Page 50 of Damned and Broken Gods (Labyrinth of Gods #2)

Will This Be A Night To Remember?

LEELA

B ina invited a bunch of us to her quarters to get ready for the ball, and for a little while, it felt like getting ready for a night out, minus the pre-club drinks, of course.

No one discussed the upcoming labyrinth.

No one accused me of being the cause, even though it had obviously been moved because of me.

I was grateful, though. To not be blamed.

So we primped and preened and helped each other with zippers and lace. Our anchors either helped or watched from the sidelines, until finally we were ready.

I stepped in front of the full-length mirror to take in my efforts.

The lehenga fit perfectly, black and gold fabric draping me like a starry sky.

“Oh, chickadee.” Blue clasped his paws together, his eyes glittering. “Ya look like a princess.”

I felt like one too. Remi had helped to put my hair up, leaving wavy strands to frame my face.

My neck looked slender and graceful, the pendant from the fire trial glittering at my collarbone.

Bina had loaned me some makeup, and I’d rimmed my eyes in kohl, lightly rouged my cheeks, and stained my lips a soft blush.

I looked…beautiful.

Not like me at all.

“All right, you’ve hogged the mirror enough,” Bina said with a smile. “My turn.”

I stepped away from the glass to make way for her.

She looked amazing in a blue and silver outfit with bangles on her wrists and dangly silver earrings. Alia adjusted Bina’s dupatta, the scarf that hung from her shoulder.

Remi and Dharma fiddled with each other’s hair across the room, and Sylvie busied herself packing away all the makeup and hairbrushes.

Regina, Poppy, and Evie hadn’t been invited to the dress-up because Bina didn’t know them.

Not that Evie would have come. Remi hung out at Dharti Ghar enough for Bina to feel comfortable with having her here.

But Priti’s absence was felt acutely.

Remi, Sylvie, and Evie had completed the earth test but still had the sea test to complete, so they wouldn’t be taking the labyrinth with us, and I was relieved they hadn’t been dragged into the mess of an early test like the others.

But the others…I glanced across at them now, claws of guilt digging into my chest. I had no idea how the labyrinth would test us, but if we got to stay together during it, I was going to make damned sure my friends survived it…

There was a tentative knock at the door.

Bina frowned. “Are we expecting anyone else?”

The drohi had been instructed to meet us at the ball.

Ione had explained that all demigods were to enter via the main staircase and would be met at the base by their drohi and escorted onto the dancefloor.

We all shook our heads.

The knock sounded again.

“Come in!” Bina called.

The door opened, and Keyton stepped in. “Ladies, it would be an honor for me to escort you all to the ballroom.”

He was dressed in a yellow tunic and dark pants. Not done up to go to the ball but formal regardless.

I swallowed the lump in my throat because he should be with us tonight. He and Priti. But only the bonded were invited.

I smiled up at him. “We’d love that.”

“Well, that saves me legs a trip,” Blue said. “Come on, anchors, we best get back to the nest.”

Ida, Dharma’s hound, picked herself up off the floor and gave Blue a look.

He rolled his eyes. “I was not going to hitch a ride, but if ya offerin’…”

Percy, Remi’s raven, cawed and flew to perch on Blue’s head.

“Get off, ya fecker!” Blue waved him off good-naturedly.

Trixie, Sylvie’s butterfly, fluttered toward the door, as if to say, enough of this crap , and Bina’s anchor, a white python named Garu, slid off the bed and toward the door.

Blue paused to scamper up my lehenga and onto my shoulder to whisper, “Make sure you dance. I left a special song just for you.”

“How will I know it’s for me?”

He looked a little confused then said, “I dunno. I think…I think you’ll just know.”

He dropped a whiskery kiss on my cheek and hopped down onto Ida’s back. “Laters, chickadee.”

The anchors left, and the sun began to set.

It was time for the ball.

Gentle music drifted out through the high marble arch. Blushing stone veined with gold, this entrance was the most opulent thing I’d seen here in Prashikshan.

All the demigods were lined up, ready to step through and onto the wide marble staircase beyond.

I’d gotten a quick peek before we’d been ushered back.

The room below was huge and filled with people.

There was a stage at the back where three men played instruments.

I’d hoped to catch a glimpse of Araz, but he was nowhere to be seen.

I did see Chandra, though, standing close to the stage with a few other Asura.

Dressed in black and gold, his powerful frame standing a head above most others, he made an impressive figure.

