The pronouncement was a joke. Had to be.
Baden arched a brow. "You offering, oh great and mighty randy one?"
William snorted. "As if you could handle me, Ginger."
To be honest, he couldn't handle anyone. When he wasn't fighting, the sensitivity of his skin caused him to avoid any kind of contact. Every brush of flesh against flesh was excruciating, like a dagger being raked against exposed nerve endings.
"Here's what you're going to do," William said. "Leave Budapest-today-and go...somewhere else. You'll collect a harem of immortal women, and you'll spend the next decade...maybe two...concerned only with pleasure."
Leave his friends? After they'd only just been reunited? He was here to help them, to guard their backs the way he'd longed to do all their centuries apart. "I'm going to pass."
"And I'm going to insist. You can't beat the darkness, Baden."
"I am the darkness."
The warrior canted his head in agreement. "Maddox has a wife and children. Gideon's wife is pregnant. Kane's wife is pregnant. Not to mention the other females living in the house. You go after any of them the way you went after me, and your brothers-by-choice will gut you. No matter how much they love you."
"I would never-"
"Wouldn't you?"
A new rage sparked to life. He slammed a fist through the wall, then cursed. The beast took advantage of every opportunity. "All right. I'll leave." The words pained him, but he even added, "Today."
"Good boy." William beamed at him. "Any idea where you'll go?"
"No." He had very little experience with the modern world.
"I'll probably regret this later," William said, stroking two fingers over his jaw, "but what the hell. We only live twice, right?" With barely a pause, he added, "For the bargain price of a favor to be named later, I'll give you one of my homes and set up a private carnal buffet for you. Thanks to my efforts, even a man with no game will be able to score a ten."
* * *
A pair of double Ds hit Baden in the face, making him hiss in pain. A hiss that went unnoticed or unheeded as Bambi with an i-giggle giggle-gyrated on his lap. She reached out to cup his nape, intending to draw him closer so that he could "motor boat."
He batted her hand away as gently as possible, preventing any more contact.
She grinned at him, though there wasn't a single hint of amusement in her eyes. "Performance anxiety? Don't worry, gorgeous, I know the perfect cure." She hopped off and spun, shoving her ass in his face to twerk to the rapid beat of rock music blasting from surround-sound speakers.
Baden turned to glare at William, the only other male in the room. The prick was certainly living up to his reputation as the original playboy as he stuffed a hundred-dollar bill in the G-string of his own stripper, a blonde bumping and grinding with absolute abandon.
"Even though you should be paying me, I'm feeling generous." William gave her another hundred. "Don't think I failed to notice your orgasm. The first or the second."
She was too busy having a third to respond.
"This isn't helping me," Baden snapped.
William never even glanced in his direction. "Don't doubt my pimposity just yet. This is only the appetizer."
Pimposity?
"Listen to him, honey buns." Miss Twerk turned again, brushing her fingertip along the curve of Baden's jaw. "You're supposed to eat me up."
The pain! He clasped her by the wrists and set her away from him once and for all. "No touching. Ever."
His unintentionally harsh tone sent fear careening through her.
"Go." He waved her off. "Now."
As she raced from the room, he leaned against the back of the couch and closed his eyes. He needed sex-supposedly-but he couldn't bring himself to have it. What kind of future awaited him? One dark rage constantly bleeding into another?
The question opened the door to another memory he'd never lived.
He stood outside the dungeon he'd occupied for a torturous eternity, a sea of bodies and body parts all around him. Blood soaked his hands...hands tipped by long sharp claws. Bits of flesh and...other things hung from every protrusion.
Footsteps sounded beyond the hallway. A survivor?
Not for long.
Grinning with anticipation, he climbed through the debris and-
The music cut off abruptly, drawing Baden back to the present.
Baden opened his eyes and focused on the here and now. The last stripper skipped across the room and exited.
William frowned at him before flashing away...and returning a few seconds later with two glasses and a bottle of ambrosia-laced whiskey.
Ambrosia, the drug of choice for immortals.
The warrior filled the glasses to the brim. "Here. Lubricate your brain."
The sweet scent wafted to Baden, causing his stomach to churn, and for a moment he was a child again, trapped in the burning field, running...running...his heart racing.
Not me. The beast.
Trembling now, he drained the contents. A tide of warmth spread through him quickly, calming him, grounding him deeper in the here and now.
"There. Isn't that better?" William reclined against the white couch, the only piece of furniture in a room of white.
White walls, white floor tiles. White dais with a trio of mirrors in back. Baden's reflection-the only real source of color-glared at him in challenge. He'd become a soldier he no longer recognized, with shaggy red waves in desperate need of a trim. Dark eyes once filled with welcome now offered only silent threats. A mouth that used to quirk up in amusement only ever curved down in anger. Laugh lines had been replaced by scowl lines.
No, not better. "I'm ready to leave."
"Too bad. I won't remember how to flash you somewhere else until after you've gotten laid. And as soon as you appear less murdery, you will get laid. The girls will love you." William drained the contents of his glass in a single gulp. "Just do me a solid and inform your face this is supposed to be a good time."
"Skin-to-skin contact is painful."
The beast snarled at him for daring to voice such a damning vulnerability, even to one of Hades's children.
William frowned at him. "If you think the wreaths are responsible-"
"I don't."
"-think again. They're not. So grin and bear it or you won't live through the transition."
Transition? "I'll grin and bear it, no worries. Appearing less murder, as you say, is the true challenge. I've forgotten how to smile."
"Lord save me. Are you whining?" William set his glass aside and traced a fingertip down each of his cheeks, mimicking tears. "Your new life sucks. So what? Do you think you're the only one with problems?"
"Certainly not." His friends were hunting Pandora's box, determined to find it before someone-anyone-else. The thing had the power to remove all demons and kill the hosts. In an instant. They were also hunting for the Morning Star-a supernatural being still trapped inside the box, capable of granting any wish...in other words, capable of freeing the demons without killing the warriors.
Lucifer had mounted a search for the Morning Star, as well. And he had no plans to spare the Lords. He was at war with Hades and determined to win whatever the cost. He fought to eliminate his father's allies-William, Baden and all the others. As the master of Harbingers-messengers of death-he might just be powerful enough to win.
"That's right," William said, pulling Baden back into the conversation. "You're not. In fact, my life makes yours look like a picnic hosted by naked forest nymphs."
"Now you're exaggerating."
"Under-exaggerating, perhaps. In one week, Gillian will celebrate her eighteenth birthday."
"So?" Baden wanted the guy to say the words aloud-to admit to a vulnerability of his own. Tit for tat. "She'll be an adult. Old enough to handle you." He couldn't help but add, "Or another man."
"Me," William snapped. He'd never been able to hide the intensity of his emotions whenever the girl had stepped into a room. "Old enough to handle me. Only me. But I can't have her."
When the guy said no more, Baden prodded him. "Because you're cursed?"
A pause. A stiff nod. "The woman who wins me will kill me."
Wins. As if he were the prize. Same can't be said about me. "Well, boo hoo for you." Survival first, matters of the heart second-if at all. "You've been warned, at least. You can be proactive."
Wait, wait, wait. Had he just suggested William kill Gillian?
His hands fisted. He needed to put a tighter leash on the beast. He would pick a girl, have sex with as little bodily contact as possible, and maybe, for a little while, his head would clear. He would be able to think, to figure out a way to remove the wreaths and remain tangible.
"Enough conversation." He forced the corners of his mouth to lift. "I'm less murdery. See?"
"Wow. That's an even worse look for you. Let's move on before I curl into a little ball and start sucking my thumb." William clapped his hands. "Ladies."