For his sanity, yes, but mostly for Amun's safety.

Amun had lifted the fragile Haidee into his battered arms and carried her to his bed. He had tucked her under the covers, so careful not to jostle her, and climbed in beside her. Strider didn't think Amun realized this, but the warrior had caressed the woman during their entire conversation, as if the need to touch her was already ingrained in his soul.

A sense of chal enge had begun to rise inside of Strider.

For Haidee, a G.o.dsd.a.m.n Hunter. Worse, a G.o.dsd.a.m.n kil er. He'd wanted to win her from Amun and claim her for his own, and the want had been far more intense than his usual "that's mine and I'm not sharing" mind-set.

If Strider stayed here, he would eventual y give in. He wouldn't be able to help himself. His demon would badger him constantly, and in the end, he would fight his friend, hurt his friend-because no way in hel would he pul his punches like he'd done the first time-and hate himself.

Hate. Huh. He'd never hated himself. If anything, he'd always liked himself a little too much. Once, a human female had even accused him of picturing his own face while he climaxed. He hadn't denied it, either, and next time he'd slept with her, he'd made sure to scream, "Strider" at the pivotal moment.

She hadn't appreciated his sense of humor, and that had been the final nail in their relationship coffin. He was too intense, too jaded, too warped and too...everything for most women to take for long. But so what. He was made of awesome. Anyone who couldn't see that wasn't smart enough to be with him, anyway.

Haidee, though... She would be able to take him. With her strength of wil , her courage, her unbending and reckless spirit, she would match him. Maybe even surpa.s.s him.

That is the key player in Baden's murder you're thinking about.

Hadn't mattered to Amun, he thought darkly. Why should it matter to him?

f.u.c.k! He hated those thoughts.

Hated. There was that word again.

"-listening to me?" he heard Lucien ask with exasperation.

"Sorry," he muttered. "Say again."

Sighing, Lucien strode to the bed and sat at the edge of the mattress. Strider's gaze fol owed his friend, picking up little details about the room along the way. He hadn't cleaned in a few days, had been too busy guarding Amun, so his clothes were scattered throughout. His iPod hung from his nightstand, the earbuds wrapped around a lamp.

How the hel had it gotten there? Oh, yeah. He'd tossed it over his shoulder last night, uncaring where it landed.

"Torin texted me and told me Amun was doing better, but d.a.m.n," Lucien said, once again dragging him from his thoughts. "You scared ten years off my life."

"You're welcome. Eternity's too long, anyway."

"Not when you're with the right woman."

He experienced a flash of jealousy that so many of his peeps had found the "right woman" already. And d.a.m.n it, he was as sick of being jealous as he was of everything else.

"Talk to me," Lucien said. "Let me help you, whatever's going on."

"Nothing to talk about." He needed to forget Haidee, lose himself in another woman, in the heat and wetness of her body. An appropriate woman. Someone inexperienced, though not a virgin. Someone he wouldn't have to work his a.s.s off trying to win, then work his a.s.s off again to please. "I need a break, that's al ."

"You summoned me with a now' because you need a break?"

"Yeah. You've been on break for weeks, it seems. Let someone else have a turn."

Silence, thick and heavy, enveloped them. Lucien studied him, and whatever he saw in Strider's expression caused him to lose his air of irritation. "Al right. I'l take you wherever you want to go. For Torin's sake, someone needs to take your place before we leave. He'd never admit it, would even deny it, but he needs some help running this heap."

G.o.ds, he loved his friends. Lucien wasn't going to question him further. Was just going to give him what he'd asked for.

"I'd do it," Lucien continued, "but I'm busy. I haven't been vacationing as you seem to think. I've been-and currently am-guarding the Cage of Compulsion in a place Rhea can't reach. And I can't tel you where that is. Torin asked me not to say anything since there's a Hunter in residence."

The cage was one of the four G.o.dly relics needed to find and destroy Pandora's box, and in desperate need of that guarding. Strider knew that wasn't the only reason Lucien refused to move back into the fortress. The G.o.d queen was out for blood, and the man didn't want his Anya in any more danger than necessary. Strider could dig. "Wil iam's here,"

Strider said. "He can-"

Lucien was already shaking his head. "He's useless. He grows bored too easily to be relied upon. He'l forget whatever duty he's promised to perform and head into town for a little some-some."

Some-some. Someone was picking up his woman's vernacular. "Apparently he's related to Lucifer.

That has to count for something."

"Believe me. I know who he's related to," Lucien replied dryly. "That doesn't change anything."

