Her cheeks burned. She knew full well her culpability, but to see it played out before her in these garish shadows felt like swallowing molten lead.

“I will undo it all,” she said, tipping up her chin.

The Dark One snapped his fingers, and the scenes vanished. “The fight against me is impossible.”

“I defeated you once before.”

He scowled, but he smoothed out his expression to elegant blandness. “It was a mere temporary holding. No one can truly best me. Certainly not some Roman sorceress and her pack of dissolute rakes.”

“If you have brought me to this place simply to taunt me,” she answered, “then your efforts are wasted. I’ll not give up. Nothing you say or do will alter my resolve.” She moved to leave.

“I could offer you more,” he said, smooth as a polished gem.

She turned back, wary. “More?”

He was all consideration, his smile convivial. “Power, of course.”

“I already have power.” She lifted her hands, and shimmering magic surrounded her.

The Dark One scoffed. “Parlor tricks and mountebanks’ artifice. That is not true power. A single snap of my fingers, and I could give you magic far beyond your reckoning. The means to reign over millions of mortals. You would have only to think of something you desire, anything at all, from wealth to the might of legions, and it would be yours.”

“None of that entices me.”

Yet he smirked. Neither of them believed her. “Is that not what you pursued for countless years? The acquisition of still greater magic, the means by which you could possess more and still more? Your hindrance had been yourself, the bounds of your own mortal capabilities. With my influence, all your aspirations will come to pass. The whole of the world’s magic would belong to you alone.”

Her mouth dried and her heart pounded. Oh, when he spoke like that, offering precisely what she had coveted, her every dark hunger roared back to life. Strength and power could be hers. So many spells, so much magic—hers.

She forced herself to shake her head, though her neck felt made of rusted iron. “Spare me your persuasion. You cannot offer anything I want.”

“Again you speak untruths.” He snapped his fingers, and suddenly they stood in the villa chamber where she had awakened.

Bram continued to sleep on the couch. He had rolled onto his back, one arm flung above his head, so the lamplight gleamed along the contours of his muscles. The flame markings seemed to dance down his torso.

“Threaten him,” she growled at the Devil, “and I vow your destruction.”

“Threaten?” He pressed a slim white hand to his chest, the gems upon his fingers giving sly winks in the flickering light. “My dearest girl, I offer you not a threat but a promise of pleasure. You have tasted the joys of mortal life with your lover. But mortal life is a fragile thing, and brief. I could give you both eternity, together.”

She stared at him, too stunned to speak. He could not possibly be offering . . . ?

“So I do,” he answered, smiling. “Everlasting life for yourself and Bram. You shall not suffer the privations of age, but remain young and beautiful forever. Neither will watch the other wither and die. No sword will be able to pierce your flesh and spill your blood. You will have each other just as you are now. And with the power I will bestow upon you, there is nothing you both cannot have. You shall be as gods.”

Livia squeezed her eyes shut, a futile protection against the Dark One’s beguiling words. How could she possibly resist his offer? When he proffered precisely what she wanted most? Power—and Bram—forever. Everything she had suffered these thousand years, all the loss, and the wisdom she had gained, it all fell away like ash.

The pleasure she and Bram had shared was unlike any other she had experienced. Far more than two people creating sensation, more than simply taking him within her body, she had taken him within her heart. It made her feel godlike in her power, it made her feel vulnerable. Like a fortress surrounded by thick walls, yet a single, well-aimed mortar could turn everything to crumbling dust.

She forced her eyes open. “If I refuse?”

The Devil’s smile persisted, yet it had the bite of frost. “You shall be crushed.” He held up the orange still gripped in one hand, and, without any effort, squeezed it into pulp. Juice ran down his fingers to spatter on the floor.

“Consider it, child,” he said mildly, wiping his hand on a cloth. “Life eternal with your lover, unlimited power. Everything your heart covets. Or assured death. Agony. Watching Bram suffer abominably before he is killed. And the certainty that, after your own death, you will never see one another again.”

He dropped the cloth onto the floor. “Do not forget, I still possess this.” With another wave of his hand, the gleaming orb of Bram’s soul appeared, clutched in the Dark One’s thin fingers.

Sickness clogged Livia’s throat to see him holding the precious object.

“Should he die whilst I am the owner of his soul, which he assuredly shall, he spends eternity suffering the torments of the underworld. There are so many lovely punishments. Being flayed over and over, and the regrowing of the skin is just as painful as its removal. Or he may suffer constant, excruciating thirst, but his only means of relief to drink liquid fire. I have had a very long while to invent new means of suffering. Of a certain, I shall find something particularly novel for your lover.”

She wrapped her arms around her stomach but could not stop the wave of nausea churning through her. The Dark One spoke literally. Any of these torments awaited Bram. Simply thinking of them filled her with fury and despair.

The Devil stared at the radiant glow of Bram’s soul. “A clever woman like you—the choice should be obvious.”

She swallowed hard, then barely whispered the word, “No.”

The Dark One tapped his finger to his chin. “Shall I wake Bram? I think I ought. Give your lover an opportunity to hear you condemn him to eternal suffering.”

Having only recently rediscovered what it felt like to breathe, she lost her breath. She stared with burning eyes at Bram, slumbering and unaware. Would he revile her? Hate her?

She knew him, knew what he would want.

“No,” she said again, and then louder, “No. I’ll not succumb to your temptation.”

Rather than look angry, or storm and scream in rage, the Dark One continued to smile. “Take all the time you need to consider my proposition. Nothing needs to be hastily spoken.”

“My answer will be the same.”

“When you have decided to accept,” he went on, as if she hadn’t spoken, “summon me. Ordinarily, I do not look favorably upon those who do bid me to attend upon them. I shall make an exception for you, my dear.”

“How gratifying,” she said flatly.

He laughed, the sound as ice upon bare branches. “I always thought highly of you, Valeria Livia Corva. You hold such marvelous promise. I can make all of that come to pass. Merely a few words from you: Veni, Maleficus. Both you and Bram will have everything. Or you will die in anguish as the world burns around you. Followed by eternal separation and Bram’s everlasting suffering. The choice is yours.”

A wave of his hand, and he and Bram’s soul vanished. At that same moment, flames erupted at the edges of the couch. Yet Bram continued to slumber, unaware that in moments the fire would cover the bed and he would be burned.

Livia tried to run to him, but her feet were rooted to the ground. She could not move. Could not open her mouth to shout a warning or lift her hands to cast a spell that would smother the fire. All she could do was watch as the fire crept nearer to Bram.

She had to do something, but she was helpless—and her helplessness fueled her rage.

Suddenly, her arms were free. Her body was no longer immobile, and she leapt forward with a shout.