Red Mortal by Deidre Knight

must rest, darling. You’re not feeling well.”
    He gave her a bleary-eyed glance, and then gazed out of the floor-to-ceiling windows on the far side of the room. “It’s almost nightfall. I’ve lost time.”
    She sat up, poised on the edge of the sofa and stared into her beloved’s dark eyes. “My brother came to us. Do you not remember?”
    Leo’s head sank heavily into the pillows. “Bastard. Of course, now I recall.” Then he laughed darkly. “Don’t worry. He’s not made me senile just yet. But he worked dark magic on my body . . . I feel horribly hung over. And that cloak of his has left my shoulders bloody sore.”
    “Let me give you a massage.” She tried to urge him to roll over, but he caught both of her wrists in one hand.
    He leveled her with a serious stare. “We must talk, Daphne. About all your brother’s revelations in the field.”
    “First, let me tend to you. I know that you’re in pain.” She babbled quickly, hoping that Leo wouldn’t ask her the one question he poised next.
    Softly he said, “You knew about Ares’s plans for me?”
    So he did remember everything—including her brother’s statement that she’d kept the truth a secret.
    He kept her wrists in his hands, and for one long moment rubbed his thumbs across the pulse points. “Your heart is racing, I can feel it.” He fixed her with a weighty stare. “Daphne, we’ve never concealed anything from each other before.”
    She sighed, staring at her lap. “I wanted to believe he would change his mind,” she admitted quietly.
    “How long did you know?”
    She closed her eyes, bracing for his reaction. “Months, several.”
    “How many months?” His tone was chilly and he squeezed her wrists in his hands.
    She shook her head, blinking at tears. “I don’t know . . . six or so? Since October.”
    Leo released his hold on her sharply. “Six long months and yet you said nothing?” His ordinarily quiet voice grew even softer, lethally so. His gaze became desperate, beseeching. Looking into his eyes was like staring into a sweltering furnace, knowing fully that if you moved any closer, you might be consumed and turned to ash. “The few times you’ve come to me, you should’ve warned me, given me a fighting chance. Why would you keep Ares’s secret? Why would you betray me this way?”
    “Leo! How can you even say that?” She grasped for his hands, but he yanked them out of her reach.
    He shook his head. “If you’d told me the truth, perhaps I’d have been given an advantage—not been overrun by your foul brother.” The words spilled out of him, harsher than any she’d ever heard him use before. He delivered the accusations without ever raising his voice, which only made them all the more painful.
    She could only look away, feeling as betrayed as he claimed to be. Every choice, every decision regarding Ares had been to safeguard her king.
    With a jerk, she disengaged her body from his, bounding to her feet. She began pacing the hardwood floor, back and forth, agitated. “If you think me capable of such treachery, I can’t imagine how we could ever have a future together.” She strode to the far side of his study, staring out the window at the setting sun. She turned back to face him. “You obviously don’t know my heart if you’d believe me disloyal and deceiving.”
    His dark eyes filled with bleakness, a stark pain she’d never seen in his expression before. He looked up at her suddenly. “Were you protecting him? Was that it?”
    Daphne stared at him, aghast. Speechless. And Leo didn’t rush to fill the silence.
    “I honestly cannot believe that you’d even suggest such a thing. That I’d be in league with Ares or try and . . . that I’d choose him over you.”
    Leo gave a single nod. “I grant that it was a ridiculous accusation. I’m simply trying to understand why you’d have kept the truth from the man you love.”
    “I do love you!” Daphne stifled a sob, wiping her eyes with the