"Yeah, but he's strong. No one wil want to mess with-"

Again Lucien shook his head. "Nope. Like I said, he's unreliable. He'l think of himself first and everyone else not at al ."

"I know." Wil iam wasn't demon-possessed. He was a G.o.d, according to himself, and had spent centuries locked in Tartarus-a prison for immortals-for sleeping with the wrong woman. Hundreds of them, in fact. He'd even slept with Hera, the former G.o.d king's wife, and had been stripped of some of his supernatural abilities as further punishment. Exactly what those abilities were, he wouldn't say.

Strider liked the man, even though, as Lucien had said, he looked out only for himself. Even though he could turn on you in a heartbeat, stabbing you in the back-or rather, the stomach-as Lucien had experienced firsthand.

My kinda guy, Strider mused. And since Wil iam wasn't wanted here, maybe he'd want to leave with Strider. Strider made a mental note to text him before taking off. Never hurt to vacation with a friend.

So. Who did that leave to guard the fortress and those inside? "Kane and Cameo," he said with a nod.

Disaster and Misery. "Since Amun's better, they can return from wherever they are."

Lucien pondered for a moment, then nodded in turn. "Al right, then. It's settled."

"One more thing. Tomorrow I need you to contact Sabin."

Strider planned to be too wasted to be coherent. "He needs to return, too, and meet the female Hunter up close and personal. But don't cal him until tomorrow, okay?"

While Torin had apparently been texting, Strider had been cal ing both Lucien and Sabin every day, giving them updates on Amun's health. Only thing he hadn't told them- yet-was Haidee's ident.i.ty. He didn't know why. He'd certainly meant to share, but every time he'd tried, the words had congealed in his throat.

Al he knew was that he stil wasn't going to tel them. Like him, they'd find out the truth as soon as they talked to her.

And when they did, Strider wouldn't have betrayed Amun's trust, but would stil have done al he could to safeguard his friend from the murdering b.i.t.c.h's influence.

s.h.i.t. He was getting worked up again, fighting a need to stomp back to Amun's room and do some damage.

Win? Defeat asked.

Oh, no. We're not going there.

"Consider it done," Lucien said.

"Good," he replied, tangling a hand in his hair. "'Cause I real y need this break."

Once again Lucien asked no questions. He merely straightened and gave another nod. "Pack while I hunt down the lucky twosome and bring them home."

"No need to pack." He had his weapons. That's al he needed.

For the first time during their conversation, Lucien's lips twitched into the semblance of a smile. "Twice you've said you need a break. We both know nothing wil change in a day or two. You'l stil be stressed, on edge. So I want you gone for at least two weeks, and that's a nonnegotiable requirement if you expect transport. Pack."

Death didn't wait for Strider's reply. He simply disappeared.

Strider packed.

WILLIAM THE EVER RANDY, as the s.h.i.theads here had started cal ing him, lay propped on his bed, a mountain of pil ows behind him. His covers were tucked around his waist and legs, coc.o.o.ning him in a way he despised but refused to complain about because his Gil ian Shaw- nicknamed Gil y, also nicknamed Little Gil y Gumdrop, though only he was al owed to cal the seventeen-year-old human that last one-was responsible. She had a huge crush on him, and she had thought "tucking him in" would soothe him.

Unlike the tucking in, he'd done everything he could to discourage the crush. She'd told him she wanted to date a nonsmoker, so he'd immediately taken up the habit. Was even now sucking a disgusting cloud of ash into his mouth and blowing smoke in her too-appealing, perfectly sun-kissed face.

She gave a delicate cough.

Tragical y, the smoke failed to diminish the loveliness of her features. Big, wide eyes of the purest chocolate. Sharp cheekbones that hinted at the pa.s.sion she would one day be capable of giving. A pixie nose, slightly uptilted at the end. Lush pink lips. And framing al that beauty was a cascade of midnight hair.

With a sigh, he smashed the cigarette b.u.t.t into the ashtray beside him. Maybe it was time he took up drinking.

"Liam," she said softly. Her nickname for him. A name he would kil anyone else for using. Maybe because it was hers and hers alone. She sat beside him, her hip pressed against his, warm and soft and completely feminine. "I have a question for you."

"Ask." He could deny her nothing-except a romantic relationship. Not only because she was too young, but because he...wel , he liked her. Yeah, shocking. Wil iam the Perfect-a much more suitable name for him-friends with a female other than Anya. The world should have ended.

But, in many ways, Gil y truly was his best friend. When he'd returned from hel , unable to care for himself, she had done so. She had fetched his food, endured his dark moods as the pain became too much, and washed his sweat-soaked brow when necessary.

