"Ah, I remember that day vividly. I told you I wanted to see if my hothouse rose could survive."
Did I actually believe she could still love this prick?
"And I said, 'Careful, cousin, this hothouse rose intends to flourish and grow sharp thorns.' Saetth, you've run afoul of them, and you don't even realize it."
From his experiences with her, Sian knew two things.
Calliope had laid a trap. She'd already struck.
How? He could only imagine. But he needed to trust that she knew what she was doing. Which meant . . . Do not take Saetth's throat with your teeth.
"I admire your unfounded optimism," Saetth said. "In reality, you're about to share your parents' fate. You'll die like them, your body burned like a traitor's. After I behead this Morior." To Sian, he said, "If you don't kneel before me and surrender your life, I'll take Calliope's pretty . . ." He trailed off, clearing his throat.
Sian bit back a growl, claws sinking into his palms.
"With one flick of my wrist, I'll cut off her . . ." Saetth coughed, his brows drawing together. His face began swelling, veins ticking in his forehead. "Calliope?" His skin was turning as purple as her dress. He released the scepter to clutch his throat.
She assumed a thoughtful mien. "Something more to say, cousin? Hmm?" More loudly, she called, "I told you I would smite you down with my powers! I wield the very fires of hell!"
The fey in attendance retreated even farther.
When Saetth dropped his sword and stumbled back, Sian traced to her. He murmured in Demonish, "The fires of hell? What did you do?"
"I've got this," she replied in the same tongue, stepping away from Sian. "Obviously."
Still, he used one bloody wing to ward off the king's guard, telling them, "You do not want to anger her. Lay down your weapons and back away."
When their king fell to his hands and knees, they did.
"No, no." Saetth's features bulged grotesquely, his face mottled. Reaching for Calliope, he collapsed to his front.
His crown tumbled from his head, rolling across the marble floor like a loosed coin.
In a lower voice, she told Saetth, "Oh, cousin, that Titanian steel was laced with lethal venom harvested from a Leviathan's fang."
Sian's gaze snapped to her. The scepter. The Lotan head.
Chin raised, Calliope lifted one pale shoulder at him.
Sian gazed at her in awe. Mine. "My clever queen." With her hell crown.
If he had known all those years ago that his sacrifice wouldn't be wasted . . .
She returned her attention to Saetth, watching his death with disdain. The Morior had tried to kill him for ages. A twenty-four-year-old fey with no fighting skills had taken him out.
In seconds, the unending millennia of King Saetth's life drew to a macabre close. He took a last gurgling breath. His body spasmed before going still.
The remaining attendees screamed and fled the room.
Only a few guards lingered, looking wary of Sian and Calliope.
In an authoritative tone, she commanded them, "Collect the body and that spent scepter--without touching either. Burn both, and secure the castle."
"Yes, my queen," a senior guard said.
As Sian tore free one of the dozens of arrows in his body, he probed the male's mind. That guard and the others had hated Saetth, were relieved another ruler would take his place; not to mention that she was next in line of the succession. Good. They intended to do her bidding.
Unfortunately Sian wasn't faring much better than the corpse they carried away. A snapped spear tip had lodged near his heart, and the mass quantities of poison were starting to hit--not lethally like Lotan venom, but enough to affect even him. It prevented his wounds from mending, which meant blood continued to drain from him.
He held out till the guards had gone, then lurched on his feet. One of his legs, sliced from the back, buckled. "Calliope . . ." He dropped to his knees in a pool of blood.
SIXTY
Abyssian!" Lila rushed to his side, trying to steady him, but he fell backward onto his ravaged wings. "Damn it, I told you to fight back." She cradled his head in her lap.
"They are your subjects. I can't hurt my queen's subjects." He weakly reached for her face, brushing the backs of his claws over her cheekbone. "You were amazing tonight, love. I am so proud of you."
