Upon the Midnight Clear (6 page)

“Did you call Richard?”

“I started to when word got back to me of the lies he was then spouting about me to my so-called friends. It wasn't until later that I realized it was Ronald's girlfriend who, at Ronald's behest, was playing as everyone's friend, and she'd goaded Richard into it. She was moving between everyone, spreading crap just to watch all of us fight.”

“Why would she do that?”

He sighed wearily. “I've asked myself that a thousand times over and I'm no closer to an answer now than I was when it began. I think that's why I always loved movies so much. In a movie, everything has to make sense. The characters always have to have motivation. Good,
solid
motivation for everything they do. They can't be a dickhead without reason. If someone turns on a character, they have to have a hardcore, believable reason for it. Unfortunately, in real life you don't. People turn on each other for anything from catching a constipated look on your face when you had gas and thinking it was directed at them, to not liking the brand of shoes you're wearing. People are sick.”

Leta glanced down at the list of names in her hand. She couldn't believe anyone would be so cold. So conniving. Surely there was more to it than what Aidan was telling her.

Wasn't there?

Surely he'd done something to deserve it. Yet as she used her powers to look over the situation, she realized that he hadn't. Unlike his brother and nephew, he'd been giving to a fault. Loving to a fault. Unfortunately, he'd given his love and trust to the wrong people.

“The simplest reason,” Aidan continued, “is my brother was jealous. He wanted to have my life and he did everything he could to take it. He got Heather on his side and into his bed. Then for a time he'd wooed my fans, even though he kept stirring them up and had them turning on each other more times than he didn't. For whatever reason, he thought he could use them to blackmail or steal my money from me. What he forgot was that I didn't get to where I am by being afraid to stand up for myself. More than that, he wasn't the first person to try and ruin me and I doubt he'll be the last. But I am still standing and it's going to take a lot more than his crap-ass lies to knock me down.”

Leta wanted to weep at the conviction she felt inside him. At the raw pain. She didn't know where it came from, but admiration for him swelled deep inside her. He was strength personified.

Everything about him was integrity and honesty, even in the face of such unrelenting hatred and hostility.

His eyes burning, he cupped her cheek in his warm hand. “Why are you here with me?”

Several lies came to her mind, but she didn't want to lie to a man who'd been dealt more than his share of them. And since they were in a dream state, there really was no reason to. “Your brother has summoned a demon out to kill you.”

He laughed.

“I'm serious, Aidan. As crazy as it sounds, your brother found a way to summon a god of pain from his slumber and he has commanded him to torture and kill you.”

“And
you're
going to save me.” He laughed again, then sobered. “Why would you do that?”

“It's my job.”

The expression on his handsome features looked less than convinced. “So you just randomly follow the god of pain around trying to protect his targets. What are you, the antipain fairy?”

“Something like that.”

He snorted. “Note to self on waking. Lay off the beer on an empty stomach. This dream is even more screwed up than the time I had a donkey and a corkscrew.”

Leta frowned. “Donkey and a corkscrew?”

“I don't know you well enough to fill you in on those details.”

Before Leta could ask more, she felt that deep sense of foreboding in the pit of her stomach. She looked around, but the cabin was the same in this realm as it had been in the mortal one.

“Aidan—”

Before she could say anything more, Dolor grabbed him from behind and knocked him to the ground.

FOUR

Before Leta could move to protect him, Aidan rolled to his feet to confront the god. The rage that roiled through him was so potent that it actually made her gasp as it struck her like a hostile jolt of electricity. She threw her head back as it ripped through her like acid. Never in all eternity had she felt anything like this. It was hot and blazing.

Dolor swung at Aidan who blocked the punch with his arm, then head-butted the god back. Before Dolor could regain his balance, Aidan scissor-kicked him in the ribs. Twisting around, the god fell to the ground.

She knew it was only Dolor's arrogance that had allowed him to be taken by surprise. He hadn't expected Aidan to fight him.

But that was over.

Dolor shot a god-blast at Aidan's head. Aidan ducked it, then flipped to pull Dolor off the ground to hit him again. But this time Dolor saw it coming. He slung Aidan up into a steel wall that appeared out of nowhere.

Leta manifested her two whips—one for each hand. She snapped them briskly to capture Dolor's arms. He hissed in pain before he wrapped his forearms around them and yanked.

She didn't budge even though it felt as if he'd wrenched her arms from their sockets. “Leave him alone.”

Dolor laughed at her. “You're a fool to protect him.”

“Then I'm a fool.” She tried to uncoil her whips from his arms, but he held them firmly in place.

Aidan shook his head to clear it. He could actually taste blood in his mouth. There was a real quality to this fight even though he knew it was a dream. He wiped the blood from his face and frowned as he studied it.

Wasn't it?

He watched as Leta hurled the larger man into a wall an instant before the man turned and kicked her to the ground. He ran for the man and caught him about the waist with his shoulder before the man could attack her again. “Don't you touch her.”

The man laughed as he sank his hands into Aidan's hair and wrenched it.

Aidan growled at the agony but it wasn't the yank on his hair that hurt as much as the images that appeared in his head. Images of Heather in bed with Donnie. The lost feeling he'd had the morning they'd all attacked him at once and tried to destroy him.

He cried out as his heart splintered from that one moment in time when all of his delusions of love and family had been shattered.

Suddenly Leta was there, shoving the man back from him. “Stop it, Dolor. Now!”

Dolor turned on her with a smile. He pulled her into his arms. “Hear the baby crying?”

She screamed in horror.

Aidan tried to shove the god back, but he refused to let go of Leta. “Go to hell, you asshole!” He manifested a sword in his hand and stabbed Dolor straight through the heart.

Releasing Leta from his hold, Dolor staggered back. His black eyes were large with disbelief as he disintegrated into a thousand sparkling pieces. They fell slowly to the ground before a feral wind carried them away.

