Against an immortal. That's my man.

Seriously? You're going to victory lap now? Haidee forced herself into motion and rushed to Micah.

She latched onto his surging elbow. He could have shrugged her away, batted her off, could have swung at her with his other arm, but he didn't. He faced her. What she could see of his glowing red eyes locked on her, tormented, agonized.

Didn't want to hurt him...couldn't stop...couldn't let him hurt you.... Why couldn't I let him hurt you?

The words echoed in her mind. Didn't want to hurt him. Why couldn't I let him hurt you? Courtesy of the demon? Was the demon trying to convince him that he liked the Lords?

Didn't matter, she supposed. They'd deal with it. Later.

Along with everything else.

"Come on. We don't want to free his demon right now." She tugged him to his feet, and G.o.d, he was heavy. "We have to leave before the others come." They'd be p.i.s.sed when they saw what had been done to their friend. She didn't want Micah punished for that. And they would punish him. She had no doubt. Even though he was currently part of their group.

She ushered him to the doorway but had to pause there to wind her arm around his waist. He was stumbling, barely able to remain standing on his own.

"You can do this, baby. Come on."

Where are...we...going?

"If we're lucky, no one wil be around and we'l find a way outside." Dragging him through the doorway left her shaking and ice-sweating. He was bleeding al over her, giving her more and more of his ma.s.sive weight. How she maintained her grip, she didn't know. What she did know after taking two steps to the right?

They weren't lucky.

Her eyes widened as she stumbled to a halt, Micah moaning, nearly fal ing. She held tight. They were surrounded-but not by the demons she'd expected.

Robed warriors fil ed the entire enclosure, wings of white and gold outstretched. Scowls lined every single one of their faces, but even stil those faces were glorious, radiant.

So beautiful...so majestic...dazzling her. She couldn't look away. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't look away. Exquisite...

Angels. These men were angels.

Maybe she and Micah were lucky. Maybe Galen had sent reinforcements to rescue them.

"Help us," she beseeched. "The demons captured us, and we're trying to escape."

A lovely dark-haired male stepped forward, hard gaze pinning her in place more forceful y than any of the others.

"We were told to wait out here." His voice was just as thril ing as his face. A sensual breeze, an exotic caress.

"We did so. We were told not to interfere with what happened inside the room. We did not. But now you have come to us. Now we interfere."

Realization cut like a knife. The angels hadn't been sent by Galen. They were helping the demons.

Horror barely registered before Micah was ripped from her grip. She'd never seen the angels move, had been too riveted by the one in front of her, but losing her man snapped her from that lost, dreamy haze.

With a scream of outrage, she kicked the angel in the chest. He stumbled backward only a few steps.

She spun, reaching for Micah. Her voice must have snapped him out of his pained, weakened stupor, because, as two angels dragged him down the hal , farther and farther away from her, he blinked open his swol en eyes.

When he spied the distance between them, he roared.

Loud and long and ragged, but only she seemed to hear him. No one else paid him any attention, no one else cringed. As she elbowed her way to him, the angels attempted to grab her. She twisted and squirmed for freedom.

Al the while, Micah fought his captors. Soon, the two holding him weren't enough. Soon, she wasn't pegged as the biggest threat. The angels turned their attention to the warrior, al but one needed to subdue him.

Haidee! Haidee!

Before she could reach him, the one that had remained behind caught her, strong arms banding around her and squeezing tight. Breathing became a thing of the past. Stil .

Her struggles never ceased.

Micah's didn't either, she noted as she was at last carted out of the hal . "I'l come back for you," she screamed. "I swear I'l come back."

CHAPTER SEVEN.

STRIDER f.u.c.kING hurt.

He hurt everywhere but especial y his gut. Maybe because Ex had sliced him open from hip to hip, spine to navel. The angels had had to stuff his insides back, wel , inside.

They'd even st.i.tched him up and tended his feverish, sweat-drenched body for three solid days.

He would have healed sooner if he'd won the fight with Amun and Ex like a big boy. But he hadn't.

He'd lost. And so his pain had been magnified a thousandfold, and he'd been too weak to do a d.a.m.n thing about it. Talk about humiliating!

Now he was stil bed-bound and propped against pil ows, but at least he was awake and aware. His demon was silent, too afraid to poke his head from the shadows of Strider's mind and lose another chal enge until they'd recuperated sufficiently.

Torin sat in a chair in the far corner, and Zacharel, the black-haired angel Lysander had left in charge, leaned against one of the metal posters of Strider's bed. Both were watching him, waiting. Clearly impatient.

Could a guy not suffer in peace?

This room was supposed to be his sanctuary, his private escape, but he'd opened his eyes a little while ago to find Torin pacing beside him-and not out of concern, the curious b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Zacharel had been exactly as he was now.

Unmoving, gaze penetrating.

"What happened?" Zacharel asked. His voice mesmerized even as it repel ed. The undertones were lilting, almost melting-and yeah, it was stil embarra.s.sing as s.h.i.t the way Strider reacted to these angelic beings-but everything else about that voice was cold, uncaring, detached.

Like his eyes. A vivid jade-green, they should have been welcoming, should have reminded Strider of summer. Or hel , even of Torin's wicked sense of humor. Instead, those eyes were green ice. There was nothing inside them. No emotion of any kind. Not good, not bad, just a spiraling abyss of emptiness.

Strider had met some freaky immortals over the centuries, had thought he'd seen everything, but this one...no. There were none like him. Nothing fazed him. Strider had a feeling he could stab the angel in the heart and Zacharel would merely glance down before continuing on with whatever he'd been doing.

