The Darkest Torment
Page 88

Baduction still considered Katarina weak.
I’m someone, damn it. I’m plucky!
“Are you hurt?” Baden asked, drawing her from her musings.
“No.” She hooked a lock of hair behind his ear, connecting with him through touch. “Why?”
“You grimaced.”
Galen saved her from having to think up a reply by stumbling into the room. Biscuit shoved his muzzle into one leg and Gravy shoved his muzzle into the other to nudge Galen closer. Both canines stopped and panted, tongues hanging out of their mouths, only when Galen stood within reach of Katarina.
“Such good babies,” she praised.
Scowling, Galen said, “If your dogs ever come after me again, I’ll—”
Katarina leaped to her feet, the dogs jumping in front of her. His jaw dropped as she growled at him. Literally growled. Her gums burned. So did the ends of her fingers and even the ends of her toes, but she ignored the painful sensations, keeping her gaze locked on Galen.
“You don’t want to finish that sentence,” she told him.
The pups echoed her sentiment with a snarl. A sound unlike any they’d released before, deep and hungry, absolutely menacing, as if the warrior had just been placed on the dinner menu. An all-you-can-eat buffet.
“I don’t think they like you,” Baden remarked, his tone easy, almost amused.
The color drained from Galen’s face as he held up his hands, palms out, and took a step back. “They are...”
“Going to tear off your face if you insult them? Yes. Or were you going to say they are angels? Because they are. Now zip your foolish mouth and help Baden.” She motioned to the patient with a regal wave of her arm. “And you,” she said, smiling at the dogs. “Guard my pekný.”
The dogs jumped on the bed, taking up posts beside Baden. And okay, all right, not even she was this good, this fast. They were hellhounds, weren’t they?
Hellhounds must be eradicated.
Over her dead body!
“All right. On that note...” Galen tentatively approached the bed and raked his gaze over Baden. “Here’s my official diagnosis. With a little rest and a shower, he’ll be fine. Just offer to screw his brains out as soon as he’s on his feet. You’ll have a healthy, happy boy by the end of the day.” Galen winked at her before marching out of the room.
The words were both liberating and worrisome at once. She’d learned a few things about the warrior. As the keeper of False Hope, he enjoyed—and perhaps needed—to build people up only to tear them down. Even himself!
This could be a trick of the demon.
Well, she would make sure Baden did rest and recover. She gathered all the supplies she thought she might need: a bowl of hot water—which was always used in books and movies—rags, antibiotic ointment and bandages. Baden remained quiet, even pensive as she removed his shirt and got to work.
Finally he said, “I want to keep you. I will keep you.”
Her heart kicked into a hard rhythm against her ribs. “Until the novelty wears off or until I’m old and gray?”
Angry, brooding eyes met hers, sending a shiver dancing through her. “I don’t like the thought of you aging.”
Well, that made two of them. This virile man didn’t need a granny in a diaper clinging to his arm like a crutch. Not for a girlfriend. “No silver fox fantasies?” Half tease, half hope. Half plea for help.
And yes, she knew her math was off. Such an impossible topic called for skewed numbers.
“If I had sex with eighty-year-old Katarina, I would break her hip.”
The deadpanned response broke through her growing upset, and she burst out laughing. “Most men would claim age doesn’t matter.”
He reached up and caressed her cheek. A touch he would not have initiated weeks before. A touch she thrilled to receive. “I’m not most men. I know how quickly the human body withers, have seen it happen too many times. And as I’ve mentioned, staying with me places you in danger. If someone were to hurt you...to injure you beyond repair...”
She struggled to maintain her composure amidst such a sensitive topic. “How about I stay with you until I get my first gray hair?” A little time together was better than no time at all.
“No.” He shook his head with a determination that promised a battle if she dared disagree. “We’ll find a way to make you immortal.”
Tell him about the dogs.
No! She couldn’t. Not outright. He wasn’t just Baden, he was Destruction, too. She had to proceed with caution.
She petted his chest the way she knew he—they—liked. “Let’s back away from the immortal thing for a bit. I’d rather talk about hellhounds and the people who survived their bite.”
Baden gazed at her as if he’d give her anything she asked—and how heady was that? “I know of only two such cases. Zeus ordered his army to capture the males who’d been bitten, and we did. But they were stronger than before, with claws arcing from their fingers and toes. They were also crazy, constantly pulling at their hair and hitting their temples. On the way to Mount Olympus, a pack of hellhounds ambushed us. Many men died, including the bitten males. They were the main targets, the first killed.”
“But why? The bloodlust alone?”
“I think the hellhounds wanted no outside tie. So many had tried to control them. Some, like Hades’s tormentor, had even succeeded...for a time.”
Now she withered. Was she soon to go crazed? Crave living beings for her meals? Would the pups begin to eye her as a meal-on-heels?
“Were the hounds immortal?” she asked.
“No. They had the life span of a human. To my knowledge, a hundred and twenty years is the longest one ever lived.”
“What happened to them?”
“Hades took control of two underworld realms. His mother’s and his tormentor’s. He led his armies into battle against all the packs, eradicating the entire race.”
A spark of anger burned her chest—some of those hounds had been innocent, surely. A spark she ignored. For now.
Where had Biscuit and Gravy come from? Were there more?
“About the immortal thing. I don’t know if I want to live forever.” Their relationship was so new. What if things ended in a month...a year...five years? She’d be stuck—alone—in a world she wasn’t sure she liked. “And I’m not worried about the danger that comes with you.”