A thin sheen of sweat had risen over my body. “Right.” I smoothed out my dress. “Let’s just forget about that, okay? That was some sort of magic, obviously, when you left the mark.”
Adonis just looked at me, that infuriating smile on his perfect lips.
“I have to go.” I moved quickly for the door, trying to gather my thoughts. In the hall, cherubs glided over the marble floor, heads cocked, white eyes on me.
Focus, Ruby. Adonis’s mouth on my neck had just ripped the world right out from under my feet, but I had another horseman to meet, and I needed to keep my wits about me if I was going to have any hope of manipulating him.
I stood before Aereus, in a large hall with a dais that towered high above me. Golden wings swooped from his back over his throne, the feathers blending to a deep maroon at the tips. A crown of chestnut-gold hair shone from his head, lit up from behind by a stained-glass window. Sunlight streamed in from the windows, gleaming over his golden breastplate. The room smelled of roasting meat.
Aereus studied me intently, tapping the armrests contemplatively.
The longer he stared at me, the more my muscles tensed. In fact, as my gaze slid over the humans lining the side of the hall, I picked out a ruddy-faced man with dark eyes. Something about him sparked my rage, and for a single, dizzying instant, I envisioned myself ripping open his rib cage and pulling his still-beating heart from his chest...
Simmer down, Ruby. Already, Aereus’s power was beginning to affect my mind—and the way he was watching me, I was pretty sure he was doing it on purpose, testing the results. Above him, the stained-glass window depicted another image of Saturn devouring his son. A god so ruthlessly driven by power that he was willing to consume his own living child to preserve his throne.
Seemed to be a favorite motif for Aereus.
I licked my lips, desperate to taste blood there.
“Tell me about why you’ve come.” His commanding voice boomed over the hall.
Why was he asking me and not Adonis? Maybe he didn’t trust Adonis. I could start planting the seeds of our plan now, anyway. “You know, the Dark Lord hasn’t really discussed his plans with me, but it was something about Johnny and Kratos rebelling against the Heavenly Host. Johnny ripped Adonis’s wing—I know that much. Oh! And something about Kratos starting to fall? Does that sound right?”
Aereus’s primal snarl slid through my bones. “Fall? Kratos?”
I shrugged, feeling minuscule before him. “Adonis thought they were angry about their curses, that they might rebel against the archangels in heaven. Whatever you call them. And he thought they could be coming for you.”
As soon as Johnny and Kratos descended from the skies above the Louvre, Aereus would know. And with any luck, he’d be on our side when we had to face them.
Blood-red veins glinted in Aereus’s eyes. “Coming for me?”
Fury rippled off him, stirring my rage once more, until my mind swam with visions of teeth tearing at flesh.
This was a dangerous game for a feral fae. A succubus had more control than I did—pure seduction and elegance. A bit of soul-stealing through sex, but relatively blood-free. But a feral fae in the presence of the horseman of war? Not a great situation.
Aereus cocked his head, moving for the first time in minutes. “You look hungry, Succubus. Do any of the humans appeal to you?”
The feral snarl that escaped my throat echoed through the hall. “I feed from human males, and there are plenty in here. But none particularly strikes my fancy.”
A faint accent tinged his words as he spoke. “I’d heard that Adonis had managed to tame a succubus, but I wasn’t sure I believed it. I suppose some think Adonis is the most adept seducer in the world, but frankly, I find it hard to believe. Death surrounds him.”
It was quickly becoming clear that despite his angelic demigod status, despite ruling over a medieval palace with chained humans at his beck and call, despite all of his powers—this man’s ego was in need of some serious stroking.
All alike. You men are all alike.
Another white-hot burst of rage tore through me, and for just a moment I envisioned myself with immeasurable strength, ripping the arrogant angel from his throne, hurling him to the ground, and crushing my boot into his neck. My mouth watered.
Aereus begs for his life as I thrust a blade between his ribs...
“You look as though you’ve become lost in a fantasy.” Aereus’s voice boomed over the hall.
“It’s hard not to fantasize in the presence of greatness.” I shrugged, looking down at the marble floor—a succubus who could be overwhelmed by the right godlike presence. “I can feed from humans, but they don’t excite me the way real power does.” I lifted my eyes to his in an invitation.
A satisfied smile spread across Aereus’s chiseled features. “So it’s not Adonis who excites you in particular.”
Slowly, I ran my fingertip over the front of my chest, tracing the curve of my breast. “It seems to me like your palace is bigger than his.” While volcanic rage surged inside me, I schooled my features—coy, compliant on the outside. I needed him to bring me into his inner sanctum, to find out where he kept his most important objects.
I bit my lip, swaying my hips slightly from side to side. “Where do you rule from, Aereus? When you want to summon a war between the humans, when you want to drive them to destroy each other—do you make your decisions from here? From that throne?”
He shook his head, and a phantom wind skimmed over my skin, dry and hot as the desert air.
“Not from here, no.”
Tuning in to my glamour, I focused on the tendrils of dark magic emanating from my body. I sent them spiraling through the air toward Aereus. “Can you show me your war room?”
He studied me for an uncomfortably long time before nodding curtly at a guard behind me.
When he rose from his throne, his body cast a long shadow over the floor.
Wordlessly, he descended from the dais. With each footstep, the floor trembled as if he were an actual giant. Just after he passed me, he cast an impatient look over his shoulder. “I’ll take you to my war room. But first, a detour through my garden.”
“A garden?” Given the whole war god thing, I’d been expecting something a little more brutal from him than gardening.
As if reading my thoughts, Aereus replied, “It’s not as tame as it seems at first. In fact, it’s how I control my servants.”
My throat went dry. I really didn’t want to be anywhere near this angel or his garden.
Chapter 25
I followed Aereus through a heavy door, and I squinted in the bright light outside. It took my eyes a few moments to adjust.