"Demon. Concentrate. What happened?" Zacharel again, and he didn't raise his voice in the slightest.

See?

Emotionless.

"For G.o.ds' sake, Strider," Torin snapped. "Open your d.a.m.n mouth and form some words. While you're at it, stop staring at the angel like he's a tasty treat." Not so emotionless.

Strider's cheeks warmed with a flush. He'd leave the tasty treat comment alone since he was too foggy to come up with a decent response. And no, Zacharel didn't react to it.

"I went to the girl's room. She wasn't there, but I saw where she'd peeled back the wal paper and found an old doorway that led into Amun's bedroom. She barred it. So I went to his door, but she'd barred it, too. That one I kicked in." And he'd expected to find Amun headless. Or, at the very least, Haidee under the dark influence of Amun's new demons.

The rage he'd felt at the prospect...the despair. And yet, neither had compared to the jealousy he'd experienced when he'd discovered the truth. A jealousy that had shamed him. One, he couldn't be attracted to Ex. Two, Amun was his friend. He should have sheltered him from the temptress's wiles.

"And?" Torin prompted, exasperated.

"And he was awake, lucid." At least for a little while. Until Strider had approached the girl. Then Amun the Demonical y Insane had returned. "Surprisingly, the black phantoms were gone and stayed gone." He didn't mention that Amun had been on top of Ex, with his hand down her pants, his face aflame with pleasure.

Hers had been, too. So much pleasure.

She hadn't fought the warrior. She had encouraged him, begged for more. A trick, Strider had thought.

Surely she had planned to lure Amun into a false sense of security and then strike.

But when Strider had approached her, determined to stop her from hurting his friend, Amun had attacked him. And when Strider had tried to defend himself, Ex had attacked him. To aid Amun.

What the f.u.c.k, man? He hadn't understood at the time; he'd been too busy trying not to die. Now he thought he got it. Ex had wanted to leave with Amun. Which meant she'd planned to take him to her Hunters so they could kil him.

Stil . That didn't explain why Amun had defended her. Why the warrior had touched her so intimately.

Strider had known the dude a long, long time. They'd fought together, hung out and partied together.

And by "partied together" Strider meant that Amun had watched him party and guarded his back. Amun didn't sleep around, was usual y the most reserved of the warriors, and was sometimes as boring as s.h.i.t.

The good kind of boring, though. You knew you could rely on him for anything. He was solid, a rock, and you always knew where you stood with him.

He wasn't p.r.o.ne to angry fits, was the most levelheaded guy Strider knew. He would rather take a bul et himself than watch his friends take one. Yet, to protect a murderous b.i.t.c.h, he'd attempted to splatter Strider's brains al over his bedroom floor.

Amun must not have recognized her. Hel , would anyone?

Centuries had pa.s.sed, she no longer looked like an innocent maiden in need of a strong warrior's aid, and as many freaky places as they'd been, they'd met other women named Haidee. The fact that she'd somehow regrown her head maybe mighta kinda sorta have also prevented his friends from realizing who she was.

Part of Strider was glad she hadn't been recognized. The stupid part of him that didn't like the thought of anyone hurting the woman.

You planned to sic Sabin on her. Remember?

Yes. And maybe he would have done it. Maybe not.

Strider hadn't even told Torin her true ident.i.ty yet. He didn't know why. He'd only said she was a Hunter and had left it at that.

And, okay, yeah. Maybe that had been a halfway decent decision. Maybe Ex's efforts on Amun's behalf were real rather than faked. The day Strider had captured her, he'd gotten a glimpse of her boyfriend and had been floored to note the similarities between the Hunter and Amun. Was stil floored.

As swol en and disfigured as Amun's face currently was, she probably thought the men were one and the same. If that was the case, she wouldn't have been taking Amun to Hunters to torture him but to save him.

Had she realized the truth yet, since he'd cal ed Amun by name? Or had she been too preoccupied?

"For G.o.ds' sake!" Torin tossed up his arms, dragging him from the th.o.r.n.y pit of his thoughts. "What's wrong with you, Strider?"

He leveled a brutal scowl on his friend. "I'm healing. Can't you see the gaping hole in my stomach?"

"You are fine. Now, as you were saying. Amun looked into your eyes during your conflict, yet you felt no evil urges?"

Zacharel asked, returning them to the only subject that mattered.

Conflict. Such a mild word for the handing-of-the-a.s.s Strider had received. "Right. No urges." Then or now.

Torin scrubbed both of his gloved hands down his tired face. "Wel , the shadows are back. Came back that very day, in fact, the moment the angels got him back in bed.

And now he's worse. He worsens every hour. Silently moaning, always thrashing."

"But he was fine when you walked into his bedroom?"

Zacharel insisted.

Did he seriously need to repeat himself? "Yes."

"With the girl?"

s.h.i.t! "Yes, d.a.m.n it. With the girl."

Zacharel gave no reaction to Strider's outburst, of course.

"While you were absent from the fortress, we tried exorcism, burning him as close to death as possible, hoping the spirits would unbind themselves and leave. They didn't. We even tried a cloud cleansing, a-"

"A what?"

"Don't ask," Torin said dryly.

"But," Zacharel continued, "none of those things made a difference. Yet if you looked at him and felt no evil, the girl did the impossible. She forced the demons into submission. That means she is the key."

Confusion caused Strider's brows to knit together. "The key? The key to what?"

"Amun's sanity. He needs her. He must be with her."

Both Strider and Torin gaped at the angel.

Torin was the first to recover. "She's a Hunter." Disbelief and fury coated his tone.