Free Darkness Avenged (Guardians of Eternity) by Alexandra Ivy

her path. “Wait.”
    Her lips thinned. “For what?”
    “A truce.”
    Her expression was predictably wary. “I beg your pardon?”
    He held up his hands in a gesture of peace. “I will try my best not to be excessively annoying and you will treat me as a partner, not your minion.”
    “You will halt your crude innuendos?”
    “No.”
    “Santiago . . .”
    “I won’t make promises I can’t keep,” he admitted, knowing his gnawing need to break through her ice wouldn’t allow him to back off. “But I do swear that I’ll do everything in my power to track down Gaius.”
    She considered his promise for a long minute. “And your demand that I reveal my private business with the Oracles?”
    “Keep it private.” He grimaced. “I have a horrible premonition I’m going to discover for myself why they’ve decided to meddle after standing on the sidelines during the battle against the Dark Lord.”
    “Someday that tongue of yours is going to get you in deep trouble,” she smoothly warned.
    He snorted. “I’ve been there, done that, and have the scars to prove it.”
    Her dark, piercing gaze studied the bitter twist to his lips. “Is there a reason you don’t learn from your mistakes?”
    “Survival in the pits means never giving ground, even when the result is a beating.”
    “The pits?” A shadow touched her face. “You were a Gladiator?”
    His jaw tightened, the memory of the vampires who’d caged him like an animal and forced him to fight for his life every night searing through his mind. “Not by choice.”
    “I . . . see,” she said softly, and Santiago had a terrible sensation that she did. More than he wanted. “How long were you forced to fight?”
    “Too long,” he said in clipped tones, turning to move down the hallway. “Let’s go.”
    Most females would have retreated in fear as the air thickened with his power. Nefri, of course, wasn’t most females. Without seeming effort she was walking at his side, not bothering to hide her curiosity. “Do you ever talk about those days?”
    “No.”
    “Because they’re too painful?”
    He turned to stab her with an annoyed glare. “Do you ever talk about the reason you retreated behind the Veil?”
    Her pale features were suddenly wiped of all emotion. “Touché.”
     
     
    The dungeons of Styx’s lair
     
    Sally wasn’t sure how much time had passed. An hour? Two?
    Not that she was in any hurry for her irritating guard to return, she assured herself. He might have the finest butt in the Northern Hemisphere, and the sort of eyes that could make some idiotic women melt, but he was as cold as ice and as smugly superior as every other leech.
    Still, she was becoming bored out of her mind stuck in this bleak cell. Not to mention she needed food to replenish her fading strength.
    And, with any luck at all the poor schmuck who was stuck playing babysitter to the nasty witch would be a lesser demon.
    One she could attempt to use her powers on.
    Of course, her luck had been downright shitty over the past few years, so it really shouldn’t have been a surprise when the door to the dungeon opened and she caught the distinctive scent of a powerful male vampire.
    Cold steel and ruthless sensuality.
    So much for a lesser demon.
    Roke was as lethal as they came.
    Crap.
    She halted her pacing near the door of the cell, her heart missing a painful beat as he stepped into view. She told herself that it was fear. What female in her right mind wouldn’t be terrified at the sight of a demon who could kill her between one breath and the next?
    It certainly had nothing to do with the stark male beauty of his perfectly chiseled face, or the haunting mystery of his strange silver eyes.
    No. Nothing at all.
    And to make certain she wouldn’t be so stupid as to forget the beautiful creature was anything but her enemy, Roke approached the door of her cell with a dark scowl. Clearly he’d pissed off Styx and was serving some sort of penance. With her as his