Immortal Rider_ Lords of Deliverance Series_ - Larissa Ione [38]
“Thanks for the history lesson,” he muttered. Jesus. How the hell had he gotten himself into this mess? You were thinking with the wrong head, that’s how. Yeah, well, Decker was always saying that his dick was going to get him into trouble someday.
This went beyond trouble and right into FUBAR territory. Especially when a horrifying thought came to him.
“Earlier,” he croaked. “In bed… did things just get worse for me?”
Limos turned bright red. “Ah… yeah… that. No. The damage is done. It doesn’t matter what I—we do now.”
“There is no we.” And why had he even asked that question, if this was just one big Star Trek holodeck scenario?
He turned around, put his hand on the glass pane. The view was gorgeous, but a gilded cage was still a cage. Weird, though, how the last time the demons had tried to trick him like this, the world had been fuzzy, dreamlike. Details had been off. Everything here was crisp and sharp, accurate down to the way Limos smelled like coconuts.
Clearly, a far more competent magician was spinning this trick.
“Arik.” Limos’s hand came down on his back, and though his first instinct was to get away from her, he couldn’t.
“Arik?” she repeated.
“What?”
“I wish none of this had happened.” There was an underlying tremor in her voice, and he almost believed her. Almost.
“Wow. If that was an apology, it’s lame. Are you really sorry?”
“Yes.”
For some reason, her answer pissed him off. “Sorry” was for when you forgot to take out the trash when it was your turn. “Sorry” was for when you bought the wrong kind of wine to go with dinner. “Sorry” did not work when you lost your temper and beat the shit out of your wife and kids. “Sorry” wasn’t enough when you blew your paycheck on booze instead of on food for your family. And “sorry” sure as hell didn’t cut it when you got someone sent to hell to have their skin peeled off.
He wheeled around, snaring her wrist as he backed her against the glass. “You do not get to be sorry. If this isn’t real, you’re just fucking with me. If it is, your sorry isn’t good enough.”
“What can I do to prove it to you?”
“For starters, you can admit that I didn’t force any kiss on you. You can admit you wanted it. You wanted me.”
Her violet eyes grew liquid. And that was how he knew this was bullshit. The real Limos would kick his ass and tell him to go fuck himself. But this one looked as if he’d just plunged a stake into her heart.
“I can’t,” she whispered. “If I do, this was all my fault.”
“Newsflash, My Little Pony, it was.” Releasing her, he stalked away, and then realized he had nowhere to go. He stopped in the middle of the room, but didn’t turn back to her. “Why don’t you just kill me? Am I really worth that much to you?”
“Yeah.” Her voice was a tortured rasp. “Yeah, you are.”
The next sound was that of the door closing.
Ten
Limos stood outside the bedroom door, her heart pounding, her entire body shaking. She’d thought Arik was making progress, but now it was clear that he still didn’t believe he was free of his prison, and she had no idea how to help him. She’d even tried summoning Reaver for help earlier, and when that failed, she’d called out to Harvester. Neither angel came.
Closing her eyes, she let her head fall back against the wall, remembering how disoriented she’d been after Reseph rescued her from Aegis hell. He’d taken her to Ares’s island, and when she couldn’t stand, couldn’t speak or even understand where she was, he’d walked out into the surf and sat down, fully clothed, in the waves. The shock had brought her around, and the whole time, he’d just held her. Reseph had been her anchor, the fven undersbrother who loved her more than anything.
Maybe Arik’s anchor was his sister.
She made a quick call, and within minutes, the doorbell rang.
“Thanks for coming.” Limos ushered Shade and Runa inside, mentally comparing Arik and his sister,