as he paused to lift his own cup.

Robert agreed. "Very fitting."

Aidan nodded. "Yeah. I'll have to remember that."

"I'm sure you will."

Aidan took a sip before he realized something. "I don't have presents for any of you."

Mori scoffed. "Don't worry. You're here with us and that's all the gift any of us need. We really are here for you, Aidan. Not because you pay us, but because we really do care about you."

And for the first time in years, he believed that. "Thank you. All of you." Then Aidan looked up at the ceiling and whispered "thank you" to it as well, hoping that somehow his words would get back to Leta. He was sure she'd had a hand in this.

The afternoon went by fast as Theresa warmed up the food she'd brought and they had a good lunch of ham, potatoes, gravy, and green beans, with pecan pie for dessert. Aidan could count the traditional Christmases like this that he'd had in his life on one hand.

And none of those had been nearly as special as this one. But all too soon, it was over and his guests were leaving.

He stood on the porch, watching them drive off with a lightness in his heart that had never been there before. Smiling, he picked up his phone and called Mori, who answered on the first ring.

"Did we forget something?"

"You can call the studio on Monday. I'll take the job."

"Are you screwing with me?"

"No, Mori. I'm serious. I'll do it."

The rented Town Car stopped in the driveway and Mori got out to look up at him. He pulled the phone from his ear. "I love you, man!" he shouted. "In a purely platonic kind of way."

Aidan laughed as several birds took flight in fright. "Love you too, Mor. Definitely in a platonic way."

Mori saluted him before he got back into the car and drove off.

Aidan hung up the phone and returned inside where the smell of pecan pie warmed him all the way to his toes. The day would have been perfect if only…

He couldn't finish that thought. It was too painful.

Yeah. There was also something to blight the happiest times of his life. But even so, he'd needed this and he was grateful to his friends for making this day special.

Sighing, he started for his den when he heard a light tapping on his door. He glanced into the kitchen to see if Theresa had forgotten something. She was always misplacing and leaving things behind. But he didn't see anything.

He opened the door, then froze.

It couldn't be.

Eyes so blue they didn't seem to be real stared up at him.

"Leta?"

Her smile dazzled him. "Can I come in?"

" Abso-fucking-lutely."

She launched herself into his arms.

Breathless, Aidan held her close, trying to make sense of this. "How can you be here?"

"Hades released me from the Underworld."

"I don't understand. Wouldn't you need a sacrifice?"

"Not if he does it. Once I died, Zeus no longer had power over me. Only Hades." She squeezed him so hard, his back popped. "Persephone was so touched by what you said that she told Hades I had to be with my loved one… You."

"For how long?"

She shrugged. "I'm human now. Just like you."

He couldn't believe it. More relieved than he'd ever been before, he scooped her up and closed the door with his foot.

She frowned at his actions. "Where are you taking me?"

"To my bedroom where I plan on nibbling on you from the top of your head to the tips of your toes. I love you, Leta, and I intend to make sure you never doubt me."

She brushed his hair back from his eyes. "I would never doubt you, Aidan. And you will never, ever have a reason to doubt me."

EPILOGUE

One Year Later

Aidan smiled as he watched Leta finish decorating the tree. Her three-carat wedding ring sparkled in the candlelight—they'd gotten married on Valentine's Day. "You know it kills me that you celebrate my holidays with me when you used to be a Greek god."

Leta shrugged. "All gods and traditions deserve respect."

She was amazing and his life had been nothing short of a miracle since the moment she'd walked into it.

Her presence was breathtaking as she crossed the distance to him and handed him a small box. "For you."

He was confused by her present. "I thought we weren't exchanging gifts until midnight?"

"I know, but this has been killing me for weeks now, and if you don't open it, I might die from it."

He sucked his breath in sharply. "Don't joke about that. I've already lost you once. I'm not about to lose you again." Ripping through the paper, he found a gold foil box that he opened.

It contained a single sheet of paper that had her handwriting on it. "July twenty-third. What's July twenty-third?"

"Look under it."

He did and what he found there stole his breath. It was the sonogram of an infant. "Is this… ?"

She beamed. "July twenty-third."

"Oh, my God," he breathed, staring at her as it sank in. He was going to be a father. Laughing, he scooped her up and twirled around with her. "I love you, Leta. Thank you so much for my life."

"No, Aidan, thank you for reminding me of what it's like to feel again. To wake up every morning in the arms of someone who loves me."

Aidan laughed as joy raced through his entire body. He was finally the last man standing. But for the first time in his life, he wasn't standing alone. He was standing stronger than ever before because he knew he had a person at his back who would never betray him. Someone who would and had died to keep him safe.

Life truly never got any better than this.

"Merry Christmas, Aidan."

"Merry Christmas, Leta… and baby."

About the Author

New York Times bestselling author SHERRILYN KENYON has more than ten million copies of her books in print, in twenty-six countries. She is the author of the Dark-Hunter® novels, which have an international cult following and have appeared on the top-ten lists of The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, and USA Today. Writing as both Sherrilyn Kenyon and Kinley MacGregor, she is the author of several other series, including Brotherhood of the Sword, Lords of Avalon, BAD, and the new Dream-Hunter series.

Near Nashville, Tennessee, Sherrilyn Kenyon lives a life of extraordinary danger… as does any woman with three sons, a husband, and a collection of swords on which all of the above have a major fixation.

www.sherrilynkenyon.com

www.HunterLegends.com

www.kenyonfearthedarkness.com

Content

Upon the Midnight Clear
Dark-Hunter Series, Book 11
Sherrilyn Kenyon

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

EPILOGUE

About the Author