Queen Takes Rose (Wicked Villains 6)

Now, I wish I had.

“I didn’t know,” I find myself saying faintly.

“Would it have mattered if you did?”

A comforting lie might work in my favor right now, but I don’t make a habit of untruthfulness. Not with the people I care about. “No.” The die was already cast the moment I chose this territory to make my own. Amelia was a shitty leader, sloppy and far too willing to give in to excess and power. Even if I hadn’t been the one to take her out, someone else would have stepped in before too long. She was an opportunity just waiting to be plucked.

I can’t say that to Aurora. Not now, knowing the woman was her mother.

Aurora lets out a painful laugh. “Yeah, I didn’t think so.”

Several things become clear all at once. “That’s why you made the deal with Hades. For her.” When Amelia was put in the hospital in a coma, no one thought she’d wake up. She’s been medically brain dead since about a week after our fight. I know. I checked. For Aurora to have made a deal that desperate, there could only be one cause. “You’re the one who moved her to a private clinic.”

“Yes.”

I look at her closely, my chest getting strangely heavy. “Is she still alive, Aurora?” If one can call her existence life. It’s been argued either way by medical professionals, but I land on the negative. I went to visit her once before she was moved from the hospital, and the spark that made her Amelia had been extinguished. Only the shell remained.

But Aurora came to me grieving someone close to her.

“No. Not anymore. I made the call before I agreed to this assignation.”

Fuck.

She kept her mother alive for twenty years, sold herself to Hades to do it, and all for nothing. The woman never woke up. She was never going to. Gods, this situation is so fucked. “I’m sorry my actions hurt you.”

At that, she flares to life. “That is the shittiest of apologies. You’re not sorry you hurt her.”

I won’t lie to her, not even in this. “No, I’m not. She was a weak leader, petty and cruel, and if I didn’t take control, someone else would have staged a coup. Everyone looked at her and saw an opportunity.”

“Stop it.”

I lean forward, knowing that she’ll hate me after this but unable to stop. “Why do you think she sent you away, Aurora? Because she knew she wasn’t strong enough to keep you safe. I was in this territory for a month to observe her, and during that time, there wasn’t a vice she met that she didn’t embrace fully. Even her generals were sharpening their knives and eyeing her back. She wouldn’t have lasted the year.”

“Stop it!” She swipes a hand across her face. “It doesn’t excuse what you did, what you took from me.”

“No, I suppose it doesn’t.” I clench my hands to keep from reaching for her. With this new information, it’s easy enough to understand why Aurora said yes to this assignation. The one mystery I could never quite answer, not to my satisfaction. Lust isn’t enough of a driver for her, not when she can fulfill that desire filled with anyone she crooks a finger at in the Underworld. “How were you going to do it?”

She blinks. “What?”

“You came here to get revenge, correct? An eye for an eye is very biblical of you, but I can’t fault the logic. You were going to kill me. Or at least attempt it.” It feels like something is stuck in my throat, something sharp and jagged and far too large. “How were you going to do it?” She hadn’t brought in any weapons; I would have known.

“I hadn’t decided.”

I have no right to feel anger. Her desire for revenge is an honest one, even if it’s against me. In her place, I would have done the same thing, albeit on a faster timeline. Feeling hurt because she got close enough to strike me is ridiculous. Feeling betrayed when this was only ever supposed to be sex…

I am a fool.

I laugh hoarsely. “You have been sleeping next to me for over a week. I have been as helpless as I am capable of being every single night for hours at a time. Why haven’t I woken up with one of my butcher knives embedded in my chest?”

“Stop.”

“No, you answer me. You came here for revenge.” I motion at me, at the room around us. “You have had opportunity after opportunity to strike. Why haven’t you?”

She shoots to her feet, fists clenched. “I hate you!” She stares down at me, turmoil in her big dark eyes. “But I don’t only hate you. It’s more complicated than I expected.”

I don’t only hate you.

Hardly a declaration of caring, let alone something like love. Hardly anything at all. I laugh again. I can’t stop speaking, can’t stop twisting the knife. This was never going to work. I shouldn’t have allowed myself to hope. “Sounds like you lost your nerve.”