"I would say damn shame except that until we find a way to free you, you'd die, too."
"Glad you remembered that small fact." She frowned as she looked at him and remembered his earlier tirade. "Ectoplasmic plane? What the devil is that?"
"It's jargon from those of us who are corporeally challenged. It's the great beyond where we bounce into each other like floundering atoms. It's really land of gross-which is why I hang out with you. But only because you're less gross than they are."
Simone gaped at him and his criticism. "I beg your pardon. I'm not gross."
"Grody to the max. Gag me with a spoon. I've seen you in the mornings. You're not exactly well coiffed."
She rolled her eyes at the old eighties expressions. "I really hate you."
"Sure you do." He grinned like the Cheshire cat. "It explains why you were so worried about me."
He was way too astute at times. Simone huffed playfully at him before she turned back to Xypher.
It was a pity she knew so little about him and it made her wonder about his past. What had made him fight all the battles that had left such horrific scars on an otherwise beautiful body? "You think he has a reason to be so hostile?"
"Not really. I personally think he thrives on being an asshole. You know, there are a lot of those in the world."
It was true. She'd certainly met more than her fail' share of them, too, and yet . . . There seemed to be something more, A person didn't hate to the extent that Xypher appeared to without having the ability to love to the same degree.
And his need to kill to the exclusion of all else spoke of extreme betrayal. The only person she'd ever really wanted to kill was whoever had taken her mother's life...
"There can never be hatred without love."
Jesse frowned. "What?"
"It's something my mother used to say."
He screwed his face Up. "Oh, man, no ... don't you dare."
"Dare what?"
"Get that weepy-eyed look like you're sympathizing with him." He made an irritated noise in the back of his throat. "You are such a bleeding heart- Hello? This is the man who has you bound to him while he's trying to descend into hell to kill someone. He doesn't care about your sensibilities. Don't you dare care about his."
Simone waved his tirade off. "Oh, husk, you grump. I don't even know him."
"And you better keep it that way."
She knew Jesse was right Even so, there was a part of her that was drawn to Xypher even against her common sense. She wasn't even sure why. He just seemed lost somehow.
Oh, yeah, Mr. Badass temper was lost. . . Right. She was losing it. "Have you heard from Gloria?" she asked Jesse, trying to distract herself.
He shook his head. "Not even a groan. I'm thinking the Daimons ate her."
Simone hated the very thought. No one deserved such a fate. "I hope not. She seemed really nice."
"I hear you." Jesse floated back toward the curtains. Suddenly, someone knocked on the door.
"Come in," Simone called.
Carson entered the room carrying a small handsaw.
Simone took a step back, curious about his intentions. "What are you doing?"
He indicated her bracelet with the up of the saw. "I was wondering if this might work to get that bracelet off."
She smiled in relief. For a second, she was afraid he was going to make good on his threat to silence her. "You are my favorite person on the planet right now. Yes, please fry it."
Carson laughed as he moved to take her wrist into his hand. He paused a minute to examine the bracelet. "It looks like regular gold."
"Aphrodite said it was Atlantean. Something made by the gods." He drew his breath in sharply. "Oh ..." He pulled back. "Is that bad?"
"Maybe. I don't know enough about them to even guess what trying to cut this off might do to you. For all I know, I could end the world."
She pulled her arm out of his grasp. "Please don't. There was a cliffhanger ending on Dexter last week and I have to see how it ends."
Her words seemed to surprise him. "You watch that?"
"Religiously. As an ME I'm morbidly fascinated by it."
"Given my job and life, that's a show I avoid as much as the Animal Planet network." He backed away from her. "I'll leave you two alone again."
He'd barely stepped through the door before she heard the rumble of a deep voice behind her. "Where am I?"
"Wow," Jesse said from the bed. "The dead has risen . . . again."
Ignoring Jesse, she went to Xypher's side. His blue eyes were rimmed with red and bloodshot. His skin still had a grayish cast to it and by his shallow breathing she could tell he was in a lot of pain. "You're at Sanctuary."
He drew a deep breath, men grimaced. "I smell Were-Hunter." "Were-Hunter?"
He shifted slightly under the blanket before he spoke again. "Lycanthrope."
"Oh." It actually made sense to her. Dark-Hunters limited the Daimon vampires. Dream-Hunters limited dreams and . . . well, it made her wonder what a Were-Hunter would hunt.
Yeah. She forced her thoughts away from that. "I think a Were-Hunter may have helped carry you in here."
Xypher tried to sit up, then hissed.
