Page 18 of Infernal

“That’s never going to happen,” I said, panic-stricken. “You’re…you’re crazy. You’re completely crazy and out of your mind!” And apparently,Iwas uber-eloquent.

He narrowed his eyes with curiosity. “You really have no idea, do you?”

I felt my throat tighten at his ominous words. “No idea about what?”

“About how much bigger your world could be. How much better your life could be.”

“My life is just fine,” I lied. My life was a freakin’ disaster, but I wasn’t about to tell him that. “At least, it was until you showed up.”

“You cannot deceive a deceiver, princess. You weren’t meant for this world. You were meant for something much more than all this. And with my blood in your veins, you could have it. You can take your rightful place in the kingdom and rule as you were intended to.”

“Rule? Rule what?” I had no idea what the hell he was talking about, and the rising bile at the back of my throat was telling me I really didn’t want to know.

“The Underworld, of course.”

My mouth dropped open as a new surge of panic rose to the top. This was not the conversation I intended to have with him. Not that I had ever planned on having any conversations with the devil, but this? This was insanity.

“I’m not…I don’t…NO!” Just no. My feet were moving by their own accord, backing me up towards the door.

“I’ve frightened you,” he said as though I hadn’t been one cough away from peeing myself since the moment he ported us here. “You don’t need to be afraid. Not of me. Not of the darkness. It’s innate in you, Daughter, as it is in me,” he said and spread his arms wide. “All you have to do is accept it. Let it in…”

At his words, I could feel a dark energy reaching out to me, slithering over my skin as it searched for a way inside. It was him, I realized. He was doing it. I wasn’t sure how I knew it, but I did. He was beckoning me, calling to something inside of me that knew who he was and wanted to respond.

I slapped my skin as though I could smack the energy away. “Stop it! Stop whatever you’re doing! Get it off of me,” I cried hysterically as I continued to scrub the invisible dark energy from my skin.

He dropped his arms, and the feeling immediately retracted as though he had called it back. I’d seen more than enough. I kicked off the ground and made a run for the door, but he was already in front of it by the time I got there.

“Where are you going?” he asked calmly as I jumped back, startled. “Back to theRevenant?” There was an audible hint of disgust as he said the word. “It displeases me to see my kin consorting with a lesser demon.”

I honestly didn’t give a flying frock what displeased him, but with him standing this close to me and blocking the only exit I had access to, I wasn’t about to tell him that. That was the kind of thing that got people’s tongues clipped.

“It displeaseshimtoo,” he continued as an evil glint flickered through Trace’s pristine blue eyes. “In fact, it daggers his heart to see you two together.”

Guilt immediately sank my heart. “That’s not what I’m doing. He’s my friend. Trace knows that.”

“Does he?” He titled his head to the side again and gazed into the distance as though sifting through a memory bank he had no right to invade. Trace’s memory bank. “That’s not what he believes in his heart. In fact, just the sight of you two together sickens him to no ends.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about! You don’t speak for him!” I shouted, anger taking the wheel again.

“Oh, but I do. I’m the voice that speaks his truth now.” His features dimmed as he craned his head towards me. “Even the truths he was too much of a coward to utter.”

My throat filled with grief at the notion that Trace was keeping his true feelings hidden from me.

“What do you think it did to him to watch hissoulmatebond herself in blood to another man—to a Revenant?” he asked, his words cutting through me like a blade. “Hehatedyou for it.”

The blade twisted deeper inside of me, slashing away at the protective walls I’d built around myself to keep me safe from exactly these words. My legs wanted to give out, to bring me to my knees and beg for his forgiveness.

“I never meant to hurt him,” I said as tears trickled down my face.

I felt the dark energy return, licking over my skin as it swallowed up my agony like nourishment. And this time, I let it, my defenses temporarily weakened by my own grief.

“And yet you did hurt him. Over and over again.” His hand came up and cupped my cheek, and I nuzzled against it, desperate for atonement. “Why do you think that is?” he asked softly as he closed his eyes. He was reading my thoughts then. Reading my entire life story, all with the touch of his hand.

With Trace’s hand.

Because I’m a horrible person,I thought to myself.

“If only it were so simple,” he said as he continued pushing through the layers of secrets I kept hidden inside of me. “There are boundless facets to each of us, Daughter. Every sinner was born of innocence, were they not?”

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