Page 51

CYRUS

In the King’s empty hideout, Mezor sweeps the map away, sending the pieces that represent the world trees scattering across the floor. He sets Cyrus down on the table. Cyrus’s stomach sinks as Mezor collapses to his knees in front of him.

“Forgive me.” He hangs his head. His shame is visceral on Cyrus’s tongue.

Cyrus scrambles to the edge. “Get up.”

Mezor’s shoulders shudder, but he stays on his knees. “If you’ll have me, I’m yours. Forever. If you won’t have me…” he lifts his head and his eyes glow. “I’ll watch over you from afar. Wherever you go, I’ll keep you safe. Just say the word.”

“Stop!” Cyrus’s eyes grow hot. “You big fool. I’ll have you. I’ll have you until our souls decay and we become one with the aether.”

Relief steals his breath—his or Mezor’s, he can’t tell. Mezor cups his cheek and wipes the wetness that seeps from the corner of his eye.

“Then we’ll muddle through this together.”

“I think—” Cyrus begins, swallowing back a hiccup of hysterical laughter. “I think for now I’ll muddle, and you’ll follow.”

Mezor bows his head again, but this time he rests his forehead gently on Cyrus’s thigh. His warm breath is a balm to Cyrus’s soul—proof of life.

“Tell me what to do,” he murmurs.

This time Cyrus can’t hold in the hiccups. “Hold me,” he gulps, sliding off the table into Mezor’s embrace. “Just hold me.”

Cyrus wakes in the dark. Disoriented for a moment, he flails, gasping, until his body remembers it’s not drowning. He sits up. Jolts of adrenaline run down his limbs and coalesce into an uneasy ball in his stomach. He dreams about the Hellspring now, has nightmares of the dark, cold water sucking him under. Of his flesh dissolving before his eyes and his soul absorbed into a vortex. He squeezes his eyes shut and presses the heels of his palms against them, pushing until he sees lights.

It’s over. You’re safe.

A gentle ek-ek-ek brings him out of his self-pity. He rolls away from Mezor’s side and rises to his feet. Since leaving the Court, Mezor sleeps more often—normal, restful sleep, not the eternal kind. But he’s out of practice and his sleep is shallow, so Cyrus takes care not to disturb him.

Ekko is perched on the cliff above, watchful. He, too, has vowed to protect Cyrus in his own way, and every time Cyrus lays eyes on him his heart is newly grateful for Ekko’s friendship. Though he flies freely across Hell, he always returns to Cyrus.

Cyrus takes the bow and arrows and follows Ekko into the trees. He’s becoming a skilled hunter. Once it would have been unimaginable. Now, death no longer frightens or shames him. When he lets the arrow fly he’s thankful instead—thankful that he sees more izil in herds than alone. Thankful no serpents writhe across the forest, wreaking destruction as madness engulfs their minds. Thankful for the cycle of healing that has brought a small measure of abundance and hope back to Hell’s wilds.

The forest is dappled with gentle light from the canopy’s luminescent underside. Ekko flies overhead silently. He soars higher, circling on an updraft to observe the landscape. Soon Cyrus sees what he sees—a herd of izil, lots of young in their number. They’re so voracious they’ve been clearing out new growth on this side of the forest. Mezor grumbles every time he sees their mark. Yet he’s reluctant to disrupt the delicate balance of the burgeoning ecosystem.

Well, Cyrus is part of the ecosystem now. As is his companion.

The izil nibble their way across the patch of grass, pausing at the edge of the trees to munch tender young leaves from the low branches. Cyrus spots his target immediately—a bedraggled izil who lingers at the back of the herd, staggering back and forth, pausing occasionally to nibble. The forest’s gentle light reveals patchy fur and a milky sheen over its eyes. It’s been fortunate enough to live to an age many izil have never seen.

He lifts his bow and sights.

The izil’s head lifts. As if sensing his presence, it looks straight across the clearing at him. A full-body shiver takes him as it lowers its head to graze again, placid in the face of death.

The arrow flies true, obeying his will, but his aim still isn’t the best—he hits the izil in the flank instead of the chest. The beast collapses silently and the rest scatter with squeals of alarm, their tails flashing. Ekko shoots from the sky to slice the fallen izil’s throat with his claws before it can suffer.