Her chest twisted. All her big talk about wanting nothing to do with him faded. He'd come for her, believing he would save her. He'd fought off an army--without harming a single soldier. For me. "You look awful." She started yanking arrows from him. He must have twenty broken shafts jutting from him, and at least a hundred more arrowheads embedded inside him. "We've got to get you back to hell." Yank.
He grimaced at her less-than-gentle ministrations. "Can't trace there. You barred me." And she couldn't unbar him until she returned to that realm. "How did you do that anyway?"
"I found the hellfire. Or it found me. I got some powers and figured out how to use a couple."
A gust of breath left his lungs. "My beautiful, brilliant wife."
Yank. "Am I still your wife?" Her temper simmered.
"Always. Even when I'm acting like an idiot."
"I thought you had forsaken me." Yank.
Shaking his head, he tried to help her with the arrows. "Don't touch the poison. You can sicken."
She slapped his hand away. "Uthyr left the portal open for me until twelve." Could she get Abyssian out of the castle and across the grounds to reach it? "But I ought to let you bleed out for that bullshit you pulled today."
He nodded. "I broke my pledge. Did just what you feared I would. I should not have taken out my pain and resentment on you."
"Well, I did agree to spy on you." Yank. "I lied repeatedly."
"Your deception was born from desperation and longing for a better future. Mine grew from bitterness."
"I was desperate. I would've done anything to be free from the Morior's threat."
"It guts me that you were terrified of us all. I want to make up for every second you lived in fear."
"That doesn't change my blood." Yank. "I belong to the line Rune wants to wipe out, the one you said deserves its annihilation. The tainted one."
He flinched.
"Still want to have kids with me?"
"It would be my honor to." He reached for her, but she slapped his hand down again.
"Would Rune put them in his sights?"
"Never. He's known who you were, but he didn't tell me because he wanted me to discover happiness with you." That surprised her. "He was hoping you would confide your secrets to me."
"I wanted to make sure of your feelings for me before I risked everything on you." Yank. "After last night, I'd planned to confess. You never gave me the chance because you invaded my privacy!" Of course, she'd never revealed that she could read his thoughts in hell.
"I fucked up again and again. Tell me I'm not too late. Tell me I haven't ruined everything. Can I play that . . . get-out-of-jail-free card?"
Her anger began to cool, but she didn't want it to. "I can't keep paying for crimes I don't remember. I'm done with that." Yank. "What happens the next time you fly off the handle? Will you lure me down to your creepy dungeon again? The days of me trustingly closing my eyes for you are over."
He winced. "I am so sorry for that. It's no excuse, but I relived a memory today, one that has always made me crazed. I'd tried not to think of it. . . ."
"What memory?"
"Our last day together." His words were starting to slur, and his wounds weren't closing. "I couldn't handle the rage. Couldn't think. But now I see it's all connected."
"What is?"
"In Tenebrous, I decided that I was going to do something I'd thought impossible: believe in you--despite the past. I finally let go of my bitterness. Once I did, I found the fire, Calliope. I found it."
"What are you talking about?"
"You changed me." Ash wisped in the air. His horns started burning away. His w
ings! "My gods, Lila, I can do it at will."
"What's happening to you???" His skin was losing all its color, the glyphs disappearing. "The poison is burning you up!" Yank. Yank. Yank.
He grunted in pain. "Little wife, you are the hellfire for me. My beacon in the dark."
Was he going to die? Maybe the fey archers had found something equivalent to the Lotan venom for their arrows! Tears blurred her vision. Yank. Yank. Yank.
"Lila, no. I'm fine."
"Clearly you aren't! We need to get to hell--"
The clock tower began to toll midnight.
Her heart stopped. "Up, demon!" She wrapped an arm around him, helping to haul him to his feet. "NOW, Abyssian."
They careened out of the castle's entrance as the third tolling sounded. . . .
Sian dazedly stumbled with his female out into the rain and wind.
"We've got to beat the clock!" she cried. "Keep going."
If they ran into more soldiers before they reached the portal, he might need what was left of his wings and horns. As he lurched beside his mate, he imagined his transformation stopping.
