The Darkest Seduction (Lords of the Underworld 9)

William gave another shrug. “Or that.”

White wings threaded in gold lifted, shook and returned to their place of rest against Zacharel’s back. “And what makes you so sure your Sienna is in there, demon?”

Do not react. “I just am.” Arca, the goddess he had seduced in Cronus’s harem, the one he’d vowed to rescue after ensuring Sienna’s safety, had told him there were only two possible locations for her. If Sienna had been taken to the other, her soul would have withered within days. Therefore, she was here. End of story.

“I’ll provoke the guards,” he said, thinking out loud, “but I won’t enrage them. They’ll cart me inside, planning to lock me up. I’ll free myself before they can, search for Sienna, find her and escape with her. Simple, easy.”

Yeah. Right.

“I’ll stay here and act as lookout.” William nodded, clearly satisfied with the idea. “If you don’t return in, say, the amount of time it takes my conditioner to penetrate my scalp, I’ll go for help.” He snickered. “I said penetrate.”

For freakin’ real. “Knowing you, you’ll forget all about me and head to a salon for a mani-pedi.” More than that, Paris wasn’t sure Zach would have his back—or stab it. “So, guess what? You’re going in with me. Zach will act as lookout.”

“Perhaps you’ve been living in Hungary for so long you’ve forgotten English and didn’t understand what I was saying.” First in French, then in Spanish, then in Russian, he said, “I’m staying here, and that’s final.” William tangled a hand through his indigo mane, frowned when he encountered a snag. Scowling, he whipped out his conditioner, squeezed a few drops onto his fingers and combed the creamy mixture through until he achieved the desired smoothness. “I’m a lover, not a fighter.”

“Guaranteed you stabbed your mother seconds after she birthed you. So do me a solid and strap on your big-girl panties because here’s the deal. If you walk away now, I will follow you for the rest of your days, seducing every woman you desire away from you.”

A heavy pause, rife with fury as cold as the angel’s snow. “Fine,” William eventually muttered. “I’ll go with you, but only because I’m in need of a decent cardio workout.”

Good. Paris had meant every word. He hadn’t come this far to welcome defeat. He would lie, cheat, destroy, whatever it took. Now, and until Sienna was safe.

He did a quick pat down. All of his blades were in their sheaths. A visual check on his guns ensured the safeties were off.

“Bullets won’t kill them, you know,” William said. “They’ll only cause hissy fits.”

“Don’t care.” Bullets would buy him a few seconds, surely, and sometimes that’s all a guy needed to bring home the victory.

William slapped him on the shoulder, sending Sex into rapturous convulsions. “Before we do this, I’ve got one question for you. And you can’t lie. This is too important.”

A bit sick to his stomach at what such a debaucher could want to know, Paris cast his attention to the black-haired, blue-eyed he-devil. “Ask.”

“Are you going to suggest I kiss you for good luck or strength or whatever it is your sex demon needs?”

That earned the warrior a two-fingered salute.

“So that’s a no?” William asked.

Paris worked his jaw. “Here, let me help you off the cliff to the drawbridge.” With no more warning, he shoved William over the ledge. He thought he heard a fading, “So not cool,” from the bastard as he fell…fell…

Splat.

Sex gasped in outrage.

“Not exactly a nice thing to do,” Zacharel said, but there was a gleam in his eyes, one Paris had never seen before. Something akin to amusement.

“What’s your plan?” Paris asked him.

“Only time will tell.”

“You’ll wait here, right?”

“Perhaps.”

All righty, then. With the angel’s cryptic nonanswer ringing in his head, Paris snapped a blade between his teeth and scaled the jagged rocks, down, down, his hands rapidly torn to ribbons. Vines slithered from cracks, stroking over him, attempting to shackle his wrists and ankles. Dangling by one hand, he stopped long enough to slice through the nearest green stalk.

Another soon came at him, and he sliced through it, too. But damn, they were everywhere. One wound around the arm he was using for balance. His heart tripped over itself with dread—and anticipation. He glanced down at the bridge. No other way.

Paris carved into the vine holding him, kicked the rocks with his legs and fell. When he hit bottom, he really hit bottom, jarring the air from his lungs.

Suddenly William loomed over him, scowling, snarling and bloody, his suit dirt-stained and ripped. “Do you know. How many strands. Of hair I lost. On my way down?”

Whatever. “Math was never my thing, but I’m gonna say you lost…a lot.”

