Both he and Dagan knew some of his shit. Hard to hide his kind of curse.
There was no pity in the warrior’s eyes. No trite words of appeasement. Nik preferred it this way. Nothing in their life would ever be right after Tartarus.
Nik shoved open the heavy iron door he’d installed and stepped into the musty cell. The monks of old had used it for self-isolation, and he sequestrated himself in it every four months or so. It was the only place that would keep him trapped and prevent him from hauling ass back to Tartarus and to his sadistic, amorphous jailors.
Race leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb. “I’ll hang around.”
“No.” Nik scrubbed his face, pacing the five steps to the other side and back again, too jittery to remain still. “There’s nothing you can do.”
With a terse nod, Race shut the door behind him, sealing Nik inside.
Nik continued his relentless traipsing of the small cell, his heart beating too fast. The souls inside him, sensing freedom, assaulted at him like a barrage of swords, eager to be free. But there would be no true escape for him or those damned souls in this warded cell. Once the blood moon’s energy waned in three days, they would ram straight back into him because the damn curse from his incarceration still hung over him.
Memories jerked free, dropping him back to their trial in front of the tribunal at the Gates of the Gods—the political powerhouse of all deities—after Inara, the Goddess of Life’s abduction and the massacre of her handmaidens and soldiers…
“For the innocent blood shed of those under your protection by the worst of the odious evil out there, Tartarus will be your beginning and end…”
A rush of power hauled him out of the chamber and through a portal, hurtling him into darkness. He slammed onto a hard, jagged surface. His bones rattled. Pain gushed, spreading through him where he lay, surrounded by darkness and churning mists.
Tartarus.
He was alone. None of the other protectors were with him, but the agony continued. And the truth struck Nik like a sword in the belly. He no longer possessed quick healing. All his powers were gone, along with his protective, serpent-like fog.
An insidious screech coasted over the lands. Invisible hands dragged him to his feet. Eerie red eyes appeared in foggy, skeletal forms.
“You belong to ussss.” A ghostly shriek splintered around him. “Bring back the sssouls we desire.”
How the hell was he supposed to capture souls? “I’m not—”
The fog slammed in his belly like a punch from a Titan. He flew against a rock pillar. Pain exploded through him. Grunting, Nik lifted his head to find his arms spread apart as if nailed to a cross, yet nothing held him up against the obelisk.
“You will learn…” Sinister laughter echoed in his mind. “You cannot escape this fate warrior…”
A mind-numbing chill seeped into him from the dark, foggy wasteland where nothing moved.
Time passed. He continued to hang by his frozen arms for endless nights. Forgotten. By his jailors this time. He would have laughed at the irony if he could. But his throat had dried out. Hunger twisted his belly.
Then the icy winds and sleet swept in, lashing him like blades, ripping at his clothes and slicing through skin and flesh. Blood flowed, freezing into icicles.
Unending pain consumed him, but he forced his sealed, dry lips apart. Some of the sulfuric-tasting slushes fell into his mouth, wetting and burning his swollen tongue, barely easing his thirst.
“You belong to ussss, warrior…” The eerie voices hissed as the agitating, ghoulish fogs reappeared. “Seek the sssouls we desire...”
A cyclone hauled him up and tossed him into some dark, dank place with rocky outcrops.
Nik pulled to his feet and stumbled about, the stench of death saturating him. Thick sulfuric air constricted his lungs, burning his nose. He coughed, his slow healing wounds splitting open, warm blood flowing down his sunken stomach.
A cacophony of shrieks erupted. Dark energy came at him like an agitating cloud, crashing into him, their screams reverberating through his skull. He tripped and fell.
The insidious snarls inside him grew, and then he knew. The malevolent souls of the foulest demons found in the deepest part of Hell had violated him, entered him. He retched, but nothing came out as he dry-heaved.
Breathing hard, Nik tightened his mind shields. Theós, he didn’t want these things inside him. Then the battering started as they tried to escape. He clenched his teeth in agony, ignoring the pull on his psyche to move, wishing for death.
A snarl erupted. Nik’s gore-sealed eyelids snapped open. Glowing red orbs floated toward him, then the hazy shape of a huge, hellish beast took form. It stalked closer.
Weakened from starvation, Nik knew he couldn’t fight the damn thing, but anger erupted. He shot to his feet as the hellbeast leaped through the heavy dank air, colliding with him and taking him down to the jagged ground. Nik rammed a fist into its snout. It growled, reared back. Fangs, the size of his forearms, sank into his thigh, and the beast loped off, dragging Nik over the jagged terrain, tearing the flesh off his back as they moved. His skull cracked against a rocky outcrop, knocking him out…
Nik shuddered awake again, to a foul, misty mouth on his, drawing out the souls.
Teeth gritted, he fought off the ghouls, but his fist just went through air.
“You fight thisss!” A hiss of fury.
Icy, foggy talons plunged into his chest, ripping his sternum apart, dragging out the screeching souls. Blood poured, pooling around him. A massive maw opened in the agitating mist, widening into a carnivorous hole, shoveling the souls into its gorge.
“More, wantsss more…” A furious bellow.
But death claimed him. Finally…
His eyes snapped opened. Nik took in the dark, cold wastelands. No—!
Invisible hands picked him up and flung him through the air. Nik landed hard, crashing on the horrifically icy ground amidst mutilated bodies. He shoved to his feet, evading the dark energy darting about as blood-curdling screams rented the air.
Souls blasted into him in a hail of arrows. Then the internal battering started. Teeth clenched, he fought the tug back to his sadistic jailors and grabbed onto a rocky outcrop.
A low growl. Deadly fangs clamped into his belly and ripped the flesh off. Blood gushed. The hellhound refastened its mammoth maw on his thigh, dragging him back to his soul-eating keepers.
Emaciated hands shoved into his chest, tearing through flesh and bone. The ghouls fed. Then merciful darkness and death…
He awakened again and hunted for them, returning to the same fate. Over and over. No food. Just sulfuric water.
Months. Years. Centuries passed.
Time, endless time.
He moved like the dead. No feeling, no emotions, with only thoughts of getting those souls…
And millennia later, he still suffered the same fucking fate at every blood moon.
Jaw tight, Nik scrubbed his face and paced, waiting for the inevitable.
Shadow sighed and braced her forearms on the granite balustrade. Neither the cool night’s breeze nor her earlier shower calmed the restlessness within. How could it, when Nik’s words still reverberated in her head hours later?
While you contemplate short-term, I don’t.
He hadn’t come back to the monastery. She had no idea if he’d gone off on patrol or… God, she pressed a palm to her cramping tummy. Was avoiding her?