The Darkest Secret

kept this one chained. She’d been helpless as he’d sliced her piece by agonizing piece. He’d laughed when she’d begged for mercy, revived her when she’d thought to find that same mercy in sleep, and forced her to watch as he did the same to her beloved family, two members he also owned.

So much fun…

A female’s tears had never tantalized him so exquisitely, and he’d meant to enjoy her suffering at least another seventy years. But he’d gotten carried away this morning, his claws just a little too sharp, the tips sinking just a little too deep.

Oh, well.

He was Torment, and there were a thousand other souls awaiting his attention. Why mourn the loss of this one?

He rid himself of the body with the barest flick of his wrists. She landed, the other damned mortals clanking around her. He waited, expectant, and was soon rewarded. One of his minions, his hungry, hungry minions, crept to the body and began to feast, snapping and hissing at any other creatures who attempted to thieve the delicious meal.

Such a pretty picture they made, the scaled, crimson-eyed fiend and the naughty human who’d dared to die before he’d finished with her. Oh, well, he thought again. Her soul would soon wither, materialize, and solidify somewhere in this endless pit, and if he were the one to find her, he would have another chance to torture her.

Whistling under his breath, he turned and strolled away.

In the next instant, Amun was swept out of hell in a blinding gale of fury and sorrow, Torment no longer, but a female. Human. She huddled in a corner, no more than twelve years old, the harsh material that covered her body like something out of a historic reenactment, tears scalding her cheeks, fear a living entity inside her chest. She was dirty, pale, the straw surrounding her the only source of comfort.

«Have you forgotten how I saved you?» a hard male voice asked. In Greek. Ancient Greek.

His booted feet slapped the ground as he paced in front of her. He was on the short side, his face scarred by the pox and his body rotund. His name was Marcus, but she called him the Bad Man. Yes, he’d saved her, but he’d beaten her, too. When her words pleased him, she was given food, shelter. When they did not, she was forgotten, locked away, terrified of being sold as a slave.

She didn’t want to be terrified anymore.

He’d plucked her from the hut where she’d lived her entire life. Until he had arrived, she’d been too afraid to leave, even though there’d been no one left to care for her. Somehow, he had known about the terrors that filled her every dream, both awake and asleep — memories no little girl should have, much less replay over and over again, eyes open or closed — and he had promised to help her.

For some reason, she had hated him at first sight, just as she’d begun to hate everything — herself, her hut, the world — but in her desperation, she had believed him. Now she wished she had run.

«Have you. Forgotten how. I saved you? How the evil one wanted you dead, how I whisked you away before he could return? Don’t make me ask again.»

«N-no, I haven’t forgotten,» she replied in that same lost language, the words trembling from her throat in a panicked rush.

«Good. Nor will you forget how the evil one infected you. Or what, exactly, the evil one is.»

She didn’t understand the part about being infected, but the rest had been drilled into her head. «He is a Lord.»

«And who killed your family?»

«A Lord.» Her voice was stronger now, a flash of mutilated bodies appearing in her mind.

A memory quickly followed, the Bad Man disappearing from view. A memory only three weeks old, and yet, it seemed an eternity had passed already.

«You were promised to someone,» her parents’ murderer had said, his voice eerie, unnatural, as he’d splashed over the crimson river between their bodies. He was the evil one, and something in his voice had caused a blanket of ice to form around her soul. He’d had no face, and his feet hadn’t quite touched the floor. He was tall and thin, a black robe swathing him from head to toe, shielding every inch of him, floating around him and dancing in a wind she couldn’t feel. «They should have kept their promise.»

«Who are you?» she’d asked shakily, terrified and numb all at once. She had only stumbled upon this scene a few minutes ago and hadn’t quite processed what she was seeing.

Now, looking back, with the Bad Man’s warnings about the creature’s evilness ringing in her ears, she quaked. Despite her wonderings, the memory continued on.

«Who I am matters not. Who you are is all that matters,» the faceless being said. He scooped her up, obviously planning to leave with her, but she fought him with all her might. When he couldn’t subdue her, he stabbed her. Once, in the side, barely missing vital organs.

The pain that consumed her was devastating. And yet, with the pain, more of that aberrant cold stormed to life, seeping from her. A cold that didn’t just numb. A cold that raged liked a blizzard inside her.

And then, ice actually crystallized over her skin, seeping from her pores. What she was seeing couldn’t be real. Couldn’t possibly be real.

As the creature strode outside the hut, still holding her, she reached up and pushed at the face she still couldn’t see, skin meeting skin. He howled with an agony that matched her own.

For several seconds, neither of them could pull away. Perhaps they were locked together, frozen by the ice. Then he dropped her, and she scrambled backward, bleeding, hurting. Still howling, he disappeared, there one moment, gone the next. Leaving her reeling, uncertain of what had happened and how she’d done what she’d done.

«How are you going to repay these Lords, my darling Hadiee?» the Bad Man asked, drawing her back to the present. She didn’t like him any better than she liked the evil one.

Another answer that had been drilled into her head. One she wouldn’t forget, one that was as much a part of her as her arms and legs. Perhaps more so, because it was a shield of armor around her, keeping her safe. «Slaughter them all.» They were murderers, after all, and they deserved to die.

A pause, silence, and then soft fingers briefly ruffled her hair. «That’s a good girl. I’ll train you yet.»

A split second later, the image inside Amun’s mind changed. He realized he was no longer reliving a memory, her memory, but was now staring down at the girl. She was bathed in light, older, a woman now, and sleeping so innocently on a bed of silver silk.

There was something familiar about her name, even though he knew she had changed it. Hadiee then, but Haidee now. There was something familiar about her surroundings, too, but his mind refused to bridge the gap from questions to answers.

She had a shoulder-length crop of pale hair that she’d streaked with pink. Her face was lush in its femininity, despite the silver eyebrow ring she sported. Perhaps because her dark blond brows arched like a cupid’s bow.

Lashes thick enough to be a raven’s wing fluttered open, one moment fanning over the rise of perfectly sculpted cheekbones, the next framing eyes of pearl-gray, the next, fanning again. She fought to awaken, as if sensing his scrutiny, but failed, allowing him to continue.

Her delicate nose led to lips that reminded him of a freshly blooming rose. Her skin appeared eternally flushed, as if she were constantly lost to arousal, the undertones kissed by the sun. No, he thought next. Not just kissed by the sun, but sprinkled with its rays, as if she was lit from the inside, a thousand tiny diamonds crushed into her flesh. Not like the Harpies, whose luminous, multihued flesh rivaled the brightest rainbow. This woman, this Haidee, didn’t actually glow. She was simply beauty personified.

He could have watched her forever, he mused. She was his first glimpse of paradise in what seemed an infinite nightmare. But, of course, even this was to be taken from him.

Though he fought, the image shifted again, orange-gold flames suddenly filling his line of vision. Plumes of smoke curled upward, painting the acrid air with what looked to be a demon’s breath.

A city burned in front of him, huts crackling as timber fell and grass disintegrated. Mothers screamed for their children, and fathers lay facedown in the blood-soaked dirt, weapons protruding from their backs. All of them wore the same type of clothing little Hadiee — Haidee now, he reminded himself — had sported. Dark, threadbare linen, rough and stained.