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“Doesn’t everyone?”
Okay, then. “Do you know what it does?”
“Most assuredly.”
Well, no one else did. “Tell me.”
“It works in conjunction with three other artifacts. The Cage of Compulsion, the Cloak of Invisibility and the All-seeing Eye. I’ll need all four to do the things you’ve asked, but that’s not a problem because I know where they are. I stole them and hid them long ago and—”
“Actually, you don’t know where they are. My friends and I found them.”
“Wait. I want to make sure I heard you correctly.” She leaned forward, flattening her hands on his thighs. “You already have them?”
The heat of her skin seeped through the leather of his pants, and he hissed. Too much...not enough.
Need more. I need more. Must have more.
“Correct.” Somehow he found the strength to set her hands away from him. He would pay her when the time came—pay her so hard...damn it, gently—but he could allow nothing else to happen between them. No spontaneous handling. Not ever again. It would be his downfall.
But what a way to go.
“You don’t need me,” she said with a pout. “You can find the females, the deceased and the box without me.”
He rubbed his chest, saying, “We don’t know how to make the artifacts work.”
“You’re telling me you have the means to locate anyone or thing in the world, including the most desired object in existence, as well as open a portal anywhere in this world or another, and yet you don’t know how to proceed?”
“Explain. Please,” he added. “What is the most desired object?” The box?
For a moment, clouds rolled through her eyes. “How could I have forgotten it? Even for a moment,” she said, reverence in her tone. “He’s part of a war he doesn’t even understand, which means, thanks to my spies, I have answers to questions he doesn’t even know to ask.”
Please don’t retreat mentally.
Thankfully the clouds cleared a second later and she added, “You’ll have to give the artifacts to me. All four. I must own them. I can’t find and free your girlfriends without them.”
“They aren’t my—” He sighed. Why argue? “Fine. They’re with the other demon-possessed warriors. All of whom you must vow not to kill. Or harm in any way. Or let anyone else kill or harm.”
A pause. Then, voice devoid of emotion, she said, “What if they attack me?”
Outside, a light rain pattered.
Well, hell. What’d I do this time? “They won’t.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I won’t allow it.”
The rain stopped as suddenly as it had begun. Had she thought he would stand back and watch his friends attempt to fell her?
Never.
“Very well,” she said with a nod. “I vow it.”
He released a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. So much had hinged on her response. “Tell me about this war I don’t understand.”
A gleam of calculation in her eyes. “That information wasn’t part of our bargain, warrior. It’ll cost you.”
That would make five payments in total. But this one...this one she would insist he pay today. He knew it.
Just like that, his resistance crumbled. Was there really a reason to delay?
His hand shot out and gripped her by the hair, yanking her toward him. “Keeley.”
Her warm breath caressed his face. “Yes, Torin.”
His mind shouted, “What are you doing?” even as the desire to thrust his tongue deep inside her mouth plagued him far worse than any disease ever had. “I want—”
You safe, he thought.
But a single moment of weakness could cost them both.
A swift return of his resistance. He helped her settle in her chair.
“Agreed,” he managed.
Tremors rocked her, and he wondered whether she feared what had almost happened—or wished he’d followed through.
“The Titans and Greeks want the box,” she said. “Not because they hope to end the terror-filled reign of you and your friends—that was just going to be a bonus—but because they want what is still hidden inside it.”
Still? “There’s never been anything inside it but demons, and I assure you, no one wanted those.”
“You’re wrong.”
“I’m right,” he insisted.
“No, you’re very, very wrong.”
“Right.”
“Listen to me!” she said as a sudden burst of wind tousled her hair. “Zeus didn’t command Pandora to guard dimOuniak because of the demons trapped inside. Does that really sound like him? He is selfish. Power-hungry. He doesn’t care about the fate of the humans or even the Greeks. He cares about his own and nothing more.”
Inarguable. “So why have someone guard the box?”
“Because of what is still inside it.”
Frustrated, he said, “And now we’ve come full circle. Demons were inside it. They were released and placed inside my friends and me. The box is now empty.”
“There’s a huge gap in your reasoning, warrior.” She rubbed her temple, her own frustration clearly just as keen. “Demons are a dime a dozen. Why care about the ones in the box and not the others still running rampant?”
“Because ours are more powerful.”
