“No,” he bit out and gripped her harder, so hard her bones creaked and ached. “I can’t.”
She stared at him, saw in his eyes that he meant that, and wished it changed everything. Only it didn’t. He might have feelings for her, but he had feelings for Iolanthe too, and she couldn’t be with him knowing he didn’t want only her. It would kill her.
So she teleported.
Meant to go to the nearest portal, her only way of entering Hell since she couldn’t teleport there directly like Hartt could, but only made it a few feet.
Hartt stared wide-eyed at where she had been and then his gaze snapped to her. Relief filled it, his chest heaving in a sigh as he saw she hadn’t gone far.
The only reason she hadn’t left him was because she still wanted answers. She told herself that on repeat as she faced him again, as she tipped her chin up and stared him down, waiting for him to talk.
He sucked down a breath that stretched his wet black knee-length jacket across his chest and exhaled hard.
“Iolanthe is the reason I am an assassin now.” He glanced back over his shoulder in the direction of Underworld. If he meant to leave it at that, he was going to find himself on the receiving end of another burning touch from her, because she wanted the truth. The whole truth. No matter how ugly it was. He sighed again and rubbed a hand over his hair, tousling the wet strands, and then ran his palm down his face. “Millennia ago, our parents decided we should marry. I courted her and thought things were going well… until she left me at the altar on the day of our binding ceremony.”
“Is that a mating thing?” She couldn’t hold back that question, needed to say something so she could ignore the squirming sensation in her stomach, one that made her want to tell him to stop so she could spare herself the pain.
He frowned again. “Mating? No. Iolanthe isn’t my fated one. Kyter is her fated mate.”
But he had loved her anyway, and judging by the look in his eyes, the pain that brewed there, what she had done had hurt him deeply.
“You wanted to marry her.” She wished she hadn’t put that out there, wanted to take it back but he answered before she could do it.
“Yes. I wanted to marry her.”
“Because you love her.” She fought the urge to take another step back or teleport before he could answer that one.
She needn’t have worried, because he dodged the question.
“I left the elf kingdom shortly afterwards, and wandered Hell, looking for a purpose. I met Fuery when I returned to my home to see my family and we ended up in danger.” His breath hitched as pain glittered in his eyes and she refused to feel bad for him. Something which became increasingly difficult as his jaw tensed and he looked as if someone had just ripped his heart out, and that feeling she’d had that he had lost members of his family too swept through her again. “A fallen angel attacked the small hamlet where I grew up, a short distance from a farming village. He used some kind of enchantment to seal the area, stopping us from teleporting, and wiped out the other two families. The bastard butchered them. I tried to convince my parents and brother to leave, that I would distract the fallen angel while they ran for it. My mother was terrified, too scared to move. Before I could convince her, the fallen angel burst into our house.”
She wanted to ask what happened then, but held her tongue, clinging to her mood, refusing to let the tragedy of his past soften her heart. Even when it was. The damned thing betrayed her and turned to mush in her chest as she looked at him, as she saw the pain in his eyes, hurt she felt reflected in her as she thought about her own family and how she had lost them. The two of them weren’t so different after all.
She growled at that.
No. They were different. Vastly different in one aspect at least.
She would never pursue someone else while she was in love with another man.
“I tried to stop him, but he was too strong. He struck me so hard I almost passed out, sent me slamming into the wall. He cut down my father first… and then turned on my