The Darkest Passion (Lords of the Underworld #5)(10)
Author: Gena Showalter

Do you know why you are here, Olivia? a resonant voice had asked.

Yes. Though she trembled, her wings never ceased their graceful glide. They were long and majestic, the feathers a glorious white threaded with moonlit gold. To discuss Aeron of the Underworld.

We’ve been patient for weeks, Olivia. The emotionless voice had echoed like a war drum inside her head. We’ve given you countless opportunities to prove yourself. You failed each time.

I’m not meant to do this, she’d replied shakily.

You were. You are. There is no better way to spread joy than to save humans from evil. And that is what you will be doing with the completion of this task. This is your last chance. You will end Aeron’s life or we will end yours.

The councilor’s threat hadn’t been meant as a cruelty, she knew. That was simply the way of the heavens. A single drop of poison could ruin an ocean, and so every corrosive drop had to be wiped out before hitting the waves. Yet she’d protested anyway.

You cannot kill me without the True Deity’s blessing. And He would not give it. He was all that was tender and kind. He cared for his people, all of his people. Even wayward angels. Quite simply, He was love.

But we can send you away, ending life as you know it. The speaker had been female, but her voice was no less flat.

For a moment Olivia had had trouble catching her breath, and bright sparks of light had danced around her eyes. Lose her place? She’d just purchased a newer, bigger cloud. She’d promised to take over one of her friend’s joy-bringing shifts so that he could go on vacation—and she’d never before broken a promise. Still she’d persisted. Aeron isn’t evil. He doesn’t deserve to die.

That is not for you to decide. He ignored an ancient law and must be punished for it before others think that they can do the same without consequence.

I doubt he even knows what he’s done. She’d spread her arms, beseeching. If you would just allow him to see me and hear my voice, I could talk to him and explain—

Then we would be ignoring an ancient law.

True. Faith was built on the principle that you believed in what you could not see. Only the Elite Seven were allowed to reveal themselves in the mortal plane, as they were sometimes tasked with rewarding people for that faith.

I’m sorry, she’d said, head bowed. I should not have asked such a thing of you.

You are forgiven, child, they’d replied in unison.

Forgiveness was always granted so easily here. Well, except when commandments were ignored. Poor Aeron, she’d thought, even as she’d said, Thank you.

It was just…Aeron drew her. He looked every inch the demon with his tattooed flesh, yet seeing him for the first time had roused desires inside her that had been too strong to ignore. What would it be like to touch him? What would it be like to be touched by him? Would she finally know the joy she brought to others?

At first, those thoughts had shamed her. And the better she’d come to know Aeron, the stronger the desires had become—until falling and being with him had been all she could think about.

Finally, she’d told herself it was acceptable to feel so strongly about him because, despite his appearance, despite what the Council said, he was honest and good. And if he was honest and good, she could do the things that he did, and be honest and good, as well. More than that, it would be okay because he, protector that he was, would keep her safe. From others, from herself.

If he were killed, however, she would live the rest of eternity never knowing how…exquisite experiencing him in every way could have been. She would regret. She would mourn.

But to save him, from her own hand, at least, meant giving up everything she knew, as the Council had proclaimed. More than losing her home and her wings, however, she would also be stuck in a world where forgiveness was not always granted, patience was rarely rewarded and rudeness was a way of life.

He is your first assassination, so we do understand your reluctance, Olivia. But you cannot allow that reluctance to ruin you. You must rise above it or you will pay the price forevermore. Which will you choose?

That had been the Council’s last-ditch effort to save her. Yet she had raised her head and uttered the words that had been churning inside her for all those weeks—the words that led her here. Before fear could change her mind.

I choose Aeron.

“Woman?”

The hard voice shook Olivia from the past; it was deeper, richer than anyone else’s and…necessary. She blinked, her surroundings slowly coming into focus. A bedroom she knew by heart. Spacious, with silver stone walls plastered with portraits of flowers and stars. The floor was composed of dark, polished wood, and draped by a soft pink rug. There was a dresser, a vanity and a young girl’s lounge.

Many would have scoffed at the fact that this strong, proud warrior possessed such a feminine room, but not Olivia. The furnishings merely proved the depths of Aeron’s love for his Legion.

Did he have room in his heart for one more?

Her gaze landed on him. Still he stood beside the bed she was sprawled upon, gazing down at her with…no emotion, she realized, disappointed. And who could blame him? What a sight she must be. The tears had dried on her cheeks, making her skin feel tight and hot. Her hair hung in tangles, and dirt streaked her exposed skin.

Meanwhile, he looked gorgeous. He was tall and mouthwateringly muscled, with the most amazing violet eyes fringed by long black lashes. His dark hair was cropped nearly to his scalp, and she wondered if the choppy strands would prickle her palm when she caressed them.

Not that he would allow her to caress him.

He was heavily tattooed, even on the perfectly sculpted planes of his face. Each of those tattoos depicted something gruesome. Stabbings, stranglings, burnings, blood—so much blood—each skeletal face etched in torment. Yet amid all the violence were two sapphire butterflies, one riding his ribs and one outlining the wings on his back.

The other Lords, she had noticed, only had one butterfly tattoo, each a mark of their demon-possession, and she’d often wondered why Aeron had the extra. Wasn’t as if his body contained two demons or anything.

More than that, he despised weakness. Didn’t the butterflies remind him of his folly? For that matter, didn’t the other tattoos, the violent ones, remind him of the terrible things his demon had forced him to do?

As for Olivia, why didn’t this man repulse her as he would have repulsed any other angel? Why did he continue to fascinate her?

“Woman,” he repeated, impatient now.

“Yes?” she managed to croak.