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. "Untilyou 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.