Electric-blues glittered with menace. “You are a cruel, sadistic bastard. My hair needs TLC and you…you… Damn you! I’ve gutted men for less.”

“I know. I’ve watched you.” Paris lumbered to his feet and scanned the rocky bank they stood upon, the crimson ocean lapping and bubbling in every direction. The drawbridge was only a fifty-yard dash away. “Don’t kill the messenger, but I’m thinking you should change your dating profile to balding.”

Masculine cheeks went scarlet as the big bad warrior struggled for a comeback.

No more playing. It’s D-Day. Soon, I’ll rescue Sienna, Paris thought. Maybe she would stay with him for a few days. If so, they could make love, over and over again, and for just a little while, he could pretend they had forever.

Or maybe she would leave him immediately. They wouldn’t make love even once, and he would be forced to take someone else just as soon as the door shut behind her.

Who was he kidding? She would definitely leave him. There were too many obstacles between them. His demon. Her demon. The fact that he’d slept with her and then countless others. The fact that he’d inadvertently used her body as a shield, saving himself. Her former occupation. The fact that she’d tricked him into lowering his guard so that she could drug him and allow the Hunters to capture him. The fact that she had watched as he was tortured. The fact that she hated him.

And maybe, once he’d saved her, he would realize she was not the one for him. Maybe he would be the one to leave her. Maybe he would find that he truly couldn’t sleep with her again. That he’d made a mistake.

Maybe. But he was still doing this.

“One of these days you’re going to wake up,” William finally said, “and I will have shaved you. Everywhere.”

“Won’t make a difference. Women will still want me. But you know what else? What I did to you wasn’t cruel, Willy.” He offered the warrior a white-flag grin. A trick. A lie. “This, however, is.”

He grabbed William by the wrist, swung the man around and around before at last releasing him and hurling his body directly onto the bridge. Frayed rope whined, and boards broke beneath his muscled weight.

William lay there, trying to catch his breath and glaring daggers at Paris. On the castle parapets, the gargoyles unleashed a chorus of battle cries.

CHAPTER EIGHT

SHOULD SHE OR SHOULDN’T SHE? Hours had passed since Cronus’s ultimatum and departure, but the same question still rolled through Sienna’s mind. Should she give herself to Galen, perhaps saving her sister, perhaps succumbing to her captor’s deception, or should she continue to resist, possibly causing her sister’s continued torture?

Another question, one far more important: If there was a chance she could save Skye, even the most minute chance, shouldn’t she take it? She’d vowed to do anything, everything, and Galen fell into the category of anything, didn’t he.

Well, hell. There it was, laid bare, with no sugar-coating. The answer was a resounding yes. She’d spent her life searching for Skye. If necessary, she would spend her death searching, too. At least now the blinders were off, and she knew the monster she was to seduce.

In bed. With Galen. She tried not to vomit.

She wished she were stronger, more capable, the outcome assured. She wished the battle for Skye could be waged on her terms, without Cronus there to pull her puppet strings.

And maybe…maybe she could arrange that. If she escaped this hellhole before the king’s return, she could go to the keeper of Hope, torture him for the information she wanted and then kill him, without screwing him.

In theory, that was easy. In reality, it was probably impossible. A bitter laugh—the only kind she had stored inside her lately—escaped, mimicking the sudden chill in the air. She shivered. She’d tried to escape this castle time and time again. While she could open doors and windows that led outside, she couldn’t step or crawl beyond them. Her entire body would shake, pain would lance through her, a thousand needles pricking at her, and she would collapse, pass out.

The pain she didn’t care about. She could endure. But the passing-out thing? There was no way to combat that.

She was curious to know whether or not someone else could pass through. And the good news was, there were three candidates upstairs who could put that question to the test. All she had to do was free them.

Time to pay them another visit, she thought with a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold. And what had caused such a huge drop in the temperature?

Her wings scraped the scarred marble floor as she lumbered down a hall, around a corner and into the wide, spacious ballroom. Her heart sank when the walls fell away and the memories Cronus had plucked from her mind began to play out. At her left, a young Skye began screaming for help. At her right, a horde of Gargl, as she’d heard Cronus call the gargoyles that served as sentries here, dragged a slumped-over but very much awake Paris.

Sienna stopped, a sudden lump growing in her throat. Paris. Her body went hot and cold at the same time, goose bumps spreading over her skin, embers igniting in her veins. Cronus certainly knew how to torment her, didn’t he? He knew exactly what images would drive her mad.