TWENTY-EIGHT
Lila had just scrambled to her feet when his hand clamped her ankle.
Yank. He snatched her back, catching her before she hit the ground. “You little witch!”
Despite this confusing detour with Abyssian, she still needed to escape. “No! Let me go!” She couldn’t believe she’d just gotten off with the universe’s primordial demon. “If you take me back to that tower, I’ll kill you!”
“You’re in no position to threaten me, female. Your speed only helps when you’re free.”
And she wasn’t. Not now. For how long could she stand more of that confinement?
Dragging her against him, he teleported her from the glen.
They appeared in a firelit room. When he released her, she smoothed her ruined dress into place and surveyed her new surroundings.
An oversize bed with a stone headboard dominated the room. Opened terrace doors allowed in moonlight and a cool breeze. The fur of some quadruped sprawled in front of a large fireplace.
Mounted on the wall above the mantel was the head of a giant reptilian creature with slitted pupils, scaly green skin, and serpentlike fangs the size of her arms. This was the beast depicted on the gold doors outside the dining room! “Where are we?”
“My chambers.” He rubbed his head.
She hadn’t even drawn blood. A shame. “Why would you bring me here?” She pulled grass sprigs from her hair.
“You told me you didn’t want to go back to your tower,” he said, his voice roughened from his roars.
She made her way to the fireplace. With him standing not far away, she felt as if she were flanked by two fires. His heat . . . his scent . . . Her thoughts grew muddled. Had she really just ground against him till they’d both come?
And had he truly admitted she was his mate?
Stalling to regain her composure, she pointed to the trophy over the mantel. “What is that thing?”
“The Lôtān, a Leviathan—half dragon, half kraken, with venom that could kill even an immortal.”
“I thought the Leviathan was a sea creature.”
“It sprang from the sea but lived on land as well, swimming in lava.”
“You keep its head . . . here? In your bedroom?”
Shrug. “My ancestor battled it to claim this dimension. This trophy is sacred in hell.”
She raised her face when a sea breeze filtered in through the opened doors. Hadn’t he said his room overlooked the Mercury Sea? She headed outside to a tower terrace similar to the one she knew so well. Only this one looked unscathed by time.
Beyond the railing was the water! Whoa. The pale moonlight danced over the waves. She could hear them crashing all the way up here.
He followed her out and joined her at the railing.
She sensed that he wanted her to remark on the view. So she didn’t.
“An improvement from your previous lodgings, no?” He faced her.
“Are you offering me the use of your room going forward? If so, I accept, but you’ll have to throw a sheet over that thing above the mantel.”
“Not quite.” He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the railing. “Obviously, I need to keep an eye on you. We will be sharing my room.”
Ridiculous. “I’m not going to live with you.”
“I’ve decided you’ll also be sharing my bed.”
“Become your concubine?” She scoffed. “The demon has jokes! Just a few hours ago, I let you know how I felt about that prospect. Hell freezing over? Ringing a bell, relic? I would never have sex with you after your treatment of me.”
No matter how frenzied he’d just made her.
She shivered to recall the sight of his mighty body as he’d roared . . . those primal shadows . . .
Even now—in the moonlight, with the wind ruffling his midnight black hair—she found him . . . compelling.
“My treatment of you? Then perhaps I’ll do as you did and simply declare myself a different person now. I’ll disavow my past actions—as you did Kari’s.”
“That’s not the same.” It’s kind of the same.
“I’ll never hurt you again, Calliope.”
“Never hurting me again shouldn’t be a selling point; it should be a given,” she said, wondering why they were still discussing this subject. “I might be your mate, but that doesn’t make you mine.”
A muscle ticked in his wide jaw. His voice dropped to a menacing level. “Trust me when I say that you—as Kari—made that fact abundantly clear.”
Because Karinna was his mate. All evidence pointed to Lila being her reincarnation. I’ll have to . . . process that later. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I plotted revenge for the past.”
“More reason why I don’t want anything to do with you.”
“Do you not? You came quickly enough against my cock.”
Her face heated. “You’re the most arrogant asshole I’ve ever met. Have you forgotten that I have a fiancé?”
Tick, tick, tick went that jaw muscle. “In hell, you have no one but me.”
“There’s nothing you can say to convince me to become your concubine. Nothing.”
“No? How about peace for Sylvan? If you became mine, the Møriør would refrain from attacking.”
Her lips parted.
“Each hour I’m here enjoying you is an hour I’m not warring against the fey.”
“And how long will that last?”
“A standard demonic concubine contract lasts for a minimum of a thousand years.”
A millennium? With this fucker?
“However, since you are my mate I’m interested in securing you . . . indefinitely. I will make you my queen.”
She gaped at him.
“You were willing to risk your life to warn your kingdom about my invasion. Wed me, and you can end the specter of war entirely.”
Marrying him would mean surrendering forever all of her pie-in-the-sky dreams: to live safely in Sylvan, to be the queen of that realm, to start a family that would also live in safety, and possibly to fall in love.
What if Saetth was innocent in all this? If she could get back to him, she could have a wedding and coronation this very season. They could start having kids right away.
Her fey children would run the forests as she had.
Even if Saetth had dicked her over, she could find someone else for herself. Anyone else.
A male who was normal. Who knew what a phone app was. Who didn’t accessorize with a battle-ax. Who wouldn’t cringe to picture the kids they’d have together.
Abyssian squared his shoulders. “For as long as you are my wife, I vow to the Lore that the inhabitants of Sylvan are safe from my alliance. None will fall by a Møriør’s hand.”
