The Darkest Passion. Gena Showalter

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      Taking care of Paris, though, was not an easy task. For the past six nights Aeron had carted his friend here amid ceaseless protests. Paris had only to pick a woman, then Aeron would procure her and ensure the two were safe while they had sex. But each night the choice was made later. And later.

      Aeron had a feeling he and Paris would sit here and talk until sunrise this time.

      Had the now-depressed warrior eschewed these weak mortals as Aeron did, he would not currently be wishing for something he couldn’t have. He would not be desperate for it—and denied it for all eternity.

      Aeron sighed. “Paris,” he began. Then stopped. How should he proceed? “Your mourning must end.” Good. To the point, just as he preferred. “It’s weakening you.”

      Paris ran his tongue over his teeth. “As if you’re one to talk about weakness. How many times have you been Wrath’s bitch? Countless. And in how many of those countless instances can you blame the gods? Only once. When that demon overtakes you, you lose all control of your actions. So don’t add hypocrisy to your list of sins, okay?”

      He didn’t take offense. Sadly, Paris’s claim was irrefutable. Sometimes Wrath would seize control of Aeron’s body and fly him through town, striking at everyone within reach, hurting them and gorging on their terror. During those instances, Aeron was aware of what was happening, but unable to halt the carnage.

      Not that he always wanted the carnage to halt. Some people deserved what they got.

      But he did loathe losing control of his body, as if he were merely a puppet with strings. Or a monkey who danced on command. When he was reduced to such a state, he despised his demon—but not as much as he despised himself. Because with the hatred, he also experienced pride. In Wrath. Wresting the reins of control from him required power, and power of any kind was to be prized.

      Still. The love-hate tug-of-war disturbed him.

      “You might not have meant to, but you’ve just proven my point,” he said, jumping back into conversation. “Weakness births destruction. No exceptions.” In Paris’s case, mourning was simply another word for distracted. And such distraction could prove fatal.

      “What does that have to do with me? What does that have to do with the humans down there?” Paris pointed.

      Big picture time. “Those people. They age and deteriorate in a heartbeat of time.”

      “And?”

      “And let me finish. If you fall in love with one of them, you might have her for the better part of a century. Maybe, if disease or an accident do not befall her. But it will be a century spent watching her wither and die. And during it all, you’ll know an eternity without her awaits you.”

      “Such pessimism.” Paris tsked—hardly the reaction Aeron had expected. “You see it as a century spent losing that which you are unable to protect. I see it as a century spent enjoying a great blessing. A blessing that will aid you the rest of eternity.”

      Aid? Absurd. When you lost something precious, the memories of it became a tormenting reminder of what you could never have again. Those memories added to your troubles, distracting you—unlike Paris, he wouldn’t wrap the word in a pretty bow—rather than strengthening you.

      Proof: that’s how he felt about Baden, keeper of Distrust and once his best friend. Long ago, he’d lost the man he’d loved more than he would have loved even a blood brother, and now, every time he was alone, he pictured Baden and wondered about what could have been.

      He didn’t want that for Paris.

      Forget big picture. Time for a little more mercilessness. “If you’re so capable of accepting loss, why do you still mourn Sienna?”

      A beam of moonlight hit Paris’s face, and Aeron saw that his eyes were slightly glazed. Obviously, he’d been drinking. Again. “I didn’t have my century with her. I had but a few days.” Flat tone.

      Don’t stop now. “And if you had been given a hundred years with her before she died, you would now be at peace with her death?”

      There was a pause.

      He hadn’t thought so.

      “Enough!” Paris slammed a fist into the roof and the entire building shook. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

      Too bad. “Loss is loss. Weakness is weakness. If we don’t allow ourselves to grow attached to the humans, we won’t care when they leave us. If we harden our hearts, we won’t desire that which we cannot have. Our demons taught us that very well.”

      Each of their demons had once lived in hell and desired freedom, and so together they fought their way out. Only, they ended up exchanging one prison for another, and the second had been far worse than the first.

      Rather than enduring sulfur and flames as they had before, they spent a thousand years trapped inside Pandora’s box. A thousand years of darkness and desolation and pain. They’d had no independence, no hope for something better.

      Had those demons been stronger, had they not craved that which was forbidden to them, they would not have been captured.

      Had Aeron been stronger of will, he would not later have helped open that box. Would not then have been cursed to house the very evil he had released inside his own body. Would not have been kicked from the heavens, the only home he’d ever known, to spend the rest of eternity in this chaotic land where nothing stayed the same.

      He would not have lost Baden while warring with Hunters—despicable mortals who abhorred the Lords, blaming them for the world’s evil. A friend just died of cancer? Of course the Lords were responsible. A teenage girl just discovered she was pregnant? The Lords had clearly struck again.

      Had he been stronger, he would not be caught up in that war once again, fighting, killing. Always killing.

      “Have you ever yearned for a mortal?” Paris asked, drawing him from his dark thoughts. “Sexually?”

      A quiet laugh escaped him. “Welcome a female into my life one day, only to lose her the next? No.” He was smarter than that.

      “Who says you have to lose her?” Paris withdrew a flask from the inside of his leather jacket and took a long swig.

      More alcohol already? Clearly his little pep talk hadn’t done his friend a bit of good.

      After swallowing, Paris added, “Maddox has Ashlyn, Lucien has Anya, Reyes has Danika and now Sabin has Gwen. Even Gwen’s sister, Bianka the Terrible, has a lover. An angel I had to oil-wrestle, but whatever. We won’t talk about that part.”

      Oil-wrestling? Yes. Best to avoid. “Those couples have each other, but each of those women has an ability that sets her apart from the others of her kind. They’re more than human.” That didn’t mean they would live forever, though. Even immortals could be slain. He’d been the one to pick up Baden’s head—without the warrior’s body. He’d been the one to first glimpse that eternally frozen expression of shock.

      “Well, hello, solution. Find a female with an ability that sets her apart,” Paris said dryly.

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