The King of Hearts (The Dark Kings Book 9) Read online

  I’d been a pawn my whole life. Was it really outside the realm of possibility?

  Sadly, no.

  Men always used women. At least the men in my life. It was all I’d known. All I’d seen. How could I have been so stupid? How could I have dropped my guard so easily?

  Rose stood. “Well, we’ve done what we came to do and now we really must go. You are still anathema, sister. T’would hurt our future prospects to linger much longer. Adelia.” She said, sniffing and tipping up her nose.

  The plate of food was gone. The tea all gone. Rose had come and she’d taken. If it’d been just Rose who’d said all this, I would never even suffer a moment’s doubt. But when I glanced at Adelia and I spotted the lone tear winding down her right cheek unchecked, I knew she was not lying to me.

  She truly feared for me.

  And for the first time ever I began to fear too.

  If she believed it so deeply, then this must be true. My life was in great peril. Of course, no sane being would keep a woman locked up as he had. Of course, he wouldn’t refuse to tell me or show me who he really was unless he had something to hide.

  Gods, I’d been such a dim-witted fool.

  “Use it, Psyche,” Adelia hissed, “Please.”

  Then she too stood and I knew by her look that I would never see her again in this life. This was goodbye.

  My sisters had nothing to gain from lying to me. They had not come asking me for jewels, or wealth, or power. Of course, they were telling the truth.

  I did not wipe away the tears as they fell, I simply nodded.

  I would not be played for a weak and helpless damsel ever again.

  I was lying in bed when I felt his return.

  The scent of the sky overwhelmed me. I blinked, feeling sick at my soul. I’d waited hours for his return, my mind flipping between incredulity that I could be so naïve, to denial about my sister’s story. How could such a wicked man be so convincingly in love?

  But what did I know of love really?

  “You are more lovely than all the stars in the heavens. Then Aphrodite herself,” he whispered, voice roughened by desire.

  And though my body trembled, yearned for his touch, my heart ached with a pain that felt like I would die from it.

  His hand was on my cheek just a moment later.

  “My Psyche, you are unwell. I can feel it in your soul. What is the matter?”

  He had such an uncanny ability at understanding my moods. He always had. Further proving my sister’s words true. He had to be a sorcerer of some great power to do so.

  I swallowed the thick ball in my throat and shook my head. “I…I feel unwell, Phin.”

  The endearment slipped off my tongue so easily and I wanted to weep. I loved him. With every fiber of my being I loved him. I wanted him to take me into his arms, I wanted him to make love to me. Slowly. Tenderly. With the stars above us and nothing but sky beneath us, as he sometimes would do.

  I wanted to feel his thick and heavy cock slide deep inside of me and I wanted to feel secure in his arms. Loved.

  But I was scared now. Scared of who he really was. Scared because of all the lies, all the secrets.

  I could feel the could cold iron beneath my pillow, burning me, mocking me. Could I actually do it?

  “Do you love me?” I whispered. The words exploded from deep inside my soul.

  I heard his gasp and then… his mouth was on mine. But he wasn’t taking. He was giving. I swear, but I could feel something like the sun sliding down my tongue. I could feel the rush of wind billowing through my body. Touching him was magical. It was… magical… he’d concocted that potion, that terrible potion that’d made me an abomination to all men around me. He’d created a garden full of delights that existed nowhere else on the earth.

  He was a sorcerer.

  He truly was.

  Adelia was right.

  “Something has happened,” he whispered urgently. “I feel you moving away from me. In spirit. In mind. Your heart is so far from me.”

  Laughter that sounded like sobs spilled from me. “You lied to me, Phineas. We are not wed. I am a fallen woman. You’ve betrayed my trust.”

  “No. No.” I felt him move, felt him crawl into bed with me. “We are wed. I promise you.”

