Page 4

W ith each cup, the bitterness of King Nemea’s wine turned sweeter.

Evander set another goblet into my hand. “A dance?” He smiled over the rim of his own. “It’s been years since I’ve tried, but I promise I won’t embarrass you the way the king of Varya did.”

I found King Theodore across the room with a self-righteous pinch on his face. “Fine,” I said to Evander, absently.

“You sound thrilled,” he teased.

“Just swear you’ll catch me if I swoon.”

He came closer, and the salt on him sent shocks shooting through me. “I swear on the beloved deity herself.”

We pushed ourselves onto the crowded floor, and when the music swelled, Evander’s hand fell drink-heavy on my hip. He gripped the folds of my skirt, the flesh beneath, and then he pressed us together as he guided me across the floor. He surrounded me, the heat of his body spilling through my own.

It was its own kind of intoxication. To be touched, to feel his pulse beneath my fingers when I grabbed his wrist for another dance. Then another.

More wine. More of that sea scent.

There were women—I’d seen them—who were lit from within, and when they became wives that light dampened.

I did not know if it was their husbands that doused their flame, or if they themselves curled up around it, their very souls trying to protect it from extinguishing.

Regardless, I had been prepared to watch myself dim.

But Evander’s touch lit sparks inside me, and somehow, he coaxed the light within to burn brighter, to burn steadily.

The night, the music, the dwindling candles, all began to blur as we crept toward morning.

My head hummed with drink. The dance floor still brimmed with bodies, and the music still beat through the air.

Evander tightened his hold on my ribs and pulled me closer.

He set his mouth to mine, his top lip slipped between my own, and the biting taste of salt filled my mouth. I gasped.

It felt like blood, hot and pulsing, flooded my back, deep around my spine. My body tensed. He slowed our dance. “What’s wrong? Are you tired?”

I could only nod.

With a soft tug, he led me toward the grand doors, and in my haze, I let him. His strong arm snaked around me, his warm breath fanning against my neck. I arched into him mindlessly, tilting my head back, when my gaze snagged on the wing—on the etching below it.

THE MONSTER IS ALWAYS SLAIN

The king of Varya’s words scurried through my mind, a bug inside my skull.

Is the captain an idiot as well as a murderer?

“You all right, love?” Evander’s voice was gentle at my ear.

“I don’t feel well.”

His mouth quirked. “Too much wine. You need bread. Come on.”

At the banquet table, he pressed a hunk of bread into my hand, and grabbed the other, leading me out of the throne room with quick steps. Navigating the dark stairs took more focus than I’d anticipated. The wine in my blood had grown potent. I fought to cling to Evander’s strong hands.

“This gown—” He swatted at the wide skirt, trying to keep me upright. “Bleeding Gods.”

“I do what His Majesty asks of me.” My words slurred together. “I wear the dress that steals my air. I marry the captain—” I cut myself off, suddenly aware. I looked up into Evander’s piercing eyes. “It’s what we do, isn’t it? Obey.”

He seemed to marvel at me for a long moment before he said, “It is.” He sounded plagued by it. “Every day.”

Evander tugged me the rest of the way up the stairs. At the top of the landing, he pressed me into the wall with a rough kiss. I jolted at the bite of cold stone against my neck. He spoke over my lips. “It starts to wear on you, doesn’t it? Always doing what you’re told. Having no say.”

That shocked me. I wanted to say yes, yes, yes, but I was distracted by how badly I craved a full breath. I was distracted by the salt on my tongue, and how desperately I wanted more. He kissed me again, pressing me harder into the stone wall.

“Soon, when we’re married,” he said, between nipping kisses, “you won’t have to answer to him.” He gestured to the oaken door behind him. “This is your room?”

I nodded and he lifted me, fumbled with my skirt to wrap my legs around him, and then we were inside. There was the metallic slide of the door bolt, the glow of the low burning fire.

The harsh, dancing shadows it cast about the room swayed my vision. They cut across Evander’s face, and a wildness grew in his eyes. I’d been with men before: pleasant, quick, passionate. This was different. Not the man—Evander’s fervor was just like the rest.

I was different.

I wanted him with a strange sort of need. Like my body might wither if I could not taste him, feel him, press my nails into his flesh. He kissed me, hard and possessive, but I didn’t mind. I dragged my mouth down the line of his stubbled jaw, to where his pulse sped in small, warm waves.

