Deidre's Death (#2, Rhyn Eternal) (12 page)

What happened if Gabriel didn’t want to be
with her at all? If she lost her deal with the human and Darkyn
came to collect? The mating laws from the time-before-time were
absolute, but what if Darkyn and Gabriel made their own private
deal to return the human Gabriel loved and abandon past-Death to
the hands of the Dark One?

She shivered. She never thought she had a
chance of losing this round.

“For what it’s worth, Gabriel, I’ve always
loved you,” she said in a low, tight voice.

Unable to look at him or control the tears
starting to form, Deidre walked away.

There was a good chance that human-Deidre
was dead by now anyway. She didn’t want to know what happened at
the end of the week, when Darkyn showed up to claim her soul.

She’d already lost two days. How could she
possibly win in the next five?

Gabriel watched Deidre’s small form walk
into the forest. Her shoulders were hunched, her head down. He felt
her pain but didn’t know what to do about it. For the first time in
their relationship, he’d been completely honest with her.
Unfortunately, he realized he would rather have told the goddess
version of her the truth than the fragile human.

Even so, she hadn’t even considered telling
him whatever it was she was hiding. He wasn’t certain what
frustrated him more: knowing he hurt her or knowing she’d changed
every part of her – but the one that mattered. The one that might
one day consider him an equal worth trusting with her heart.

So he said nothing. Her question was a good
one: did he like who she was two days ago better? He didn’t think
it mattered. Whatever she did sounded permanent.

Troubled, Gabriel didn’t move until she was
gone from sight.

He returned to Andre. The graceful Immortal
was in the study, hands folded in his hands, as if waiting for
him.

“Shit,” Gabriel muttered.

Andre smiled.

“You knew how that would go.”

“I made an educated guess, based on what I
knew about both of you,” Andre replied. “Before you ask: the answer
is no.”

Gabe drew a breath, expecting Andre wouldn’t
betray the confidence of his mate. He planned on asking. Andre’s
patient smile reminded him of how there was a time when he never
would’ve considered asking for such a favor.

Deities did things differently, but he
wasn’t about to do what his predecessor would have and demand a
favor of someone like Andre. He wanted to be different than the
other deities who didn’t respect any boundaries, even if he was
breaking Immortal Laws right and left to try to salvage his
underworld.

“I get it,” he said. “Will you tell me if
she’s in any danger?”

“Not that I can tell, but we didn’t get into
details about her dealings with Darkyn. A better person to ask
might be Darkyn.”

“Yeah, right,” Gabriel said with a grimace.
“Trust a demon above my mate?”

“You wouldn’t be the first.”

“Ouch, Andre.”

“That’s for considering asking me to betray
someone else’s trust,” Andre said with a grin.

“If she owed him something, Darkyn wouldn’t
be waiting for her to deliver. She’d be scared. So, I’m assuming he
isn’t the looming problem.”

“Safe assumption. Except that he’s still got
a hand in all this,” Andre said calmly.

Gabriel shook his head. “You know what I’m
going to do, Andre?”

Andre waited.

“I’m going to kill demons and collect souls,
until I set things right. Whatever happens with my mate, happens if
or when it does.”

“I support that. You both need your space,”
Andre agreed.

Gabriel frowned. He didn’t like the sound of
that.

“In other matters,” Gabriel started. “I need
to talk to you about something important. It has to do with
Erik.”

“I’m guessing he’s no longer missing.”

“Parts of him aren’t,” Gabriel said with a
wry smile.

Andre gave him a disapproving look, and
Gabriel realized the joke was probably misplaced when talking to
the family member of the deceased.

“Rhyn said you didn’t find his soul.”

“We didn’t,” Gabriel said. “You may not want
to leave the fortress.”

“I’m not worried about Darkyn,” Andre
replied calmly.

“That makes one of us.”

“I’ve yet to meet someone who couldn’t be
handled, given the right approach.”

Gabriel smiled. Men like him and Rhyn didn’t
know how to be diplomatic like Andre. He began to think more and
more that raising Andre was worth breaking the thousands of
Immortal Laws it cost.

“It is a shame about Erik,” Andre continued.
“I don’t suppose you will find a need to raise him or Kris as you
did me.”

“If I need to, I will,” Gabriel said. “Right
now, I’m wondering what Darkyn wants with his soul.”

“Ask him.”

“You really want me to see Darkyn, don’t
you?” Gabriel crossed his arms. “There’s still some connection
between him and my mate, isn’t there?”

“Connection is a strong word.”

Great.
Gabriel wasn’t certain what Andre wanted him to know. He did
know, however, that the last time he avoided a deity – Fate – he
ended up fucking up his world. He didn’t think he could do much
worse, but the fact the Dark One held the key to something he might
need to know was not promising. At all.

“I’ll consider it,” he said. “As much as I
dread it.”

“Gabriel, I don’t want to turn you against
her,” Andre continued. “It’s a hard line for me to walk. She does
love you. She always has. You should remember that.”

“It’s hard to believe when I feel like she’s
lying to me.”

“I know it is.”

