Garden of Serpents (The Demon Queen Trials #3)(46)

I hated how he could read me so easily. He could tell me things about myself I hadn’t even put into words yet. Yes, I wanted to hunt and tear through the wilderness. “Lightbringers born in the dark. I’m not sure I understand.”

He glanced at the sky, and I followed his gaze to Venus. “They say everything began with chaos. Then a light sprang from the darkness, and he was the god Astaroth. Every night, he would return to the shadows, and from the chaos, he’d rise again. They say Astaroth was a fallen god, beautiful as the dawn. His sons were Lucifer and Noctifer—the Lightbringer and the Nightbringer, order and chaos. And Noctifer’s other name is Tammuz. My father.”

“Beautiful as the dawn,” I repeated. “A long day of beating the shit out of people brings out your poetic side.”

“I should probably torture people more often so I’m in top form for the spoken word poetry night I’m starting on Tuesdays.”

“It scares me that I can’t tell if you’re serious.”

The corner of his lips curled. “Scares you, or excites you?”

“Oddly enough, I’m not turned on by brutal violence. Though I have maybe spent more time than I should have looking at the Wikipedia page about medieval torture devices.”

“Of course you have,” he murmured.

“Did you know there was something called the Pear of Anguish?”

“Rowan,” he purred, “are you flirting with me?”

“Orion.” I leaned closer, so our lips were almost touching. “Surely you know that if a succubus were flirting with you, you’d be on your knees between my thighs by now.” The words just seemed to slip out of my mouth before I had the chance to consider them. My heart started to pick up its pace.

His eyes darkened, and his gaze slid slowly down my body, resting at the apex of my thighs. “Well, my Lightbringer, that is quite the image you’ve put in my mind.” He met my eyes again, his gaze molten.

Tension charged the air between us, and I wanted to crawl into his lap so badly, I had to grip the bench to stop myself.

“What?” I asked at last.

“You’re beautiful, that’s all.” His midnight voice wrapped around me.

“Beautiful.” My stomach flipped. “I’m identical to your worst enemy.”

“No, you’re not. You look nothing like her now. The way you hold yourself, your expressions—you’re completely different. The flush on your cheeks when something excites you or angers you. The way you look at me like you actually want to understand me, like you’re trying to see into my soul. How you pull your gaze away every time your heart starts to race. The way you look like you’re overwhelmed sometimes with the responsibility of trying to keep everyone safe, and you retreat into your own thoughts. You are nothing alike.”

I let out a long, slow breath. “I wish you could have realized sooner.”

He winced ever so slightly. “Somewhere, there’s another world where you and I met before my soul died in the dungeon.”

I turned to him, draping my elbow over the side of the bench. “This is going to blow your mind, Orion, but you’re not actually dead.”

His mouth ticked up at the corner. “It’s a metaphor. Soulless. Dead.”

“Hmm. But maybe you’re not soulless. You’ve saved me over and over again, and you created a beautiful memorial, and so far, you only seem marginally psychotic. And that’s mostly because I just saw you wiping blood off your hands.”

He nodded sagely. “I always wondered what regal moniker would stick through the ages. ‘King Orion the Only Marginally Psychotic’ has a certain ring to it.” His eyes sparkled with life, and he reached up, grazing the back of his knuckles lightly along my jawbone. “And what would tell you that I’m salvageable?”

The touch sent a hot thrill over my skin, and I desperately wanted to lean into his hand and close my eyes. “I need to see if you have a merciful side. If you can forgive the mortals.”

He pulled his hand away. “Ah. But if they’re trying to hurt you, love, I will never show mercy. I will make them suffer.”

A sharp coil twisted in my chest. If what he was saying was true and the mortals were trying to break into the city to murder me, this had all become much more complicated.

All of this was starting to feel like a secret I was keeping from Shai, these late-night conversations with Orion. I’d been so certain coming in here that I understood him—that he was all charm and artifice, that I couldn’t trust a word he said. But now, even though everyone kept saying he was trying to kill me, I wasn’t sure of anything at all, except that Orion and I were trying to find our way back to the past.





25





ROWAN





No matter how much we had in common, I still needed to win the trial.

I rose from the bench. “Thanks for telling me about the grimoire. I’m going for a little walk since I won’t be sleeping for a while.”

He stood and peered down at me, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a strange little misshapen piece of wood. “Wait, I have a gift for you.”

My first instinct was to make some kind of a joke—maybe Got wood for me?—but then I realized it was such a strange gesture from him that I should keep my mouth shut until he explained. When I took it from his hand, I saw that it had been whittled roughly in the shape of a woman in a dress with a spiky head. “What is it?”