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Adrenaline spilled into his blood, riding the waves in his veins. “I can...but I’d be willing to accept your surrender.”
A shrill cry suddenly echoed. He and Keeley looked up in unison as a sphinx flew in circles overhead, dodging clouds with expert precision. The bare-chested creature had the haunches of a lion, the wings of a great bird, and the torso of a woman. A fresh-off-the-pole, looking-to-give-you-the-lap-dance-of-a-lifetime woman.
Come on Little T. You gotta be interested ingetting a little of that.
Nada.
The sphinx bared a mouthful of fangs, spread her claws wide and angled face-first, swooping down, clearly intending to grab a little takeout. Keeley waved a hand through the air and both of the creature’s wings crumpled like a tin can under a stomping foot. Down the sphinx spiraled, crashing into the tops of trees a good distance away.
Well, hell. Keeley could use vast amounts of power to turn anything or anyone into a weapon despite the nearness of the brimstone scars. Good to know.
End this. He kicked out his leg, tripping her while she was distracted. She fell backward and would have tumbled into the pit if he hadn’t grabbed her by the center of her dress and spun her. He quickly released her. She stumbled over a tree root, falling to her ass.
“Still think I’ll lose?” he asked, at last allowing his grin to make an appearance.
When her head snapped up, her eyes—those eyes as cold as ice—narrowed to tiny slits. There was a moment of startling connection, man and woman...a moment of visceral desire before her anger took over. He reeled, even as the thunder started up again and the ground beneath him shook. It was what he’d felt just before the prison had come tumbling down. What he’d felt before the Unspoken One had exploded.
“I warned you about my temper, Torin.”
“Aw. Is the little princess mad because she’s getting spanked?”
The shaking intensified. It came from...her?
Because Princess was getting mad?
“I told you. I’m not some lowly princess!” As Keeley pushed to her feet, wind whipped up around her. One branch after another appeared, slapping at him.
What am I waiting for? Act! He could have fought through the attack and punched her in the head. Unconscious, she would be unable to defend herself, and he could do whatever he wanted with her. Like, say, tie her up and—
Not going there.
But he couldn’t bring himself to hurt her physically. Which was freaking inconceivable! When he’d worked for Zeus, he’d been an equal-opportunity torturer and killer. Nothing had stopped him. Now this?
“This all you got?” he said.
The branches vanished as he and Keeley circled each other.
“Oh, don’t worry.” She scowled at him. “I’ve got more.”
Footsteps sounded from the left and from the right. He didn’t have to look to know the cavalry had arrived, and there was no longer any need to stall.
Keeley turned.
Cameron broke through a line of foliage at one side, and Irish and Winter through a line of foliage at the other. Keeley had focused on the duo, allowing Cameron to do what Torin had not and punch her in the side of the head. She slumped to the ground, her eyes closing. The thunder and shaking ceased.
From zero to max in a single second. That’s how quickly unholy rage boiled inside Torin.
“That wasn’t the plan!” Using all of his considerable strength, he slammed his gloved fist into Cameron’s nose. Cartilage didn’t just snap, it shattered. Blood spurted as the warrior stumbled backward. “You don’t hurt her ever.”
Winter and Irish fronted on Torin, not daring to touch him but glaring daggers.
“What are you complaining about, Sickness?” Winter cracked her knuckles. “We’re the proud new owners of a Curator. It’s what we all wanted.”
“That’s right. What we all wanted. You pussed out, and I swooped in to the rescue,” Cameron snarled back at Torin. “The girl was seconds away from leveling the forest, which is our only source of protection. I did what was necessary.”
Reasonable—but it wasn’t going to save him from Torin’s wrath. As long as Keeley remained on her feet, pain-free and focused on him, the forest and everything in it could fall. And it had nothing to do with his hard-on for her. Or his need to touch her, all of her. Hard at first. Then soft. To pinch and to knead. To discover whether her skin was as cold as it appeared—or if it was white-hot. But because she deserved the right to punish Mari’s killer. Or at least to try.
Torin balled his fist, his rage redoubling.
“Strike my brother again,” Winter said, her quiet tone laced with menace. “See what happens.”
Irish crossed his arms over his massive chest, claws glinting in the light. A silent but deadly challenge.
