The Darkest Promise

2

“Life is a game, and everyone you meet is an opponent.”

—Becoming the King You Are Meant to Be

—The Fine Art of Decapitation

Between one second and the next, a sense of disconcertment enveloped Lazarus the Cruel and Unusual. He frowned. He wasn’t unfamiliar with the sensation, but he wasn’t well versed, either.

Bottom line, it could mean nothing...or everything.

With a weary sigh, he detangled from two sleeping, clinging forest nymphs and rose from the bed and fastened the pants he’d refused to remove. His legs were not for public viewing. Ever.

Anyone who had the misfortune to glimpse him bare, well, he turned the culprit into stone.

No matter where Lazarus had resided in his life or in death, he’d created a Garden of Perpetual Horror. His own personal stone army. A little like the terra-cotta armies of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China.

The newest garden currently had twenty-three statues, and they were a truly magnificent sight to behold. Each conveyed a different level of pain and panic.

His favorite? The king he’d defeated when he’d seized the Realm of Grimm and Fantica. The male was forever frozen in a position known as the blood-eagle, his body prone, his ribs cut from his spine and snapped backward to resemble wings.

Cruel and unusual. My specialty. Stand in the way of what Lazarus wanted, and suffer.

Cool air stroked him as he donned his shirt. He strapped on the weapons he’d discarded only an hour before. The daggers clinked together, reminding him of the day he allowed a demon-possessed warrior to behead him. The day he escaped the shackles of the sadistic Harpy who’d enslaved him.

The day his life with the dead began.

To be honest, the physical and spirit worlds remained indistinguishable to him. He still breathed, still thirsted and hungered. Still craved the touch of a woman. He could do everything he’d done before...except return to the human world. The same was true for everyone else in the realm.

In fact, there was only one difference between Lazarus and the other dead: a heart still beat inside his chest. He wasn’t sure why he was the sole exception.

On the bed, the nymphs stretched and sat up. Plump breasts bounced, and tousled hair tumbled into place, sunny smiles blooming.

“If you can walk, we obviously need another go at you,” the blonde said with a silky purr.

The redhead beckoned him with a crook of her finger. “How about I pretend you’re a lollipop?”

They had no idea he’d found nothing but disappointment in their arms.

“I have duties,” he replied. Lately, no one could satisfy him. Climaxing had become a frustrating impossibility, even on his own.

At least he never had to wonder why.

He’d found his μονομανία. His obsession. Or, to be more literal, his own personal kink. Long ago his father, Typhon, had warned him about her, whoever she was.

Somewhere out there is a female capable of weakening you. You will crave her with the whole of your being...but every second in her presence will lead you closer to destruction. Kill her. Do not make my mistake and allow your μονομανία to live. Save yourself.

Young Lazarus had listened, rapt, for Typhon had once been the most feared immortal on Earth. With good reason. He’d murdered anyone who’d opposed, offended or questioned him.

Typhon’s μονομανία had been Echidna, a Gorgon. Also Lazarus’s mother.

The Gorgons were a vicious race known for venomous snakes that grew from their scalps and an ability to turn anyone into stone with a simple meeting of eyes. An ability Lazarus had inherited...somewhat. He created his statues through touch.

Echidna had been Sovereign of the Sky Serpents, appropriately dubbed “Sss,” the sound an opponent heard just before he died bloodily. She’d been an aberration among her tribe. Kind, sweet and endearingly shy—with everyone except Typhon. She’d hated him with every fiber of her being. He’d abducted her, continually raped her, and kept her from her only child.

Typhon had hated her right back, but he’d refused to let her go, his sick desire for her overpowering all else.

He’d gotten his in the end, though. Every time he’d neared her, a small portion of his flesh had crystalized. Eventually the crystallization spread to muscles and joints, limiting his range of motion, slowing and weakening him.

Hera the Cuckoldress, queen of the Greeks, had despised Typhon for reasons Lazarus had never learned. When she’d discovered his poor condition, she’d struck at him through his wife, hacking Echidna to pieces as a helpless Typhon was only able to watch.

Young Lazarus had been there, too. Despite his best efforts, he had failed to save his mother. Then Hera had vanished with Typhon and the warrior hadn’t been seen since.

Lazarus curled his fingers around the hilt of the kris. The only dagger he refused to sheathe with leather, preferring to cover the blade with the blood of his enemies. Small barbs lined both sides; after piercing a body, they expanded into hooks, making it impossible to extract the weapon without removing a few organs, too.

One day, Hera would become intimately acquainted with the kris.

Soon after her crimes, she’d been locked inside Tartarus, the immortal prison. One day she would be free, and she would be killed, and she would end up in a spirit realm.

I will find her. His father, too. No longer a child awed by a parent, Lazarus reviled the male. Typhon had committed many crimes against his mother, but rape was a line no one should ever cross.

The pair would join the Garden of Perpetual Horror.