She drew back her head in disbelief. A vow to the Lore was unbreakable, yet she knew how badly he wanted to punish her kingdom. “Ah, I see, the master of trickery is playing with me. You’ll figure some way out of your vow, and make me a victim of your games yet again. You’re illustrating why I could never trust you!”
“The time for games has passed.”
“You’re . . . serious? Then this is coercion.”
He shook his head. “A mutually beneficial arrangement.”
If she was bound to Abyssian, Rune would have to back off.
Was she actually considering this marriage? How could she not when it would save her people and herself? “You’d vow to keep me safe from any threat to my life? Any at all?”
“Yes. I easily make that pledge.”
Eventually he’d find out she was Magh’s descendant. His vow would force him to protect her—even from Rune! “Maybe if you didn’t demand sex—”
“Not an option,” he said, tone unyielding.
“We aren’t physically compatible. I’m too small compared to you.” When he’d loomed over her in that glen . . . “You’re well over a foot taller than I am. With your wings, you must have three times my weight, and you’ve got to be ten thousand times stronger.”
He’d begun shaking his head before she’d even finished. “I promise you, we will be compatible.”
Sex. With Abyssian Infernas. She ignored the spike in her pulse. “You said you wouldn’t hurt me. Losing my virginity with you will hurt.” Despite her new immortality.
And he’d need to bite her during the claiming. She recalled his reaction at dinner when she’d said she would accept a mate’s bite. Abyssian had looked like he’d forgotten how to blink.
Perhaps in that past life, she—or Kari—had rejected the possibility. Lila had been truthful, though. If she were mated to a male she loved—and trusted—she would bare her neck, taking her medicine.
Loving and trusting Abyssian weren’t in her future.
“I would be as gentle with you as possible.”
Her lifelong aspiration to be Sylvan’s queen faded from distant hope toward wistful memory. But if she kept the Møriør from attacking her people, she could do more for them than any other ruler before.
Isn’t sacrifice what queens do?
When she imagined Abyssian’s ax raised against the Sylvan army . . . or one of Rune’s arrows piercing her heart . . .
Dear gods, she was going to have to surrender to the king of hell.
Dear. Gods.
She’d wondered whether fate had some kind of cosmic plan in store for her. Lila’s mind flashed to a memory of playing with her dolls, pretending they were her subjects in need of protection. Maybe she’d been reborn to sacrifice herself—damning herself to hell—for Sylvan.
“I will have your answer now,” Abyssian said. “I understand you’ll be giving up certain . . . things to live here. But through your actions, Sylvan will be spared for an eternity of eternities.”
The exact phrase Nïx had used.
Realization struck. This had all played out according to the Valkyrie’s plan. That bitch.
I was a pawn to save Sylvan, in ways I never even suspected.
Had Saetth been in on the plan? She’d questioned why her fiancé wouldn’t simply order her assassination; maybe because he’d known she needed to be alive for this sacrifice? “Fine. I’ll do it.”
Abyssian exhaled, as if he’d been holding his breath. “Very good. Just so we understand each other: as my wife, you’ll serve me in every way, doing my bidding.”
Frustrations that had compounded all her life boiled to the surface. She met Abyssian’s gaze. “I hate you.”
In a lover’s voice, he said, “And I you. That’s why our marriage will work. Neither of us will expect anything more than pleasure between us.”
Expediency was key.
Fearing Calliope would back out from their agreement, Sian hadn’t even given her a chance to change her clothing for the wedding. He’d hastily teleported her into his empty court, appearing in front of the throne dais for the simple hand-fasting ceremony.
Her pupils had dilated to the size of coins.
Part of him was just as shocked. She agreed to wed me? Her decision made him grudgingly respect her more. Like Kari, Calliope was nothing if not loyal.
The marriage rite was straightforward. He would wrap a sacred tie of leather made from the hide of the last Lôtān around their clasped hands as they repeated vows.
He asked her, “Are you ready?” He’d told her what she would say, a basic pledge of self.
She hesitated, then nodded.
Curling his finger under her chin, he lifted her face. Brows drawn, she bit her bottom lip.
What he wouldn’t give to know her thoughts now. As he gazed down at her, the millennia faded away until he felt as if he’d held her in his arms just yesterday at a dance in Sylvan.
“What are you contemplating, Calliope?” he asked, though he suspected she’d never answer.
She surprised him by saying, “How I will live without everything I’m giving up.”
The idea of her pining for her fiancé sent Sian’s jealousy skyrocketing. “You’ll simply have to find other things to satisfy you.” He would make her forget that prick if it killed him.
“I won’t hold my breath.” Gesturing at her filthy dress, she said, “Not exactly how I imagined my wedding. But this is just how I would imagine yours.”
He supposed young females cared about such things. “Perhaps if you please me as a wife, I will grant you a more formal coronation.”
“Be still, my beating heart. You’re really sweeping me off my feet, demon.”
Undaunted, he conjured the Lôtān tie, then took her hand. As he wrapped the binding around his wrist, then hers, Calliope’s gaze rested on his long claws. Their hands looked as mismatched as the rest of their bodies.
Yet fate said she was the only female with whom he could feel complete.
When he retracted his claws, her attention shifted to his wings, then to his fangs, then his horns. His mate was sizing him up, no doubt wondering how they would be together sexually.
Her behavior struck him as heartening. The real problem would be if she refused to look at him at all.
He’d asked himself what Goürlav had been thinking to imagine a future with a beauty. Wouldn’t Goürlav ask him the same?
Sian didn’t care. For lifetimes, he’d dreamed about what could have been with this female. For better or for worse, he had to know.