Page 173 of Nightshade

“A villain is quite capable of love. It’s only the matter of what he’s willing to sacrifice for that love which separates him from a good man.”

“And what is your regard for other human life? Besides Lustina.”

Something flickered in his good eye, a shadowy darkness that warned me not to venture too deeply into the man’s morals. “My relationship with this existence is what I would consider symbiotic. While I live everyday with the proclivity to destroy and consume entirely, I also have the desire to remain. I suppose you could say, then, that I am suspended along a thin wire between the two.”

“You told me you were banished to Nightshade. What for?”

Never taking his patchless eye off me, he sighed. “Would you like a drink?”

I’d have loved one, but I intended to keep my wits about me. “No, thank you.”

“You don’t trust me.”

“Why would I trust you, when you refuse to tell me why you’re trapped here. Seems a reasonable enough request of someone intent on impregnating me, don’t you think?”

Ignoring my question again, he pushed up from his chair and strode toward a bar cart situated next to a leather armchair and pedestal table off to the side. A stack of books sat on the table, of which I could only make out a copy of the Bible and Dante’s Inferno.

“Are there more of your kind?” I asked, noting the dog-eared pages in his copy of the Bible.

“Yes.”

“You’re not what we’ve perceived as heavenly angels, then?”

“Not even close. Your heavenly angels have a moral code. They are predictably good in all cases. They will always choose what is right and just, because they put that above all else--even human life.” The sound of an igniting flame drew my attention to where he lit a sugar cube balanced on a spoon over a glass on fire. “I’m far more selfish. I would burn down an entire city for one woman.” The glance he shot back at me was nothing short of unapologetic.

Realization knocked me upside the head. “That’s why you’re here. You burned down Praecepsia. All of it.”

“You asked of my regard for human life.” He shrugged and took a sip of his drink. “Depends on the circumstances.”

I wanted to tell him that he was morally repulsive and wrong for such a thing, but all I could muster was pity and sadness. Not for him, but me. For never having loved something so fiercely. For my inability to understand how someone could be so ridden with pain that he would dare vengeance. Not even my own father was capable of that.

As Jericho crossed the room back toward me, carrying two glasses of a glowing green fluid I guessed to be absinthe, the urge to back away had me pressing myself against the rear of the chair. He set one of the glasses down on the desk and held the other between us, not quite in offering, as he leaned forward. “I can tell you everything. Every secret you’ve ever wondered. Every code you’ve not yet broken. I can fill that brain of yours with more information than you will ever find in the books of your world. So much to learn and so little time.” He lifted the glass higher then and lightly swirled its contents. “All I ask in return is that you trust me.”

What if I did? Was that not the reason, the true reason, that I came to Nightshade in the first place? To seek out this man? To learn why my father had desperately sought him out? The answers. My father had taught me that nothing was as important as discovering one’s true purpose. Was I so selfish to want that? To crave a level of understanding that not even he could achieve?

After a quick glance down at the drink, I narrowed my eyes. “What exactly do you want from me?”

“I want you to stay long enough for me to break the curse.”

“Long enough to break the curse? Last I checked that could easily be five minutes in the bathroom. Wham bam boom. Pregnant.”

The corner of his lip twitched. “I’ve waited centuries for you. I want to savor it.”

“This is …. This is some weird, alien romance kinda crap. Impregnating me? That’s one step down from breeding me.”

He quirked a brow. “Would you prefer that term?”

“No. I don’t prefer any of it.” Hand lodged in my hair, I exhaled a sigh, feeling like Alice, trying to decide whether to take the drink and fall down his dark little rabbit hole. “Look, this is … flattering, I suppose, but I can just barely keep a plant and a cat alive. I’m not ready for a baby.”

“You don’t have a choice. Or time, for that matter. The blood moon is just a few short days from now. And if you think that I’ll let you perish again, you’re wrong.”

Let me perish? “What are you going to do--force me to get pregnant?”

“I will use every method at my disposal to change your mind.” He reached back for his own drink, watching me over the rim of it as he took a sip. “What would your father tell you, if he were standing here now?”

“My father? He actually believed in all this crap, so he’d probably tell me that I was a fool to walk away.”

“Then, don’t be a fool.” The cool, wet surface of the glass pressed against the palm of my hands, and with a small bit of reluctance, I accepted the drink from him. A simple gesture, yet one that felt as if I were signing over my soul. With a push off the desk, he leaned over me and lifted a stray tendril of hair, his gaze momentarily distracted as he toyed with the lock. “Drink,” he said in a voice so ominous and dark, it reminded me of the villain in fairytales, coaxing the young innocent into her own demise.