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When she stops, she glances over her shoulder at the gods and then back to me. “Did the Scryer say anything about Lucien?”
I’m touched she’d be concerned about him. “Only that we have the ability to bring him back. He couldn’t see any future with Lucien, though. And he also said that time is of the essence.”
“So, we have to move quickly?” she asks.
“I don’t know.”
She chews on her lower lip in concentration and starts to turn away. I latch on to her wrist, not caring if the other gods are watching. “Zora.”
Her expression is bland when she looks back at me.
“Let me come home with you,” I ask.
There’s a flash of uncertainty, but she quashes it quickly. “No. I can’t go there anymore with you.”
I don’t try to reel her in closer to me because I don’t want to embarrass her in front of her brethren. If they knew how easily I could get her to submit with the right words or touch, it would lessen her in their esteem, and I’ll never do that to her.
So I try with words alone. “It doesn’t have to be anything more than a fuck. You know I’ll give you what you need.”
Her eyes soften a bit. “I know you could do that for me. But I couldn’t give you what you want in return, and that’s not fair to you.”
“Bullshit,” I hiss, and this time I do pull her closer. Not to touch or kiss her, but to glare at her. “Quit being a fucking coward, Zora.”
And right there… that gets a reaction. Not a softening in her gaze, but rather fear. “It won’t work,” she insists.
“Why not?” I demand.
“Do you love me?”
I’m so caught off guard by her question, I release my hold of her wrist and take a step back.
“Do you?” she demands and steps closer. “I need to know if you love me.”
It all comes down to this: a confession of feelings, and Zora wants the security of knowing if she falls, she won’t be alone. She’s unsure, and I understand that. I’ve personally never felt that level of care toward anyone, so it’s scary to give in to that admission.
But I want her more than anything, and I care for her more than anyone, so I have to be truthful. “Yes. I love you.”
I expect to see relief, followed by joy and possibly in the greatest of worlds, she’d leap into my arms and kiss me before proclaiming the same.
Instead, she shakes her head sadly. “That’s the problem. I don’t love you and I never will.”
In all my millennia of living, nothing has ever hurt me. War injuries, near death more times than I can count, and the loss of Lucien. All things that pinched but never hurt because I’m an immortal who has become immune to sorrow.
But fuck if that doesn’t hit right beneath my breastbone and knock the godsdamn breath out of me. It’s not merely the words—the denial of feeling the way for me that I do for her—but it’s the tone. It’s the absolute certainty in her voice and the way her eyes refuse to look away from mine that makes me believe her.
Rage sizzles in my veins, and I have the urge to destroy something. I think I might go pick a fight with a horde of demons so I can take out my wrath on them.
But before I leave, I make sure I have the last word. “Fuck you, Zora. I’m done.”
I bend distance straight into a dimension founded by ravager Dark Fae where lawlessness is the name of the game. I’ll be able to slake my bloodlust and maybe another type of lust, too, and I can forget all about the god who has chosen to live her life without a heart.
CHAPTER 14
Zora
It’s not thewords that hurt, it’s his expression that does me in. It was devastation I saw before he blinked away and I feel Maddox’s pain so deep in my soul, my lungs compress in on themselves.
I can’t breathe.
