The Darkest Whisper

Again, Sabin spun. And there she was, back inside her cell, sitting, knees drawn to her chest, mouth dripping with blood, a…trachea?…clutched in one of her hands. She’d ripped—or bitten? — the man’s throat out.

Her eyes were a normal color again, gold with gray striations, but they were completely devoid of emotion and so faraway he suspected the shock of what she’d done had numbed her mind. Her expression was blank, too. Her skin was now so pallid he could see the blue veins underneath. And she was shaking, rocking back and forth and mumbling incoherently under her breath. What. The. Hell?

The Hunter had called her a monster. Sabin hadn’t believed it. Then.

Sabin stepped inside the cell, unsure of what to do but knowing he could neither leave her like this nor lock her back up. One, she hadn’t attacked his friends. Two, swift as she was, she could escape before the window closed and do serious damage to him for breaking his word.

“Sabin, man,” Gideon said, grim. “You might not want to rethink going in there. For once, a Hunter was lying.”

For once. Try once more. “Know what we’re dealing with here?”

“No.” Yes. “She’s not a Harpy, the spawn of Lucifer who did not spend a year unfettered on earth. I haven’t dealt with them before and I don’t know that they can kill an army of immortals in mere seconds.”

As Gideon couldn’t tell a single truth without soon wishing he were dead, his entire body wrapped in agony and riddled with suffering, Sabin knew everything he said was a lie. Therefore, the warrior had encountered a Harpy before—and he clearly didn’t mean the word in a derogatory sense—and those Harpies were the spawn of Lucifer and could destroy even a brute like himself in a blink.

“When?” he asked.

Gideon understood his meaning. “Remember when I wasn’t imprisoned?”

Ah. Gideon had once endured three months of torture at Hunter hands.

“One didn’t destroy half the camp before a single alarm could be sounded. She didn’t take off, for whatever reason, and the remaining Hunters didn’t spend the next few days cursing the entire race.”

“Hold on. Harpy? I don’t think so. She isn’t hideous.” That little nugget came from Strider, the king of stating the obvious. “How can she be a Harpy?”

“You know as well as we do that human myths are sometimes distorted. Just because most legends claim Harpies are hideous doesn’t mean they are. Now, everyone out.” Sabin began tossing his weapons on the ground behind him. “I’ll deal with her.”

A sea of protests arose.

“I’ll be fine.” He hoped.

You might not be…

Oh, shut the hell up.

“She’s—”

“Coming with us,” he said, cutting Maddox off. He couldn’t leave her behind; she was too valuable a weapon, a weapon that could be used against him—or used by him. Yes, he thought, eyes widening. Yes. “And she’s coming alive.”

“Hell, no,” Maddox said. “I don’t want a Harpy anywhere near Ashlyn.”

“You saw what she did—”

Now Maddox cut him off. “Yes, I did, and that’s exactly why I don’t want her near my pregnant human. The Harpy stays behind.”

Another reason to eschew love. It softened even the most hardened of warriors. “She has to hate these men as much as we do. She can help our cause.”

Maddox was undeterred. “No.”

“She’ll be my responsibility, and I’ll make sure she keeps her claws and teeth sheathed.” Again, he hoped.

“You want her, she’s yours,” Strider said, always on his side. Good man. “Maddox will agree because you never pressure Ashlyn to go into town and listen to conversations Hunters might have had, no matter how badly you want to.”

Eyes narrowed, Maddox popped his jaw. “We’ll have to subdue her.”

“No. I’ll handle her.” Sabin didn’t like the thought of anyone else touching her. In any way. He told himself it was because she’d most likely been tortured, used in the most horrendous way, and might react negatively to anyone who tried, but…

He recognized the excuse for what it was. He was attracted to her, and a man attracted couldn’t turn off the possessive thing. Even when that man had sworn off women.

Cameo approached his side, attention riveted on the girl. “Let Paris deal with her. He can finesse the cruelest of females into a good mood. You, not so much, and we clearly need this one in a perpetual good mood.”

Paris, who could seduce any woman, anytime, immortal and human alike? Paris, who needed sex to survive? Sabin’s teeth ground together, an image of the couple flashing through his mind. Naked bodies tangled, the warrior’s fingers gripping the Harpy’s wild fall of hair, bliss coloring her expression.

Would be better for the girl that way. Would probably be better for them all, as Cameo had said. The Harpy would be more inclined to help them defeat the Hunters if she was fighting by her lover’s side—and Sabin was now determined to have her help. Of course, Paris couldn’t bed her more than once, would eventually cheat on her because he needed sex from different vessels to survive, and that would probably piss her off. She might then decide to aid the Hunters.

Bad idea, all the way around, he decided, and not just because he wanted it to be.

“Just…give me five minutes. If she kills me, Paris can have a turn with her.” His dry tone failed to elicit a single chortle of laughter.

“At least let Paris put her to sleep as he did the others,” Cameo persisted.

Sabin shook his head. “If she were to wake early, she would be scared and she might attack. I’ve got to get through to her first. Now get out. Let me work.”

A pause. A shuffling of feet, heavier than usual as the warriors were carrying the other women out. And then he was alone with the redhead. Or strawberry blond, he supposed the color was called. She was still crouched, still mumbling, still holding that damn trachea.

Such a bad little girl, aren’t you? the demon said, tossing the words straight into the Harpy’s mind. And you know what happens to bad little girls, don’t you?

Leave her alone. Please, he begged the demon. She cut through our enemy, preventing them from searching for—and finding—the box.

At the word box, Doubt cried out. The demon had spent a thousand years inside the darkness and chaos of Pandora’s box and did not want to return. Would do anything to prevent such a fate.

Sabin could no longer exist without Doubt. It was a permanent part of him and much as he sometimes resented it, he would rather give up a lung than the demon. The first he could regenerate.

Just a few minutes of quiet, he added. Please.

Oh, very well.

Satisfied with that, Sabin stepped the rest of the way inside the cell. He bent down, placing himself at eye level with the girl.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she chanted, as though she sensed his presence. She didn’t face him, though, just continued to stare ahead, unseeing. “Did I kill you?”

“No, no. I’m fine.” Poor thing didn’t know what she’d done or what she was saying. “You did a good thing, destroyed a very bad man.”

“Bad. Yes, I’m very very bad.” Her arms tightened around her knees.

“No, he was bad.” Slowly, he reached out. “Let me help you. All right?” His fingers lightly pried at hers, opening them up. The bloody remain fell from her grasp, and he caught it with his free hand, tossing it over his