“And you are nothing if not variable,” he agreed solemnly.
I laughed, then leaned forward and brushed a quick kiss across his lips. “Thank you.”
His hands clenched briefly against mine. I had no doubt he was fighting the urge to reach for me and deepen the kiss, because I was fighting the very same battle. “For what?” he said, voice controlled and very, very even.
“For making me laugh when all I want to do is cry.”
A shadow fell over us both and my stomach twisted in sudden fear. I glanced up hurriedly, but it wasn’t an angry Lucian, as I’d half expected. The man was thin, rat-faced, and not a stranger. He was the shifter my father had used previously to courier packages and notes to me. We’d cornered him in the basement of an abandoned apartment building, but he hadn’t provided a great deal of information, thanks to the fact that my father had erased his memory. As had Azriel, once we’d finished questioning him.>Amaya did not appreciate my restraint.
“And here I was thinking you’d do as I ask and not bring your sword into the company of a dark sorceress.” His voice was calm, and there was little fear in his expression. The bastard knew I wouldn’t kill him. That I couldn’t—not in such a cold-blooded manner, anyway.
“Then you don’t know me as well as you thought.” I pressed Amaya’s point to the bridge of his nose. A thin stream of blood trickled from the wound. “I may be many things, Lucian, but I’m not stupid. That’s what meeting Lauren without some form of personal protection would have been.”
“I would have protected you.”
I resisted the urge to let Amaya bite just a little bit deeper. “I think your actions just now show where your true allegiance lies, and it’s certainly not with me. Or even, I’d hazard a guess, with Lauren.”
“You’ve known for some time just how deep the well is when it comes to revenge.” He reached out, but I snapped my head back and his caress hit my arm rather than my cheek. He let his hand drop again, but there was a brief flash of annoyance in his eyes. “I am sorry for the anger. I didn’t mean to harm or frighten you.”
He’d done both. But, more important, he’d shattered the trust I’d had in him.
His reaction had been deep and unthinking. He hadn’t seen me as a lover, or even as a person. I was just some thing that had sidetracked a means of gaining what he wanted.
And he’d hated me for that.
Hated me enough to want to kill me. He might not have meant to, but that would have been the end result if Azriel hadn’t turned up.
Of course, I had no doubt he would have regretted the momentary lapse of sanity, given that both he and everyone else needed me alive to find the damn keys. But regret after the fact wouldn’t have done me a whole lot of good.
“You and I are finished, Lucian.” I stepped back and sheathed Amaya. Her grumbles filled the back of my thoughts, and though the noise had dropped from banshee territory, it was still sharp enough to bring on yet another headache. “I can’t be with someone I can’t trust.”
“Risa, don’t be stupid. I apologized and I meant—”
“It’s not what you meant,” I interrupted testily. “It’s what you did that matters. Damn it, Lucian, I saw the hate.”
“What you saw was not aimed at you.” Perhaps he saw my disbelief, because he added, a little more sarcastically, “There is only one person I actually hate in this room, and he can lower his sword. I really do not intend you harm.”
“I could lower it, true,” Azriel said. “But Valdis rather likes the taste of your flesh.”
“We both know she will bite no further, as her master has no desire to flaunt reaper rules and thereby jeopardize becoming again what he once was.”
“I would not be so sure of that, Aedh.”
“So we’re all just going to stand here like this?” he asked, the sarcasm stronger this time. “That could get a little tedious, don’t you think?”
“What I think,” I said, taking another step away from him, though my retreat wasn’t just physical, “is that Azriel was right. You will lie, cheat, steal, and fuck to get what you want. Nothing and no one else matters—it’s all about you and your endgame. And while I might have been able to forgive the lying, I can’t forgive the attack. I don’t want that sort of violence in my life. Not now, not ever.”
“Risa—”
He reached for me again, but I slapped his hand away.
“No. I mean it, Lucian,” I said, anger and perhaps a touch of regret in my voice. Whatever else he was, he’d been a good lover, and I mourned the loss of that if nothing else. “You and I are finished.”
“As lovers, perhaps, but you will need another sword when it comes to finding the keys. Our last attempt proved that.”
“I would rather fight alone than fight with someone who plays this game for reasons he has not yet fully disclosed,” Azriel commented.
“I don’t believe I asked for your opinion, reaper,” Lucian snapped, then flexed his fingers and added, “I intend to remain part of this quest, Risa.”