Page 21

“That bitch,” I seethed the following morning, after the worst night of my life. “She was in my head.” I was warned of Verena’s abilities, but witnessing them firsthand was an experience that would stay with me: the manipulation, the illusions, the screwing with my emotions. It seemed the Queen of Envy had an array of vile skills. She was a master illusionist. “She manipulated the world around me. How the fuck can she do that?”

“I’m sorry,” Ashor said. He was staring out the window, gazing at nothing. His fists were clenched. “It’s my fault. I’ve been so careless.”

I touched his shoulder. He flinched, and I felt an exorbitant amount of guilt and remorse through our bond. He blamed himself for what happened.

Of course he would.

Wiggling my way into his lap, I put my other hand on his check, forcing him to look at him. He did so hesitantly. “This isn’t your fault.”

His body was stiff underneath me, coiled with tension. “How is it not? Your mind is unprotected. No one knows better than me the games the courts play. I should have seen this coming. The moment you entered her kingdom, I should have warded your mind against such attacks.”

My mouth dropped open. “You can do that?”

“Yes,” he replied, his hand moving to my knee. “And I can promise you, it won’t happen again.”

My eyes narrowed in suspicion. “How exactly are you able to ward my mind against magical attacks?”

“It’s nothing but a seed of my darkness that I encase your mind in, shielding it from being invaded. You won’t even know it’s there,” he assured.

I was astonished by the depth of his power and the magnitude to which he could manipulate it. “You can share power like that?” I asked.

He bit down on his lip. “I can do a great deal with my gifts.” Normally, a statement like this from Ashor was brimming with cockiness, but not today. It came out more like a burden that weighed heavily on the prince.

“How does it work?” I wanted to know more. I wanted to learn.

“It’s like breathing, an nearly unconscious function that requires very little effort or energy on my part,” he explained. “Which is why I am so angry with myself. She never should have been able to warp your perception.”

If he hadn’t been so serious, I would have rolled my eyes. “First, you have to stop blaming yourself for everything that happens to me. And second, she would have only found another way to torment me. You know it’s true.”

His gaze meandered past my shoulder and back out the window. “Perhaps, but when it comes to you, I don’t exactly think clearly.”

He’d told me before that I was his one true weakness. I didn’t want to be the cause of his demise. I couldn’t take it losing him.

And through our bond, he felt the same.

What a pair we were.

The demon huntress and the dark prince. Destined. Ill-fated. Star-crossed.

We fit all of the tragic tropes.

“It isn’t your job to watch over me twenty-four seven,” I said, but the words might as well have landed on deaf ears. They were a waste of air, because Ashor and I both knew he would never stop protecting me.

That impish light in his eyes returned, twinkling alongside the dimple in his cheek. “I enjoy watching you.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Besides”—he wrapped his arms around me, lacing his fingers together—“it gives me peace of mind. She won’t be able to touch your mind again as long as I have the power to keep her out.”

Neither of us wanted to dwell on what would happen if his energy was ever drained. “Have you ever depleted your powers before?” I asked, curious just how deep his well of darkness was.

“No, but I’ve never actually tried to run it dry.”

My fingers traced over the exposed demon marks crawling up the side of his neck. “You have more power inside you then you let be known. I can feel it harbored inside you. How are you able to keep it contained?” His mother had to release her ever-growing darkness when it became too much for her body to hold. Was Ashor’s not the same?

A crooked grin curved at the side of his lips. “Some secrets are better left unrevealed.”

“That doesn’t work with me.”

He arched a brow. “It doesn’t?”

I opened my mouth and then promptly shut it again as the doors to our suite swung open. A male succubus who looked like he was plucked from the Garden of Eden with perfectly carved features stood in the doorway. His golden locks curled over his forehead in a way that made a girl want to brush them back. Like most demons in Verena’s court, he oozed sex on a stick. If I wasn’t a mated female, my lady parts would be tingling.

“Queen Verena requires your presence at once.” The statement was said with haste and no room for negotiations, yet was delivered in a voice as smooth as velvet.

Ashor and I shared a look. She was the last person I wanted to see after what she had done to me, but I also wanted to know why. What did she gain by toying with my mind?

The prince lifted me off his lap and unfolded himself from the chair to stand tall beside me. “Shall we, luv?” Ashor held out a hand to me, an expression of intrigue and caution lining his brow.