His body ceased its transition. He pictured himself with his hell-change fully in place. The edges of his wings and horns reformed.
Just as he'd once dreamed, he could change back and forth between his guises--like a shifter.
Though he was in his hell-change form, the thrumming along his spine had disappeared. Which meant the deterioration had stopped, that engine dead.
Find the fire, and your appearance will be pleasing. In Old Demonish, that could also be translated as Find the fire, and your appearance will please you.
Sian had control over his own form.
"I can see it!" Calliope increased their pace. The fiery white outline of Uthyr's portal hissed in the rain. "We're almost there, demon." She murmured to herself, "Nine clangs."
They blundered around shrubs. He'd forgotten how many bloody plants were in this realm.
"Ten clangs," she cried. "Hurry!"
He and Calliope barreled through the portal just before the fire dwindled to nothing. . . .
As soon as Sian crossed into hell, he began to strengthen. He drew on magic to protect his mate against any poison transference, then turned to his own injuries.
"The arrows, Abyssian."
With a nod, he willed them to disappear. One by one, his wounds sealed. As she checked him over, he healed completely, stretching his regenerated wings for good measure.
Her face was pale, her skin damp from the rain. Confusion filled her eyes.
"Need to get you warm." He grasped her elbow, then traced them into their room before the hearth fire. He raised his brows at the Lotan's single remaining fang, then gazed down at his mate. Her worry had heartened him. "I haven't lost you. You can't deny that you still care for me."
She crossed her arms over her chest. "Okay, so maybe I didn't want you to die from that poison."
"I wasn't dying. I was changing. Or reverting."
"I don't understand."
"When a demon inherits the crown of hell, he transforms into his most monstrous self. I didn't always look like this. . . ." He explained to her about his own hell-change, that ever-present feeling of deterioration, his fears that she could never want him.
Or that she wouldn't for much longer.
"As soon as I let go of the past, I reverted to my former guise. But when I was trying to reach you, I lamented the lack of my demonic features. Suddenly they started to grow."
She appeared skeptical.
"I can show you what I used to look like." He willed himself to shift forms.
Her eyes went wide when his horns and wings burned once more.
With a cocky grin, he said, "I think you're going to like the old me very, very much." His claws disappeared, his facial structure changing. He popped a crick in his neck when he'd completed his transformation.
Her lips parted as her gaze roamed over him. "More trickery?"
"I had no control over this. I should have told you, should have warned you that my appearance would keep getting worse. But I was selfish; I didn't want to scare you off."
In a measured tone, she said, "This is what you looked like for almost all of your life?"
"Not bad, huh?" His cocky grin faded when she shrugged noncommittally.
"You don't have horns in this form? What happened to them?"
He raised his eyes to her crown. "You're wearing them."
SIXTY-ONE
Pardon?" Lila was still reeling from his appearance. The male before her was just as Nix's dossier had described: physically flawless.
He had the same raven-black hair and green eyes, and his frame was still leanly muscular. But his smooth skin was tanned. His features were chiseled and masculine, his face beyond breathtaking.
Yet to Lila, he was a stranger with her husband's eyes and voice. He didn't even look like a demon!
"My old horns are part of your hell crown."
"How did they get from your head to this crown?" she asked, but she had a suspicion.
"Graven gets the thanks for that. When they were severed ages ago, I had my brother cast them away. All this time, I assumed they'd been lost forever. But now the sight of you wearing them fills me with satisfaction," he said, his tone indicating the greatest understatement.
"You're hedging, demon. How did they get severed? Keeping secrets is how we both got into trouble in the first place."
"You're right." He exhaled. "I cut them off during your past life."
"Why would you do that?"
After a hesitation, he grudgingly said, "You told me you could never love an animal like me. One with horns. You were about to wed another, and I would've done anything to stop you. So I took my ax . . ."
The dimension seemed to spin. He'd carried out that grueling amputation to himself?
For her.