Still Leta continued to scream as if she were caught in the middle of a nightmare she couldn't wake up from. She pulled at her hair as if she couldn't bear whatever images were in her head.

Aidan scooped her up in his arms to hold her close. “Shh,” he breathed as she trembled in his arms.

Tears streamed from her eyes. “Make it stop! Please, God, make it all go away. I can't breathe. Can't think. I can't … I can't…”

He winced as he heard the same agonized pleas from her lips that he'd uttered on countless days of bitterness. It made him hold her closer and touched him on a level unimaginable. Whatever her past, it was obvious it was as bad as his own.

“I've got you, Leta,” he whispered, rubbing his chin gently against her wet cheek. “I won't let him hurt you.” He didn't know why he made that promise, but even more surprising than the words was the fact that he meant them.

Something about the sharing of this moment broke through his own pain. For the first time in over two years, he felt human again and he didn't even know why.

She drew a ragged breath. “He'll be back.”

“No he won't. I killed him.”

“No,” she said, her eyes sparkling from her tears, “you didn't. You can't stop Pain. He's coming back and now he knows…” Her voice faded out as if she were too afraid even to finish her sentence.

“Shh,” he repeated as he held her close and let the warmth of her body seep into the coldness that had gripped him for all this time. He hadn't comforted anyone in years. Literally. The last person he'd sat up with all night had been his nephew. Ronald had just broken up with his first fiancée, so the two of them had gone out drinking. Even though Aidan was supposed to be studying a script he'd been prepping for, he'd taken the entire night off to soothe Ronald's grief.

And what had it gotten him?

Ronald had eventually sided with Donnie and turned on Aidan even after all Aidan had done for him over the years—paid for his private school and college, paid for his high school graduation trip to Florida for him and his best friend, given him a job, bought him a car, a house … Nothing had been enough. And this after Ronald had told him how badly his father had treated him growing up.

Now he didn't know if Ronald had ever spoken the truth or if it'd been nothing but lies designed to gain Aidan's sympathy so that he could take more money from him.

And in the end, none of what Aidan had done to help the kid had mattered. Like his father, Ronald had demanded that Aidan give him everything he wanted whether he deserved it or not.

His heart pounding, he looked down at Leta and wondered if she was just as cold inside as they had been.

That was when Aidan made the most grisly discovery about himself.

He still cared.

In spite of everything the scum had put him through. In spite of how carefully he'd sealed himself off from the world, he cared about Leta. He didn't want her hurt and he damn sure didn't want her hurt because she'd tried to help him.

In that moment, he hated himself for the weakness of caring.

How much could one human take?

But it was there. That internal ache that only wanted to tend to her injuries and make sure she was okay. Grinding his teeth, he pressed his lips to her soft, sweet hair and carried her out of the snow to a sandy beach where the sun was shining brightly above them.

With her still cradled against his chest, he fell to his knees in the sand and set her down before him. He cupped her face in his hands and wiped the wet tears that still rolled down her cheeks. “It's okay, Leta. I've got you.”

Leta sniffed back her tears as she stared into those eyes that were as green and stormy as a deep sea. For once they weren't filled with hostility. They were open and caring, and that literally stole her breath.

She lifted her hand to lay it to his cheek where the stubble of his whiskers teased her palm. His masculine scent filled her senses … it'd been so long since she last tasted passion. Since she'd been held by a man who wasn't related to her. And in that moment, the pain of her own past overwhelmed her with misery.

Choking on the raw agony inside her, she leaned against him and tucked her head under his chin, against his chest. She didn't like being in this dream. She didn't want these feelings anymore. Not having them was so much better than what she felt now. If only she could banish them forever.

“How do you cope with it all?” she breathed against Aidan's chest.

“Don't think about it.”

“Does that work?”

“Sometimes.”

“And when it doesn't?”

He shrugged. “There's beer and cheap whiskey but not even that does anything more than add a headache to what already plagues you. Sooner or later you sober up and it starts all over again.”

That wasn't the answer she'd wanted from him. “I hate crying.”

His eyes scalded her with their intense heat. “Then do what I do. Turn your tears into rage. Crying will only make you sick. But anger … anger infuses you. It strengthens you. It crawls through your body until you're forced to act. There's no dwindling of strength, no mewling blurry vision. It clears your head and focuses your actions. Most of all, it empowers you.”

“Is that why you stay angry?”

“Absolutely.”

And his rage was strong enough to feed them both. But even so, she didn't understand it. Her anger had always spiked quickly and then faded. More than that, her tears had always negated her anger. The second her tears started, any rage she had evaporated underneath them. “How did you learn to stop crying?”

His expression was harsh. “I nailed my heart shut and learned to stop caring about anyone except me. They can't make you cry when you don't give a shit about them or their opinions. You can only be hurt by the ones you love.”

“And by the god of pain,” she whispered. “He knows what weakens us. Look at what he's done to me.”

“It's because he knows you and where to strike.” Aidan shook his head. “He doesn't know anything about me. There's nothing he can use to hurt me anymore. I let it all go except my anger.”

Which was why Aidan had been able to fight Dolor even though Aidan was only a mortal man.

But she didn't know how to hold on to anger. Every time she thought of her daughter or her husband, it brought her to her knees. They had been innocent of any crime except belonging to her and they had been coldly executed by Dolor and his ilk. It was why she was here.

No more innocents would die.

Ever.

No one deserved the pain she felt. No one. And she would die before she allowed Dolor to destroy another person this way. To take from them what they loved, and for what? Over one god's vindictiveness because someone else played a prank on him and he lacked any sense of humor? It was cruel and it was wrong.

“Teach me your anger, Aidan. Show me how to hold on to it no matter what.”