We were both thinking the same exact thought. The queen has made her choice. This was it. She was either with us or against us. Her choice in the next few minutes would decide all our fates, including whether she lived or died.

I couldn’t see how he would be able to find a loophole out of this tangled situation. Was it possible the direction she’d chosen had anything to do with Verena attacking my perception? Why had she wanted me to believe Ashor had abandoned me? I couldn’t find any correlation, but maybe there didn’t need to be.

It didn”t help that Ashor was keeping things from me. No matter how hard or long I poked or prodded our bond, I learned nothing of his plot. Perhaps he hadn’t yet decided, which was why it was blocked from me. Or he was using a Lexi-proof shield that kept me from discovering the truth. Feelings were messy things. And I had much to learn about the inner workings of being mated to a demon.

“Do you think she has made her choice?” I murmured, voicing that question that was on both of our minds as we followed the succubus down the opulent white hallway.

He frowned. “I don’t have a good feeling about this. Keep alert and stay close.” Those were his last words to me before we were ushered before the queen.

Verena was seated on her throne, a toned golden leg exposed and crossed over the other. Her gown rode high up her thigh to the side of her hip. She tapped tapered nails over the arm of her throne impatiently. “Finally,” she said when Ashor and I walked in, annoyance etched over her gorgeous features.

“Have you made your…” Ashor’s voice trailed off. Ribbons of alarm tore through our bond, and I glanced at the prince. His jaw was clenched, and he paled. A roaring ripped inside my ears, drawing out all other noise.

The sharp metallic scent of blood hit my senses, and my nostrils flared. It was overwhelming, to the point I knew someone was on the verge of death.

“Cayden,” he muttered.

I swayed at the name. Dizziness spun inside my head at the sight of Ashor’s best friend sprawled out at the bottom of Verena’s dais like a slab of freshly slaughtered meat. How Ashor had identified the body astonished me, because there was nothing of Cayden in the demon who lay unconscious at the queen’s feet. His black fluid stained the floor in a bloody mess.

My eyes flicked over the queen, and I was shocked by the expression on her face. She didn’t look upset, but more put off by the mess covering her floors. “Your mother sent me a gift,” Verena said with an air of one inconvenienced.

In one sharp inhale, it became painfully clear we hadn’t been summoned for her answer. We’d been given another warning from the Queen of Darkness. A very graphic and bloody message.

That bitch.

I am going to kill her.

“I take it you were expecting him?” she added when Ashor didn’t say a word, too struck by the state of Cayden. I wasn”t even sure he heard Verena speak.

Ashor dropped to the ground beside his oldest friend, taking hold of his mangled hand. Cayden gave no response, no indication that he knew Ashor was there.

Verena’s nose wrinkled. “He isn’t dead… yet. She left just enough of his soul intact to leave it up to chance, but there is a good possibility he won’t make it through the night.”

“Why would she do this?” I spat, my muscles trembling with rage.

The queen was watching me, intrigued. “Someone has a temper. And is that revenge I taste in the air? You want to make her pay.” Her lips grew into a satisfied grin. “I like you, huntress. So much like your mother.”

“To remind me why I’m here,” Ashor said, going back to my question. The pain and sorrow in his words struck me like a pang to my heart.

“After thousands of years, you’d think she would get sick of sending the same messages over and over again. I’m getting rather tired of having to mop the blood of demons off my floors.” Verena snapped her fingers.

Two stunning female demons appeared on either side of her. They wore their human forms and moved toward Cayden. Ashor growled as they approached, stopping them from getting close. He didn’t want them to touch his friend.

There was no questioning the pure blackness of Kali’s heart or the amount of hurt she inflicted to get what she desired.

Power. Supreme power.

I felt helpless standing there, doing nothing while Cayden continued to bleed out. “Can you help him?” I beseeched to the queen, something I never thought I would find myself doing. Especially on behalf of the demon who tortured my mate for days upon days.

“Don’t,” wheezed a broken voice unrecognizable as Cayden’s. I didn’t know how he was awake, let alone managed to speak even a single word. But it didn’t last long. He was out again. Lifeless. Pale. And bleeding everywhere.

