“Your task?” She huffed. “You make it sound as if the sex you will engage in is a sacrifice.”
“My sacrifice is in knowing I might lose you, the woman I love.” He hated the idea of using her words against her, but if it gave them a chance, he would. “Do not forget that sex and lust are not the same as love.”
“The Triad knows I love you. It will not consider that a sacrifice.”
She didn’t say she’d forgive him, but what was left unspoken gave him hope.
His air escaped on a long exhale. “I fully expect to have to offer it another sacrifice.”
“Just one? It will take everything.”
He held her gaze without answering. She was most likely right.
She shook her head. “No. I won’t allow you to make such a foolish deal.”
“You cannot stop me.”
“You cannot enter the heavens unless I open a portal for you, and I refuse.” Minerva closed the distance between them and pressed her palms to his chest. “Your compulsion to avenge the innocent has blinded you. I won’t allow you to make a decision that’ll damn us both in your quest to stop Dagda. There must be another way.”
“There is not.” That truth had tormented him for a century. “And if you won’t open the heavens for me, I will make a deal with Michael, just as you had with Lucifer.”
She froze. A long moment passed while Minerva held his gaze, and he silently beseeched her to agree. He didn’t want to deal with the angel. Michael would demand Arawn’s soul as payment. Maybe not literally, but the price would be just as precious.
“So be it.” She pivoted on her heel, then waved her hand.
The candles that had been knocked over righted. She cupped her hands over her mouth and blew. A whoosh sounded, and the wicks lighted. Thunder cracked next, and the breeze emanating from her carried the scent of rain. A storm cloud formed within the ring. Drops of water fell. Seconds later, lush grass pushed from the hard stone. The rain shower ended, and the wind died.
As if her exhale expelled her darkest emotions, the blackness retreated, leaving her hair silvery and the swirls by her eyes molten. She turned away and hung her head, the tinkling sound of the strands calming the last of the anger hovering around her. “It is done. Reach out to me when you are ready to return, and I will bring you home.”
He closed the distance between them, then laid his hand on her back. She stiffened. He opened his mouth to apologize once more, but he closed it without offering his regret again. He’d already expressed it. It wasn’t enough. There was only one thing left to say.
“I love you, my goddess. Always.”
Her silence answered him.
He waited a moment more, then forced his feet to move. The circle of life she’d opened awaited him. He stepped over the flames, and the wind picked up, molding his loose tunic to his body. The breeze tugged at his very being and yanked him through the portal. Blackness overtook his vision and sounds faded, but her whispered words reached him as his world fell away.
“And I love you, my dark lord. My eternal fidelity is yours. This I vow.”
Chapter Four
The intense, pure light of the heavens blinded Arawn. He squeezed his eyelids shut, the most he dared do in order to counter the pain spreading through his body. Any more would be considered a weakness. None could be shown, not even to the being who knew his every flaw.
“Arawn, Lord of the Underworld, it is about time you came.”
The Triad’s voice surrounded Arawn. He cracked his eyelids, but only the endless expanse of white clouds greeted him. “You’ve been expecting me?”
Why he asked, he didn’t know. The answer seemed important, however. Doubt had hovered in his mind ever since Minerva had first appeared to him. Learning about her deal with Lucifer compounded it. Arawn couldn’t help but feel…played.
“Not played. Led.” The Triad responded to his unspoken thought, proving it could easily read Arawn’s mind.
The deity’s intrusion didn’t anger him. Its words did. Arawn remembered the games among the other gods in the early days of the world. He’d hated it. The isolation of the Underworld had been part of the reason he’d accepted the role he’d been offered. The segregation from the heavens hadn’t offered him peace, however.
He’d entered his eternal hell.
And Minerva saved him from it.
Arawn ground his jaw. “Manipulated, you mean.”
“No. You cannot be controlled. Even the gods have free will.”
“But you can take all my choices away save one, can’t you?”
Silence answered him.
“Well?” He knew better than to argue with the Triad. The tortured look in Minerva’s eyes pushed him to demand the truth.
“You always have two choices, Arawn god of Hell.”
Of course I do. He worked his jaw back and forth. “The right one and the wrong one.”
“Exactly. Which have you chosen?”
Doubt gripped him. Was there another option he’d missed?
“There is not. Approach and make your request. It is the one required of you, and the one you should have made a century ago.”
“First I must ask for a way to save the half-breed children Dagda is creating.”
“Half-breed or not, they are fairies and out of our realm of control. The only way to help them is to stop their father.”
“And the babe Minerva’s handmaiden carries? The child holds the power of the heavens. It cannot be lost.”
“The deal for her soul has already been made. Play the role meant for you, and the babe’s heavenly goodness will be secured until she can be claimed by the one meant to wield her power.”
The finality in the deity’s tone stopped Arawn from pressing for details. He’d learned what he needed to know. There were more lives on the line than just the humans if he failed.
Controlled breaths calmed the rage brewing within him. He leashed the last of his wrath, then nodded.
