The Darkest Lie (Lords of the Underworld #6)(76)
Author: Gena Showalter

He. Would. Fucking. Strangle. Her. With his feet still planted on the ground, he leaned into her, allowing his weight to hit her full force. Because she hadn’t thought to pin his hands, he reached for her, intending to close his fingers around her fragile neck. His hands met some type of invisible block.

A tinkling laugh escaped her. “Silly demon. No harm can befall me inside this room. Why else would I stay here? Now, let me show you why you’ll be making love to me whenever I wish….” One step, two, she backed away from him, forcing him to straighten.

Grinning, she spun in a quick circle. He would have laughed at her cluelessness—grinning? really?—but when she faced him again, she was no longer Rhea. She was Scarlet, and the shock was like a punch in the gut. Suddenly he was looking at Scarlet’s lovely face. Scarlet’s black eyes. Scarlet’s bloodred lips. Scarlet’s flawless skin. Scarlet’s taller and stronger frame. And his body responded!

His horrified study intensified as he desperately searched for an imperfection. Shit, shit, shit. They were the same. Fuck, they were— No. Wait. Rhea lacked Scarlet’s tattoos. Those amazing, lick-right-here tattoos. So, okay. All right. Fine. He could deal with this. They weren’t the same. Down, boy.

“What? You don’t like?” She even spoke in Scarlet’s raspy voice.

“No.” He liked. Fuck, he liked. He’d been so hungry for Scarlet, so damn hungry. And now, here she was, his for the taking. No tattoos, no Scarlet. Don’t forget.

“Not even when I do this?” Watching him as she moved, Rhea slid her fingers up the flat plane of her belly, cupped her br**sts and pinched her ni**les, hardening them to little pearls.

No tattoos, no Scarlet. No f**king tattoos, no f**king Scarlet. Still. His body continued to react, unable to help itself. To his cock, this was his woman, soon to be his wife. He hoped. And his c**k hungered for her desperately, had been without her for too long.

Not Scarlet, not Scarlet, not Scarlet, he told the traitor frantically, willing the blood to leave his growing erection.

Lies loved it, though. Loved knowing Rhea was living a lie. The demon had never been so excited, in fact.

You begged me to force Scarlet to stay. Now you’re willing to betray her?

Scarlet. Love Scarlet.

A lie. But…but… You said she was yours.

She is. Isn’t.

What the hell? Damn you. We’re on Team Scarlet. Do you understand?

Sure, sure, was the reply.

Which meant, Lies was not on Team Scarlet.

What the hell? he wondered again. Was everyone conspiring against him?

“Told you.” Rhea treated him to another grin, but there was an evil twinkle in those dark eyes, something Scarlet had never directed at him. “Let’s stop playing games, and start on the pleasure.”

She regally waved her hand through the air, a prelude he was coming to dread, and Gideon suddenly found himself lying on the bed, stretched out, again pinned in place and unable to move. He was like a rag doll, being tossed wherever the queen desired him, and he was sick of it.

“Listen, sweetheart, you—umph.”

Rhea had whisked herself on top of him, her knees straddling his waist. Once again, she looked like herself and his body, as well as his demon, deflated. Thank the gods.

So you’re on Team Scarlet again? he asked Lies.

Yes. No.

I don’t understand you.

“Oh, Gideon. This is going to be fun.” Rhea’s smile didn’t fade. In fact, she grinned all the wider. “Look,” she said, and motioned to the right.

Dread thrummed through him as he turned his head. He saw…nothing and frowned. Why had she— No, wait. Tiny white lights were flashing just in front of the mattress, growing, linking together, and then Scarlet was there. The real Scarlet.

She was dressed completely in black. Black T-shirt, black leather pants, black boots. Even black leather bracelets. Her hair was anchored in a low ponytail, revealing the graceful length of her neck. A neck that didn’t sport a butterfly necklace.

She spotted Gideon with a grinning Rhea on top of him and gasped in shock, in horror.

“Devil,” he shouted, but she disappeared in the next instant, gone as if she’d never been there. “Bitch,” he then shouted at Rhea, and Lies roared inside his head. Pain exploded through him, followed quickly by that hated weakness. He grimaced, shook, hated, hated…hurt.

Not again.

But he couldn’t help himself. He was filled with so much hate, so much regret, so much rage, he couldn’t stop the words from flowing from him. “I will kill you. I planned to anyway, but now you’ll suffer at my hand. You’ll regret all the ways you’ve harmed your daughter.” More pain, more weakness.

Finally, Rhea’s smile fell away. Her skin even leached of color. She inched down his body until she hit the end of the mattress and had to stand. Her knees must have been shaking because she swayed.

“Y-you are lying again. I know you are.”

Before Gideon could reply, another voice rang out. “We have much to discuss, woman.”

As the still-naked Rhea whipped around in dismay, Gideon’s gaze—which was narrowing and darkening with every second that passed—moved to the center of the room. Cronus had appeared, and he had brought a…female? Yes, definitely a female. Her skin was charred to black and her hair had been burned away, but the delicacy of her bones was evident. A little too evident.

Perhaps Gideon moaned. Perhaps the god king merely sensed him. Either way, Cronus’s focus swung to him, and the king sucked in an astonished breath. His eyes narrowed to tiny slits of fury.

“So. We have more to discuss than I realized. You think to use one of my warriors.” Hard, yet devoid of any emotion. “After we agreed not to travel that road.”

Rhea raised her chin, a white cloak appearing out of nowhere and wrapping around her. “He loved every minute of it, I assure you.”

“That’s why he looks ready to vomit.” Cronus, too, raised his chin.

“You have no right to admonish me for my actions when my sister, your mistress, stands beside you.” Her gaze brushed over the trembling female. “Why did you burn her?” She sounded surprisingly upset at the sight, despite the fact that her sister was sleeping with her husband. “Did she fall out of favor?”

Her sister. That soot-covered skeleton was the goddess of Memory, Scarlet’s aunt, then. The shit-infested day was suddenly looking up.

Gideon threw himself from the bed. He didn’t have the strength to stand, could only scoot his way toward the woman, planning to grab her and hold on until he could find a way home.