Cruel Beauty(49)

On the last words his voice grew soft and bitter. Before today, I had never seen him this serious, and it made me feel like the ground was wavering beneath me.

I leaned forward, showing my teeth. “Do you fancy yourself Prometheus, then? Will you throw me in a jar to save the world?”

“I’m the demon lord, remember?” He brushed hair out of my face, making me flinch back. “I wouldn’t kill you for half so good a reason. But you have to admit you are quite a Pandora, albeit with less selfish motives. Just last night you opened a jar of your own.”

For a heartbeat I could feel the shadows bubbling through my skin, though I sat safe in sunlight.

“Yes, and how did those demons get behind that door?” I demanded. “Or behind the sky and out into our world, if they’re all locked away with Pandora.”

“Did I say ‘all’? Zeus let one or two remain outside, to further humble the race of men.”

“One or two?”

“Or three, or four, or ten thousand. But not enough to destroy mankind, so Pandora’s doom did achieve something.”

I rubbed my arms and looked away at the horizon. “The darkness eating you last night. It was different.”

“Oh, me, I just don’t like the dark.”

“You—” I accidentally glanced at him and looked straight into his eyes. I remembered the fear in those eyes as he said, Please, and I jerked my head away, throat clenched.

“What? Do you think I almost died? I will have you know, I am not so easy to kill as that.” I was staring at the grass, but I heard him shift. “Or do you think that was the first time I ever got caught by the darkness?”

“No,” I muttered, though I had not thought about it before.

“And don’t tell me you’re sorry, because that would make you a very pitiful assassin.”

“I’m not an assassin!” My head snapped up and I saw that he was kneeling right beside me.

“Oh. I’m sorry. That would make you a very pitiful saboteur who carries a knife for nonviolent purposes.” His crimson cat eyes were laughing at me.

I smiled. “Then it’s just as well that I’m not sorry. I wish I’d left you longer.”

“Well, that’s a pity.” He leaned toward me. His collarbone was damp, and I realized suddenly that my dress still clung to me in pale, damp folds. “Because I had just been thinking of ways you could make it up to me.”

He touched my chin with a finger. The air was still and hot in my throat.

Abruptly his hand dipped down to pull the key out of my bodice. He twirled it as he sat back, laughing, then hung it on one of the belt strapped across his chest.

“You—” I choked out. Then I lunged at his throat.

He blocked me easily with one arm, but we both tumbled over; he landed on his back with me on top of him.

“You see?” he said. “Not at all a good assassin.”

“Shut up,” I snarled, and stopped his mouth with a kiss.

I stunned him for only a moment; then he locked his arms around me and kissed me back as fiercely as the sunlight beating down on my back, and for a few minutes we said nothing at all. I didn’t know why I had ever felt that he could dissolve or unmake me; this kiss felt like coming alive, and I was helpless only in the way that I was helpless to stop my heart from beating.

Finally I let him go.. We still lay side by side, only a breath apart; his right hand was under my head, and his left hand embraced my shoulder. It was not unlike the lazy mornings when I refused to get out of bed. I knew that he was the enemy of me, my house, and my whole world; I knew that he would likely have no mercy for me and I must certainly have none for him. And I was prepared to rise and fight him, but not yet. Not just yet.

Surely I could lie in his embrace another moment, listening to his steady breathing, my own heart racing on ahead. Surely I could drowse a little longer in this sunlit dream of happiness where I felt loved and safe.

He traced a finger through my hair. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a wife with hair this long and dark. You won’t need to be ashamed when you are laid out with the others.”

But dreams, of course, always ended.

I shoved away his hand and sat up. “Don’t count your trophies before they’re dead.”

He sat up as well. “And here I thought I was giving you a compliment.”

“Is that why you take wives? So they’ll look pretty, all laid out in a row?”

He looked away. “I take them on the order of my masters,” he said flatly. “They want to be sure I know that nobody can ever guess my name.”

The honesty of the words made my breath stutter. I looked at the ground, not wanting to see him in a moment when I might pity him, and then I finally noticed it: a silent whisper of a heartbeat, sensed instead of heard. It hummed in the ground, rippled through the air, and I realized—