I ignored his protest, unable to allow him to just lie there in agony, wavering in and out of consciousness while his body slowly stitched itself back together. He might have tortured and inflected pain onto others, but only at the command of his queen. That didn’t absolve him of any wrongs he’d committed. No. Not completely, but I hated him a little less because of it. He was important to Ashor, which now made him important to me.

“Please. Is there nothing you can do? Can you save him?” I pleaded with the queen, hating the desperation in my voice, but the magnitude of Ashor’s pain through our bond was making me sick.

“What will you offer me in return?” Verena asked, springing onto the opportunity to make a deal with me like a cat.

Of course there was a fucking price. Demons never did anything out of the goodness of their hearts. They had no heart.

Ashor’s head snapped up. “Lexi, don’t.”

“We can’t let him die. And if he does manage to survive, it could take him weeks to recover from those injuries.” I wanted to end his suffering.

“I know.” Ashor tipped his chin, glaring at Verena as he stood. “Name your price,” he demanded of the Queen of Envy. He wouldn’t allow me to bargain with her. But he would.

“I can think of a great number of things I desire from you, Prince.” She purred “desire” in a way that incited red-hot jealousy within me.

Glaring at her and seeing the way she watched Ashor, I was horribly afraid I knew what she would ask of him.

Over. My. Dead. Body.

Not my mate.

Ashor raised a brow at my sudden rising anger and jealousy, but my eyes darted back to the queen, daggers of hate radiating from me.

“A single night… in my bed,” the queen said, and my vision went red.

The vein in my forehead pulsed, and every muscle in my body wanted to kick her ass. Maybe a kick to her honey pot would change her mind. “You bitch.” I lunged forward, darkness swimming in my veins, but Ashor caught me around the waist.

“Easy there, luv.” His breath was a cool whisper in my ear.

“You should be thankful I’m only asking for a night.” She ran the tip of her nail along her lips, glittering eyes of wine running over every inch of Ashor. “I had toyed with asking for much more.” Shifting her gaze from the prince, she looked at me. “He would look regal at my side. A king. Hmm, yes, you would look good on the throne,” she said, her attention returning to Ashor. “But I figured this demon’s life wasn’t worth the price, even if he is a friend.”

“You figured right.” His voice was colder than Alaska and a million times more dangerous. From our bond, I felt how close he was to tearing into the queen. He wanted her blood.

Verena uncrossed her long legs, keeping them slightly parted as the slitted fabric of her dress dropped to either side of her bronze thighs. “Is his life worth a night?”

I struggled against the arms that held me, flashing my teeth. “I will kill you before I let that happen.” Screw allying with the Court of Envy. Right now, I didn’t care if Kali destroyed Verena’s entire court. Fuck. I might help bring down the walls.

The queen grinned. “Your mate is so bloodthirsty.”

“She is. Particularly for royal blood,” he snarled.

The queen pressed her lips together, dismissing me as nothing but a scampering mouse in her court. Meaningless. “Do we have a deal?”

Cayden made a gurgling, choking sound, blood running out the side of his mouth. Ashor glanced down at his friend. “One night?” he whispered.

“Ashor,” I gasped, attempting to wiggle out of his arms. “You can’t be serious.” Betrayal like I’d never felt before tore through my heart, right into my soul. I felt as if he had cut one of the threads tying us together. I stopped breathing.

“Just a single night,” the queen said like the backstabbing seductress that she was. “Tick. Tock. The clock is ticking. He doesn’t have much longer.”

The powerful muscles lining his back quivered beneath his shirt, and a blast of cold air went through the chamber. “I chose the night.”

Verena beamed a smile of satisfied victory. “Done.”

Ashor glanced back down at Cayden, his fingers going lax at my waist, but I had gone numb and didn’t advance toward the queen. Instead, I stood in the center of the room and watched as Ashor gave a shallow nod. Then he sauntered to the queen. She got to her feet, meeting him at the end of the dais. If I could feel my body, I would have slapped the shit of the superior grin on her lips. A knot of dread expanded in my stomach.

I couldn’t figure out who she was punishing with this deal. Me? Or Ashor?

Most likely it was the both of us. A way to cause friction and division between us.

And it was working.

For a second time in my life, I watched as Ashor took a blood oath with a demon queen and I could do nothing to stop it. His promises to other females were stacking up.

