The Dark Ones (The Dark Ones Saga 1)

He nodded.

"Yes."

"Did they tell you all of it?"

"Yes," I lied.

"I can smell the lie on your tongue." His eyes blazed white. "Never lie to me or any of my kind. It's infuriating and insulting to think you could get away with it in the

first place."

Great, that meant he knew I'd been lying at the Gathering.

"Yes," his voice was smug, his smile matching it.

"Please… don't," I whispered.

"Don't?"

"Read me like that… I don't like it."

He studied me for a minute then gave a firm nod. "Fine. I won't pull the strings of your mind in an effort to give you exactly what you want before you even know you want it."

I clenched my teeth together. "What's the rest of the prophecy?"

"Why don't you ask your mate?"

"Because my mate is sleeping."

"Believe me…" Cassius laughed, the sound of it washed over me like he'd just stripped me naked. "The minute I invaded your dreams, he's been trying to wake you up. Sleep? He won't sleep until he knows you haven't touched me."

"If I touch you?"

Cassius's grin turned deadly. "Then I own you. Even in your dreams… you'd be mine regardless of the mating. Though, because you're bonded with Ethan, the desire to touch me lessens considerably, and there is that whole ridiculous issue with stealing you away from him since I can no longer smell you."

"Yet you can invade my thoughts? My dreams when I'm sleeping?"

"Only because I marked you first…" His eyes went white. A soft wind picked up, causing his black-as-night hair to blow across his face. "You think you've already made your choice — but you haven't, not yet."

"You or him." I nodded. "In the end, does it really matter?"

"Of course it does." Cassius said quickly. "Because there was once a human just like you… a human we thought was the one to fix everything and she failed. Care to know why?"

I didn't know how to answer. I wasn't sure if I could trust anything he said.

"She pretended… you see, Genesis. The prophecy specifically says a human will be called — she'll be the beginning of the end, she'll have golden hair…"

I touched my hair self-consciously.

"…eyes so beautiful an immortal could get lost in them."

I hung my head; I wasn't beautiful.

"You are breathtaking, more so than she could have ever hoped to be."

I looked up. "What happened?"

"She wanted too much," Cassius said in a sad voice. "And my hand was forced."