She gave a marked glare at his injured wing.
“It will heal in hours.” And then he’d find a secure shelter for them.
—You’re acting like we’re in a partnership, like I’m not your prisoner. We are NOT a team. I hate you! I plan to ESCAPE you, dumbass.—
“I expect nothing less. But until your next futile attempt, you’re going to answer some questions for me. Who was that sorcerer to you?”
—An ex. Congratulations, you decapitated an old ex.—
“Do you grieve him?”
She rolled her eyes. —I grieve that you didn’t snatch his gold armor on the way out. He was no friend or ally of mine.—
“Then why would you have slept with him?” Her sexual habits confounded him!
—Why not?—
Lose control, lose your mate. Biting back fury, he said, “Why did you ensorcel Omort?”
She jutted her chin mulishly.
“Answer or swim.”
Her eyes darted as a purple fin sliced the water nearby. —I commanded him to use no sorcery in the fight with Rydstrom.—
Everyone in the Lore knew that Rydstrom the Good had slain Omort the Deathless, reclaiming his kingdom of Rothkalina; but Thronos had wondered how the rage demon king had circumvented Omort’s vast powers. “Why would you favor Rydstrom, betraying your own brother and . . . lover?” he grated, scarcely able to utter the word.
Her face screwed up with revulsion. —Lover??? He was everything vile! Not to mention that he was my BROTHER. Oh, that’s just not— The thought ended abruptly; she turned to throw up again, heaving, but only blood came out. —I’d rather die!—
Did he dare to believe her? Surely disgust that violent couldn’t be contrived.
She swung a glare at Thronos, eyes sparking with rage. —I will kill you in your sleep for saying things like that to me!—
“Why should I, or anyone else, believe you weren’t his concubine? It’s common knowledge that Omort liked to mate his sisters, and you lived under his protection for centuries!”
—You want to know the truth about what life was like under his protection? Horrifying. We lived with his insanity, saw it made manifest every day! He routinely threatened to kill me, came close so many times.—
“Again, you lie. If you hated what was happening, then why wouldn’t you abandon him? I know that you and Sabine were free to come and go. And why would he want his own sister dead?”
She turned away, her gauntlets balled into fists. —Go to hell.—
“You’ve already taken me here. Now answer me!”
Silence.
He grabbed her shoulders. “Feel the serpent’s breath?”
She struggled in his arms, weak as a babe. —He poisoned Sabine and me with the morsus.—
“What is that? I’m not as versed in cowardly poisons as you Sorceri are.” They loved deploying their poisons as much as they loved drinking and gambling, deeming themselves “toxinians.”
—The morsus kills from withdrawal. If we left him for more than a few weeks, we’d die of pain. He had the only antidote, doling it out at intervals, so long as we didn’t displease him.—
It sounded too strange to be true, which had Thronos leaning toward belief. Only a sorcerer would do that to his own family. “Why should I believe you?”
—A) I don’t care if you believe me or not because you don’t matter. B) Your friend Nïx will verify everything I’ve told you.—
He . . . believed Melanthe. Which meant Thronos’s old friend wrath was placated a degree. The sorceress hadn’t been a delighted participant in those atrocities.
Though she was lacking in so many other ways, Thronos decided then that she would suffice as a wife. “I do believe you in this, which means I will be marrying you. You’ll be pleased to know that torture is now off the table.”
Her eyes flickered. —As if I’d ever accept you as my husband! You have no right to abduct me! You’re no different from Omort. Taking away my choice, my life. And we killed Omort at the first opportunity.—
“Threatening me again?”
—The only reason we went with him in the first place was that he promised to protect us from Vrekeners!—
“Not from me. I’ve seen you only a handful of times over these years. I dogged your heels, but always when I closed in, you escaped through sorcery. If there was a splinter group who targeted you, I had no knowledge of it.”
—How could you not know what your own men were doing?—
He felt her probing his thoughts, trying to read his mind. He put up his shields within an instant, but apparently that was all she’d needed; she gasped.
—You truly didn’t know! Allow me to fill you in. Not two years after the abbey, your knights of good flew Sabine to a height and dropped her for fun. I saw her head crack open on the cobblestones. I barely pulled her back from the dead.—
Vrekeners were the curse of evildoers; they did not commit evil.
She read his expression. —Don’t believe me? Why do you think I grew to be so afraid of heights? Because I’ve seen what happens to a body when it lands! And then, not a year later, your kind were upon us again.—
Her gaze went distant. —We hid in a hayloft. But these huge winged males swept up after us, your knights. Laughing, the leader picked up a pitchfork and stabbed the hay.— She flexed her right hand. —Sabine jumped from the loft, running to distract them from me. They chased her into a river. She couldn’t swim and drowned!— Melanthe faced him once more, leaning in aggressively. —I found her on a bank three towns away, and debilitated my power to bring her back.—
“You expect me to believe that my own men tried to gore my mate to death when she was a helpless little girl? Ah, but it gets better. Only Sabine’s selflessness saved you? How false that rings!” Melanthe was lying. She had to be.
Because Vrekeners didn’t.
—I don’t expect you to believe that. Just like I don’t expect you to believe that we weren’t isolated cases. That your knights brutalized other Sorceri even worse.—
“The enchantress spins her tales.”
—The enchantress is DONE with Vrekener bullshit!— She spat blood in his face.
Thronos shot to his feet, lifting her with him. “You provoke me?”
—I wish I’d put you to sleep with the rest of those dicks!—
“Then why didn’t you?”
She averted her eyes.
“Why, Melanthe?”
