The Darkest Whisper (Lords of the Underworld #4)(74)
Author: Gena Showalter

“Many reasons.”

“I’m un-filling my time, as commanded, so I’ve got enough to spare to listen to every one of those reasons.”

Cronus’s jaw clenched. “Someone considers himself more useful than he actually is, I see.”

“My apologies,” he said through gritted teeth. “I am lower than low, a nothing, unneeded, useless.”

Cronus inclined his head in acknowledgment. “As my pet so quickly learned his place, I will give him a reward. You wish to know about the butterflies. Butterflies my children, the Greeks, bestowed upon you.”

Torin nodded stiffly, not daring to speak lest he talk the god out of this boon.

“Before your possession, you were limited in what you could do, where you could go. Trapped in a cocoon, you could say. Now look at you.” He waved his hand along Torin’s body. “You emerged as something dark but beautiful. That’s why I would have chosen the mark, at least. My children, well…” He opened his mouth to say more, paused, and then his head tilted to the side. “You have another visitor. Next time I visit you, Disease, I expect results. Or you will not find me so lenient.” And then the god was gone and there was a knock at the door.

Torin flicked a glance to the monitor at his left. Cameo waved up at him, as if his earlier thoughts had summoned her. He shoved Cronus and the god’s warnings to the back of his mind. He planned to help the king, but he would not jump when the bastard said jump. Pet, indeed.

Body still prepped and ready because of the glimpses he’d gotten of Lickable Ears, he pressed the button that unlocked his door. Cameo sailed inside, closing the wood behind her with a determined click. He swiveled in his chair, studying her with new understanding. Her color was high, pretty, and tension hummed from her. But that was all. Tension. The need for release.

No, she wouldn’t have chosen him, either.

“Let me ask you a question,” he said, twining his fingers over his middle.

Her hips swayed as she approached him, and her lips curled into a slow smile. “All right.” She’d probably meant to sound husky, sexy, but that tragic voice only reached I-might-not-kill-myself-after-all.

“Why me? You could have any man here.”

That had her grinding to a stop. Then her smile inched into a frown as she hopped onto the edge of his desk, out of reach, legs swinging. “You really want to talk about this?”

“Yes.”

“It won’t be pleasant.”

“What is, these days?”

“Okay, then. You understand me, my demon. My curse.”

“So do the others here.”

Her fingers twisted in her lap. “Again, I have to ask if you really want to go there. Especially since we could be doing something else…”

Did he? It might alter the good thing they had going. Pleasure for both of them. Pleasure he wouldn’t—and couldn’t—get anywhere else. “Yeah. I want to go there.” Idiot. But every day he saw Maddox and Ashlyn, Lucien and Anya, Reyes and Danika, and now Sabin and the Harpy, and he wanted something like that for himself.

Not that he could ever have it. He’d tried once, about four hundred years ago. All he’d had to do to ruin it was take off his gloves, caress his would-be-lover’s face—and then watch her die the next day, her body ravaged by the disease he’d given her.

He couldn’t go through that again.

Since then, he’d purposely stayed away from all things female. Until Cameo. She was the first woman he’d looked at, truly looked at, in too many years to count.

Her gaze darted away from him. “You’re here. You never leave. You won’t be killed in a battle. The man I loved was taken from me, tortured by my enemy and sent back in pieces. I don’t have to worry about that with you. And I like you. I really do.”

But she didn’t love him, and the potential for love, the forever, die-without-you kind of love, anyway, wasn’t there.

And wasn’t that just about on par with the rest of his life?

“So…do you want to stop?” she asked softly.

He glanced at the monitor again. No sign of his pointy-eared babe. “Do I look stupid?”

A laugh escaped her, chasing away her sadness. “Good. We’ll continue on as we have been. Right?”

“Right. But what happens when you meet a man you could love?”

She bit her bottom lip and shrugged. “We’ll stop.” She didn’t ask him the same question. Except, of course, switching “man” for “woman.” Both of them knew he’d never meet a woman who could live with him in any sense of the word.

One of his computers beeped, catching his attention. He straightened, scanning until he found the proper screen. A breath whistled from between his teeth. “Holy hell, I did it!”

“What?” Cameo asked.

“I found Galen. And, shit, you aren’t going to believe where he is.”

“YOU’RE NOT LEAVING ME,” Sabin told Gwen. Then, to her sisters, he said, “You’re not taking her away from me.” They’d spent the last hour packing their stuff—and some of his—and were now standing in the foyer of the fortress.

They were ready to leave, but Gwen kept stalling, “remembering” something she’d left in his room.He knew the Harpies meant to take her away, for now and always. Right in front of him, they’d talked about how they didn’t want him around Gwen anymore. They thought she was breaking too many rules, softening too much for a man who could never place her first on his list of priorities. More than that, they didn’t like that he’d made love to her out in the open, where anyone, even an enemy, could have snuck up on him.

They liked him, appreciated what he’d done to toughen Gwen up—that had been admitted grudgingly—but still considered him bad for her. And not the good kind of bad.

Hearing them talk, thinking about being without her, was screwing with his head. He couldn’t be without her. Wouldn’t be without her. He wouldn’t lose her to her sisters and he damn sure wouldn’t lose her to his war. He needed her.

“We’ll do anything we damn well please,” Bianka said, her tone daring him to contradict her again. “Soon as Gwen finds her…whatever she mentioned this time…we’re gone.”

“We’ll see about that.” His phone beeped, signaling a message. Frowning, he withdrew the device from his pocket. A text from Torin.

Galen in Buda. With an army. Prepare.