Anticipation. Eagerness. Can’t engage. Must protect the Red Queen.
“The Curator is off-limits to you,” he said. “To each of you.”
The trio might as well have run their feet through the grass. They were that ready to charge him.
He spread his arms. By now they should know the drill. “What are you going to do about it, huh? Come on. Try something. Please.”
He wouldn’t have to worry about these three becoming carriers. He would touch them, yes, and they would sicken. But afterward, before they could ever come into contact with an innocent, he would kill them.
“You don’t want me as your enemy,” Cameron said, spitting at his feet.
“I see you haven’t gotten the memo.” Torin pegged him with a hard stare. “We’re already enemies.” After what the guy had done to Keeley, that wasn’t going to change. Ever.
Crackling silence.
“She’s a parasite,” Winter said. “She’ll destroy you and everything you love.”
“A chance I’m willing to take,” he said, surprising even himself. What’s happening to me?
“Mistake,” Cameron said. “Big mistake.”
“Won’t be my first.”
“Come on. Let’s go.” Winter pulled her brother away. “He’ll see the truth soon enough.”
Because she planned to make him see?
Irish stood there for a moment longer, rubbing his thumb across his jaw as he considered his options. Then he, too, backed away.
The three disappeared in the foliage.
They would be back, certainly. But they would just receive more of the same.
Torin crouched beside Keeley and carefully eased her to her back. A cut on her temple had left a crimson slash across her brow. The shadows cast by her lashes couldn’t mask the bruise on the sweet rise of her cheek.
Should have killed Cameron while I had the chance. Torin reached out but fisted his fingers before they could brush against Keeley’s delicate skin.
Wearing gloves, remember? Won’t hurt her.
He snorted. The voice of temptation was always oh, so sweet. And this time, it just happened to be right. He could touch her, and he could learn the contours of her exquisite face. He wouldn’t hurt her. Not like this.
An ache flourished in his chest, so strong he couldn’t stop his groan.
But he shouldn’t touch her. He would only want to do it again...and again...until his already-frayed resistance unraveled the rest of the way and like an addict, he went for skin-to-skin contact.
He scanned the area. Trees all around. No real clearing to allow him to see the enemy coming. He would have to—
Keeley kicked out her leg, swiping his feet out from under him. He fell, landing with a hard thump as she rolled with her momentum and ended up in a crouch of her own, right knee and left foot on the ground. One hand braced to hold her weight while the other aimed the crossbow Irish had cut from the tail of a manticore—she must have stolen it—an arrow cocked and ready.
* * *
“WELL, WELL,” KEELEY said. I’m gloating. I shouldn’t gloat. “Our audience is gone, and any potential alliance you had with the three doucheketeers has been severed. I believe I have you in what’s known as a pickle.”
A vein bulged in his forehead, a testament to his rising anger. “Feel free to eat my pickle, princess. Anytime.”
Was that anger directed at her? Or himself?
“Was that a penis joke? And I told you. I’m not a lowly princess.” She’d earned her title the hard way, thank you.
Suddenly, memories she’d locked inside a Time Out box fought for freedom. No! No, no, no. Not here, not now. She needed to concentrate on Torin, on their battle. But...it was too late, the tide too powerful. The past spilled forth and consumed her.
During her sixteenth summer, she attended a royal gala. Like every other girl in attendance, she spent the majority of her time drooling over the prince of the Curators. He flirted with her, even asked her to dance—which was when his father, the king, took notice of her.
Because she was an innocent of the upper class, the king was unable to have her without wedding her. Rules were rules, even for royalty. So he did it. He killed his current spouse and wed Keeley. Despite the fact that she refused his proposal.
But then the choice had never really been hers. What King Mandriael wanted, he received. Always. Might equaled right, and he’d been the strongest among them. Not by fate, but by force. All Curators were given a small ward at birth—except the king. That way the citizens were never stronger than their ruler.
Forcing her to say her vows had been so easy for him. A simple bolt of his power, paining her, and she’d blurted out a desperate “Yes!”
For years he’d controlled her every action, punishing her whenever she displeased him. She would have given anything to leave him, to sneak away and never return, but on the day of their wedding, a bond had formed between them. She’d hated him, but still she’d needed him.
