Sherrilyn Kenyon - Upon the Midnight Clear

His unsated need for revenge.

It was so close to her own feelings that it fed her powers and brought her emotions back with a clarity so crisp, it stung.

He uncoiled his arms from around his chest as he stared at her with those icy, probing eyes. "Who are you?"

"A friend," she whispered, catching a chill from the wind that started blowing against them.

He laughed bitterly. "I have no friends. I don't want any."

"Then I'm here to help you."

He snorted in derision. "Help me do what? Freeze? Or is your plan to hold me still in this storm to make sure the lightning kills me?"

Leta snapped her fingers and the rain instantly stopped. The clouds roiled above as they parted to show the sun. The rays illuminated the bleak landscape and painted it in bright greens and yellows.

Aidan wasn't fazed. "Neat trick."

He was a hard man to impress and his jaded causticity made her wonder what had happened to him to cause it. She dried their clothes and hair. "Why did you summon the rain?"

"I didn't summon shit," he growled. "I was minding my own business when it came down on me. All I was trying to do was get through it."

"And now that it's gone?"

He looked up at the clear blue sky above them. "It'll be back. It always comes back and it hits you when you least expect it."

She knew he wasn't just talking about the weather. "You should find shelter."

He scoffed at her. "There isn't any. The storm tears it down and leaves you naked in the hurricane, so why bother?"

And she'd stupidly thought she was bitter. Then again, outside the dream world, she could only feel a twinge of what she felt now. Even so hers was nothing in comparison to his. His bitterness ran so deep, it scalded her tongue with the taste of it.

But beneath that hostility she sensed a raw vulnerability in him. Something about him that had been crushed and yet was still struggling to survive even though he didn't want it to. It reached out to her own grieving heart and made her want to touch him.

Without a second thought, she took a step forward to lay her hand to his cheek.

He hissed at her like a cat before he moved away. "Don't touch me."

"Why not?"

"I don't want your lying kindness. Sure, you'll smile and be so sweet to me that I'll trust you, but the minute I don't give you everything you want the instant you demand it, you'll turn on me and try to crush me. You're just like everyone else in the world. No one matters but you."

And with that, he turned and walked away.

Leta crossed her arms over her chest as she watched him put distance between them.

Oh yeah, she had enough bitter emotions here to more than defeat Dolor. Little did the god know that his current victim was going to be his downfall. Aidan might seem insignificant to the god, but his determination and spirit would be the fuel she needed to avenge them both.

And just like Dolor, she wouldn't show any clemency or weakness. Nothing was going to stop her from destroying him. For once Dolor was going to know exactly what it was like to have someone come for him and leave him quivering on the ground, begging for a mercy that would never come.

She couldn't wait…

It was just another frigid day in hell as far as Aidan O'Conner was concerned. Nothing ever changed and he liked it that way.

At least that was what he was hoping for until his cell phone started ringing. Picking it up from his breakfast counter, he looked at the ID. He started not to answer it, but it was his agent, Mori, and if he didn't answer Mori would worry him like a neurotic puppy with a urinary tract infection needing to go piss in the snow.

Definitely not what he needed in his life or, more importantly, in his current mood.

Aidan flipped the phone open with his chin as he simultaneously turned down his stereo, which was playing his Bauhaus CD. "Hi, Mori."

"Oh, Aidan, there you are. I've been worried about you."

Yeah, right. The only thing Mori ever worried about was where his next check was coming from. The bastard was just like everyone else Aidan had ever known. Greedy, self-serving, narcissistic, and wanting a piece of Aidan's flesh.

Just the sound of his whiny voice telling Aidan what to do made him all warm and toasty inside.

"I have another offer for you, A. They're up to thirty-five million dollars plus a significant share of the profits, and believe me, with the costars in this movie there will be enough profits to make even a Scrooge like you smile."

Aidan remembered a time when he would have choked and died at such an offer. A time when that kind of money had seemed like an unimaginable dream.

And like all his dreams, that one too had been brutally shattered.

"I told you I'm not interested."

Mori scoffed. "Of course you're interested."

"No, Mori, I'm not."

"Oh, come on, you can't keep hiding out on top of your little mountain. Sooner or later you have to come back to the real world. And this will be the perfect comeback. Think of how much money you'd be throwing away if you say no."

Aidan flipped the CD to the song "Crowds" and let it remind him of why he had no interest in going back to Hollywood… or anywhere outside of Knob Creek, Tennessee, for that matter. He didn't like people and he hated the thought of ever doing another movie.

"Thanks, but no thanks. With a hundred million dollars in my bank accounts, I don't ever have to come back to reality again."

Mori made a deep sound of disgust in the back of his throat. "Damn it to hell, Aidan. You've been gone from the scene so long you're lucky anyone is wanting you at any price. Even the tabloids have forgotten you at this point."

"Really?" he said, glancing down at the stack on his coffee table that he'd picked up a week ago when he'd been in the supermarket. His face was plastered all over them. "Funny, but I seem to be the talk of the tabloids. They're speculating on everything from whether I had a disfiguring car wreck to being kidnapped by aliens or an insane fan, to my favorite of all—which claims I'm having a sex change operation at a Swedish clinic. I particularly like the Photoshopped picture of me in a dress. At least I look better than Klinger, huh? But in all honesty, I'd like to think I'd look more like Alexis Mead from Ugly Betty than this hairy yeti they have me pictured as."

Mori cursed again. "You're really not playing with me, are you? This isn't a stunt to get more money from the studio. You really are serious about retiring."

"Yeah, Mori. I'm through. I just want to go back to being a plain, normal guy that no one knows."

Mori snorted. "It's too late for that. There's not a person in the world over the age of two days who doesn't know the name and face of Aidan O'Conner. Christ, you were on more magazine covers than the president."

And that was why he had no intention of leaving his mountain top except for food, beer, and maybe once a year to get laid… then again, given all he'd been through, he might consider using blow-up dolls instead—some of the ones he'd found online were getting seriously high tech. "You're not helping your case. Besides, I thought they'd all forgotten me."

Even over the phone, he could hear Mori blustering in his office. "You know better. I don't get you, man, I really don't. You could own the world if you wanted to. It's yours for the taking."

As if Aidan cared about that… What good was owning the world when he'd have no choice except to defend himself against every person in it? Personally, he'd rather be a beggar with one true friend than a prince surrounded by two-faced assassins.

"I'm hanging up now, Mor. Talk to you later." Aidan clicked the phone off and tossed it back to the counter where it landed oh another photo of him in a bad wig and a dress. God, he remembered when a lie like that would have sent him off on a rage that would have lasted for days.