The Darkest Seduction (Lords of the Underworld #9)(56)
Author: Gena Showalter

Clearly, he wasn’t a fighter. A scholar, perhaps. There could be no asking him, however. Like all the others, Cronus had already cut out his tongue. A must for these meetings. Allowing someone to speak to Rhea, to deliver a secret message Cronus could not decipher, would have been a huge tactical error.

Cronus never made tactical errors.

He looked at his wife. Her stubborn expression gave nothing away.

“Let him go,” she said, chin going ever higher. “I’ve made my choice. I will be beaten in exchange for his life.”

Let the male go? Alive and well, forgiven for his crimes against the greatest king Titania has ever known? The concept was inconceivable. Laughable. “And the female?” he snarled, tugging her hair to lift her head.

She whimpered, her obvious distress causing the male to grunt. How sweet, Cronus thought dryly. The humans cared for each other.

Eyes the color of a blood-soaked battlefield swept over the girl. “I don’t care about her. Do whatever you wish with her, just let the male go.”

Rhea’s demon must be giving her fits. Either that, or Strife simply enjoyed the show. Well, it would be Cronus’s pleasure to offer another blast of discord. “I do not approve of your choice, wife. Therefore, I think I will behead the man before I release him.”

The queen sputtered for a moment, her chains rattling against the bedposts. “Are you completely lacking in honor, husband?”

“Of course. To win, one must do whatever is necessary. Besides that, I never promised to let your Hunters go while their hearts still beat, did I?”

“You bastard!”

“If you wish to save this one, you will tell me what’s so special about him. That is our new bargain.”

The male quaked with fear, his clammy sweat creating an acrid scent in the air. The female, still kneeling at Cronus’s other side, reached for him, clasped his hand in a show of comfort and support. Her hair was cropped to her shoulders, and so black the tint had to have come from a bottle. Her eyes were brown, a deep chocolate, and filled with anguished tears. She was pretty in a delicate sort of way, and somehow familiar to him.

She wasn’t the first female he’d brought to Rhea, nor would she be the last. There were several others waiting below in the dungeon. Now he wondered if he’d slain a sibling of hers, a sister perhaps, and that was why he thought he recognized her.

“Explaining my reasons was never part of our bargain,” Rhea said in that haughty voice of hers, the one he loathed. The one guaranteed to make him see red. “Let. Him. Go.”

Sure enough, Cronus’s rage intensified. He returned his attention to the male. Shadows formed half circles under his eyes, his cheeks were hollowed out and there was blood dripping down his chin, all proof of his mortality.

Had Rhea once welcomed him into her bed? Was this man one of the many Cronus had felt his wife enjoying these past few months? Had this bastard climaxed inside her?

When her passions came upon her, she become wild and wanton, and unaware of—or unconcerned by—the damage she inflicted.

Each new deliberation tossed another smoldering log onto the fires of his rage, until the only thing inside his body was thick, black smoke with crimson flames trapped throughout. He couldn’t see past them, could only choke on them. And only then did he realize that it was not the human who was quaking with such intensity; it was him, and the knowledge humiliated him.

The human had to pay.

“Look at me. Now.”

Long golden-brown lashes lifted. Eyes filled with challenge and hatred stared up at him. Resentment, too. Did this human yearn for what he himself possessed? A connection to Rhea?

Well, that ended now. Before Cronus realized he had moved, he’d released the girl, palmed a blade—and slashed. He watched as the man’s throat split in the center, blood welling and flowing. Watched as pain took the place of the resentment…watched as even that dulled…faded…and his body sagged.

The girl screamed, the shrill noise scraping at his ears, annoying him. Frowning down at her, intending to reprimand her, he uncurled his fingers from the man’s hair and reached for her. Thump. The lifeless body hit the floor, and she released another scream, darting out of his way.

Not before he caught Rhea’s gasp of horror.

His attention whipped to her, the girl suddenly forgotten. His wife had just gasped. Misery was to be her only companion in the countless eternity that awaited her, yes, but the fact that she’d dared to find that misery in the demise of some frail mortal failed to fill him with any kind of satisfaction.

Such a reaction meant he’d miscalculated, that she had, indeed, cared for the man. Even as his temper flared all the hotter, he struggled with understanding. Why care for a creature so limited by time and capability? A creature so fragile, so easily killed. As he had just demonstrated.

The black-haired wench scrambled to the body of the fallen male and gathered him close. She cried, her tears a flood of emotion. Obviously, she had cared for the man, too. But…why? What had he done to draw two women’s loyalty?

Cronus’s lip curled up in a snarl. The answer didn’t matter, not really. The bastard was gone now, never to return. “Let him go,” he commanded the girl.

She looked up at him, hatred shining in her eyes. She carefully laid the body upon the floor, pressed a kiss to his forehead and stood. Her steps clipped, measured, she approached Cronus, horrible sounds of grief rising from her.

Had he not taken her tongue, curses would have been hurled at him, he was sure. But she could not blame him for her lack. He had given her a choice. Return to the cage and die another day, or stay with the man, lose her tongue and die on this one. She’d chosen to stay.

“I am not a monster,” he said. “The pair of you sanctioned the wrong side of the war, and you paid for it.” One thing he’d learned while whiling away the centuries inside Tartarus: a king without a firm hand was a king without a throne.

What came next was expected. She threw herself against him, her fists pummeling at him, her fury and heartache infusing every blow. He didn’t try to defend himself. There was no need. Did she truly think she was hurting him? That she could hurt him?

A resounding no to both, yet her relentless effort soon aggravated him. He had better things to do. “Stop, female.”

Either she didn’t hear him or she didn’t care to obey. He set her away from him, a concession on his part, and one he did not often offer, but she just came back, a catapult of feminine ire. He could have frozen her in place with a wave of his hand, but he refused to venture down that path. Pride dictated she obey of her own accord or suffer the consequences.