"I brought them to you, vowing that I would look as your kind and live as your kind."
But she'd still spurned him for that other male. This day began to make more sense. "You relived that memory after you delved into my dreams."
He nodded. "It maddened me. I wish I'd reacted differently, but in the end, I needed to acknowledge that memory, to face it." He ran his fingers through his hair, seeming surprised not to find his horns. "Lila, I'm a demon grown, have lived lifetimes, but I would do the same thing today. And I will make the same promise: to live as you do. In this form. In your realm."
"That is not what I want." Yes, his looks were stunning. But so had they been before.
"Tell me what you do want. Whatever it is, I will give it to you." He curled his finger under her chin. "I'm in love with you."
"I kind of figured." She gazed up at this strange face, trying to lose herself in those familiar eyes, but the situation didn't feel right--as if she were cheating.
He smoothed his thumb over her cheek. "I will do anything to win you back."
With a challenging lift of her brow, she said, "Anything?"
"Anything."
"Quit the Morior."
Abyssian went still. "And you will be mine once more? Forever?"
He'd actually do it? "I was just fucking with you." Maybe she was a fitting queen for Abyssian Infernas. After all, Lila had used trickery to take her own throne.
He exhaled a pent-up breath. "You got me."
"Considering that Uthyr helped me, and that Rune wanted to give us a chance, you should stay in the Morior."
"So what do you truly want?"
"If I forgive you, I will want you to change back to the demon I love."
He cocked his head. "Ah, my wife is having another go at me."
"I'm not joking."
His expression grew baffled. "You . . . you prefer me like that?" She heard his thoughts: --All that worry for nothing.-- Then: --She's saying she loves me!--
"Yes." She sidled closer to him. "I want you to be comfortable, but I also want me to constantly dream about kissing your gorgeous skin."
<
br /> He jolted straighter. "At your service." He began his wondrous transformation. Glyphs arose and started to glow, stark against his bloodred skin. He gritted his teeth when his wings and horns emerged. As his facial structure transformed, he wagged his jaw. "Better?"
Heavy-lidded, she said, "Better."
He wrapped his arms around her. "You can forgive me, again?"
"How can I be pissed at your trickery today when I was such an apt pupil?" Everything was connected. Every lesson learned, every wrong soon to be righted. "But we still have a lot of things to work out. Establishing boundaries, for one. If you look into my thoughts, I'll look into yours."
His arms tightened around her. "You can . . . ?"
"Oh, yeah."
"I suppose it's only fair since I spied on you with a mirror."
"You were watching me?" The hand mirror on his desk. "I sensed something! You were always watching."
He shamelessly admitted, "No demon has ever looked into a mirror as much as I."
"You'll have to teach me how to do that." She now had a ton of untapped abilities. Then she frowned as a thought struck her. "Why do you think Nix assisted us? She had to know I'd kill Saetth."
"And that I'd send the Vrekeners' realm spinning. I have no idea why she's steering fate this way--and that will make more than one Morior uneasy. But whatever comes, we'll weather it."
"Are you sure, demon? Dealing with two realms, two different species, a queendom and a kingdom could get really complicated."
He lowered his forehead to hers. Lips curling, he said, "Or, for the first time, it could get really easy."
SIXTY-TWO
Pando-Sylvan Trade Negotiations
ROUND 1
Sian bowed his chest up for more of her touch. He lay in their bed with his exquisite mate atop him.
Calliope's eyes flickered as she greedily surveyed his body. Meeting his gaze, she told him, "I need gold, love." She rose up on his length . . . then slowly . . . so slowly . . . slipped back down.
He gripped her hips, shuddering with pleasure. "Then this is coercion."
Calliope shook her head, her hair a glossy tangle around her head. Her face was still pinkened from their afternoon at the beach. Though they worked hard, they played hard as well.
Throwing his words back at him, she said, "Consider it a mutually beneficial arrangement."
Anything in the worlds she desired was hers, but he liked withholding concessions--just so she would coax them out of him.