Salt from his sweat; salt from the sea. A moan filled my throat.

Too slowly, he untied the laces of my bodice and slipped it down my shoulders.

When he finally loosened my stays, and I breathed the air in all the way down to the base of my lungs, my vision sparked.

Unpleasant pressure built and scorched low in my chest and spine, down my arms. I pressed a hand to my aching head.

“Come here.” Evander’s dark voice made me jump.

A dark fog still shrouded me, but I took another complete breath and followed him to the bed.

The firelight cut across his broad, muscled back, then across the lines of his chest as he turned to lie down.

My body and mind had become two separate entities.

Within the cage of my chest came a plucking sensation, like a string knotted to my ribs had been struck.

I tried to shake the feeling as I set myself atop Evander.

Slowly, I guided him inside me and pressed my chest to his. He held me, moved with me.

But even surrounded and filled by Evander, that sinister feeling grew.

It was as if something lurked within me and thought to come alive, twitching, writhing, taking shape.

Pressing my eyes shut, I tried to focus past it.

I bit back the urge to hum. His fingers dug into my hips, and I squeezed my eyes harder.

The rumbling sound of Evander’s pleasure hit my ears, his mouth covered mine, and all I tasted, all I wanted, was salt.

In a sudden flash of white, I crumbled.

This was not ecstasy. It was a tumbling, pleasureless loss of self.

A fire in my chest radiated out toward my back.

The skin above my shoulder blades burned and pulled before it tore open.

Wings stretched free. A painful moan shredded my throat.

More fire ran down my arms, dripping down each finger, until my nails extended into dark-tipped talons.

Evander froze beneath me. In suspended seconds, his face morphed from slack-jawed shock to disgust. Then his handsome features contorted again, the heat in his eyes cooling.

Hate.

In my confused drunkenness, I cocked my head. I couldn’t understand it—why it was not awe he beheld me with. Then comprehension lashed me like a whip.

He forced me off him. Threw me to the floor, where my head whipped back against the stone.

I should have felt fear, should have felt pain.

Instead, his sudden loathing, his willingness to harm me, prodded at the thing lurking inside.

I couldn’t quite place where it lived, but like a bruised bone, I could feel it deep within.

It gnashed and swelled, drawing forth thoughts of clawed hands and ribboned flesh and streaming blood.

Evander moved quickly, coming over me to wrap his hand around my throat. His skin was hot against mine. His weight pressed me down, crushing the base of my wings. Both of our pulses beat through his grip. His, fast. Mine, even-keeled. Unchanged.

In a single, easy motion I mirrored him. My long fingers wrapped around his neck. The black tips of my talons sank into his golden skin, bringing forth ruby-red beads of his blood. He hissed through his teeth and withdrew his hand from my neck.

I breathed in the hot metal scent. “You’re scared.” I’d never felt so powerful—so unlike myself. He shook his head, but I could see the whites of his eyes. I sank my fingers in deeper.

“Imogen, please.” His words were only air, but they struck me like a fist. Hearing my name—remembering who I was—shriveled the dark thing inside me.

I released him. My chest heaved with panicked breaths.

He sat back on his heels, rounded eyes darting over the whole of me. My naked body, the black wings beneath me, the dark talons at the tips of my fingers. “Fucking Gods.”

Like a scolded pup, I rolled away from him and crawled toward the hearth.

I covered my breasts in shame as he collected his clothes and pulled them on.

His movements were quick, controlled. The flex of his muscled body filled me with petrified awareness.

Those were muscles born of hunting Sirens, of heaving flailing, fearful bodies as they fought their executions.

Evander stopped at the door, fury and disappointment rumpling his face.

His lips parted as if he might speak, but he only etched one last withering glare over me before he left.

And with that, the steady, bright light that had grown within me snuffed out.

I sat awake, eyes on the bolted door, a jewel-encrusted dagger gripped in my fist.

The firelight set its rubies glinting and lit the short, dull blade gold.

As the sun finally crept through my window, I twisted it in my fingers, feeling suddenly foolish.

King Nemea had gifted it to me on my seventeenth birthday.

With its profuse jewels and blunted blade, it was more ornamental than deadly—like me, I thought.

Even so, clinging to it through the night had given me a sense of safety.