Andre didn’t deny she was lying to him,
which left Gabriel even less certain what to do about his mate. His
instinct was to do what he had last week: put up some sort of
barrier between them, until he saw she could be trusted. He didn’t
want to be hurt again. Ever. Or risk that there was something else
going on that would drive his mate back to Darkyn for whatever
reason.

Then again, putting up that barrier was what
drove her to Darkyn after their romantic night on the beach. He
didn’t give her the reassurance she sought about whether or not
they had a real future together, and she brokered a deal with the
Dark One in a desperate attempt to ensure she had a chance with
Gabriel.

For what it’s worth,
Gabriel, I’ve always loved you
. These were
the words of the goddess not the human. This much he
knew.

Past-Death slept fitfully. She’d had what
humans called nightmares. They were awful. She was running from
someone in the forest and instead of helping her, Gabriel would
only watch. Then there were those where Darkyn was stripping off
her skin and sucking her blood. She hadn’t been able to wake up,
and the sensations felt too real.

When she awoke, she was relieved but tired.
She stretched and climbed out of bed. The room was chilly, the
marble flooring freezing. Deidre hopped from foot to foot before
realizing she could put on socks. She didn’t have a sock warmer in
her room – something Cora called a toaster – but the socks were
better than the floor.

Only when able to tolerate the floor did she
cross to the French doors. She’d left them partially open, and the
morning air was cold as it swept through her room. She pushed the
door closed and stood, shivering, and gazed at the green glow
visible even during daylight.

“This is totally fucked up,” she murmured,
shaking her head. Even if she wasn’t Death anymore, she could gauge
just how bad things were. She cocked her head to the side and
filtered through her memories.

What she recalled was a pittance of what she
had known as a goddess. She mourned the loss of all she’d ever
learned or known. But she remembered everything from the past
twenty-six years. Significant events of the human world, deals with
deities, Immortal dealings. Was there anything remaining of her
memory that might help Gabriel? Make him want to trust her?

She padded around her room for her morning
routine, thoughtful. The crushing emotions from yesterday were more
tolerable today. All she had to do was find a way to prevent them
from crippling her logic for now. She wished with all her heart she
could package them back up and put them back wherever they’d been
when she was a deity.

She needed to think. She hadn’t outsmarted
generations of deities and Immortals while laden with emotions, but
she had still done it. She just had to get control of herself and
be proactive, the way she was a mere three days before. She could
help Gabriel and the souls, even if her whole world crashed at the
end of the week.

When she was dressed and ready, she left her
room and walked through the fortress to the bottom floor. Andre
took her to the garden the morning before, and that’s where she
went this time. Stationed outside her room, Cora trailed her at a
distance, silent and darkly dressed, like a shadow.

Deidre paced through the garden, not really
interested in the blooming flowers, statuary or neat rows of
hedges. Instead, she concentrated on figuring out what knowledge
she could about the souls in the lake. How was it possible they
were in the mortal realm? Why were they cast out of the
underworld?

She stopped in front of a small mural
depicting a triangle with a form at each of the points.

Human, Immortal, Deity.

Her eyes rested on the figure of a girl
representing the humans. Reluctantly, her thoughts returned to the
human she’d left in Hell.

She’d dreamt of human-Deidre, too. Those
dreams were the worst. In them, she had been the human trapped in
Hell being bled and tortured daily by Darkyn. Even if she managed
to save the souls and win Gabriel, the truth was going to ruin
everything.

Unless she could make the truth … bearable.
Different.

“Cora, can you ask Gabriel if I can go to a
…um, mall today?” she asked, turning.

Cora stepped forward. “Mall? You’ve got
demons after you.”

“I need more shoes and I can’t call a
portal.”

Cora shook her head. She let out a sigh and
summoned a portal. She disappeared into it. Deidre waited until the
portal closed then bolted out of the gardens.

She ran outside the walls of the fortress
into the forest. Only when she was panting did she stop and look
back to make certain no one from the castle could see her.

“Darkyn,” she called. She waited.

He didn’t come at first, and she frowned,
assuming he was messing with her. The Dark One never missed an
opportunity to prey on someone. She turned to leave, suspecting she
didn’t have much time before Cora returned and raised the alarm
about her being gone.

Darkyn stood behind her. Deidre jumped back,
gasping.

“Gods, Darkyn!” she belted. “Why must you do
that?”

“I take pleasure in knowing you can’t sense
me anymore, love,” he replied with a half-smile.

“You’ve been there since I summoned
you.”

He nodded.

Deidre shifted, aware again that she was now
defenseless against the creatures that used to either fear her or
at least, respect her power. A head taller than her, he was lean
and calm, his black eyes missing nothing. It struck her that his
way of doing business was strange. His predecessor lulled people
into trusting him with charisma and magic.

Darkyn was the opposite: aggressive. He
never tried to hide what he was. He sank his teeth into someone and
never let go, until they were in Hell. He was the unpredictable,
violent creature she always considered him in battle but not in
dealing. Here, he was calm and calculating. Predatory.

“How can I be of service?” he asked.

His polite address terrified her. He was
treating her the way he did every other hapless, foolish,
unsuspecting human he pulled down to Hell. Which meant he was
likely aware of what it would take to condemn her and was waiting
for his opening. With no magic, she had to be more careful when
dealing with him.