Page 29

A disturbance raised my hackles in the lazy hour of dawn.

Domovoy burst into the library like spilled ink from a bottle.

The mass of shadow shifted into his cat-form as he landed on the rug out of reach.

With Astoria naked and sleeping in my arms, a possessive and protective instinct rose in me.

I lifted a blanket higher over her and draped an arm over her shoulder to hide her from the cat.

I sneered at him, showing off sharp teeth in a blatant warning he ignored with an equally agitated hiss.

His usually unreadable eyes were wide.

Afraid.

“What is it?” He wasn’t here just to bother me, and his shifty energy set my teeth on edge.

His gaze flicked to where Astoria was bundled in my arms.

“You must hide her, master. There isn’t much time—”

She flinched in my embrace. I felt her breathing pattern change against my chest. Awake, and listening. I gritted my teeth, wishing she had remained asleep.

“Time for what? What happened?” Alarm prickled at my nape.

Domovoy’s smoky whiskers twitched. “A scout just returned from the skies, master. A procession of blood flows toward the castle. It’ll arrive by dusk.”

A tundra froze my blood and stilled my heart.

Time had run out. There were no more days. No more time to recover or discover secrets. No more time to enjoy Astoria or unravel the way she felt about me.

Dusk.

We only had until the sun touched the horizon.

The spacious library shrunk, squeezing in all around me. Too warm, too close, too cloying. The scent of old parchment and dust turned thick and heavy in my lungs. A primal instinct spiked in my chest, and I clung to Astoria like my life, my sanity, depended on it—on her.

Her trembling leaked into me. It took all my restraint not to shove her into the cage of my ribs when she pushed from my arms. A curtain of silvery sky-blue hair fell to cover her breasts, not that she subscribed to modesty, anyway.

I sat up with her, lips pursed, as I draped the blanket around her shoulders.

She didn’t seem to notice, eyes void as she stared at the ground.

“It’s him. He’s coming for me,” she said, voice raspy from sleep and shaken.

My tail lashed over the rug and a snarl ripped from my throat. “He’ll die trying!”

“He has a parade of human troops, master.” Domovoy paced, expression pinched.

Astoria turned to me, seeking comfort and answers. “What will we do?”

“We?” I rose from the floor, holding a red throw blanket around my hips. She blinked owlishly at me. “There is no ‘we’ in this. You will go to safety, and I will defend my realm.”

She leapt from the floor in an astounding display of grace and jammed a finger into the center of my chest. Her sapphire eyes flashed with the fury of lightning clashing in a storm. The blanket fell from her shoulders and landed with a solid thump on the floor.

I groaned.

“Call every abled body fighter we have, then prepare the castle and servants for their arrival,” I dismissed Domovoy. His flickering gaze darted between me and Astoria before he vanished in a puff of darkness. The air remained tense in his wake.

In the seconds of silence that followed, the library held an uncanny stillness.

The fragile calm before a storm in the shape of a woman.

Astoria hadn’t budged, trembling with leashed fury.

My heart pounded, equally aroused and concerned.

Her head barely reached my chest, but I knew she was a force to be reckoned with, and that finger on my chest was equivalent to a dagger’s tip.

“I have hidden for long enough. No more,” she said.

I took a steadying breath before the urge to throw her over my shoulder and force her into hiding overcame me. “The Crimson Mage is more powerful than I had anticipated. We don’t know what all he’s capable of. Nor what he might do if he sees you.”

“He might not know Aradia changed me.” Her voice was calm. Resolved.

“He’s a wizard. A powerful one at that—”

“I will not run from him again. He will spend his life hunting me, or the aspect of me he wants, at least. And I cannot allow that to continue. I refuse to live the rest of my life, however much time that may be, spent in fear.”

I stared at her, stunned and seething with frustration. The Inferni half of me begged for me to protect her at all costs. Even if that meant upsetting her and betraying her trust. Her life held more importance than her fury, however righteous.

A fire in her eyes stopped me. An ancient glow, dormant but waking.

Something older than even I could fathom.

She was ageless, eternal, power in the shape of a woman.

The body I touched, caressed, kissed, tasted, might be soft and warm, but her spirit peaked through, pulsing with a magic I didn’t understand.

