The Darkest Promise (Lords of the Underworld 13)

Before Cameo had returned to this realm in search of Lazarus, her friend Anya had said, "We don't chase men, we erase. Fine, you can make this one the exception. Just remember to hide your beef. Why buy the cow when you can steal it and eat for free?"

Cameo had replied, "You mean, why buy the pig when you're only going to get a little sausage?"

"Your hands," Lazarus said, drawing her back into the present. Eyes narrowed, body stiff as a board, he clasped her wrists and lifted her hands into the light to study her multitude of blisters. "You fought the sky serpents."

She jerked from his grip. "I protected myself from becoming an all-you-can-eat dinner buffet, if that's what you mean."

Those dark eyes narrowed further. "I vowed to make the person who injured my pets pay a terrible price."

His pets? "You may try." He would soon learn she could take a licking and keep on ticking.

A new chorus of gasps and wails rose from the crowd.

"I don't try, sunshine, I do, and I always keep my word. I said the culprit would pay...but I didn't say how the culprit would pay." He toyed with the ends of her hair. "Since you are my friend, I'll have to think of an appropriate punishment."

She sputtered. "You lay a hand on me, and I'll--"

"Come. I know."

What!

Misery gave her skull another kick. A sharp pain lanced her temple.

Lazarus angled his body, his muscles bunching under his shirt. His eyelids hooded over irises blazing with savage heat, his ferocity sharpening into a double-edged sword. He was almost...intimidating. Scratch that. He was intimidating. Only a true warrior could pull off mesh and leather.

"Sunshine, I know what you sound like, look and feel like when you're experiencing the ultimate pleasure."

Her breath caught, steaming up in her lungs. Her bones softened, and her knees wobbled. Not just pleasure--he'd said ultimate pleasure.

He was lying. He had to be lying. No one had ever given her the slightest bit of pleasure. Unless...

Misery had wiped her memory of the first orgasm she hadn't faked.

The thought destroyed her. Such a loss would be a violation, a rape of her mind.

Lazarus's angry countenance returned in a blink. "What are you doing here, Cameo? Why did you return to the land of the dead?"

Whatever had transpired between them, whatever pleasure she had experienced, the end had clearly been tumultuous.

Should have stayed in Budapest with my friends.

As she backed away from him, Misery lapped up her dismay and whispered conversations drifted from the crowd.

"I bet he kills her...with pleasure."

"How do I sign up for that death?"

Gaze remaining on Cameo, Lazarus said, "Leave us. Now."

It was a softly spoken command, and yet the crowd dispersed in seconds, tables and wares abandoned without question. Soldiers and horses trotted away.

Lazarus was king, his word law and his power unquestioned. He was a god among men. Did he know about Misery? she wondered again. He must, considering he'd read a portion of her mind. Did he want her dead, the way Alex had?

She'd never blamed Alex for his betrayal of her. No, she'd blamed fear.

When she'd escaped the Hunters, she'd gone back to Alex and, while on her knees in supplication, her body bloody and broken, she'd told him about the box. He'd dropped his sword, joined her on the floor, and wrapped his arms around her. She thought he'd begun to understand.

Evil such as yours has to be extinguished, he'd said. Then he'd shouted for the Hunters again. Only then had she accepted the truth. Misery had infected him, and Cameo was to blame.

As she'd fought her way free a second time, a Hunter had stepped forward and said, Come with us willingly or Alexander dies.

Alex had died.

Even now, guilt prodded her, her sense of misery no longer manufactured by the demon. I am no man's prize.

No, you are every man's downfall, Misery said.

She took another step back, her bruised heel landing on a sharp rock. She winced.

Lazarus's gaze dropped to her feet, a scowl pulling at the corners of his mouth. "Your feet. Your feet are bloody. You've been hurt."

The word hurt on his lips was a vile curse. A promise of violence.

"The doing of sky serpents?" he demanded.

Would he punish his pets if it were? "Blame the trek here, and the piece of shit shape-shifter who stole my shoes."

He ran his tongue over his teeth. Planning to harm Rathbone?

Why did he care who did what to her when he clearly hated her?

"Harsh words, darling. Harsh." Rathbone appeared in the distance, prowling around a table. "And after I saved you from a tragic end."

Liar! "I saved myself." She waved a fist at him.

The leopard tsk-tsked, as if she were too stupid to know the difference between salvation and danger.

Lazarus curled a hand around the hilt of a dagger.

Rathbone began to backtrack. "You're clearly in the middle of your lady time. Both of you. I'll return later." In a blink, he was gone.

Cameo envied the ability to flash. Get what you want, and go. "You asked me a question," she said to Lazarus. "Now I'll answer. I'm here because I want answers. I want to know everything that happened between us."

Silent, he bent at the knees and gently but firmly pushed his shoulder into her stomach.

"What--" she began.

He straightened, lifting her, ensuring she remained draped over him.

She was too stunned to protest. The fearsome keeper of Misery was being carted like a sack of potatoes? This was happening? Truly?

"We'll continue our conversation," he said. "Later."

"What are we doing now?" she asked, curious but not frightened.

A pause. Then, "We're picking up where we left off."

As he spoke, a butterfly with wings of scarlet landed on the table with her daggers, and she groaned. Here was another sign of impending doom.

Her relationship with Lazarus wasn't going to end well, was it?

4

"How to win a war in six easy steps. One: Taunt."

--The Fine Art of Decapitation

--How to Achieve Victory

Lazarus marched through the towering front doors opened by the guards he'd stationed there, a shockingly docile Cameo hanging over his shoulder. The last time she'd entered the spirit realms, he'd sensed her and caught her as she'd hurtled to the ground. Why hadn't he sensed her today?

"Did you fall through a portal?" he asked. "Or did you enter the realm another way?"

"The portal," she grumbled. "Landing sucked."

Had he somehow blocked her from his mind, the way she'd blocked him from hers? Or had she blocked him from the start?

Well, he wasn't blocking her now. He could think of nothing and no one but Cameo.

In the spacious entryway, servants stopped cleaning to bow to him...and watch him with wonder. He'd never handled a female so publicly before.

Cameo was more beautiful than he remembered. Silken ebony locks, sterling-silver eyes, ruby-red lips. Her eyes said come closer while her demon said that's close enough. She was his own personal temptress. She enchanted him, and she had no right!

Even now, his legs tingled and burned, the first sign the crystals were expanding.

Did she know how terribly she affected him? Or how greatly she could weaken him, making him easy prey for his enemies? Did she care?

He opened his mind to hers only to bump against her shield. His questions remained unanswered, a familiar frustration seething inside him. Frustration, rage and that ever-present desire.

His hunger for this woman was insatiable, but he couldn't have her. Unless, of course, he abandoned his vengeance against those who had viciously wronged him and accepted an eternity entombed in indestructible crystal.

Never! Why not kill her, here and now? Removing her head would be an act of self-defense.

With the thought

, Lazarus physically recoiled.

Damn her!

"Whoa, big guy." Cameo patted his ass, calm when she should have been hysterical. "Is one hundred and fifteen pounds too much for you?"

Smart-mouthed female.

Was there any better kind?

Patch her up and send her home without ravishing her beautiful body. "Someone is suffering from another convenient bout of memory loss, isn't she?" The words left him with more force than he'd intended. Perhaps he was a wee bit bitter? "She's forgetting about an extra five pounds."