“
Then he was striding toward me. His mesmerizing gaze pinned me in place as he cupped my face. When his lips covered mine, I gasped. He took the opportunity to deepen the kiss, groaning into the contact. His hands tightened on my face. His sexy groans made my toes curl, muddling my thoughts.
Block that out! I was Aric’s wife. I’d wronged him in the past, had consigned him to misery for hundreds—no, thousands—of years. I needed to make this right. Like penance.
There was something vaguely threatening about his words. Misgivings about this arose. Too fast.
“If you have feelings for him, fight them,” Aric commanded me. “By going to him, you’d be stoking them once more. Don’t you understand? He can find another woman—I cannot. If you choose him, you’ll be consigning me to a hellish fate. As you’ve done again and again. No, this will be even worse, because I’ve had a greater glimpse of what I’ll be missing.”
“I just want to talk to him. I’m leaving this weekend,” I said in an unwavering voice.
“No, you will not.” His arrogant demeanor back in place, he said, “Understand me, I’m not surrendering the one woman who was born for me alone. Not to a human, not to anyone.”
“You can’t keep me here against my will any longer. What are you going to do? Put that cuff back on me?”
I held up my hand to stop him. “I understand why you did it. But I won’t be a prisoner anymore.”
He snatched up his shirt, threading his arms into the sleeves. “You say you keep your promises now? You made a vow before gods to be my wife. In this life, you will keep your promises to me—before you ever honor one to him!”
“You can’t stop me from leaving. I have my powers back. I earned my powers back.”
With a cruel curve of his lips, he said, “You promised never to harm me, Empress. Know that you’ll have to kill me before I would ever let you go.”
As he strode out the door, I said, “And know that you’ll have to put that cilice on me to keep me prisoner again.”
He whirled around, fury in his expression. “You refused—twice—to beg me for your own life, but you’d beg for his?”
I whispered, “Yes.”
With a calculating gleam in his eyes, he said, “This isn’t an impossible task you ask of me. I could call in ancient favors, contact old allies. They could be here in mere hours. We’d ride out as one.”
“T-truly?”
“On one condition: you’ll become my wife in truth, mine in every way. Beginning tonight. Comply, and I’ll take on an army for you.”
My lips parted with shock. “How can you do this to me?”
“Deveaux is lost to you in one way or another. He’ll either be slaughtered by the Lovers—or saved by my female, by her sacrifice.” He offered his hand. “Come with me, and begin this.”
“Don’t, Aric! Don’t destroy what I do feel for you.”
“I’ll take”—he seized my hand, yanking me close—“what I can get.”
Despite myself, I shivered from the contact, from his husky voice.
His hold on me was firm, proprietary. Because he believed I was about to become his. The red witch in me whispered, Death thinks he has you at his mercy. But the Empress doesn’t get collared or caged—or controlled. Take his head and pay the Tower.
Shut up! “Please, Aric. I’ll grow to hate you for this. I don’t want to feel that way about you. Never again. Don’t force me to do this.”
“Force?” Unmoved, he led me toward his bedroom. “I’m not forcing you to do anything. Just as you can’t force me to save your lover’s life. We each make sacrifices to get what we want.”
With my heart pounding, I crossed the threshold into his dark world. Black walls, black ceiling, black night beyond his windows. Yet outside I thought I saw . . . a single fluttering snowflake. Like a sign.
”
”