  “You lie. My sisters told me the truth. That was no priest who joined us, just a charlatan. Only a priest or a god could truly unite us and since Aphrodite did not, there can only be one truth. We are no—”

  His finger slid over my mouth. His words were rushed, panicked. “I vow to you by the darkness that binds that we are joined. Man and wife.”

  “You are not a god that could do so.” My voice cracked and I couldn’t contain the tears. He’d lied and still he lied.

  “Please, please, my Psy—”

  “No, do not call me that. Tell me who you are. Tell me the truth, right now, Phineas—” I laughed, the sound was high pitched and even slightly deranged, “of course, that’s not even your true name, is it? I know nothing of you. Nothing. Give me one thing. One thing to make me believe in you.”

  “I love you,” he said it softly. Resolutely.

  And it pierced my soul because I still felt its truth, but I now knew I was defective. It was me that believed it, not him. I was so desperately in love with him that every part of me wanted to believe. But I no longer could.

  I closed my eyes. His body soon curled around mine. I wanted to scream at him to leave me. To go away and never come back. That he’d hurt me far worse than my own father ever had.

  But I wanted his touch far more. I was a masochist. I shuddered.

  His arm slipped around mine.

  “I will prove to you how much I love you, Psyche. I will never stop proving that to you. Only let me hold you. Don’t banish me, my darling. I could not walk this life without you. I am so very desperately in love with you.”

  The rattling sobs poured shamefully out of me. He crooned, he rubbed my back, he whispered of his love and devotion to me for many hours. But soon I felt his body grow heavy and I knew that sleep had finally claimed him.

  Though my mind had not quieted.

  Back and forth it’d gone.

  No man would so debase himself as he had if it wasn’t true love.

  But then perhaps he did not want me to leave because he did need me to complete a dark spell.

  For the first time tonight, I willingly touched his body.

  I ran my hand down his arm, heart thumping madly in my chest, waiting to feel the slick slide of scales, but instead feeling nothing but hot, warm flesh.

  How ugly must he be that he would keep himself hidden in shadow as he was? And how vain and shallow must he have believed me to be that he’d always refused to show himself to me? I would have loved him anyway. Looks had never meant much to me. But his heart was turning out to be as ugly as he must outwardly be.

  He’d lied to me. For so long.

  I slid out from under his arm. Anger was now beginning to replace pain. I was just about to get out of the bed when for some reason I reached for the knife. I had no intention of harming him. Ever.

  But I would flee. I would escape, just as Adelia had begged me to. I’d need protection out there. I could not return to father’s palace. I was despoiled now. They would not want me.

  I looked for a robe, and all I could find was a silken black one. A gift he’d given me several weeks ago.

  The silk looked literally threaded through with glints of diamonds. His gifts had always been lavish. Silly. I’d secretly loved them. But now…it hurt.

  Still, I couldn’t find my gown and I didn’t want to rouse him. I just needed to get out of this place. Forever.

  I had just knotted the sash when a light popped into existence in the room.

  I looked up and gasped.

  There was a male in the room. A strange one. Tall, and handsome in a sloppy kind of way. With thick waves of brown hair that fell to his shoulders, he was dressed in a style I’d never seen a male
wear before.

  He grinned. “Ah, so you are the beautiful, Psyche.”

  His voice was mesmerizing and I knew it was no mortal that stood in our room with us now.

  In one hand he held aloft a flickering blue flame. God fire. My eyes widened. I knew that’s what it had to be.

  And if he was holding god fire, then it meant he was a—

  “Dionysus at your service,” he murmured, before bowing deeply.

  Shocked, all I could do was stand there. The knife gripped loosely in my hand. “What…what are you—”

  He stood. “Well, my dear, it is time as they say for the silly boy to learn a most valuable lesson. Lies get you nowhere. You wish to see the monster you’ve mated, no? Then come…this light will reveal all.”

  He tipped the light forward and I gasped as for the first time ever I was able to see a clear outline of a massive body lying in the same bed I’d been in just minutes ago.

  His face was still in shadow.

