Lords of the Underworld Bundle (55 page)

“Why do you want them?”

“Duh. Power.” The power of having bargaining chips, but he didn't need to know that.

“I thought we had covered this,” he said, his voice cracking. “You will have nothing to do with the artifacts.”

“Then you should have killed me.” Licking her lips, she stared up at him. As always, he stole her breath. “I've decided I want them really, really bad.”

He uttered a low growl. “No. I think you want to die. You are provoking me on purpose, while I have been giving you time to enjoy the last days of your life.”

“Well, aren't you sweet,” she muttered. Still, she didn't try to push him off her. In fact, she wound her arms around his neck. “I'm just trying to survive, lover. And have a little fun while I'm at it.”

His nostrils flared, as if he'd just remembered something unpleasant. A muscle ticked in his jaw, making his scars all the more prominent. Her mouth watered. She wanted to tongue them. “Aligning yourself with me will not save you.”

Back to that, were they? Damn, tell one little lie and it would haunt you forever. “Why haven't you killed me, then? And don't give me that bullshit about letting me enjoy the last days of my life. You don't let other souls enjoy the last of their days.”

A heavy pause. His expression darkened. “Perhaps I have spared you because you know something, something that can help me find the artifacts and thereby the box. Tell me.”

“If I knew something, I would have gotten to them already, dumbass.”

“Then you are no good to me.” He pulled back slightly and raised his fist as if he meant to strike her.

Over the last week, she'd watched him do this many times. Knew he wasn't going to hit her but reach inside her with a ghostly hand and rip out her spirit, leaving her body a helpless shell.

She should kick herself for taunting him.
I just wanted time with him,
she inwardly whined. Really, it was all she could think about anymore. All that propelled her out of bed. Well, that and his kisses.

“I don't know where the artifacts are,” she said quickly, “but I can teach you more about the temple. How's that?”

He nodded, as if he'd merely been waiting for her to say those words. “Go on.”

Had he just manipulated her? Sneaky devil. And yet, knowing he'd done so only caused her arousal to intensify. Hardly anyone bested her anymore.

She kneaded his shoulders, scratching them a little. He didn't tell her to stop. His breathing became more erratic, shallow. Her gaze dipped, his bare chest entrancing her as his body heat enveloped her.
I could stay like this forever.

“Anya,” he moaned. As her fingers worked him, his eyes closed in surrender.

“What were we talking about?” she asked.

“The…temple,” he said, and the words were pained. “Yes, the temple.”

“I'll tell you a secret about myself and all the gods who have passed through its halls,” she whispered.

“I am listening. Do not stop.”

She deepened the touch, allowing her fingers to inch down his back. Toward his ass. “Most of our powers are dependent on a little something called action and reaction. People act, and we are free to react. To help. Or hurt, for that matter. It's why I couldn't help Maddox and Ashlyn until they'd done something to untie my hands, so to speak.”

Lucien's eyelids cracked open. Pleasure was banked in the depths of brown and blue. “Must be a closely guarded secret, because I did not know.” He paused. “Maddox and Ashlyn each had to sacrifice something to ensure your aid.”

“Yes.” She beamed up at him. “Now you're thinking like a god.”

“So to learn what I wish to know, I, too, must offer a sacrifice.” He nodded, then reached behind him to grab one of her hands. He pulled it forward and laid it on her chest, but he didn't pull back, didn't break the connection. No, he traced each of her fingers.

Warm tingles rushed through her blood.

He was hard. She could feel his massive erection probing between her legs. He wasn't the first man to lie on top of her, but he was certainly the biggest. The sexiest. And the most fascinating. Because of her curse, he was also the first man she'd ever really
wanted
there.

Finally, Themis's words made sense.

Anya had been running home, crying again after an encounter with an overly-handsie young god, and had run into the goddess. Themis had taken one look at her and nearly fallen to the ground in shock. Too preoccupied to determine why, Anya had hurried away. The next day, Themis had arrived on her doorstep.

“You seduced my husband,” she'd heard the goddess of Justice shout to her mother.

Dysnomia had raised her chin and squared her shoulders. But she hadn't uttered a word in her own defense.

“Your daughter is the image of my husband. She is his offspring. Do you deny it?”

“No, I do not deny it.”

Anya had been shocked to her core. She'd always wondered who her father was, and to learn the powerful prison guard Tartarus had sired her both delighted—no longer would she be called
minor
—and angered her. Why had he ignored her all these years?

“You knew he was mated,” Themis cried, “yet you lay with him, anyway. For that, for bearing his bastard child, you will be punished. Justice will be mine.”

Horror blanketed Dysnomia's pretty face, but she said, “I am who I was born to be.”

“That does not excuse you. From this day forward, you will sicken every time you welcome a man into your body, and you will be unable to rise from bed for days. Never again will you steal a man's affections unscathed. So I have said, so it shall be done.”

Whimpering, her mother fell to her knees.

“And you,” Themis said, eyes narrowing on a trembling Anya, who peeked around the corner.

“No!” Dysnomia shouted, trying to rise. “Leave her alone. She is innocent.”

The goddess continued mercilessly. “Innocent? I think not. She is your daughter—that is crime enough. You will one day desire a man, Anarchy, and he will desire you, as well. Nothing will matter except being together. You will not care who he is, what he is or who he belongs to. You'll take him. Just like your mother, you'll take him.”

“And you'll die alone because you're mean and hateful,” Anya spat at her, unable to imagine herself feeling that way about any of the leering gods, much less welcoming another woman's leftovers.

