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I growled with indignation. “How dare you suggest?—”

“Suggest? I’m not suggesting a thing. I’m only voicing your thoughts.” He took a step toward the bed, and I backed up.

“Do not come any closer. What will they think?”

“In the world you come from? I imagine they’d be scandalized.” He rounded the bed and closed in. “Here, though?”He stepped into my space, the warmth from his body and his scent surrounding me. “I don’t imagine anyone here would care.”

“Sinners,” I hissed. The word a conditioned response, quite in contrast to the reaction of my body.

“You should see the lust in your eyes, Sol. It’s you having the impure thoughts. So is the sin not actually yours? My thoughts are totally pure.” He raked his gaze down the thin material I wore, and I suddenly felt as bare as he was. His accusing words curled around my body, awakening feelings within me I didn’t know I possessed while making me hate him at the same time. I didn’t want him to affect me in this manner.

“I am not a sinner!”

“Then, why would this bother you?” Nyx brushed his fingers down the curve of my neck, raising goosebumps where our skin made contact. He shouldn’t be able to affect me this way. It was more evidence he wished to lead me away from the Goddess.

I flinched away from his touch. “It doesn’t.”

“Liar,” he all but purred.

“What do you want with me?”

“Now, there’s a question.”

I watched him expectantly, but he looked away, seeming to war with himself. I wanted to know his thoughts, but it seemed like he could choose which he shared with me, whereas I had no such choice.

When he looked back into my eyes, he seemed resolved. “I want you to stay. The life you were living in that place was a lie. Your place is here.”

“My place is not in this den of sin,” I snarled. But even as the words left my mouth, I knew they were empty. They were the words of my mother, and I could feel the falseness of them while they still hung in the air. I knew nothing of this place.

The male stood before me was not evil like they led me to believe all city dwellers were. That much I knew on instinct alone. I felt it. He might be a sinner. He certainly was a kidnapper, a liar, a monster…but I knew in my soul he was not evil.

“See, you know the truth.”

“I don’t want to be here.” It wasn’t about him, or maybe it was. “This isn’t where I belong.”

“You can’t go back. You will die.”

“I don’t care.” I seethed. It was the truth.

He grasped my chin with his thumb and forefinger, forcing my gaze to meet his. His eyes changed to those of the beast, and the anger rolled off him in tangible waves.

“Well, I. Care. Sol.”

For a moment, we both just stared. His statement seemed to catch him as off guard as it had me.

“Why?” I whispered.

He drew in a deep breath and then his mask of indifference seemed to slip back into place. “Because you are my ryder. I know you don’t understand what that means yet, but you will. I have been in limbo my whole life, knowing you were out there alive, yet somehow hidden away. Unable to claim my full power or my rightful place because you were missing. And now you are here. So I need you to open your mind and find out about the real world, accept your place is here, and learn who you are and what you can do, so that I can finally move forward with my life.”

His words were cold, resentful, and I didn’t understand the change, but I did understand one thing: this was all about him.

“This might shock you, dragon, but I don’t care. I want to go home, and if you won’t take me, I will find my own way.”

He snorted a highly derisive sound.

“You think you can just make your own way back? Your compound, Sol, was days hard ride from here if you prefer to ride beasts with no wings, and weeks if you hope to travel on foot. I flew nonstop for a full day and night to get to you, and let me tell you, there is a reason your compound was so isolated. It is beyond some of the most inhospitable lands in the Twelve Kingdoms. I wish you luck finding willing conveyances for a journey like that, with no contacts and no coin. “

I sucked in a breath. I was trapped here, and if he wouldn’t help me, I might never get back.