Page 10

CYRUS

Two more meetings .

Two more chances to act like a fool in front of the Hunter.

He called it the lover’s challenge, and the word makes Cyrus shudder. He doesn’t want to be anyone’s lover—does he? His blurted proposition was a mistake. Only during heat does his desire ever eclipse his hatred of other demons, making him ache to be touched.

He’s never been drawn to someone before. Never had flashes of broad shoulders appear in his dreams. Never fallen asleep imagining impossibly huge hands on his waist. Never heard a phantom voice in his ear, deep, firm, and commanding.

He’s never felt this hunger to prove himself. It drives him out of the barracks every night. But every night his search yields nothing—no secret door in the lower levels, no crack in the wall big enough for a giant like the Hunter to squeeze through, no yet-undiscovered tunnel.

He has other things to worry about, too. Rumours race through the Court that another hunting company has disappeared. Their stores dwindle and his belly goes empty more often than not. He’s escaped the tunnel excavation, but only because General Leuther has decided counting and re-counting the stock will make more grain magically appear. It seems like every day more demons weaken and collapse—from corruption sickness, from hunger, from cave-ins. The abysmal morale takes a toll even on him, and so does the lack of food.

Cyrus goes to their second meeting empty-handed, a stone the size of a fist lodged where his courage should be. His future depends on Mezor’s whim. He hates that he wants so badly to show he’s worthy of it.

The Hunter’s potent scent makes his head spin and his throat dry up the instant he sets foot in the room, and his chest twists up with thorny frustration.

“There can’t be a passage!” he blurts as soon as the door closes behind him. “It’s a trick. It must be.”

“It’s not a trick,” Mezor rumbles. Weariness blossoms on his rough-hewn face, made harsh by the cool moonlight.

Cyrus swallows further hot accusations that rise on his tongue. “I’ve walked the lower levels hundreds of times. I know all the exits.”

“All but one.”

He passes on pitiful scraps of information and Mezor nods, not bothering to tell Cyrus they’re useless. “And the tunnel?”

“I—I don’t know,” he stammers, cursing himself for not thinking of it. “I’ll find reports. What do you want to know?”

“Never mind.” Mezor frowns. “It’s not important. Just a whim.”

He bites his tongue as Mezor hands him the arrow again and turns away without another word. He must think Cyrus is incompetent as well as pitiful.

He sits there a long time after the Hunter leaves. The moon seems to laugh at him, a long, slow, mocking blink. Exhaustion creeps over him and he falls into a restless sleep, slumped against the stone wall.

Cyrus wakes slowly, the foggy dream weighing him down. Pikes clash in his dream as indistinct figures battle. Ichor puddles at his feet, so much that his shoes are soaked. He tries to raise his own weapon, but it’s just an empty bow. A jarring blow sends it flying from his hands and he ducks, but a sword slides past his guard and between his ribs—deeper and deeper, until it touches his heart. Flame spreads from the tip of the blade into his body. He welcomes the heat.

“Hey!”

The voice penetrates his dream. He struggles to surface from the haze. He’s so warm, he doesn’t want to leave.

“Get up!”

Someone shakes him roughly. Cyrus jolts awake with a gasp. The heavy apron of a forge worker swings in front of his eyes. Its wearer is a massive demon with a dark scowl on his face.

He scrambles to his feet. He must have practically sleepwalked to the forge. The warmth leaves him weak, but he straightens and pulls up his coldest glare. At this point it’s probably pathetic.

“I was resting. You’ve disturbed me.”

“Hah! Useless layabout.” The forge demon snorts. “Bad enough the Quartermaster invents new quotas every day, I don’t need his lackey sneaking around. Get, before I teach you a lesson!”

The demon reaches for the knife at his belt. Cyrus abandons the pretense of control and let his feet take him back up the corridor before he’s even fully awake.

He spends the night in the barracks, too drained to sneak out. His head is heavy and his eyes feel puffy, as if he’s sick. He curls into his corner on the floor and falls asleep to strange thoughts of red eyes and gleaming silvery marks.

He wakes to slick trickling down his thighs and goes cold all over.

My heat.

His heart pounds. His heat is infrequent—once every few years. It hasn’t been long since his last one. It should be impossible. But bleak truth trickles through the haze of his exhaustion. The book he read and shamefully re-read is emblazoned on his memory: a vergis’s heat can be hastened along once they’re in proximity to a primus.

How could he have missed the signs?

It can’t be because of Mezor , he thinks helplessly. But it can’t be anyone else, either. In the early days he’d been terrified the King’s presence would trigger that kind of reaction, yet the King’s scent was repellant to him, and still is. On the other hand, traces of the Hunter’s tantalizing essence linger in Cyrus’s senses even now. He can’t deny Mezor’s presence induces temporary madness—why not his heat, too?

He shuts his eyes, a slow, steady drip of desire feeding the quivering heat in his belly. He’s close. It will build and spill over before the day’s end, turning him into a quivering, needy mess. And there will be pain. Unimaginable pain—the physical needs of his body, but also the anguish of being alone. His vergis hates it, hates him during heat. Terrible thoughts fly through his head—why doesn’t he have a mate? Is he not good enough? Is he not a real vergis? What does he have to do?

He doesn’t want a mate, but his vergis doesn’t care.

He squeezes his shins and tries to breathe. He’s suffered countless heats now. It’s always awful—he can never be satisfied, but need drives him to the edge again and again, leaving him exhausted. Yet he survived every single one. He only needs to get to his nest safely and stay secluded until it’s over.

It means days hiding away from the Court, though, and Quartermaster Magnus will be angry when he resurfaces—angry enough to lash him, maybe, or even lock him in the cages. Sometimes Cyrus is lucky and the Quartermaster is too occupied to notice, but lately Magnus has been watching him.

Before, Magnus wouldn’t have dared mete out certain punishments. Cyrus had the dubious privilege of being hand-appointed by the King, leaving the Quartermaster unsure of how much, exactly, the King favored him.

Now the King is gone, and he has no choice but to risk it.

Swift on the heels of that revelation is the realization that today is the waxing gibbous moon. The third meeting. His heart sinks. After the ravages of his heat he’ll be in no shape to traipse around the lower levels or fulfil his function as a spy. His failure is practically guaranteed.

Cyrus gets off the floor quietly, dismayed to find his legs already wobbling. Only sheer willpower keeps him upright. The door opens with a crash and demons jolt awake around him as Magnus strides in cracking his whip. The window of opportunity to escape to his nest slams shut.