A star made supple, but burning just as bright.

Gods, she would burn me.

My throat tightened, and my claws dug into my palms.

“I need you to be safe. More than anything else in this world, do you understand? You’ve become my top priority in all things.” I cupped her face, exhaling in relief that she didn’t flinch away. “I’ve fought him before—”

“You barely survived!”

“—I know his magic now.”

“That wound should have killed you, and you know it!” Her defiance warmed me, though my tail twitched with agitation.

“But it didn’t.” I stroked her cheek with my thumb, and she glared harder. “I’ve had time to analyze our fight. Turned it over in my head countless times. He won’t get the best of me a second time.”

“Then I’m staying,” she declared.

“You really should go. I can’t protect you and fight at the same time—”

“I’m not asking you to protect me!” She placed her hands on my chest and my hand moved to cradle her head.

“I understand protecting. I was the protector of the sky for ages. Responsibility for every creature in the air fell on me. No one understands that calling like I do. So, when I tell you I am not yours to protect, there’s no further argument to be made. ”

“But you are mine,” I grumbled.

“I am yours, but you are also mine. In an equal sense, Mavros.” Her gaze softened, and her palm landed over my heart. “And I’m staying.”

“Then I’ll kill him, so you don’t have to be in the line of fire,” I promised.

The corner of her lips curved up. “If you get to be a fool and fight him again, then I get to be a fool and stay.”

I almost laughed.

“Then we will be fools together.”

Golden light bled through the castle windows, heralding the passage of time. Each second slipped through my fingers and anxiety ratcheted higher up my spine, sparking along my nerves. There wasn’t enough time. We might die within hours at the hand of a psychopath from Earth wielding magic.

My demonic impulses got the better of me.

We didn’t make it to my room before I caught her and slammed her into the wall.

Astoria’s head thumped into the wall, and my mouth attacked her neck.

She instantly melted, matching my frantic need like the same spark ignited us.

And she was so much smaller than me, easy to manipulate.

I lifted her and her arms wrapped around my neck.

Her fingers tangled in my hair as I grabbed handfuls of her round ass to maneuver her.

She was already wet and ready for me when my cock nudged her pussy.

A groan breached me, matching her drawn-out whimper when I sheathed myself into her perfect cunt in one thrust. So hot and wet and tight.

The perfect glove for my cock. Like she was made to take it, made for me to fuck her—to love her.

When she cried my name, I almost said it.

I captured her lips instead.

Not a kiss, but a claiming taste of her.

Each breath, each sigh was a morsel, a scrap, another piece of her filling me, and I swallowed.

Her affection warmed me, fed me. In turn, I poured my unspoken love into her.

Not as a gentle offering, but a thing of claws and teeth and biting starvation.

More than loving her, I wanted to feast on her.

To unhinge my jaw and pull her heart into my aching maw.

To feel her pulse in my bones until we met in the grave to rot together.

After today, maybe we would.

He arrived in the gloaming hour.

The castle bells rung for the first time in hundreds of years. Three long tolls lamenting war, and heavier than the groans of death.

I prowled the top of the staircase of the castle's front entrance. The courtyard appeared barren and lifeless. I watched the shadows stretch like skeletal fingers reaching for me—or for the light standing behind me.

With my fighting leathers still in tatters, I’d donned my father’s ink-black armor.

It fit strangely on my form, like wearing the bones of a long-dead goliath still haunting the realm from beyond the grave.

Thayer had polished it to perfection, and there was no denying my reflection in the metal.

I wore the armor now despite the lack of my father’s crown.

These were still my people. This was still my home and my world.

And Astoria was mine.

The torches along the front path flared impossibly high and violent. A thick, slick air fell on the front lawn. He appeared at first like a drop of blood in the distance, growing into a gleaming ruby, radiating malice in place of beauty.

Astoria stood beside me. She hadn’t spoken since our exchange in the library that morning. Since then, she’d stood beside me as still and determined as a sentinel. A light, a beacon, grounding me in the severity of this moment.

The wizard led his procession with ceremonial grandeur. Slow, confident, and bolstered by his arrogance. He took his time because he believed he could. He spilled onto my land like a crimson plague spreading disease. Even his magic, festering in the surrounding air, was virulent and acrid.