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“The pair escaped the revenants, but then the hellhounds descended upon them in numbers unseen before.” Seeming saddened, Enti added, “Some beings simply aren’t meant to survive out there in the wasteland.”More reason to stay here.

Kosmina sighed in her sleep and nestled more closely to him. He pressed a kiss to her hair before he’d even meant to.

Damn it, no union could be more hopeless than his and this female’s.

And yet . . .

A former Inferi didn’t belong with a princess. The King of Sand didn’t belong with a vampire who could never behold the desert sun.

And yet . . .

Even if they surmounted all the odds against them, her family would never allow them a future together.

And yet—no, no, no.This was all moving too fast. He’d known Kosmina for less than two weeks.

He’d confessed to her at least some of what he’d learned here: Dorada’s agenda.

Kosmina had said, “I’d decided I wouldn’t use the ring anyway. Short of that, what could cure an illness that can sicken even an immortal?”

“Somewhere out there, an answer exists. We’ll escape this place and comb the worlds for it. Your brother will expect you to persevere.”

Had Silt played the role of caring lover so deeply that he was becoming one?

To a point. But he still wasn’t leaving with her.

Fuck. Even he hated Silt Harea.

Waking to streams of sunlight must be like this.

A glow bathing her eyelids roused Mina. Before she opened her eyes, she luxuriated in the sorcery surrounding them, experiencing it as a warm embrace.

Adham—she couldn’t refer to him as Silt any longer—only slept an hour or so a night, but when he did, he dreamed. As his eyes darted behind his own lids, the light from his palms would illuminate the room, while the sand from his ever-present pouch levitated above them to form images from his reveries.

Tonight the quartz glittered as it formed sand spheres to populate a floating galaxy. Then the shimmering sands crested and danced like the dunes of his childhood.

No wonder he longed to reconnect with his beautiful power. Yet during the day he struggled to move even a grain. He’d told her, “Maybe I extinguished my conscious control of it for good. I’ve met other Sorceri who’d sublimated their mastery and never got it back.” But that didn’t stop him from training hard with it.

In between their mission preparations, they treated themselves to decadent bed play. He’d made no secret of wanting to claim her, but she’d somehow resisted.

They released a measure of the sexual tension between them, yet they couldn’t alleviate it. That force continued to grow, like a volcano waiting to erupt—likethis realmwaiting to quake.

He hadn’t pressed again for her to drink him—probably didn’t want her to discover all his many secrets—but he repeatedly dripped his lifeblood into her mouth and urged her to heal. Those streams had seemed to quell the worst impulses of her plague. She hadn’t bitten her wrist once as she’d slept. Progress!

Deep down, she knew it wasn’t a cure though, and she had moments when despair set in. But she had a goal in mind—a way to have everything she’d always wanted—and she would try to accomplish it.

Silt had told her about Dorada’s plot against Morgana, but Mina had already decided not to use the ring. With no blood cure and no wishgiver on the horizon, every night here lessened the odds of a favorable outcome. Mina needed to be out searching for a solution, but the chance of more with him beckoned her.

Though she and Adham rarely spoke about the future away from Nightside, she often pictured their existence together. What would her family and friends think of him?

Ellie and Balery would welcome him, but Mirceo, well versed in decadence himself, would never bless whatever was between her and Adham. And Mina feared her uncles would react . . . violently.

If she presented Adham as her male, Viktor would give a bellow and target the sorcerer’s head for a mounting on his wall. Coolheaded Trehan would tell her something like, “Your aim in this area lacked accuracy; recalibrate,” then strike Adham. Stelian would say nothing, drink more, then secretly hunt the sorcerer as if he were a trespasser across Dacia’s boundary.

She knew this, yet her feelings for Adham continued to deepen—despite all the currents she’d detected around him. Was he shady? Very. But Mina came from a land of shadows. She could handle shady.

She glanced down at her chest. Her vampiress heart beat for him alone.He’s mine.

A wave of pain made her arm ache. She could imagine an existence with Silt all she liked, but unless they escaped, her existence would end. She no longer believed her brother would arrive to save the day. He would have been here by now. Her worry that he would reveal himself to humans remained, but she figured the Gaolers had stopped sending new prisoners here—for a reason.