“You will not have the opportunity to follow in your mother's indiscriminate footsteps. To allow a man to penetrate your body is to bind yourself to him for all eternity. You will live for him and only him. His pleasure will be your pleasure. His pain yours. If he discards you and takes another lover, you will feel the agony of his loss but you will not be able to leave him. If he dies, you will never recover from the grief. Your mother's legacy ends today. So I have said, so it shall be done.”

The words themselves had wrapped around her, nearly choking her. They'd seeped past her skin, past her bones and straight into her soul, a fiery brand she had never been able to deny. She'd walked around in a daze for weeks afterward, the dual shocks of learning her father was a mated man and coming to terms with her curse nearly more than she could bear.

As the shock wore away, she'd begun to hate her father for denying her existence, and all men for what they could do to her if she wasn't careful. And she'd been scared, so scared.

When her mother had sent her to combat lessons, hoping to help her protect herself now that so much was at stake, she'd taken them seriously. As her strength had increased, her hatred and fear ebbed. Not her determination to remain alone, however.

In all the days since she had been cursed, she had never been tempted to give a man that much power over her. Losing her freedom when the gods had jailed her in her father's prison had only strengthened that determination.

Until now.

Now she wanted to know the bliss of Lucien's most intimate touch. Inside her. Deep. Pumping. Grinding. She knew she would have wanted those things whether he was mated or not.

Just thinking about having him caused more of that wondrous moisture to pool between her legs, dampening the thin sheath of panties she wore. Her skin felt too tight for her body, and she couldn't stop her thighs from rubbing up and down his.
Freedom,
she reminded herself. There was nothing greater.

The humans she'd chosen to make out with over the years had never been allowed to actually penetrate her. Aias, the Captain of the Immortal Guard, she had kissed and made out with, as well. But when she called a halt to their heavy petting, he'd called her a tease and a whore—oxymoron-spouting bastard—and had pinned her down.

He'd scowled down at her and ripped at her clothes, his own pants. Fear had consumed her. She'd screamed at him, demanded he release her. He'd laughed. She hadn't been able to flash, hadn't yet had the ability since it had come with her father's one and only gift to her. She'd fought with every ounce of strength she possessed and ultimately managed to deliver the death blow, just as she'd been taught.

Anya had never regretted her actions. Not even when she'd been rotting in prison. No one took what belonged to her. No one.

“What are you thinking about?” Lucien asked, his voice husky with…arousal?

Why not tell him the truth? “You. Sex. Theft. Another man.”

“A lover?” he asked, his voice dark now.

Jealous? “Something like that.”

His eyes narrowed.

“Does the thought of me with another man fill you with rage, Flowers?”

“Hell, no,” he barked, tearing from her embrace and standing.

A sense of loss slammed into her. Gingerly she rose. Brushed the dirt from her fishnets.
It's best this way,
she told herself.
You were too close to giving in to a man who may not even desire you. One who definitely wants to kill you.

“Let us return to our previous conversation. Ashlyn had to sacrifice herself to save Maddox,” Lucien said tightly. He strode back into what had once been the altar room, spinning and studying the open space. “What can
I
sacrifice?”

“Lucien,” Strider called. “It's getting close to chow time.”

“I just need a little more time,” he replied. He didn't look away from her. “Anya? Sacrifice?”

“Are you asking if sacrifices were made here?” She'd lost the line of conversation, too troubled by her own unhappy thoughts. “Yes. So?”

“Blood sacrifices?”

“Yes.” Where was he going with this? “When the temple was moved to earth, blood sacrifices were made.”

“And what did the patrons who came to this temple sacrifice, exactly? What did they make bleed?”

Again she allowed her mind to travel back to those days. Even she had been worshipped by mortals then. Everyone ignored the gods these days, writing them off as the stuff of myth and legend. That didn't bother her as it did the others. She liked her anonymity.

“They sacrificed their family members,” she finally answered, stomach knotting. Oh, how she'd hated that. Another reason she was glad the days of old were, well, old. “Mostly innocents were chosen. Virgins. They cut their throats and watched them bleed out.”

Lucien paled. “That is what's expected here? What's needed?”

“Not always. Sometimes blood freely offered by the one in need is more of a sacrifice than killing someone else and would have done the trick, but no one wanted to consider that. They would have had to hurt themselves, and most people would rather chop up a loved one and call it a noble act.”

Some of his color returned. He withdrew a dagger from his boot, the metal whistling as it slid along the leather.

She backed away, palms up and out. “What, you thinking of sacrificing me now?”

“You are neither a virgin nor a loved one,” he muttered.

Teeth grinding, she stopped abruptly, feet planting into the ground. Bastard. He had no idea about the former, and like she really needed the reminder about the latter. Like he'd had to point that out again. “I'm getting a little tired of your insults, Flowers. I've helped you today. I helped you last week. I helped you a month ago.”

He sighed with regret. “You are right. I'm sorry. That was uncalled for, and I will not say such a thing again.”

“Yes, well.” She hadn't expected him to apologize, and that he'd done so threw her off her A game. “What are you—” Her words were cut off as he sliced his left wrist, then his right. Shocked, Anya rushed to him. “You're insane, Lucien. Absolutely insane.” He wasn't going to die, she knew that. Still!

“We shall see.” The wounds were large and gaping.

Her
wrists throbbed in sympathy. She'd once stabbed him, sure, but right now, this moment, she couldn't bear to see him hurt. She grabbed his arm and tugged one of his wrists to her, hoping to stanch the crimson flow with her costume. Some of his blood dripped on her, then the ground.