The Darkest Kiss (Lords of the Underworld #2)(57)

"Sure?" She cupped her lace-clad breasts. "I'll make you feel good."

Only once since being paired with the demon of Pain had he felt actual pleasure and that was while looking at Danika. The pain of that pleasure had been...addicting. Nothing else would do anymore, it seemed. "I'm sure. Leave me."

The stripper flounced away in a huff.

He scrubbed a hand over his face. Surely there was something he could do to help Danika. The thought of her vibrant life being snuffed out was nearly too much for him to bear. Too painful, even for him.

Perhaps he could petition the gods, ask them to rescind their command for Wrath - Aeron - to kill Danika.

Maybe, he thought, leaning back in his chair, feeling a measure of peace for the first time in weeks. He would need something to bargain with, something they coveted. He didn't know much about the Titans, who hadn't been in power very long. What did they want? And how could he procure it?

AERON CROUCHED IN THE corner of the cell, his body battered and bloodied from his many rages. The pain didn't bother him, though. No, it strengthened him.

Kill, kill, kill.

He had to escape this prison. A prisoner inside my own home. Bloodlust held him in a tight clasp, squeezing, squeezing...so much so that he saw the world in a haze of reds. He couldn't eat without imagining his knife slicing through Danika's neck - then her sister's, her mother's, her grandmother's. He couldn't breathe, sleep or move without imagining it. Kill.

For so long, he'd hoped and prayed he would lose this desire to kill. But every day, the urge grew stronger. His friends no longer visited him except to slip a tray of food into his cell; it was as if they'd written him out of their lives.

Kill, kill, kill. He needed out of this dungeon. Needed to destroy. Then the desire would leave him. He knew it. And oh, he could almost taste those deaths in his mouth. Yes, he needed out.

No more waiting. No more hoping for peace. He'd do what was necessary, what he'd been commanded.

He stared over at the bars. A plan began to take root in his mind. He grinned. Soon...

ANYA COULDN'T BELIEVE LUCIEN had just tried to kill her. Truly kill her, and not in jest. Yeah, she'd known he'd been commanded to do it. Yeah, he'd claimed he meant to see it through. And yeah, he'd even tried before.

But his previous attempts had been halfhearted. This hadn't. He'd meant to slay her. Permanently, no take-backs. If she hadn't flashed from the couch when she had, he would have cleaved her head from her body. And now he was hot on her trail, still determined to take her out.

Hurt and anger flooded her as she flashed from one location to another, each blurring together as she tried to lose him. Today she'd shopped with him and laughed with him. She'd told him about the key. For once he'd seemed to like - and enjoy! - her presence. More than that, he'd promised to take her to the Arctic with him.

And then he'd tried to kill her.

The heat of her anger intensified, and the sharpness of her hurt cut deep. How dare he! She'd been nothing but kind to him.

Well, she thought, eyes narrowing, that was going to change. She was now going to kill him. No more desiring him. No more kissing him and imagining him inside her. Seething, she flashed to her apartment in Switzerland and quickly changed into a tee and black stretch pants that wouldn't easily stain with Lucien's blood, reminding her for years to come of what she'd had to do to him. Flashed to two other places, gathering weapons.

Once she was armored in knives, throwing stars and a Taser, she flashed back to his home in the Cyclades. She wasn't just going to kill him, she was going to have fun electrocuting him before slicing him up like a Christmas ham.

He was gone. Still looking for her, she knew.

He would appear soon enough.

She stood in place, feet apart, hands at her sides. Waiting...eager...

He arrived a split second later. His gorgeously scarred features were devoid of emotion. Seeing him, she remembered something she wanted to do to him and grinned evilly. Payback was going to be a bitch.

"Anya."

Rather than attack him, she flashed to his room in Budapest. She gathered the chains he'd used on her, flashed to that glacier in Antarctica and wrapped them around her waist like a belt.

"Bastard," she said as cold wind cut into her skin. Lucien hadn't known that she was the one immortal no chains could hold, no prison could contain. Thanks to her father, who had gifted her with the All-Key, she could escape any place at any time. She could escape anything - except her curse.

I will not give it up.

To give the key away was to chart the course of your own downfall, as she well knew. Her father had known he would weaken when he gave it to her, but he had done it. To make up for his absence most of her life, to prove he really did love her.

To her horror, he'd quickly begun to crumble. Now, all these years later, he was a shell of his former self. He did not remember who he was, what he'd done throughout his lengthy life, or that he had a wife. He could barely take care of himself. And because Anya had left Themis rotting in prison, Anya's mother had to see to his needs.

Both were happy, though, Anya liked to think. Dysnomia, because she had a man who needed her and didn't revile her. Tartarus, because the prison and his bitch of a wife no longer bound him.

That didn't mean Anya would reduce her father's sacrifice to a bargaining tool in her war with Cronus, losing everything she had gained. If she gave the key away, she would be vulnerable again. Her powers, gone. Her memories, wiped out. Her ability to escape any chain, destroyed.