Learn My Lesson (Wicked Villains, #2)

by Katee Robert

Once upon a time, a woman fell in love with a man. He wasn’t a good man. Men never are, I’ve found. But this woman hadn’t learned that hard lesson yet. She still had stars in her eyes and the kind of innocent love in her heart that the world delights in setting aflame.

Of course she said yes. Of course he left her to pay the price for his sins. Of course he never once looked back. And the woman? The woman lost her innocence in the flames of his betrayal.

reality: I loved the wrong man and made a deal with the devil to save him. That kind of man doesn’t cleave to innocence lost, no matter what lies he spilled to bargain me away, and he left me as soon as the price was paid. It’s just as well. The devil suits me better anyway.

I’m Hades’s right hand, his queen, the second most powerful person at the Underworld. No one would dare touch me. To do so is to court his wrath, and if there’s a single person in this world who holds a grudge better than I do, it’s Hades.

Now our love is more cruel edges and the kind of cut that one doesn’t even notice until hours later.

The trust we built so painstakingly between us is weathered and beaten. I can’t be sure that he’ll meet me halfway, and because I can’t be sure, I am incapable of taking that first step to reach out.

My Meg knows me well, but apparently not well enough. She’s the most priceless thing in my life, the one person I could never replace, not even if I searched the world over.

We were made for each other, two twisted trees that grew to lean on each other to the point where they won’t survive alone.

The man is a white knight in search of a damsel. It’s not my fault that he saw what he wanted and ignored the reality. You are no damsel, love. You never were.”

I know this man better than any other person in this world, but right now he feels like a stranger to me.

He smooths my hair back. “It’s you and me, Meg. Forever.” Threat or declaration of love? I don’t know. I’ve never known. I look into his dark eyes, and in this moment I can truly believe that this man loves me above all others. That it would hurt him beyond measure to lose me. That he would raze this city to the ground if it meant my happiness was on the line.

I love him so much I stay despite the tiny cuts he deals out during every conversation, unintentionally or not.