Chapter Nine

NINE

Parisi

"I can force them! I'm the Sovereign—I can make them accept you."

"To what purpose?" Desi, shot me a glare I knew was powered by frustration and denial. "We've had this discussion for so many years I've lost track. The blood moon and I are equally part of Abaddon. I can't remove the relic without releasing the magic it contains, and that would spell doom to the mortals and immortals alike."

"Then leave it there," I begged, kneeling on the bed next to where he lay stretched out, naked and sweating after our bedsport. "I know the other princes would try to attack you without the blood moon to keep them in their places, but if you were in the Court, then I could protect you."

"I can't do that, my love." His eyes, the dark gray that could look so icy, were now liquid, like a stream of quicksilver. "You know it. I know it. I wish our lives were different, but they are not."

"If you could leave the other princes control of the blood moon—" I started to say, but he rolled me over so we were lying on our sides facing each other, one of his legs draped over mine.

"Parisi, there is nothing I would not do for you simply to garner one of your smiles, but what you ask is impossible, and not just because Hath and Wat would destroy the Court trying to get at me, but because now there is a new man petitioning to join Abaddon. He's a dragon named Bael, and he has a talisman of power that he has offered to the other princes should they accept him as the fourth demon lord. I have distrusted him from the time he sought to woo me into naming him prince, and denied his request, but over the centuries he has grown more powerful, and I suspect the Fates have already written his future with Abaddon."

"I can protect you," I repeated, hating the despair that I heard in his words. "The Court can protect you from any number of demon princes."

"Without the blood moon, no one can protect me," Desi answered, his body reassuring despite the situation.

Anger rose in me at his answer, anger and fury and, yes, even a little pettiness as I gazed at the man who held my heart. That he wasn't willing to even try drove me to standing on the bed, ignoring my nudity to glare down at him. "Then I see no future for us. I will not be happy with a few stolen days when we could be living together in harmony. This is it, Desi. I am through with you."

I hopped off the bed and started gathering up my garments, yanking my tunic over my head, but I thought I caught the last edge of an eye roll from Desi.

"Do you not think I'm serious?" I asked, my hands on my hips. "We're through. I never want to see you again. I will continue to thrive and be immensely happy in the Court, and you can skulk back to Abaddon with your tail between your legs."

"I understand how you feel, but there is little I can do about the situation without it ending in destruction of one or both of us—" he started to say, but I was tired of the excuses, tired of the heartache.

Tired of the loneliness.

"Then there is nothing else to say." I continued to dress, unable to keep from admiring Desi's thighs and arse when he rose and donned his linen braies. "Since there is no way forward for us to have a future together, there is no reason for us to ever meet again."

"Parisi," he said on a sigh, taking my chin in his hand and tipping my head back so that his gaze met mine. "Always so quick to make a decision. Sweetling, if there was a way we could be together, do you not think I would move the stars and moon itself?"

Tears burned behind my eyes, but I blinked them away. I was the Sovereign, and a Sovereign never cried.

At least not in front of the man who was breaking her heart.

"We have no future together," I said on a whisper, taking the opportunity to admire his face one last time. "I can't keep living like this."

He said nothing for a few moments, then nodded, and released my chin before turning to the window. I wanted to cry out a protest but gritted my teeth against the words. "You are right, of course. I want more than anything for you to live in happiness and love, so it is only right that you forget me, and fill your life with others who you love."

The wounds struck me like silver-tipped barbs. "Even if it means taking a lover with whom I can spend my life?"

His shoulders jerked, but he didn't turn around to face me. "If that is what would make you happy, then yes."

My sorrow burned hot, and turned into a fury unlike anything I remember feeling. "So you're not willing to fight for us? For what we have? You truly are not the man I thought you were. You're weak, and a coward, and I swear to all the gods and goddesses that I will forget you as soon as possible."

"Live in peace," was all he said, his head bowed as he put a hand against the wall as if to brace himself.

I blinked back even more hot, burning tears and stormed off to return to my own domain, where people behaved in a manner that made sense.

"I will forget him," I growled to myself as I entered the brand-new portal in Bali we'd built to access the Court. "He's nothing to me. Just a very handsome, insanely annoying man, and I refuse to have him in my life any longer."

I sobbed for a week straight.