Page 28 of Princess of Death

“Then correct it.”

My heart dropped into free fall and never landed. My balance was compromised, and I was certain that played across my face. My confidence was vanquished, my vulnerability ripped from my soul and put on display.

He didn’t gloat. The corner of his mouth didn’t rise in a smile. “I had every intention of finishing Bahamut’s work when you came to my lands. But I changed my mind after you left—because my desire for you is far greater than my revenge. Take this deal, and I vow to leave your father untouched. Your servitude will pay his debt in full.”

“Servitude…I don’t care for that description.”

He didn’t rephrase it. Didn’t backpedal. Just stared at me.

Wrath had followed me everywhere, had proven to me he had the ability to make good on his word. And I knew it wasn’t a lie to trick me, because my father knew about the island for a reason. If I did this, my father would truly be free of his past. He would do anything for me, sink to the bottom of the ocean with me, and I would do anything for him.

Even this.

“We need concrete terms. I won’t be tricked into a lifetime imprisonment.”

A sharpness entered his gaze, a hint of excitement.

“I will not give you my life or my soul.”

“I asked for neither of those things.”

“But you’ll try to trick me into it, and I won’t be a fool.”

“The God of the Underworld is never misleading. He says what he means and means what he says. My desire for you is purely of the flesh. I wish you no harm, which has been proven beyond a doubt.”

Because he’d saved me from a horrible fate.

“I want you until I’m satisfied.”

“I said that’s too vague.”

“Then I want ten years.”

“Ten years?”

“As I said, time passes differently for me.”

“You want ten years when you don’t even know if we’ll have chemistry, if the sex will even be good?”

His stare hardened on my face, his confidence intensity crackling like flames in a fire. “If I burn for you across the room, imagine the fiery blaze when I can finally touch you. When I can make you mine.”

The heat he described suddenly emerged within me, a gentle flame that I couldn’t blow out. It burned on and on. “Ten years, regardless of how you experience time, is way too long. If I meet someone?—”

“You will not meet someone. This is a binding contract, a commitment between the two of us.”

“Then it definitely can’t be ten years.”

“Then we’re back to my previous suggestion—until I’m satisfied.”

“Six months.”

“No.”

“Anything more than that is unreasonable.”

“You forget you’re paying your father’s debt—an enormous one.”

“One year. And that’s the most I’m willing to offer?—”

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