The Darkest Kiss (Lords of the Underworld #2)(11)

Now, having tasted her, Lucien felt his heart pound in his chest and breath burn in his throat, blistering, sizzling. He experienced the same sensation when he glimpsed his friends Maddox and Ashlyn together, cooing, snuggling close, almost as if they were afraid to let go of each other.

Unexpectedly the fog lifted, at last freeing his mind and body, and he saw that he was still outside. Anya was gone, and his friends were seemingly frozen around him. His eyes narrowed as he reached up and wrapped his fingers around one of the daggers sheathed at his back. What was going on?

"Reyes?" No response. Not even the flicker of an eyelid. "Gideon? Paris?"

Nothing.

There was a movement in the shadows. Lucien withdrew the weapon slowly, waiting...prepared to do what was necessary...even as a thought slid into his mind. Anya could have taken his blades and used them on him, and he wouldn't have known. Wouldn't have cared. He'd been too consumed by her. But she hadn't taken them. Which meant she truly hadn't wanted to harm him.

Why had she approached him? he wondered again.

"Hello, Death," a grave-sounding male said. No one appeared, but the weapon was jerked from Lucien's grip and sent flying to the ground. "Do you know who I am?"

Though Lucien gave no outward reaction, dread slithered through him, devouring everything in its path. He had not heard the voice before, but he knew who it belonged to. Deep down, he knew. "Lord Titan," he said. Not so long ago Lucien would have welcomed acknowledgment from this god. Now he knew better.

Aeron, keeper of Wrath, had received such acknowledgment a month ago. He'd been ordered to kill four human women. Why, the Titans refused to reveal. Aeron had declined the assignment and was now the unwilling guest of the Lords' dungeon, a menace to himself and the world. Bloodlust consumed the warrior every minute of every day.

Lucien hated seeing his friend reduced to such an animal state. Worse, he hated the growing sense of helplessness inside himself, knowing that, as strong as he was, there was nothing he could do. All because of the being materializing before him now.

"To what do I owe this...honor?" he asked.

Fluid as water, Cronus stepped into a beam of amber moonlight. He had thick silver hair and a matching beard. A long linen chimation swathed his tall, thin body, so well-woven it could have been silk. His eyes were dark, fathomless pools.

In his left hand he held the black Scythe of Death, a weapon Lucien would have loved to seize and use on the cruel god, for it could cleave the head from an immortal in only an instant. As Death incarnate, the Scythe should have belonged to him, anyway, but it had disappeared when Cronus was imprisoned. Lucien wondered how Cronus had managed to find it - and if he could find Pandora's box so easily.

"I do not like your tone," the king finally replied, deceptively calm. A timbre Lucien knew well, for he used it himself while trying to keep his emotions under control.

"My apologies." Bastard. Despite the weapon, Cronus did not look powerful enough to have broken free from Tartarus and overthrown the former king, Zeus. But he had. With brutality and cunning, proving beyond any doubt that he was not someone to antagonize.

"You met the wild and elusive Anya." Whisper-soft now, the god's voice drifted through the night, yet it was a lance of power so strong it could have felled an entire army.

Lucien's dread increased a hundredfold. "Yes. I met her."

"You kissed her."

His hands clenched - in headiness at the memory, in fury that the passionate moment had been watched by this hated being. Calm. "Yes."

Cronus glided toward him, as silent as the night. "Somehow she's managed to evade me for many weeks. You, however, she seeks out. Why is that, do you think?"

"I honestly do not know." And he didn't. Her attention to him still made no sense. The ardor of her kiss had been faked, surely. And yet, she'd managed to burn him, body, soul and demon.

"No matter." The god reached him, paused to stare deeply into his eyes. Cronus even smelled of power. "Now you will kill her."

At the proclamation, Death rattled the cage of Lucien's mind, but for once Lucien wasn't sure whether the demon did so in eagerness or resentment. "Kill her?"

"You sound surprised." Finally releasing Lucien's gaze, the god brushed past him as though the conversation was over.

Though it was only the barest of touches, Lucien was knocked backward as if he'd been hit by a car, muscles clenching, lungs flattening. When he righted himself, trying to catch his breath, he wheeled around. Cronus was walking into the darkness, soon to disappear.

"If it pleases you," he called, "may I ask why you want her...dead?"

The god did not turn as he said, "She is Anarchy, trouble to all who encounter her. That should be reason enough. You should thank me for this honor."

Thank him? Lucien popped his jaw to quiet the words longing to burst from his lips. Now, more than before, he wanted to cleave the god's head from his body. He remained in place, though, knowing just how brutal the gods' retribution could be. He, Reyes and Maddox had only just been released from an ancient curse where Reyes had been forced to stab Maddox every night and Lucien had been compelled to escort the fallen warrior's soul to hell.

The death-curse had been heaped upon them by the Greeks after Maddox had inadvertently killed Pandora. How much worse would the Titans' punishment be if Lucien assassinated their king?