Cyrus shoulders the bow again.

“Good job,” he calls, but he doesn’t draw any nearer. Ekko gets territorial after a kill.

Ekko gives a satisfied cry. I know I’m a good hunter , the screech says. He’s big enough to fly off with a young izil on his own, but he often comes to fetch Cyrus to hunt with him.

Cyrus turns away to let Ekko eat in privacy. Atop a nearby hill, he watches for intruders. It isn’t long before one arrives—a tall, shadowy figure emerging from the trees. Ekko shrieks in warning.

Cyrus laughs. “He still doesn’t like you,” he calls down.

The shadows fall away to reveal Mezor’s smirk. “He had better get used to me.”

Cyrus makes to stand, but Mezor shakes his head. He climbs the hill to sit below Cyrus on the slope, his proximity bringing a burst of his stormy scent to Cyrus’s nose. His body thrums as Mezor leans his head into Cyrus’s chest. He runs his claws gently over Mezor’s dark hair and his mate’s eyes drift shut. A deep rumble of satisfaction vibrates through him.

“I woke and found you missing,” Mezor says. “You shouldn’t wander alone.”

“I wasn’t alone. Ekko was with me.”

Mezor hums. He’s still untrusting of the wilds. After centuries of watching it decay, Cyrus doesn’t blame him. He trusts the forest, though. He senses the presence of Mezor’s brothers through the trees, the way he once sensed Kalad. No harm will come to him here—he knows it to his bones. Still, Mezor’s protectiveness makes his vergis purr.

My mate. It’s still surreal to say the words inside his own head. Mine. Forever.

He twists a lock of Mezor’s hair into itself, making a glossy braid, winding in tiny white flowers from his pouch. Whenever his knuckle brushes Mezor’s horn, the muscle in his broad chest twitches and his nipple jumps.

Cyrus brushes the gleaming horn a few more times on purpose.

“Is it strange that I miss the Court sometimes?” he wonders.

“Why would it be?” Mezor replies. “Your life there was still yours, even if it was painful at times.”

“Sometimes I felt connected to its halls, as if the souls of those who’d lived there before me lingered.” He lets the braid slip through his fingers. “But I hated it, too. Even after the King was dethroned, his madness had already soaked into its stones. It seemed like everyone in the Court was mad, even me.”

“Stones hold stories. But even the Court will heal in time.” Mezor shrugs, muscles rippling.

“There are still demons inside. Whenever I remember that, I feel a duty to them. Even though we were strangers—or enemies.”

The bridge is gone, destroyed by the King’s escape to Earth—and the corrosive poison he trailed behind him. The last of the Grey Company never made it out of Hell. For those left behind, there are no kings or generals to dictate their lives. But what kind of life do they have within the mountain? The Court’s purpose was war. Without it, they’re rootless blooms floating on the surface of a pond.

But Cyrus was the same, once.

Mezor opens one eye. “You feel duty to demons who swear no duty to you.”

“I think duty must be cyclical.” Cyrus smiles and strokes the hair back from his broad forehead. Mezor’s brow creases under his touch. But he’s loving this attention—Cyrus can tell. “You’ve passed yours on to your brothers, who work hard to heal the realm in their sleep. But some of it must have made its way to me.”

“These are the things that make you special.” Mezor captures his hand. Warm, dry lips on Cyrus’s palm send a tingle down his spine.

Once the words would have felt like mockery. Once, he wasn’t special. He was an anomaly, and his only hope for survival was to become something else. Now, thanks to Mezor, he sees himself differently. He shudders as Mezor kisses his wrist, his tender inner arm, words falling away into silent devotion.

In the months since leaving the Court behind, they’ve traveled on foot to every world tree. What Cyrus experienced at Kalad’s resting place was not just a stroke of luck—thanks to the bond and the way his soul has entwined with his mate’s, he can sense Mezor’s brothers. And when he speaks, they listen.

Send your strength to the trees , he tells them. Let their roots grow far and wide, sharing their vitality with the land. The King’s ritual, along with Kalad’s sacrifice, drained much of the corruption from the realm. Still, the work is far from done. In a millenium or two, maybe Mezor’s brothers will wake once more.

