The Darkest Lie (Lords of the Underworld #6)(11)
Author: Gena Showalter

And he wanted her to have pretty things. How…sweet.

Damn him!

He stood in front of a wheeled square table that hadn’t been there before, arms once again crossed over his chest. To keep from throttling her?

“So you like women who dress like schoolgirls.” She ignored the thundering of her heart and the heat spreading through her veins. “I didn’t realize you had such innocent fantasies,” she said, then wanted to curse. She’d sounded breathless. Maybe because her statement had raised a very naughty question. What did he fantasize about nowadays?

How did he like his sex? As gentle and consuming as he once had?

How did he like his women? As sweet as she’d once been? Most likely.

He’d shown only a few signs of attraction to her since discovering her inside his dungeon, and she was as hard as stone.

She had to be. Her life didn’t allow for dresses like this one. She had to be prepared to fight, always. She was a child of Rhea, the god queen, and she would make an excellent hostage to ransom. Not that her mother would pay it. More than that, she had many enemies, for killing her would remove her half-mortal self from the line of succession.

The scent of fresh baked bread, chicken and rice suddenly hit her nose and her mouth watered. Forget the bow. Forget closure. Her hand fell to her side. “You brought me food,” she said, dazed.

Another sweet gesture, the jerk.

“Nope. It’s all for me.” He eased into the chair behind him. Steaming plate after steaming plate littered the surface of the table, that steam wafting around him and creating a dream haze. “That color looks terrible on you, by the way.”

She licked her lips. Over the food, she told herself. Not because he liked the way she looked. Which was good. “Payback is a bitch, you know. And you can count on the fact that I’ll put you in this dress sometime soon.”

He shrugged, drawing attention to the wide girth of his shoulders, then held out one of the plates. The one with chicken, rice and veggies. She was walking to him, hands outstretched, before she realized what she was doing. After she claimed the plate, she plopped into the seat across from him and dug in.

So. Good.

“So…why don’t you sleep during the day?” he asked. “When the people here aren’t awake.”

That, she didn’t mind sharing. Even though she could guess his plan. Start her off with something light. Get her talking while she was distracted with food. “Somewhere in the world, people are asleep when I am, and the demon finds them. Besides that, every day I fall asleep a single second later. And every night I awaken a single second later. The time always varies ever so slightly, ensuring we’re able to target everyone at some point.” In other words, fear us.

“Not good to know.” A pause, then, “I don’t want to know why you got the tattoos. I don’t want to know who gave you those tattoos. And I most definitely don’t want to know how things ended between us.”

Yep. She’d been right. “I told you we weren’t really married.” She chased a deliciously flavored bite of buttered carrots with a glass of red wine. Even. Better.

“And I believed you.”

She shrugged, mimicking his nonchalance. “I’ve answered enough of your questions tonight. And I know that’s why you brought me here. To relax me, lower my guard and find out everything you’re dying to know so you can lock me back up.” And worse.

“You’re wrong,” he said, reaching out and cupping her hand with his own. He brought it to his lips and pressed a soft kiss into her suddenly burning flesh. “I just wanted to spend time with you, to get to know you, the world around us forgotten.”

Softening…again… They were words she’d longed to hear so badly she’d often ached physically. Hearing them now…

And realizing they were a lie…

The softening instantly ceased. Suddenly she wanted to remove the invisible knife he’d left in her back and stab him with it. Since he wasn’t crumpling into a heap of pain, as she’d heard he did when he spoke the truth, she knew he’d just told a whopper.

He was playing her, and she’d almost let him. Harden up. You’re a bitch. Act like it.

“That’s easy for you, isn’t it? Forgetting the world around you, I mean.” Bitterness crept through her tone, and there was nothing she could do to defuse it. “Your poor, sad memory.”

He frowned, and his hand fell away.

She wanted to shout. With frustration. With a demand that he touch her again. With fury that she wanted him to touch her again. Instead, she remained quiet and finished her meal, consuming every last crumb, every drop of wine, and leaving nothing for the man across from her.

“Why are you so…not stubborn about this?” he asked with what seemed to be genuine curiosity. “About keeping me in the light?”

Because she’d spent thousands of years wondering where he was, what he was doing and who he was doing it with. Wondering if he ever thought of her, wondering why he never returned for her. Wondering if he was even alive. Each day had been worse than the last, a constant churning in her mind, her emotions rolled out, flayed and left raw.

But she’d known with gut-wrenching intensity that he loved her, so she’d finally had to accept that he hadn’t returned because he’d been killed. Death was the only thing that could have kept him away. So she’d mourned him, crying so forcefully, so intensely, she’d actually shed tears of blood.

And when she’d finally discovered that he lived…Oh, the pain. Pain that still haunted her, a constant shadow in her heart.

In contrast, he’d been wondering about her for a few weeks. He didn’t cry himself to sleep about it. He didn’t throw up because the worry and the heartache were too much to bear.

Her hands clenched so tightly, the glass she held shattered. Beads of crimson sprang up all over her palm, but she didn’t flinch at the ensuing sting. This was nothing compared to what she’d once endured. Nothing. She no longer cried about anything.

Gideon sighed and wrapped his fingers around her wrist, inspecting the damage. “Love to see you injured. Don’t want to make it all better.” Truth.

When he had strode into his fortress’s dungeon and she’d seen his beautiful face, the only thing she’d truly felt at the time was awe. He was alive. He was with her again. But then the anger had sparked. Followed by the resentment and the consuming urge to hurt. None of those compared to what she felt just then, however.