  My heart raced.

  My palms sweat.

  I nibbled on the corner of my mouth. “I…I can’t.”

  He snorted. “Oh, but you can. You really, really can. And the truth is, you must. There are forces at work here, girl. Fate rests in the balance. Come.”

  The way he said it. How he said it. I could do nothing but obey.

  My feet moved as though with a will all their own. He took my free hand, cupping it and blowing a bit of the god flame into it. I hissed, waiting for it to burn me up. But maybe the god of drunks had spared me that fate, because it did not hurt.

  He beamed broadly. “Wait until they all meet you, little one. You will be more powerful than even you know. It will drive them all mad.” He laughed.

  His words made no sense to me. I blinked, and then suddenly I was turned toward the bed. And I saw him. The beast. My beast. For the first time.

  I gasped, and brought the hand up that’d been clutching the dagger to my face. But that cry alerted him and when he sat up, I knew who it was staring sleepily back at me.

  Golden hair that spilled across his sun-kissed forehead. Eyes so blue they looked like the clouds he loved to fly in.

  And his body…

  “Oh, my gods,” I breathed, realizing that I stared not at a monster but the most beautiful male in all of the cosmos.

  “I know who you are. You are, Eros. God of love.”

  He sucked in a sharp breath, alert where he’d not been just a second ago. He looked at the blue flame in my hand. Then his gaze jumped to the blade in my other hand. And a look I knew would haunt me all the rest of my days flooded his beautiful eyes.

  “Psyche. Why?”

  I was blinded by my tears and I wanted to tell him it was not what he thought. That I was merely taking the knife with me as protection against…well, him. Against the monster my sisters had told me he was.

  My body trembled. Ached. Because I sensed the hand of fate then. “I… I… it is not. I did not. You must believe—”

  “You did not believe me,” he said quietly, and maybe because he did not roar, he did not rage, his words wounded me even worse. “Why would you ever imagine I would now believe you? You tried to murder me?” Tears swam in his eyes.

  I gasped, dropping the blade with a clatter to the marble floor beneath. “No. No! You don’t understand.”

  “God flame?” His face contorted and I knew I was literally seeing a man’s heart shatter before me.

  “My…my love, you don’t understand.”

  “You’ve betrayed me. I…I tried to shield you from her. I tried to keep you safe. I…loved.” He sniffed and shook his head. “Mother’s right, love is a disease. It’s poison. You’re poison. I will never forgive you.”

  And then snow white wings tore out from his back and he looked like a sylph, a beautiful devil with pain and fury burning in his blue eyes. Golden light radiated from within his flesh and I gasped. Hating that in that moment I felt myself becoming even more besotted with him because of his looks. Which made me shallow and vile. I’d loved him before I’d seen him, but now…

  “Please, don’t go!” I begged. “You don’t understand. My sisters they told me horrors. They said you wanted to fatten me up. To use me for your dark and twisted spells. That you wanted to kill—”

  “And yet it was never I that held a blade to you. Was it?”

  I gasped, covering my mouth with my free hand. “It’s not like that.”

  His brows furrowed. “Goodbye, mortal.”

  “NO!” I screamed, rushing to him, holding my arms out, trying to pin him to that bed. It was love. It had been. I’d been seduced by doubt, but it had been only a moment of weakness. “Forgive me, Eros, please!”

  But my angel, was gone.

  And all I could do was scream my pain to the heavens.

  Eros

  I’d betrayed all I was and the only woman who’d ever truly loved me for another who’d planned to murder me. The feeling of guilt and disgust twisted me up inside.

  Broken to my very soul I decided it was time to reveal myself to my mother. To bare my soul and accept whatever punishment she handed out.

  I knelt before her throne.

  She stared down upon me, and I keenly felt the full weight of her displeasure.

  “Look at me,” she said, voice deep and full of disapproval.

  Taking a deep breath, I did look at her.

