"Yes you do. Think back to the time before your brother turned on you. What was your fear then?"
That he'd lose his career and the studios would stop calling him. That the fans who paid to see his movies would turn on him and no longer show up at the box office. That he'd be alone in the world with no one to rely on.
"I was afraid of bad publicity. Of people hating me."
"Now?"
He hadn't been hurt by it. Even though the world had heard the lies, had seen his family come for his throat, the fans had stayed and seen the truth of him. He'd even won the Academy Award that year and had starred in one of the highest-grossing movies. A movie that had set him free to retire if he wanted to. Professionally, no one had cared what lies his brother had spewed.
As for being alone, he'd learned that it wasn't so bad. It'd taught him self-reliance. He'd come away from Donnie's machinations even stronger than he'd been before.
He'd become fearless, with an inner strength and clarity that was unrivaled.
But that wasn't the same as Leta bleeding and hurt. "I don't want to lose you, Leta."
"Then don't fear it. Believe that I'll be here with you, always."
Again, that was easier said than done. But he had to put faith in her. Believe in her even though the hurt part of himself didn't want to have faith in anyone but himself.
He pulled her against him and laid his head against the hollow of her throat. "I believe in you, Leta."
She lifted her hand to bury it deep in his hair as she kissed him. And with every heartbeat inside him, he felt her growing stronger.
He broke off the kiss to find her smiling at him.
"Your fears have power. It's what feeds Dolor and Timor. Don't give them a power they don't deserve."
Nodding, he glanced around. "Speaking of Timor, what happened to him?"
She shook her head. "I'm not sure."
"Did we defeat them?"
"I wish I could say yes, but I don't think so."
Damn...
"You didn't beat them... yet." They looked up to find Deimos standing over them with a cold, gloomy expression.
"What are you doing here?" Leta asked.
He let out a tired breath even though there was a hint of amusement in his eyes. "Getting involved in something I should leave alone but thought I ought to stick my neck out for it anyway. What the hell? Pissing off gods is what I do best."
Leta frowned at him. "And what exactly are you talking about?"
"In short, Dolor found a human sacrifice to the other side. He's now in human form. His highly nonentertaining birth is why he vanished from here so abruptly. He's on his way to kill Aidan's body while his consciousness is trapped here."
Leta cursed to learn that Dolor had found a body donor. Most people tended to pull back from being killed so that a god could use their body to murder their enemies. Apparently they weren't so lucky this time. "Who was the sacrifice?"
He jerked his chin toward Aidan. "His nephew. Donnie gave the kid up to the ghost to provide a body for Dolor's use."
Aidan went cold at the news. "No way!"
He shook his head grimly. "You want the god of pain to do your bidding, you have to pay a steep price for it. Blood and bone, my friend. Blood and bone."
That sent Aidan's senses reeling. He knew his brother hated him, but not this much... Surely to God, Donnie wouldn't have killed his own son just to get back at him.
Would he?
No, it wasn't possible. "He couldn't have done something like that."
But by the light in Deimos's eyes, he knew the truth he wanted only to deny. "You're talking about a man who set out to ruin the doting brother who gave his lazy ass a free ride. Why do you think this is beyond him?"
Because Aidan remembered when they were kids together. He remembered the laughter they'd shared. The hard times when they had been a united front against a world that was out to beat them down. Without Donnie, he wouldn't have made it through the death of their parents. He wouldn't have had the confidence to go out and make it on his own.
How could that boy who used to laugh with him have turned into the kind of monster who could kill his own son? "I can't believe this. I just can't. How could jealousy do this? How? It can't sour someone to this extreme, can it? I mean really..."
Deimos gave him a sympathetic look, but there was no relief or comfort in that stare. No peaceful understanding to such a brutal reality. "It can and it does. Believe me. I've seen a lot worse than this in my billion or so years of existence-the first murder man committed was one brother against the other for no other reason than that one petty emotion. Jealousy turns to hatred which then turns to poison. It infects and it destroys until it eats someone alive. Your brother was so angry that you made something out of your life, that you had fans who would do anything for you. He couldn't take it; he couldn't understand why you would have something like that while he didn't. His only goal has been to take you down a notch and put you back where you belong... underneath him. If he can't have it, then damned if you will."
It still didn't make sense to him why Donnie felt like that about him. "But I never let the fame get to me. I never changed. I've always remembered who I am and where I come from."
"Yeah," Deimos said. "And do you remember the old Joe Walsh song 'Life's Been Good'?"
"What of it?"
"Everybody's so different,I haven't changed."
Aidan stood there in silence as the words echoed in his head. He hadn't thought about that song in years, but Deimos was right. He was still the same boy who'd run barefoot in the summer because they needed to save their shoes for school. He still said "please" and "thank you" to everyone around him, regardless of who they were.
But Donnie... he wasn't the man he'd once been. The minute Aidan had given him a taste of wealth, he'd begun to treat people like they were beneath him. Like he was somehow better even though he wasn't the one who'd earned it.
And Donnie wasn't the only one who'd changed. So many people had come and gone through Aidan's life. Those who'd had no use for him when he'd been a starving actor trying to get a break had become his bosom buddy the moment he'd begun getting choice roles. Suddenly he was important and people wanted to meet him. But Aidan still felt like the young actor who'd been left outside of hot nightclubs because he didn't rate. The same actor others had brushed off as insignificant.
And then there had been Heather...
Damn, old Joe had been a prophet with that song. It made him wonder who had screwed over the songwriter so that he'd been able to express it so eloquently.
Deimos stepped forward. "We have to get the two of you awake. Dolor is on his way to your place to hit the two of you while you're unconscious."
Leta cursed. "We're sleeping ducks."
Deimos nodded. "It's a good plan on his end."