The Darkest Kiss (Lords of the Underworld #2)(43)

"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.