If, when she reached maturity, he was foolish enough to touch her, their easy camaraderie would be ruined. She would be forever disil usioned about the kind of man he was. He didn't want to disil usion her.

She deserved a man who would give her the world. Al Wil iam would give her was pain.

So, become involved? Hel , no. Not now, not later. He wouldn't al ow himself to hurt her. Ever. He was many things -a womanizer, a kil er. Cal ous, sometimes cruel, always selfish and dark in a way no one inside this fortress knew.

But this tiny little beauty had been through enough in her short life. Physical abuse, and so much worse.

She'd run away from home, had lived on the streets, taking care of herself when loved ones should have ensured her safety.

After Danika and Reyes, the keeper of Pain, had hooked up, Danika had brought her here. Wil iam had taken an instant liking to her. She'd needed someone to look out for her, and Wil iam had decided to be that someone. For now.

That meant destroying those who had destroyed her innocence and later helping her find a man worthy of her love. That meant resisting her.

Lids heavy over those exotic eyes and lashes so thick and curling they seemed to be reaching for her brows, she traced some sort of design on the covers beside him. At last she found the courage to ask her question. "You're cursed by the G.o.ds, but I don't know how you're cursed. I mean, I tried to read your book. Anya let me borrow it, I hope you don't mind, but the pages were weird."

The subject he hated more than any other. His curse. The only person he'd ever discussed the particulars with was Anya, and then only because they'd been cel neighbors inside Tartarus, and he'd needed something to do while the centuries ticked by. When they'd later escaped, he'd made the mistake of showing her the book that detailed everything he'd told her, as wel as his only chance for salvation.

He shouldn't have been surprised when the naughty G.o.ddess had stolen that book-and now threatened to rip the pages out every time he p.i.s.sed her off. Nor should he have been surprised that she'd given Gil y a peek. Anya had taken over the girl's care, too, and knew how the sweet little human felt about him.

But d.a.m.n it, his secrets were his own.

"Liam?"

Resisting was pointless. And G.o.ds, he was pathetic. To not even put up a fight? Sickening. "The book is written in code," he explained. A roundabout f.u.c.k-you from Zeus, he mused. A "here's your salvation-not." He had yet to find the key to unlocking that code. He knew it was out there, though. It had to be out there. He couldn't believe otherwise.

Even though he was afraid to find the key, afraid to know more about his curse.

"Yes, but how are you cursed?" she repeated.

He shouldn't tel her. He knew what she was doing. Trying to find a way to save him. Stil . She needed to know the truth. Maybe then her crush would at last crash and burn.

"Al I know is that the woman I fal in love with wil unleash-"

He pressed his lips together. The woman he fel in love with would unleash every evil being he had ever created. And he had created some monsters. That, he wouldn't tel her. "She wil kil me," he finished.

That, too, was the truth.

Her eyes widened as she lifted her gaze to his face. "I don't understand."

"The curse isn't completely mine. I share it with her."

Whoever she was. "Once I fal in love with her, she'l lose her mind. She'l think only of my demise, and she'l make sure it comes to pa.s.s."

Another gift courtesy of that too-c.o.c.ky s.h.i.t, Zeus. Good news was, the joke was on the now deposed king. Wil iam had never fal en in love and never would. There was only room in his heart for one, and he was that one.

"I would never hurt you," Gil y said softly. And before he could reply, not that he had any clue as to what to say, she added, "Let's backtrack a little. The book contains a way to save you? And her?"

"Maybe." He gently chucked her under the chin. "Don't even think about it, Gumdrop. The curse is one of blood, which means someone has to die. If I'm saved, the one who saves me wil be the one to die in my place. That isn't going to be you. Understand?"

She didn't speak, but she didn't nod, either. Nor did her gentle expression change. That scared him. The thought of dying should have freaked her out. The thought of her dying did freak him out.

With more force than he'd intended, he said, "Be a good girl, and go get some rest. You've got circles under your eyes, and I don't like them."

Final y. A reaction. Her mouth pressed into a mulish line, and as wel as he was coming to know her, he prepared himself for pure, unbending stubbornness. Whoever she ultimately ended up with was going to have his hands ful .

Poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

Dead b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Wil iam might kil him just for fun.

Don't go there.

"I'm not a little girl," she gritted out. "So stop treating me like one."

"You are a little girl," he replied easily, rol ing his eyes for good measure. She was, and that was a fact.

She stuck her tongue out at him, proving his claim. "The boys at my school don't think so."

He would not react to the sight of that tongue. Or to the provocative words. "The boys at your school are dumb."

"Hardly. They want to kiss me."