What about the promises to me?

Verena licked Ashor’s blood off her nail. “Don’t make me wait too long.” Her eyes flickered briefly to mine before she turned her back to him, returning to her throne.

My fingers itched to snatch a clump of her strawberry-colored hair and yank as hard as I could.

Ashor sighed heavily, his patience running thin. “First, you hold up your end of the deal. Heal him.”

The queen gave a curt nod as she took a seat. “Alora. Dinah. Take him to the enchantress.”

This time when the two succubae advanced toward Cayden, Ashor didn’t stop them. He only stared at me, but I refused to meet his gaze. I dropped mine to the white floor, spattered with Cayden’s blood.

* * *

My world was off-balance. Nothing about me felt right. And I blamed Ashor.

That bastard.

How dared he!

If he thought I was going to just sit by while he spent the night with another woman, he had another thing coming. We might be the first mated couple in history to break up. Could he not have bargained for anything else? If the roles had been reversed, he would have obliterated the Court of Envy before he let someone else touch me.

My mind couldn’t stop visualizing Ashor and Verena doing the nasty. Eyes closed. Eyes open. It didn’t matter. The images wouldn’t stop, and they were going to drive me mad with jealousy. Her hands roamed places where my lips kissed. Her tongue tasted his, moaning with pleasure. Rage boiled, burning up inside like I was the center of the sun.

I continued to stare out the window in my plush prison, silence stretching out within the room. I hadn’t said a damn word to Ashor on our way back, regardless that I wanted to fly off the handle. Or burst out crying. I couldn’t make up my mind which emotion would come out, so it was best I just kept my trap shut and ignored the son of a bitch.

Pink and gold stained the horizon, the sun setting behind the woods, painting the River Styx as if it were on fire. It mimicked my own fury.

I felt Ashor’s gaze as he studied me like I was a riddle he was trying to unravel. “Don’t be angry,” he said softly, in a tone that put a tiny crack in my shield of anger.

Ribbons of calm radiated from his voice and inflamed the burning inside me. It was like ice and fire clashing. I whirled my head in his direction, a desire to hurt him swelling inside me. “Are you fucking kidding me?” I spat, releasing my temper. “You’re going to spend a night with another woman, a demon, and you don’t want me to be mad. Besides, I’m way past mad. I’m fucking furious. We’re about to have our first fight, princeling. Buckle up.”

He leaned against the wall, keeping his distance. “I only finished what you started.”

“Don’t pin this on me,” I hissed, feeling my temples throb. “I will not take the blame. No one asked you to volunteer yourself. I was more than willing to make a deal with the queen. It should have been me!”

His voice was rough as he said, “You want to spend a night in her bed? I’m sure it can be arranged.”

I blinked, stiffening, finding no humor in the situation. “And you would be fine with it?” I hurled at him.

Ashor sighed through his nose, his jaw locking. “I never said that.” Finally, a display of emotion.

A quick bolt of violence sliced through our bond. “So you are capable of feeling.”

Shoving off the wall, he crossed the room to me. “No one should know what I am feeling better than you. You are the only one who has access to the deepest parts of myself.”

It was too difficult to weed through the labyrinthine levels of fury, betrayal, pain, and the thousand other things I was feeling to find his emotions. “What does it matter? When you are with her, I will be able to feel what you feel. Do you have a way to protect me from that?” My chest heaved as I took a breath. “All this time you’ve claimed every decision you’ve made has been to protect me, but you failed to see the one person who had the power to hurt me the most. You.”

“Lexi.” My name was a guttural ache from his lips. His agony joined mine, making it nearly intolerable to bear.

“I can’t believe I came back for you,” I spat, leaping off my seat to pace the common room like a caged tiger. I could no longer sit still lest I be utterly consumed by the swirling storm inside of us both. It threatened to sweep me away.

“He would have died,” Ashor murmured.

I didn’t want him to engage my sympathy, so I continued clinging to the anger. “You don’t think I know that? I’m not pissed because you saved your friend’s life. I’m fuming because you didn’t even bother to negotiate a different deal. One that didn’t involve you, the queen, and a bed!” I finished with a shriek.

He shook his dark head, the shadows in the corner staining the wall behind him. “Another option wouldn’t have worked. She took advantage of the situation so she could cut where it would hurt the most.”

