Page 101 of Bonds of Starfall

His utter power.

"Do you think a little incubus could feed from me?" Rhyden enunciated. "I’ve lived through the rise and fall of planets." His hand found the gun in his holster, the bullets imbued with Aether, siphoned from the Aetherborns—but not fucking illegally, not like what the goddamn reports shared in Solar City.

Tiny gasps fell from Vesperin’s parted lips as she stared at him. Her small hands clutched a sleek black Echogun, the muzzle shining as her grip trembled, sights fixed on him.

Rhyden tsked. "Lower your gun, wife. I’m not here to kill you."

She didn’t obey, her grey eyes darting around, searching for a way out of this. But he had her cornered. "Wife?" she whispered.

And the sound of her voice made his cock harden, even as his fists clenched with rage. That same fucking tone she had used on him when she uttered the last words he had ever heard from her:

Forgive me.

"Don’t play with me, Vesperin Vox," Rhyden snarled, walking closer until he was a mere breath away from her and the incubus. Pinpricks of frozen water lanced against Rhyden’s hand as he reached forward. He flicked them away, barely feeling the sting of the cuts or the blood welling on the back of his hand and trailing down his forearm. "Ice doesn’t work on me, incubus. You’ll have to up your game."

The incubus hurled a new assault at Rhyden, and the vampire let his Stella warm his skin, the ice melting and sliding off before the frozen water even hit him.

The incubus wrapped an arm around Vesperin. "Don’t hurt her," he growled.

"I don’t want to hurt her—yet." Rhyden stared down at Vesperin, where she was bundled next to the incubus, her white hair breezing around her pale cheeks. Her lips were red and swollen, a split at the corner with a bruise blooming along her jaw. "We have unfinished business, wife." The tips of his boots brushed her bare feet.

"I have no business with the leader of Noctis," Vesperin said, voice hardening. "Let us go. And we’ll never tell a Soul about this."

Ah, there it was—the quiver in her words. He had missed it for the short time it had been gone.

Rhyden leaned down; he towered over herandthe incubus. They both stiffened, and Rhyden waited for the incubus to flee, deciding a good fuck wasn’t worth being sucked dry and wrapped in a ribbon made of his intestines. The vampire was nothing if not theatrical… But the incubus stayed his ground. Interesting. Perhaps this was more than a feed.

"You see, I can’t do that, wife. Because I’m fucking angry. Do you know why?" Rhyden drawled.

She shivered, head tipping back until all he could focus on was her eyes. So different. But still the eyes of a liar. A con.

A thief.

"I’ve done nothing to you. I’ve never even set foot in Lunar City before. Whatever you think I’ve done to make you angry"—she swallowed—"it’s not true."

Rhyden barked a laugh. "That’s rich coming from you. At least you’re telling the truth in one part. Youhavenever set foot in my city. If you had, I would’ve known. I had no idea you were alive out there." His red eyes scanned down her frame. "Twenty years old? God, wife. You have so much to pay for."

He was filled with rage just by looking at her. Fuck! He was going to kill something. Not her, though. Never her. He could make her pay in other ways.

"Why do you keep calling me that?" Vesperin asked.

Rhyden barely missed the strange look the incubus gave her as the vampire said, "Because we are wed. You’re my wife."

A cold muzzle pressed against his lower stomach, and he looked down, finding her pale hands pressing the gun into his gut.

"Go ahead. Shoot me, wife. It’ll be another fucking nail in your coffin." Rhyden waited. And waited. And still, she didn’t pull the trigger. "I see you’re just as weak as you always have been. Content to let others make the hard choices for you. That’s where we differ. I’ve been planning our reunion for centuries."

The vampire lifted a hand, and with the twitch of his fingers, Miro and Daryk sprang into action—just like Rhyden had told them to.

The masked vampires pulled out another mask—this one far less sleek, with a chunky gas filter fit over the mouth—and tossed it to Rhyden. He couldn’t very well have made a dramatic entrance with a clunky gas mask tucked in his holster, now could he?

Rhyden grabbed it midair, tugging it over his face as the band fit around the back of his skull. His breaths immediately turned thick and heavy as they whooshed through the filter of the gas mask.

Vesperin and her incubus toy scrambled away, but they couldn’t get far. The incubus shielded her with his body as Rhyden unclipped the gas canister from his holster, pulling the pin as he tossed it on the nasty, germ-infested carpet, a piss yellow shade that made his lip curl. He couldn’t believe his wife would stay in a hellhole like this.

But he supposed rats did find solace in company.

The canister rolled on the ground, and dark grey smoke fizzed as it wafted in thick plumes from within, shrouding the room in a curtain of darkness.