One of the forest nymphs leaned forward to rake her nails down Lazarus’s chest. “Word has spread throughout the kingdom, you seek a bride. Is this true?”

“Very.” He’d found his μονομανία, yes, but soon afterward he’d lost her. Desire for her still boiled in his blood and blistered his bones, and yet he’d made no effort to find her. The last time they were together...

His chest tightened with something akin to fear. The last time they were together, she’d begun to weaken him.

He rubbed a hand against his thigh, caught the motion and inwardly cursed. Along the surface of his skin branched thin, crystalized rivers. Poisoned veins. The beginning of his downfall.

He’d collected ancient texts to research the legends about his father’s familial line, hoping to find a way to save himself. A fruitless task. Anyone who’d ever developed crystal veins—if anyone ever had—had kept quiet, just like Lazarus and Typhon.

Broadcast your weaknesses today, lose your life tomorrow.

So. He would fortify his defenses, instead. He would wed a vicious, bloodthirsty woman with a large army at her disposal. She would strengthen him, never weaken him. And he would ignore his burning desire for his μονομανία all his days, lest he track her down and attempt to convince her to return to his kingdom.

His μονομανία would spell the end of him.

“Come back to bed, and I’ll show you why I’m your best choice,” the nymph offered with a coy smile.

Mind reading was another ability Lazarus possessed, thanks to his mother. His head filled with the other nymph’s thoughts as she considered ways to kill her friend and hide the body.

“I’ll show you better,” she rasped, batting her lashes at him. “Pick me.”

The females tended the roses in the Garden of Perpetual Horror. They were lovers, not fighters, and lacked the necessary malice to be his wife.

He had to be ready for war. One day Hera and his father would end up in the afterlife. Everyone did. The Harpy who’d imprisoned him would end up here as well, and he’d have all of his enemies in one place.

Fighting rage, he gnashed his teeth until he tasted blood. The Harpy. Juliette the Eradicator. A bitch without equal.

“Return to your duties,” he said, and the nymphs pouted.

His stride long and sure, miraculously unimpeded by the damage his μονομανία had done, he opened his mind to search for any hidden dangers that might be awaiting him in the hall as he exited the room.

Two of his soldiers leaped from their posts to follow him.

Lazarus hadn’t learned their names. He preferred to maintain emotional distance and considered affection another form of weakness.

The moment you decide to trust another being, you lose the battle.

He turned the corner and said, “Have any disturbances been reported in the village?” The sense of disconcertment remained. If someone had hurt a person under his care...

No. Wouldn’t happen. No one would dare to raise a hand against one of his people. The consequences were too great. There was no trial, only punishment.

“No, sir.”

“And the sky serpents?” Upon his arrival to the spirit realms, the creatures scented him, abandoned their homes and entered what was—at the time—enemy territory, determined to serve him as they’d once served his mother.

Like him, they dreamed of killing his father.

Rumors claimed Typhon slept the sleep of the dead, but the truth was more complicated. He was entombed by the same crystals now growing inside Lazarus. He wasn’t dead or asleep, but immobile and aware.

“Two of your sky serpents were spotted in the forest a few miles away,” a guard said. “They were playing chase.”

“I wish to speak with them. I want a contingent of soldiers mounted and ready to leave in ten minutes.” Whatever the problem, he would find it. And he would end it.

“Yes, sir. Of course, sir.” The speaker rushed off.

Lazarus soared inside his private bedchamber, leaving the second soldier in the hall. He stripped, showered off the scent of frustration and sex and dressed for war, donning a shirt made of thin, lightweight metal links and black leather pants. The weapons he returned to their rightful places, anchoring semiautomatics under his arms, short swords at his back and daggers at his waist and ankles.

Every piece, including the kris, bore his personal seal—a sky serpent eating its own tail, forming a never-ending circle. An outward sign of his possession and, he supposed, a sign of his station.

A king by force. A drug dealer by choice. A lover by necessity.

Ambrosia grew in the realm, and he used it to his advantage. Since the purple flowers were the only substance capable of intoxicating an immortal, he oh, so generously gifted the rulers of surrounding kingdoms with a weekly shipment, ensuring their dependence—on him.

The women he bedded kept his mind off everything he didn’t have. Revenge, life...his μονομανία.

Lazarus opened a dresser drawer and traced his fingertips over the diamond knuckles and dagger pendant he’d procured for her. A wasted effort, considering he would never see her again.

He remembered the first time he’d seen her. An immortal walks into a bar...

Long raven hair had tumbled down an elegant back, curling at her hips. Eyes of liquid silver had peered at the world with innate sadness, and delicate features had appeared as breakable as glass.

There’d been no lightning bolt to proclaim, Her, she’s the one. Instead, she’d intrigued and interested him. But at only five foot seven, she was too little and delicate for him. He was over seven feet and weighted down with solid muscle.

He’d thought, With a single touch, I can damage her irreparably.

