The Darkest Promise (Lords of the Underworld #13)

“Where are we?” she asked.

“Nowhere important.” He gnashed his teeth as he approached her. With every step, pain ricocheted through him. The crystals had thickened and spread, so close to his heart. His end neared.

Cameo retreated. A muscle jumped beneath his eye, but he continued moving toward her, anyway. When he had her pressed flat against a rocky wall, he fought the urge to kiss her—couldn’t stand the thought of a rejection after her complete surrender—and removed the chain to drape it over her head.

“This is yours.” He settled the box between her breasts, hoping the familiar action would spur a flicker of her past.

She blinked with surprise and relief, her head suddenly her own. Peace and quiet reigned. “The demon—” She pressed her lips together.

He read her thoughts, knew she feared his reaction to discovering the truth about her evil. “I know all about him.” His voice snapped like a whip. He resented the need to explain. “When you wear the pendant, its power suppresses the demon. When you’re near the pendant, its power aggravates the demon, but it isn’t strong enough to suppress him.”

Out came her tongue to swipe over her bottom lip. Before she’d wrecked him, he would have leaned down to capture her tongue with his own. If he kissed her now, she would bite him.

“What’s so special about the pendant?” she asked.

“Only everything.” Frustration and anger raged inside him. He wanted his Cameo back. The one who melted when she looked at him. Who kissed with passion and awe. Who clung to him. The one who loved him.

The one he couldn’t live without.

The demon had wiped her mind. Permission or not, the demon would pay.

Lazarus pressed his forehead against Cameo’s. Though she stiffened, she allowed the contact to continue without protest. He breathed in her scent. Roses, bergamot and neroli.

He hadn’t cried when his mother died, her body in pieces at his feet. He hadn’t cried when Juliette hacked off his hands or his testicle. Hadn’t cried when he’d been beheaded and sent to the spirit realms, his future forever altered.

He’d always considered tears a weakness.

Here, now, tears flowed unchecked down each cheek. He’d lost something precious today.

Maybe her memory loss was for the best?

While the thought angered him, he couldn’t deny its veracity. This way, when Lazarus told her goodbye, when he ended up encased in stone for eternity, she wouldn’t cry, breaking him. She wouldn’t feel anything at all. She could live her life without regret.

He would do anything to save her from a moment’s pain.

“Let’s get you home,” he croaked. “There are things you and your friends need to know.” Forget Hera. Forget vengeance.

Hate had ceased to matter. Life wasn’t about who he killed but about who he loved.

Boom!

An explosion above the cavern shook the walls. Hunks of rock rolled from the ceiling. Dust clotted in the air.

Can’t break down now. Must get Cameo to safety.

Cameo reached out to brace herself against the wall.

He stalked from her without kissing her or shouting obscenities. The hardest thing he’d ever done. Despite the pain that escalated with every move he made, he gathered the go bags. “We can’t stay here.” He couldn’t leave her behind while he scouted the area for a portal. She had no idea how many dangers surrounded them. “Stay directly behind me.”

“Wait,” she called as he marched to the narrow entry.

He stilled, daring to hope she had remembered something about him.

“You never told me your name.”

The fragments of his heart withered. “I’m Lazarus, known to all as Cameo’s man.”





29

“When everything has gone wrong, rejoice. Something must now go right.”

—How to Give Mind-blowing Orgasms

—How Boys Become Men

Siobhan’s glass hung in Hades’s private bedchamber. The bed had a six-foot-tall panel at the footboard, and he’d placed her in the center, giving her a direct view of his mattress while he lounged against a mound of pillows.

She’d beaten at her prison wall until the flesh had ripped from her hands. She’d screamed until her throat had become as raw as ground meat and breathing became an act of sheer torture. Hades had simply peered at her, waiting for her to break and show him different possible futures.

The ultimate staring contest. Who would flinch first?

Well, there was no reason to engage. No reason to help him. She scanned her new surroundings. The spacious room was filled with fine velvets, antique furnishings and mystical artifacts. A bouquet of red roses decorated the nightstand. A glowing blue sword rested on the dresser. A portrait of a pink-haired woman hung over the bed’s headboard—Keeley, the Red Queen. Once Hades’s fiancée.

Why did he have a portrait of his former fiancée? Did he love her still?

Siobhan hated the woman on principal. Loving a man like Hades made you a fool.

“I can do this all day,” Hades said, his voice a silky purr. He looked every inch the pampered male. A bowl made of incandescent dragon glass rested beside him, overflowing with grapes. He tossed a piece of fruit into his mouth and chewed, the movement of his jaw somehow sensual, indecent, even. “Give me what I want. Show me who wins the war and how victory is achieved.”

He wanted an edge over his enemy. She wanted to show him a devastating loss.

Strategize. Lead. Strike.

She had to proceed with caution. Hurting him under the guise of helping him meant hurting herself. If she brought about his death, without finding his true love, she added time to her sentence. If she aided him now, she could maybe, finally, gain her freedom.

Help now, hurt later.

Decision made.

She helped. The first problem arose. Siobhan couldn’t see Hades’s futures. Because I escape and force him to take my place? Fingers crossed!

As glass rippled and split, Hades jolted upright, his fruit forgotten. With no other recourse, she revealed the same futures she’d shown to Cameo. This time, however, Siobhan’s vision launched further into the future. She saw what would happen if Lazarus killed Hera and shuddered.

Demons. So many demons.

In a strange, tangled loop, the past began to blend with the future. Long ago, the former queen of the Greeks made a deal with Lucifer the Destroyer. Help him capture the Morning Star, and Lucifer would do what Hera couldn’t. He would punish her husband, Zeus. She’d agreed to his terms and sneaked a thousand demons from the hell realms...by hiding them inside her own body. She’d planned to release the fiends upon Earth, where the Morning Star roamed, so that they could hunt the being. But the demons hadn’t wanted to leave her. They’d liked their new home. Liked driving her mad. They bonded to her.