He’d looked up briefly, and our gazes had locked, his flaring before I was pulled away by Umbra.

And now we were walking toward the arch, one by one, like some creepy procession of glittery dolls. Joe was ahead of me, and he looked back with a wink before walking through.

Umbra held up her hand to make me wait.

Music played, the same melody that had played for everyone who’d gone before, and finally it was my turn.

I stepped forward to the same old song, which was frankly starting to sound like background noise at this point, and swept through the arch, pausing at the top of the stairs.

My gaze snagged briefly on Chandra. His eyes glowed like blue flame, and I was momentarily enraptured before movement below drew my attention to the male who had my heart.

Araz waited for me, clad in black and gold, the fabric hugging his chest and shoulders to accentuate his powerful physique. His hair was pulled back from his beautiful face, and his eyes…oh, his eyes, ringed in kohl, gleamed like topaz gems on fire.

My stomach flipped.

Hard.

Flames flickered in Araz’s eyes, and heat flared in my chest.

“Leela, move,” Umbra hissed.

I started down the stairs, one foot in front of the other, heart in my throat, stomach in delicious knots as I got closer. And finally, I was a step above him.

He held out his hand, and I slipped my palm into his, inhaling his sweet cranberry scent as he drew me near.

He led me onto the dance floor where Joe, Dharma, and Remi already swayed in their drohis’ arms. Araz pulled me into his, his grip gentle but firm, his body radiating the kind of heat I wanted to melt into. He smiled softly, gaze tracking over my face.

“You’re beautiful,” he said.

Not you look beautiful , but you are beautiful.

Then he led me into the dance, a gentle sway that locked us in harmony.

A surge of warmth rushed up my neck, and my throat pinched because this was the last time that we’d be together like this. The last time he’d hold me this way.

We danced past the stage, past the musicians. The music shifted and changed into a melody unlike any I’d ever heard—haunting and filled with the longing of a promise. A promise of forever.

Something inside me shifted, and Araz’s grip on me flexed, tightening.

I met his gaze to find it swirling with orange flecks, his chest heaving in time with mine as my body heated from within, as if a flame had been lit in my solar plexus, as if a warm hand was sliding down my belly toward the core of me.

I bit back a gasp as he pulled me flush against him, his lips at my ear. His low groan teased my senses.

The music filled me, surrounding me, pressing at the edge of my consciousness like a memory just out of reach.

“Leela…” His voice was a growl, and I felt it between my thighs like a vibration, an echo, a sweet symphony of sensation. Oh god. Oh fucking hell.

The music swelled, and I pulled away, my eyes hot, my body thrumming. He met my gaze with a wild one of his own. Somehow, we’d danced toward the edge of the floor and a dark exit.

“Araz, I?—”

He took my hand and led me out.

We left the ball.

We walked in silence, and then we ran, back to the barracks, back to our room, where he closed the door and turned to face me in the gloom, his eyes like fire as they settled on me.

My clothes were too tight, my skin too hot.

I opened my mouth to speak, but he crushed his lips to it, silencing me with a passion that left me reeling.

I grabbed his shoulders, then his nape, hauling myself closer, needing to be closer.

To feel him against me as he assaulted my mouth, and oh god, his tongue… His sweet fucking tongue.

A low growl vibrated his chest, and an answering throb bloomed between my thighs. Hungry. Desperate and clenching.

I tugged at the tie in his hair and sank my fingers into the thick silken strands, losing myself in the feel of him—the way he drank me in until I was dizzy, until my knees were too weak to hold me.

My feet left the ground as he lifted me, his arms around my waist. The next moment, the mattress was beneath me, his large frame hovering over me. He stilled, his chest heaving as he looked down at me.

ARAZ

She lies beneath me, gathered in starlight fabric, light catching the thread work of her lehenga like the gods embroidered it just for this moment, and the way she looks at me…

Not like the drohi bound to her by force, but the drohi she wants to run toward.

Like I’m hers, not because she was forced to claim me but because she wants to, and that… gods, that undoes me.

I reach for her hand, not to grasp but to touch because this is the moment, the heartbeat between what we were and what we’re about to become, and it’s sacred. I linger at her wrist. Her pulse stutters beneath my fingertips, and mine answers like it’s been waiting for this call.

Our gazes lock, and I drop the veil, allowing her to see the full extent of my need, want, desire…The full extent of how desperately and irrevocably I’m in love with her.