"Careful," she said, rushing toward him. She put her hands on his chest, men pulled back as an electrical shock went through her. She didn't know why, but touching his chest was extremely disconcerting, and it made her breathless. "You took a nasty stab straight through your body and Carson said we couldn't give you anything for the pain."
A tic worked in his jaw as he lay back on the bed and pulled the cloth from his forehead. He stared at it as if it were an alien form wanting to suck his brains out.
"You were feverish" she explained.
His scowl deepened. "You did this?"
She couldn't understand his ire It was as if her kindness truly ticked him off. "I thought I was doing something nice for you. Sorry."
"Why would you do something nice for me?" "Because you were hurt and bleeding."
Still there was no reprieve in that cold, penetrating stare. "What do you care about that?"
"I went to medical school to help people. It's why I do what I do."
"Why?"
Never in her life had she met someone who had this much trouble accepting help. Dear Lord, what had they done to the poor man that something as simple as putting a cloth on his feverish brow made him this suspicious? "I'm sensing here that you have a problem with my being nice to you."
"Yeah," he said. "I do. People aren't nice. Especially not to me."
Something tugged deep inside her at those growled words. "Xypher -"
"I don't want your pity." He flung the cloth on the floor. "Or your kindness. Just stay out of my way and don't get killed until I find some way into Kalosis."
Wow. That just made her all warm and toasty inside. He was like an agitated porcupine in a balloon factory. "Why is it so important to you that you kill this person?"
Out of nowhere an image burned through her mind. It was Xypher. He was in a dark, dismal cave, hanging painfully by his arms. His black hair was matted with blood and dirt, and fell forward, over his face. Completely naked, his body was covered with bleeding wounds.
The agony in his eyes was sealing. He tried to escape or fight, but there was nothing he could do. Blow after blow from a steel-barbed whip rained over his flesh, tearing open new wounds and spinning him about. The two skeletons who beat him didn't care what they hit so long as they caused him pain.
The more he bled, the more they laughed.
"Stop!" she cued, unable to bear it.
The images vanished as quickly as they'd begun.
Xypher gave her a look so cold it reached down inside her and made a part of her very soul freeze. "That is a ten-second glimpse of centuries of torture I have endured because of one person's cruelty. Any more questions?"
She couldn't breathe for the pain inside her. All she could do was shake her head. No wonder he was angry, It was hard to breathe past the lump in her throat
"Yeah," she said after a brief pause. "I have only one. Having given this person who betrayed you so much already, why would you give them your life, too?"
He laughed bitterly. "Let me explain how I got here, human. I did a favor for a goddess who talked Hades into making me human for one month. One. Single. Month. Now, having lived in Tartarus all these centuries, I've learned that Hades doesn't willingly let anyone go, especially not someone with my past, I'm headed back to hell, baby. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. The only undetermined factor left is whether or not I go alone, and I have no intention of doing that." His eyes burned into her an instant before he pushed himself up from the bed. "Where's my shirt?"
She couldn't believe the sight of him upright given the severity of that wound. How could he even move, especially since he hadn't had a drop of painkiller?
Then again, having seen what had been done to him in Tartarus, she figured he was probably so used to pain that it didn't faze him now. Even as badly as they'd torn into him, he'd still been trying to fight them. "You can't be moving around like that. You need to rest."
"Fuck rest," he snarled between his clenched teeth. "I have too much to do to lie in bed like some spoiled prince."
She put herself in front of him to keep him from leaving. "You're going to lip open your side."
"So what?"
"So what? Are you insane?" He had to be. "Have you any idea how much that will hurt?"
He gave her a dry, cold stare before he turned around to show her his back. "Yeah, I have a pretty damned good idea."
Simone covered her mouth as she stared at the honor of scars that marred the beauty of his skin. To say he'd been savaged was an understatement, She reached her hand out instinctively to touch him, but caught herself before she made contact.
Her hand hovered there, just above the marks. So close she could feel the heat rising from his feverish skin. The thought of his being beaten like that tore through her. What land of monster could do such a thing?
The fact he'd suffered it alone with no one to tend him made her even more sick.
He turned back to face her. "Now where's my shirt?"
She had to clear her throat before she could answer him in a semihuman tone. "We cut it off you."
He looked away as if her answer had sent a wave of fury through him. "Thanks a lot."
Why was he so upset over a simple T-shirt? "We can go to your place and get another one."
"I don't have a place and I don't have another shirt."
Was he serious? "What do you mean?"