Page 59 of The Interdimensional Lord's Earthly Delight
He d at them. “I never killed anyone.” Then he amended, “Of my own people. Who weren’t tried and convicted.”
The redhead smirked. “Oh, but you wounded, broke, and crushed so many hearts, warlord. All the more recklessly because you didn’t think it mattered.”
The middle girl silenced her companions with a look. “You’ve learned your lesson, though, haven’t you?”
He met her clear,dark gaze with consternation. “That certainly wasn’t my intention.”
She laughed, and the sound reverberated, too immense for her statuesque body or even for the entirely of the great hall. “So it is for all the deepest moments of significance, eh?” Her dimple flashed. “But discover it you did, Tynan. And so we’ve returned your life to you, to be the man you were meant to be.”
Rubbing his handover his chest distractedly, he stared around the throne room. Everything seemed to be as he remembered, except…
“You gave me back my life,” he said slowly. “But I think…you have not returned my heart.”
The blonde and the redhead exchanged glances, but the third smiled again, a not entirely reassuring smile despite the charming dimple. “Do you miss it?”
The beat under his palm skipped once.“I do.”
“And what price would you pay, warlord?”
He lifted his chin and without hesitation offered, “My life.”
“We took that already,” she reminded him over the blonde’s derisive sniff.
“Everything you fought for?” the redhead suggested slyly, and for the first time, he wondered if they were goddesses…or demons. “Your castle and your riches that you won away from the warlord who wouldn’t evenkeep you as servant? Would you pay that price?”
“Every time,” he vowed. “I can fight again and win again if I must.” Anything to touch that other heartbeat that hid in his memory…
“Your godhood?” Those dark eyes pierced him. “Would you give up being the God of Beloveds?”
For a moment between heartbeats, he hesitated. “Is that what I am?”
Her expression softened, just a bit. “You have been.And could be again. Your blessing brought joy and serenity to many. Also”—she shrugged—“you were a god.”
And what had that meant to him? She implied beatific power, but…
“My heart is not here,” he murmured. “And you three no longer have it either.” He straightened. “I fought for the wrong prizes. I want to go back to her.”
The goddess-demon arched her sculpted eyebrow. “Her? Which one? Therewere so many.”
No, there’d ever only been one, truly.
Except the decoy of this old time and place kept trying to ensnare him, pull him back. But of all his battles, this one mattered most. “Her longing lured me at first.” He smiled to himself. “And her passion, brighter than any flower. But then… She had shadows too, matched to my own. But she…believed in me, when no one else did.” He squaredhis stance to the goddesses. “I have to go back, to prove to her that her faith was true.”
“And this maiden’s name?” the blonde asked, and the redhead added, “So we might see this paragon for ourselves.”
“Lishelle,” he whispered. “My lady Lishelle.”
In front of the goddesses appeared a radiant fathomless vortex of darkness. At the heart of the unending fall was his lady, looking away from him.His fingers twitched, wanting to caress the strong lines of her profile—the arch of her brows, the defiant jut of her chin, the elegant sweep of her throat emphasized by the black coils of her hair caught back from her face. But she was so distant. Hopelessness overcame him like a blaster set to stun and kill and explode all at the same time.
The dark goddess clicked her tongue. “It’s too farfor you, warlord. These are forces you cannot defeat.”
His chest and throat ached, as if they were being squeezed by a violence that would crush him to nothing. “Not by myself,” he acknowledged.
As if she heard him across the unreachable distance, Lishelle turned. Her shining black gaze opened to him like the pathway a ship charted between the stars.
“More than believe,” she whispered. “I’llfight for it.”
She’d never said those words aloud, not to him, but he knew the sentiment was true. He’d seen the change in her, how the boldness covering her fear had become bravery even in the face of battle. He stood on the verge of the black hole and every particle of his being yearned to match itself to hers.
Through the vaporous whorls of light and matter, with Lishelle as his one desire,he challenged the goddess-demons. “We were meant to be together,” he said, “not by chance or coercion, but because we made it so.”
For an infinite moment, they considered him. Then they smiled.
“You make us believe,” murmured the dark-haired one. “Go, Tynan. And be loved.”