A tear slipped down my cheek, and I brushed it away with an angry swipe of my hand. “Explain to me how spending the night with her is going to hurt you?” I was being unreasonable and a part of me knew it, but in the heat of the moment, I was only consumed with my own pain, not thinking about Ashor’s, or what he sacrificed in agreeing to her deal. His own choice had been taken from him.

Ashor shoved off the wall and was standing in front of me within a blink. I stood still, staring up at him, and as another tear fell from the corner of my eye, he caught it with a kiss. “Anything that hurts you hurts me,” he whispered, cooling off my flushed cheek with his words.

Damn him.

I didn’t want to be reasonable or admit that what he said made sense. My scowl deepened. “That’s not particularly very ally-ish of her.”

His eyes roamed over my face as his hand moved to tuck a piece of hair behind my ear. “She wants to make sure I don’t forget the position she holds. I might be a prince, but she is a queen; therefore, I am beneath her.”

I ignored the tingle of his touch. “I hate demon politics. You guys might actually not hate each other if you stopped being supreme dicks.”

The edges of his lips twitched as he tried not to smile at me. “The last thing we should be doing is fighting. It is precisely what Verena hopes for, to divide us. It is only my flesh. The queen will never have my heart or my soul. Those belong to you.”

I met his gaze, letting him see everything I was feeling and the truth in my words as I said, “You’re wrong. Your body does belong to me as well.” I reminded him. “Heart. Soul. Body. You may already have my body and my soul. But I will never give you my heart. Never.”

He moved closer so my chest was touching his. “Best not to say something you’ll regret, luv. I’d hate to make a liar out of you.”

I swallowed, lifting my chin, and told myself to stay strong. “This is one aspect of the bond you can’t force, Ashor. I have to freely give you my heart, and it is going to take more than ancient accents and cute nicknames for me to profess my undying love.”

“Lexi, you’re being unreasonable. Nothing will happen between the queen and me.”

My nails bit into my palms as another round of anger spiked in my blood. “Oh, so she just invited you to her bed for Parcheesi and meaningful conversation. I’m not a fool. Don’t patronize me.”

Ashor swore low under his breath. “It doesn’t matter what Verena wants or tries. I’m incapable of doing anything with another woman that isn’t you.”

Despair shone in my eyes. “Then why accept the oath? Tell me how you plan to find a loophole out of this one, princeling?”

“When will you learn to trust me?” he breathed.

Wrong answer. “Screw you, Ashor. I wish you weren’t my mate.” I spun on my heels and stalked into the bedroom, slamming the door in his face behind me. My chest was heaving as I pressed my back to the wall. After a few minutes, I realized he wasn’t going to follow me into the bedroom, and that awful ache in my chest came back. The one that had assaulted me for months during our separation. The one I never wanted to feel again.

Ashor had the power to hurt me. More than any demon or human could. Whether it was intentional or not, it didn’t hurt any less.

The images of Verena and Ashor tangled together came back. Her luscious lips on his. Her painted nails trailing down his chest. Her voice calling out his name. Eyes closed or wide open, it did not matter. The visions of them did not stop. For the first time since we’d been united, I truly missed home.

I crawled into bed, curling up into a ball, however I slept very little that night. The sporadic bouts where I did tumble into sleep, I was plagued with nightmares of Ashor and Colin. Their faces often blurred together, which wasn’t the scary part. In each and every dream, I watched them die, unable to do anything to stop their deaths.

I didn’t put much stock into dream reading, yet I couldn’t deny there was some kind of twisted foreboding at play. The idea of Ashor being taken from me was like dying myself.

Sometime in the middle of the night, the door to the bedroom squeaked open and Ashor’s shadows wrapped around me like a cooling blanket, quieting the nightmares. My soul cried the tears I refused to let my eyes shed. He didn’t come to bed, but lounged in the chair that sat in the corner of the room, as if to watch over me. His presence quieted my soul and relaxed my body, so that by the time the sun came up, the sting and ache of his blood oath were drained from within me.

Trust.

Ashor wanted my trust.

I had not given him my trust the first time he abducted me to the underworld. He had not earned it then. But now…

I trusted Ashor with more than my life. And I would find a way to trust that what he said about Verena never touching him was the truth.