He’d left without saying a word to her.

The second sighting occurred at the Harpy Games, a type of Olympics for the bloodthirstiest women on the planet. His μονομανία had been a spectator, perched in the stands, cheering for a friend. Once again sadness had clung to her like a second skin.

A spark of longing had heated his chest, and he’d thought, I’d like to see her smile. No, I’d like to make her smile.

A strange desire to entertain. Other people had cringed and cried anytime she’d spoken. Why had he come alive? Why had compassion roused inside him for the very first time?

Again he’d walked away without saying a word, and in the ensuing weeks his obsession with her had grown, until the mere thought of her awoke every cell in his body with lust. Even now he hardened painfully, savage need clawing at his insides.

The third and final sighting occurred when she’d used the Paring Rod to enter the spirit realms. Then. That moment. He experienced the lightning strike of primal aggression and possession.

He’d thought, I will have her, whatever the cost.

Her name was Cameo, and she was the keeper of Misery. She was an infamous Lord of the Underworld. One of thirteen warriors who’d stolen Pandora’s box. Or rather, she was a glorious Lady of the Underworld.

A memory teased him, and he couldn’t resist seeing her, even in the fabric of his mind.

“Do you ever laugh?” he’d asked her as they’d headed to his kingdom...where he’d planned to taste every inch of her...feel her wrapped around him, hear her moaning his name.

He’d burned for her. He’d ached.

“I’ve been told I have,” she’d replied, her tragic voice as addictive as any drug.

“You don’t remember?”

“No. Joy isn’t something that sticks.”

He’d wanted to stoke her joy as much as her passions. At the time, he hadn’t cared about the tiny shards of crystal growing over his thighs. Nothing had mattered more than toppling her defenses, getting her inside his home—and him inside her.

Now he cared.

Lazarus’s mind jumped to another conversation they’d had, when he’d begun to make progress with her at long last.

“Have you ever had a boyfriend?” he’d asked.

Those liquid silver eyes had filled with wry humor. The first sign of amusement she’d ever displayed, and he’d rejoiced. I’m getting to her. “I’m thousands of years old,” she’d replied. “What do you think?”

He’d decided to tease her, knowing the expansion of her good humor would displace more of the sorrow. “I think you’re a spinster virgin starving for a little man-meat.”

She’d gone from wry to angry in a split second, all hint of sorrow gone. “I’ve had several boyfriends, and I’m no virgin. And if you call me a slut, I will cut out your tongue.”

“No, you won’t. You want my tongue where it is. Trust me.” Please. A woman’s trust had never been so important to him. “But I’m curious. How many boyfriends?” How many men would he turn to stone for daring to touch what belonged to him?

She’d stiffened. “None of your business.”

Craving another outburst of anger, hoping it would lead to passion of a different sort, he’d said, “Too many to count. Noted. What are you like in bed?”

She’d scowled, revealing her perfect white teeth, and he’d actually trembled as if he were a young lad with his first female. “You will never know.”

He’d never stopped burning for Cameo. Never stopped aching. But now that they were separated by life, death and a thousand different realms, he had new perspective. He’d been a fool, allowing sexual desire to dictate his actions. Nothing mattered more than strength.

A harried knock sounded at the door, breaking into his thoughts. His mind beat him to the exit, ensuring he wasn’t walking into an ambush.

The guard wrung his hands, unwilling to meet Lazarus’s gaze. “The sky serpents... Majesty, we just received word. Someone...” Gulp. “Someone not only injured the two...but came close to killing...”

Rage exploded inside him, but when next he spoke, his voice conveyed only calm. “Where are they?”

“The garden, Majesty. The healer has been summoned.”

Lazarus could have flashed to the garden—moving from one place to another with only a thought—but he liked walking. Liked his ability to move about unimpeded by crystals.

He stalked through the palace, the opulence of stolen treasures and the luxury of hand-carved furnishings whizzing past him. The ceiling was high and tiered, embellished with a frieze that arced across two marble fireplaces. Colorful stained glass glinted in the windows, and elaborate mosaics decorated the floor.

Outside, waning sunlight cast golden rays over a hilly terrain that overflowed with flowers.

What would Cameo think of such lush beauty? Would she smile at last?

Desire joined his rage, seething inside him.

“Majesty.” One of his advisers raced to his side, short legs working overtime to keep up with Lazarus’s swift pace. “Lucifer sent another emissary, demanding an answer to his query.”

Lucifer the Destroyer, known for deriving pleasure from the torment of others, was one of the nine kings of the underworld. He ruled over demons and Greek gods, and he was currently at war with his father, Hades, another king of the underworld.

Weeks ago, Lucifer invited Lazarus to join his alliance. In exchange, he’d vowed to return Cameo to the Realm of Grimm and Fantica.

Lazarus had toyed with the idea of accepting. Cameo...once again within reach...driving him insane with desire...