still cared for her. That she couldn’t blame this on someone else.
This was still Archeron. Her Archeron. Twisted and perverted with darkness, but he was still there.
“That fighting spirit is what I liked most about you.” He was so close, she didn’t see him lift his hand until he was already sliding his thumb over the sharp edge of her jaw. Where his fingers would have touched on the other side, a tingle formed, like the lightest silk fabric brushing past. “But there’s a time for stubbornness, Little Mortal, and there’s a time for accepting your fate.”
“Don’t use that name,” she snarled, recoiling from the emotions attached to it.
Happiness had no place here.
“Why? Because you believe a radical faction who’s convinced you that you’re the daughter of the Goddess?”
The disdain in his voice was like a jagged knife slowly worming into her flesh.
“Don’t forget the Shadeling.”
He blinked, and she took a dark satisfaction in the tremor of disgust that soured his expression. “Believe whatever lies you want. If you refuse to become a weapon for Effendier then you are its enemy, and I will use my vast resources to end you.”
The pain engraved into his features as he said this, the familiar caress of his thumb as it stroked gently back and forth over her bottom lip—it was all too much.
I can’t take this. She couldn’t breathe. The shadows seemed to thicken, the air turning to sand in her lungs.
She couldn’t breathe.
Archeron slid his other arm behind her waist, a prickly sensation dancing across the small of her back where his fingers splayed. He might not be able to physically touch her from the other side, but he was doing something. Controlling her body somehow.
The tingling along her chin turned to aching pressure as he tightened his grip, tilted her face up to hold his stare. She could feel his magick building around them. Feel the runes etched into the floor shiver and pulse with growing energy.
Ribbons of pale green magick swirled inside his good eye and darted between the shadows, making the jewels inside his mask twinkle. But his black eye appeared even darker, a hungry pit gobbling the light instead of reflecting it.
“You allowed the Lord of the Netherworld to drink from a Solis under my protection.” There was a cruelty in his voice that unsettled her. “Have you let him drink from you too?”
“Stop.”
“Is that how he keeps you in his thrall? In his bed?” The dark blots on his mask seemed to spread as his rage swelled, roiling outward like a hungry beast of its own. “Are you his whore now?”
“Screw you!” Haven found herself panting with anger to match his own, the words spilling out between furious gulps of air. “I’m no one’s whore. Although I almost became yours once, didn’t I? Is that what this is about? Your ego?”
He jerked as if she’d hit him.
“Your mercenaries killed innocent people. Entire families mutilated beyond recognition, children dragged into the streets. Archeron, please. This isn’t you. It’s the work of a . . . a monster.”
The anger in his eyes shifted to something colder. “A monster? You mean like the thing that slithered out of you? Before he went completely mute, the Asgardian managed to tell me how you smiled as you watched it slaughter his friend. How it was like a demon called up from the Netherworld.”
A shiver skittered through her as she remembered the carnage. The undeniable bloodlust.
His thumb stroked her cheek. “You are just full of surprises, aren’t you? What else are you hiding from me?”
“Why don’t you meet me in the real world and find out?” she snarled.
“Soon,” he promised. “For now, I need you to return and tell your Shade Lord I’m gifting Shadoria two weeks of peace, a little taste of what I can offer for your return to me.”
Despite her panic, she clung to that word.
Return.
That meant he was sending her back—although by the swell of his magick she wouldn’t return unharmed.
“You’re wasting your breath. Stolas will never negotiate with you.”
“Then remind him that no matter how much of yourself you give to him, you belong to me, and I can reach you anywhere. Anytime.”
Bracing herself for the worst, she was surprised when he drew her close to him. It was too comforting, too familiar.
Her heart wobbled as his scent enveloped her—leather and sandalwood. His lips brushed her ear, her body remembering all the times he’d done that before. Remembering how he’d once so very gently kissed her behind