Mezor drags him down, capturing his lips and devouring his mouth hungrily. His tongue is warm from sleep, his eyes dark with desire. Cyrus shudders with sudden need, tearing himself away to clamber off the rock into Mezor’s lap. He sheds the bow and quiver, then strips off his shirt and pants.

Mezor stops suddenly. “Let me see.”

“They’re healing fine!” Cyrus groans, exasperated. His cock is an iron bar and his hole already damp with slick, ready to be taken instantly. But of course Mezor wants to look at his scars.

“Turn over.” His tone brooks no argument.

Cyrus shivers in spite of himself and crawls off Mezor’s lap, laying himself face-first over the boulder. He bites his tongue as his cock presses into the soft moss.

Mezor’s thumbs dig into his ass with no warning, parting his cheeks to expose his hole. He rumbles in satisfaction. But instead of being overcome with lust at the sight, to Cyrus’s disappointment, Mezor releases him. His fingers trail up Cyrus’s back. The scars from the Quartermaster’s whip are still tender, the skin rough—just like the scars on Mezor’s chest are puckered and red where the King dug his claws in. He doesn’t let Cyrus touch them like this, and Cyrus knows it’s because he’s ashamed of them. For Mezor, the scars represent how he almost gave up.

To Cyrus, they represent how deep the King’s hold ran, how lost and lonely Mezor was for so long.

Mezor lavishes attention on Cyrus’s tender back. The sides of his thumbs dig in gently and he rolls the tense muscles there, soothing them, sending a melting ache down Cyrus’s whole back. Cyrus groans, feeling himself let go.

“You have to let me rub them, or else they’ll start to hurt again.”

Mezor’s words are distant. Cyrus nods halfheartedly, all the breath escaping his lungs as those powerful hands sweep up his spine again.

Mezor chuckles. Slowly, he works away every ounce of tension Cyrus has ever held in his back. His fingers creep upward, digging into the column of Cyrus’s neck, then across his scalp. When Mezor squeezes the base of Cyrus’s horns, an involuntary whine escapes him and all his bonelessness evaporates in a lick of flame. His hips inch higher, pushing his sensitive sac against the sturdy thigh between his legs.

Mezor growls. “See how much of a tease that is?”

“More,” Cyrus demands, his cheek squashed against the cool stone.

Mezor’s thigh crowds him, tucking up between his legs to give him delicious friction—so close to where he wants it. He rocks his hips up and down, the drag over his skin delightful. Mezor presses his thumbs into the base of Cyrus’s neck again, gently holding his jaw with both hands, and sweeps them upward to his horns. Over and over, until Cyrus is shuddering and his mouth falls open. His hole squeezes on slick and nothing.

“ More. ”

Mezor strokes his horns until he’s squirming against the flat rock, his nipples scraping the smooth surface as he writhes and sending tiny shocks down his spine.

“Please, please, please,” he begs, panting. “Need it?—”

Mezor’s teeth scrape his ear. “You can be a good vergis and have patience.”

“Give me your cock,” Cyrus yelps, falling flat against the rock so he can fumble behind himself for the desired thing.

Mezor’s breath is heavy in his ear, his self control hanging on by a tether. While Ekko finally screeches his displeasure behind them and takes off, Mezor snarls and rips at his pants. “I should be naked all the time, damn it. I should be at your service, so you can use my cock any time you please for your insatiable needs. And when I need your hole—I can just do—this?—”

Mezor’s cock pushes into him unceremoniously, every word stressed by a jerk of his hips that fills Cyrus inch by inch. Cyrus hiccups, his breath well and truly stolen. His eyes roll back as Mezor sinks deeper and deeper.

“Better?” Mezor growls.

“ Yes, ” Cyrus gasps.

His back arches like a bow as Mezor fills him to the brim, his thrusts forcing Cyrus to his toes. He grips the rock for dear life. Mezor snarls like a beast above him, the heat of his body, his power, his overwhelming scent, all surrounding Cyrus like a perfect storm. Suddenly his hole squeezes, and a shock runs through him as wetness spreads under his cock. I’m coming .

“Good vergis,” Mezor tells him again, grabbing his hair with claws that are so firm yet gentle it hurts his soul. “So sweet and good for me. So needy.”