  She studied me for several long, tense, and silent moments. I wanted to fidget. I wanted to stir. I wanted to scream.

  And dammit, I desperately wanted above all else to find Psyche and cling to her. I hated her. But I loved her.

  I didn’t really hate her.

  I wasn’t sure I ever could.

  “Tell me the truth, my son, and whatever you say now will impact your future consequences. So, I’d advise honesty above all else.”

  Swallowing hard, I nodded once. “I vow it.”

  “What is that you want?”

  I’d confessed my crime to her.

  I could never return to Psyche anymore, even if I wanted to. She was now in mother’s crosshairs and if she knew, for even a moment, that I still desperately ached for my wife’s touch she would kill her. She would hurt her.

  Psyche said she hadn’t wanted to kill me. But to find her leaning over me with that blade in her hand, I couldn’t understand how there could be any other reasonable explanation. I’d given Psyche everything. And she’d shattered me. Ruined me forever.

  But if mother believed that she no longer meant anything to me, then Psyche would fall off her radar. She would simply become another silly mortal. Beneath her notice or time.

  “I wish to never see her again. You were right, mother. Females are meant to be little more than play things. I was beguiled by her beauty for a moment. But that has passed. Though she has opened my eyes to the touch of feminine flesh. And I will not lie to you any longer, I want more of that. I will no longer be denied the taste of a female or several at once. But my heart will never belong to any of them.”

  Her eyes thinned and I knew that I’d given too much away. I’d all but confessed of my deep seated love for the mortal Psyche. And though every inch of my soul cried out to go to her, to settle this terrible thing that’d happened between us, I also knew that loving a mortal was foolishness. I’d seen mother fall in love with two.

  In the end they’d both died and something within her had shattered because of it.

  But then her lips curled into a smile and she nodded. “Very well then, you shall never see her again.”

  My heart clenched, but I could not show any outward displeasure. Even now I found myself wanting to protect her. But she was no longer mine to protect. She had betrayed me. She’d shown no trust in me, even after months of me showering her with nothing but love.

  A nagging voice cried out that I’d never been totally honest with her either. That perhaps I’d been a huge reason for why Psyche had acted as she had.

  I clenched my jaw.

 
Fire and brimstone rushed through my veins. Her sisters. Those damned brats had poisoned her mind. Her heart. It was their fault.

  But again, I knew I was casting for blame. Refusing to accept that I’d played any part in this betrayal.

  Mother knew now, I could not take this back. Psyche had gotten that god flame from someone. Someone here on Olympus. Someone who’d played us all for fools.

  Then mother clapped her hands and where it’d just been her and I in her chambers, now there was a sea of nymphs, all naked. All staring at me with huge, willing smiles.

  “You say you wish to sample the wares of the feminine. Then this is my gift to you, my beloved son. Forget that bitch, she is nothing to us gods. Nothing.”

  And then mother stood and was gone just a second later.

  I did not want to take mother’s gift. I cringed from their touches. Their mouths on me. But then one of them took me in deep and I could not fight how good it felt. The pain within me was so vast. So deep. And some twisted part of me simply wanted to forget that Psyche had ever happened.

  But when they made me come, I felt nothing but hollow and empty inside. I banished them all, knowing they would report back to mother that I’d had them, she would be satisfied that I’d moved on from my queen.

  I cried.

  Present Day, Eros

  * * *

  “For years I searched for Psyche. But mother hid her from me well. Maybe she knew I would one day weaken and try to find her again.”

  I stared hollowly down at the ground, shaking my head. I hadn’t realized how much I’d needed to get my story off my chest, but Heph’s quiet and understanding demeanor had made it all come out.

  “But and correct me if I’m wrong, nephew,” he said softly, “Psyche was of the mortal realm. This would have been hundreds of years ago. She would be dead, my boy.”

  I blinked, shaking my head. “No. I thought so too. Until a few weeks ago I found a note laying on my bed, telling me that what I sought would be found on the sinking isle.”