And for all my suffering, I was not crowned queen during his rule. He’d refused. He’d also killed his heirs, including the handsome prince, so that no one would have any claim to his throne.
Against Mandriael’s knowledge, Keeley had taken measures to prevent pregnancy—her one rebellion; none of the slain children had been hers.
No, her title had come after the king stripped her nude and whipped her. In public. For daring to look him in the eye while speaking to him. Agonized and bloody, desperate, she’d cut away her ward—just wanted a taste of power. But an ocean of energy had filled her up and exploded from her—exploding the king.
Got what he deserved.
Mere hours after her coronation, however, the people she’d planned to liberate had revolted.
Queen for less than a day.
They’d ambushed her, swarming into the throne room to surround her on the royal dais. No one had carried a weapon. But then, they hadn’t needed swords and daggers, not anymore. They, too, had removed their wards and their power had battered against her, a maelstrom. But hers had still been greater, so much greater, and she’d catapulted them into the air, all at once, without any real effort.
There had been whispers among the Curators, claims the king had quashed. Some were supposedly born with the ability to not only wield the energy around them but to connect with it, manipulate it, even control it and stop others from using it. Those claims—prophecies—were written in a book that had vanished decades before, either stolen or destroyed.
She’d wondered if she could do those things...even as her people had hurtled hate-filled obscenities and threats.
You’re nothing but a whore!
You can’t keep us here forever. The moment we’re down, you’re dead.
I will dance in your blood!
Rage had brewed inside her, at last seeping out. A violent storm had risen outside, crushing everything in its path, even the palace. The Curators remained in the air, battered by ice, water and debris. But not Keeley. She’d remained untouched, unharmed. Villagers had stopped racing for cover to stare in horror as, one by one, the entire upper class burst into grisly pieces.
She’d feared hurting others, innocents, and decided there was no other recourse but to run. The villagers followed her, determined to end her and save themselves from a similar fate.
She’d spent weeks in the jungle, hiding, on her own for the first time in her miserable existence, scavenging with no real results, doing her best to survive—failing. That’s when Hades found her.
A life could change in a single heartbeat.
The entire world could change in a single heartbeat.
Hades was the dark prince she’d considered too handsome to resist, realizing too late he’d drugged her at every meal in an effort to keep her mind fogged so that her every decision could be easily manipulated. He hadn’t known the drugs were unnecessary, that she’d been as starved for affection as she’d been for food.
Oh, how that galled! What easy pickings she’d been. Desperate to hold on to him and make him happy. Only to be betrayed. Blindly believing everything he said. Willing to do anything he asked.
Never again! She’d learned her lesson. Decisions should never be based on emotion. Only logic. Otherwise mistakes were made.
And I’ve made a huge mistake with Torin, she realized. She’d hesitated to render the deathblow simply because he had a pretty face and made her insides sing with pleasure.
“Keeley,” he said, snapping his fingers in front of her face.
She blinked into focus, barking, “What?”
He smiled at her, his emerald eyes twinkling. He picked up the conversation as if it had never lagged. “Think of my pickle comment as an invitation. And you don’t want to hurt my feelings by refusing, do you? I think I read somewhere that royalty is bound by stricter forms of etiquette than us regular folks.”
How did he make her want to smile back at him rather than attack him? And why hadn’t he disarmed her and killed her while she’d been lost in her head? “This queen is going to refuse, etiquette be damned. She would prefer not to eat a pickle that comes with a side of typhoid.”
The sparkle faded, and she actually mourned its loss.
“Or does it come with a little black plague?” she forced herself to continue. “No? How about botulism? Lassa fever? Am I getting close?”
“Oh, you’re getting close all right,” he said. “To a smackdown you’ll never forget.”
“We both know the only one getting a smackdown today is you.”
“Talk, talk, talk.” He batted her arm out of the way, then grabbed her by the neck at the same time he hooked his leg behind her ankles, tripping her.
As she fell, she twisted to catch herself. But the next thing she knew, she was face-first in the dirt, gasping for breath, her arms locked behind her back.
A beat of stunned silence as she regained her bearings...and realized his hard body was pressed against her. She fought the decadence of the new position. No. The humiliation of the position.