“Need you—deeper.” He rises up, grabbing Mezor’s magnificent horns with both hands as his mate pounds into him.

Mezor roars, slamming his cock deeper—exactly where Cyrus needs it. He barely registers the cry that’s ripped from his own throat as Mezor’s proto-knot stuffs him and his cockhead pierces home to the place deep inside that longs to be filled. His body seizes. A second orgasm rips through him like wildfire, setting the bond alight. Instead of subsiding it builds, higher and higher—creeping up through his lungs, his heart, his throat, until he’s frozen with pleasure as Mezor’s real knot swells in him and his mate takes his body as his own. The glow of the forest is a perfect afterimage on the backs of his eyelids. Mezor jolts and groans against him, his knot pulsing as he buries his seed deep inside. The glow bursts into sparks. Cyrus chokes.

“Yes, please, yes,” he begs incoherently, needing it all , the pain, the ecstasy.

Mezor’s lips touch the top of his head. For a moment, they’re two souls sharing one space in the universe.

Mezor’s breath washes over him, and Cyrus’s heart starts again. He lets go of Mezor’s horns and falls to his hands, looking down at where they’re joined. His cock still drools onto the rock. His hole can’t even twitch around Mezor’s knot, it fills him so tightly. He shudders with aftershocks, his insides flexing as his hole tries to milk more seed from his mate. Mezor groans into his hair.

The knot lasts for what feels like eternity and not long enough. Cyrus hasn’t had a heat since the fateful heat that brought them together, and part of him is eager for the experience, knowing it means hours and hours trapped on Mezor’s knot, unable to stop the waves of pleasure. Once the thought would have terrified him. Now it makes him feel powerful.

When Mezor gives a last shudder and his cock kicks weakly inside, he knows it’s over. Mezor waits until his knot has softened enough to slip out of Cyrus with ease. The seed leaking out of his hole sends a thrum of satisfaction through his core, into the place he used to think of separate from the rest of him—his vergis. Mezor rolls him over with ease, kneeling to lick wide stripes up Cyrus’s thighs and scoop up his own seed with his tongue. He plunges his tongue inside. Cyrus groans, heat building as he stares down at Mezor’s face of concentration.

The stubborn part of him wants to protest at the gentle treatment. He’s not breakable. But the rest of him, the part that’s learning to let go, luxuriates in it. He lets the sensations roll over him gladly, filling his soul to the brim.

By the time Mezor lets his legs fall, Cyrus is boneless and spattered with his own seed. He slides to the grass as Mezor leans back on his elbows, a smug look on his face.

“My turn,” Cyrus breathes, fumbling forward.

He laps slick and seed from Mezor’s cock eagerly, losing himself to the task of servicing his mate. The eager shaft plumps under his attention. He milks Mezor’s thick proto-knot with his fists as his mouth closes over the tip, and his mate lets his head fall to the grass, exposing his beautiful, corded neck. The bond pulses with tenderness and affection as he lies utterly still and lets Cyrus do whatever he wills. Cyrus’s heart is full. He drinks Mezor’s seed like a medicine that will heal him.

Mine , he thinks, crawling up Mezor’s body to slide under his arm once more. Silence settles over the wood.

“Let’s help them,” Mezor says suddenly, after a long moment in which Cyrus thought he might have fallen asleep again. “Your demons.”

Cyrus pushes himself upright. “How?”

“Guide them into Hell. They can live in the wilds, or for those who are ready, take their last journey. I’m still a shepherd god, after all. And you’re exceedingly clever. Together, I’m sure we can find a way.”

Cyrus strokes his mate’s chest, bare of markings now that the gate is gone. His mind stirs.

“We can build a road. Something to guide all souls, even the ones in the pit. At least until your brothers wake again.” He straightens suddenly. “We can use stones from the Court. There may be demons who’d help.”

“Give the stones new memories,” Mezor agrees, his eyes gleaming. Adoration fills Cyrus’s chest, and he falls on Mezor.

“Let’s do it,” he says as Mezor laughs at his enthusiasm. “And then we’ll look for the next journey.”

“Together.”

“ Crah! ” Ekko cries from above, and they both look up.

Mezor’s arms come around him as the forest’s glow rises in a crescendo.