"Gabriel has loved you since the beginning," Andre said. "She was much like you, though neither of you were able to gain his trust, for reasons I believe are understandable."
She flushed at his gentle chiding.
"He doesn't know all this, does he?" Andre asked.
"No," she answered. "Probably won't help him trust me if he did."
"Trust is earned. It takes more than a week," he said with some amusement. "Lying to him about what happened in Hell is going to break bad for you, Deidre."
"I … can't tell him, Andre," she said. "He'd never forgive me."
"A secret this size - where the Dark One takes a mate - is not going to stay secret long."
She searched his face. "You won't tell him."
"I am a man of discretion."
"I risked everything to get to this point. I even gave up my power, my domain, everything. But I won't risk losing him," she said. "Can you not see that?"
"I can," he agreed. "But can he?"
Deidre was silent. She tried to deny it, but she knew Gabriel too well. He was honorable and good. He wasn't going to understand what she'd done. She won a bet but backed herself into a corner.
Wynn was right. She'd have to throw herself at Gabriel's mercy.
"No," she said out loud. "I can make this work. I'm a former deity. I ruled Death's domain for countless millennia. I can make it as a human. I can win him over."
"It is your choice, of course. If any part of you believes he loved the human you created, you will realize you must tell him what happened to her. If there is any way to save her, he will find it," Andre said.
"There's not. This is Darkyn. She was damned the moment she stepped into Hell," Deidre said firmly. "By now, he's found a way to keep her there, even if she wins our deal. Or he's killed her. Darkyn does not hesitate."
Andre said nothing.
Deidre avoided his gaze. The oppressiveness of the air around her faded, leaving her confused as to what they'd been talking about. Until she remembered his other gift: mind manipulation. Andre pulled the truth out of her in a way that reinforced how weak she'd become.
What did she tell him? Deidre drank the rest of her tea but had lost her appetite. She knew Andre to be discreet, but could even he withhold these secrets from Gabriel, the deity who raised him from the dead-dead?
Remorse. Heavy in her mind was the thought that there might've been something Gabriel could've done to save the other Deidre. What if there was? What if her assumption about Darkyn was wrong?