6

      “Step three: Prove your strength. The more vicious the act the better.”

      —How to Achieve Victory

       Subtitle: Except with Lovers

      Lazarus raced through the Garden of Perpetual Horror, a contingent of soldiers close on his heels. Butterflies led the charge. His own personal yellow brick road.

      He was grateful for their unsolicited aid. The sense of disconcertment had returned with a vengeance.

      One of the guards he’d left with Cameo had sent word of her departure and her intent to begin her search for Viola, the bane of his realm. Leaving without saying goodbye? No!

      For weeks the demon-possessed goddess had plowed through his territories, stealing armor, artifacts and anything else she fancied. Not once had he retaliated. He hadn’t even attempted to stop her, too afraid he would inadvertently harm her and devastate Cameo.

      She owed him, and she would pay. Then they would part.

      His ears twitched as a war cry pierced the air. With the kris firm in his grip, Lazarus quickened his pace. Tree limbs shrank backward, afraid to touch him. Carnivorous insects hid.

      Feminine wails rang out as he soared through the gate.

      He lowered his mental guards to gauge the situation ahead. Amazon warriors had launched a sneak attack, killing his soldier. Cameo remained unharmed.

      Relief poured through him.

      He reached the group and halted. She was surrounded by the enemy, but the Amazons were on their knees, their hands pressed over their ears. And damn, his woman looked good enough to eat. The tiny top and a transparent wrap that revealed the world’s smallest shorts paid proper homage to pert little breasts and a nipped waist. She was a sex dream come to startling life.

      “—a seventy-nine percent chance you’ll be stabbed at some point in your life. Or your death. Whatever,” she was saying. Sorrow wafted from her, creating a cloying perfume. Though she clutched two diamond daggers, she looked depressed enough to kill her opponents...or herself. “Except when you challenge me, of course. Then the odds increase to one hundred percent.”

      Moonlight spilled over her, caressing flawless skin; she glowed, her beauty unnatural, ethereal. Her raven braid added a new level of delicacy to her features.

      Staggering desire and savage hunger gnawed at him. Give me. If the earth began to crumble, he wouldn’t care. He would die with a smile. And a hard-on.

      Now isn’t the time. He attempted to read Cameo’s mind, only to curse when her shield held firm.

      “Live by the sword, die by the sword,” she said.

      The Amazons wailed with more gusto, not realizing Lazarus’s soldiers were taking up posts around them, even though those soldiers moaned and groaned just as loudly.

      “You’re right, sunshine,” he announced. “The Amazons will die. Badly.”

      Not only had they killed a male under his protection, they’d threatened his woman. If he failed to deliver a proper punishment, he would only invite others to break his rules.

      Cameo whipped around to face him. “Lazarus.”

      Her liquid silver irises mesmerized him, holding him captive more surely than Juliette’s forced bond. The hunger sharpened its teeth, devouring his resolve to let her go.

      Keep her. Take your pleasure again and again...

      His mind rebelled—his body ached. He wanted to hate this woman. If he failed to let her go, she would destroy him the way his mother had destroyed his father. Even now, the veins in his legs tingled and warmed.

      Weakness was an insidious beast he could not ignore. Typhon had ignored it, and look where he’d ended up. Bested by his worst enemy, now a cautionary tale.

      “At least you remember me this time.” Oops. His bitterness was showing again. Better moderate his tone. “We’re making progress.”

      Her eyelids narrowed to tiny slits, the thick fan of her lashes making her appear coy and innocent rather than perturbed. “You can leave. The situation is h-handled.”

      Her eyes watered, and her chin trembled.

      Was she about to...cry?

      Will murder that demon.

      Can’t. He couldn’t kill the demon without killing Cameo.

      He should act, anyway. No Cameo, no weakness.

      His fingers twitched on the hilt of the kris.

      Never again experience the bliss of her scent, her kiss? Never again delight in her touch? The prospect horrified him.

      He tore his gaze from her and focused on the Amazons. “Why are you here, inciting my wrath?”

      A black beauty calmed enough to reply, “Queen Nethandra...your marriage proposal...”

      His rage sparked anew.

      “Hold up.” Cameo approached him, her hips swaying. A mating dance. While his men and the Amazons cried out, the sweet muskiness of his woman’s scent enveloped him, testing the bounds of his control. “You proposed to this woman’s queen? When? Tell me! If you got freaky with me while you were engaged to someone else...”

      Was his little ray of sunshine jealous?

      Primal possessiveness nearly burned his control to ash. “I have no betrothed. I merely sent an envoy to inquire of Nethandra’s willingness to join her house to mine.”

      For a split second, relief stamped out her ever-present sorrow, and he had to fight the urge to pound his chest in triumph.

      “Good,” she said with a faux-causal air. “If you’d made me a cheater, I would have had to disembowel you.”

      Adorable. “You think you can defeat me?”

      Her shoulders lifted in a casual shrug. “My usual method clearly wouldn’t work on you,” she said, quiet so no one else would hear her, “but there are more ways to take down a man.”

      “True.” He spoke just