She frowned at something past him. He glanced over his shoulder, saw several serpents, in a prism’s worth of colors. How many were there?
That was when he noticed that the shape of their little island had changed.
He bit out, “The water’s rising,” just as she said: —I think they like my blood.—
TWELVE
Naturally, Lanthe had spat in the face of the one person who could save her from being serpent chow. The rain was still washing red streams off his chiseled cheeks.
Of all her fears, being food was up there, just under Vrekener attack. Time to make nice with her hated tormentor.
Choking back the pain in her mouth, she faked a flirtatious demeanor. —I seem to have gotten my blood on your face. Bad Lanthe! Hey, I have an idea. Let’s team up!—
He scowled at her as he tested his wings, the lines of his face growing tight with pain. The damaged wing was nowhere near ready to fly. He was like a plane that had lost one engine. When the water lapped at their feet, he said, “It’ll have to be enough to get us to the coast I spied.”
She turned, seeing nothing through the gloom. But the mercury water and rainbow serpents were giving her an idea of where they might be. If she was correct, then danger loomed everywhere. If they encountered rivers of fire and a perpetual demonic war, she’d know. . . .
Lanthe needed the Vrekener’s help to survive this place—and she needed him bullish, convinced he could save her! How to get his adrenaline pumping?
She gazed at his chest. His shirt hung wide, revealing his scarred skin. His muscles were hard and generous. Attractive. No wonder Ember had desired him.
Reaching forward, Lanthe laid a shaking palm over his heart. He tensed, and at once its beat began to thunder. The second time she’d voluntarily touched him as an adult. She cleared her throat, then remembered she couldn’t talk. —Thronos, if you can get us out of this situation . . . —
The water swept closer, the serpents growing bolder.
—I’ll let you touch me.—
He narrowed his eyes down at her. “What you don’t understand is that I’ll be doing whatever I please to you.”
Well. When had he gotten so cocky? Then she recalled that he had been as a boy as well.
He yanked her up into his brawny arms, against that unyielding chest. “You belong to me. By right of pain, I’ve earned you!” Lightning struck, punctuating his statement.
Like she’d belonged to Omort? She’d just been freed of that freak a year ago!
“But it doesn’t surprise me that you’d bargain your body for safety,” Thronos added. “Now, shut up, and put your legs around my waist.”
When in trouble, leave. Seeing no other option, she did as he told her. With her short skirt riding up, he cupped her bare ass, holding her body high on his torso. His hands were rough and hot, like five-fingered brands on her damp skin. Electricity seemed to pass between them.
By the look on his face, she wasn’t the only one who’d felt it.
How in the hell was he supposed to concentrate on getting her to safety when his palms were molded to her lush curves?
His only hope of protecting her was using the islands to reach the coast. He’d just been focusing his mind on the herculean task ahead when the sorceress started talking about him touching her!
He’d shot hard for her, diverting blood from his healing wing and, more importantly, his brain. He hadn’t wanted her to know how easily she affected him, so he’d furtively adjusted his aching shaft.
How many other males had fallen for this enticing creature? For her lies? His old friend wrath erupted inside him. He would use it to fuel his escape from this swamp. “I suggest you hold on.”
She laid her face against his chest, clutching him tighter.
With a yell, he leapt for the nearest island, working his good wing for loft as much as he could. He fell short, landing in the water up to his knees. He lunged to the center of the island just as teeth snapped closed behind them. When an angry hiss sounded, he felt the fetid air from the beast’s mouth.
—Too close, Thronos!—
He focused his gaze on the next island, one even farther away than this one had been. He had his mate at last; all he had to do was keep her safe from dozens of giant swamp serpents.
Setting his jaw, he tensed, then lunged. Midleap he knew they would fall short of the island. A serpent surfaced beneath him; at the last instant, he alighted on its back, using it to vault to his target. They landed safely.
—Serpents are not stepping stones!—
He could do without her critiques. “You have no tongue, yet you won’t shut up.” He locked his gaze on his destination. As he’d spied before, there were two mountains bordering a plateau atop an enormous shelf of land. It ended in a sheer cliff face, as if a giant had cleaved its edges, halving the mountains in the process. Lava oozed down their sides, like glowing orange waterfalls.
The plateau was hundreds of feet above the swamp. If he missed, there’d be nothing to stop them from plunging into serpent-infested waters.
The storm was worsening. Wind gusted with the pounding rain. But this pile of rock had a little more room, so he could at least get a running start. Though the winds carried ill-omened scents from that plateau, he had no choice but to continue.
A horn rang out, echoing from one mountain to the other.
A battle call?
Bloodthirsty yells sounded, metal clanging against metal. Moments later, the night sky lit up, Lorean powers blasting.
He saw fire grenades, ice bombs, and swirling battle magics. Had to be demons. But how many factions of them could there be? “Well done, Melanthe. You took us from one war to another.”
—I think I know where we are. Supposed to be a myth. The source of all demons.—
The source? Realization. “You brought us to bloody Pandemonia?” Plural of pandemonium. Because it was the fabled home plane of hundreds of demon species.
Another hiss sounded behind him. The water continued rising at an alarming rate. No other option but forward. He had to hope that they could skirt the edges of the conflict.
As he backed to the far end of the island, she wrapped her arms tighter around him, digging her gauntlets into his skin.
He took off in a sprint, waiting till the last second . . .
With a bellow, he lunged for his target. Airborne. Three heartbeats later, he knew he wouldn’t make it in this headwind.
Too short, too short.
—We’re going into the drink, Vrekener!—