He’d once believed that she was “everything missing” from his life. Could he still feel that way? And why was she contemplating these things—instead of how to transpo this gold to Rothkalina or calculating karats?
Why did she have the urge to peer up at him with equal captivation? She surrendered to her impulse, turning to him. He seemed surprised by her perusal but held her gaze.
They were—dare she say it?—having a moment.
“You face me when surrounded by gold? Perhaps I rate after all?” The scowl returned, as if he was hardening himself. She wanted to cry, No, no, no, just a few more minutes!
“We had a deal,” he said. “I grow impatient.”
She could imagine—he’d waited so long to see her. And now she knew he’d already been struggling with his lust and curiosity when he’d been a young man.
A deal was a deal. She would take the sight of this gold into her, a memory to last forever. Unless I can return. . . .
“Be about it, sorceress.”
Since she’d planned to enthrall him, this would be a good start, but the way he was crouching forward, as if on the verge of pouncing, made her hesitate. “If I do this, how do I know you won’t try to touch me? You’re not supposed to, right?”
“I only intend to look,” he said, though she could sense his aggression mounting.
“Uh-huh.”
“Do it, then.” When she still hesitated, he said, “Don’t feign shyness—I know you’ve done this with a horde of males before me.”
And just like that, her interest was checked. Though she was neither ashamed nor proud of the number of men she’d been with, his cruel jabs wounded her.
At least now she better understood his resentment. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to put myself in a sexual situation with you.”
He growled at that. “After your purported year of celibacy, I would expect you to be climbing the walls for any male’s attentions. And if I’m not mistaken, you’re in season.”
She flushed, lips thinning.
“I’ve heard tales of females like you.” At her raised brows, he enunciated the words, “Easy quarry.”
How could a maddened Vrekener hurt her so much?
Because he once looked at you with perfect acceptance, Lanthe. And she feared she’d been searching for that look ever since she’d lost it.
In order for her to be interested in a male, he needed to make her feel special—even if she knew it was a ruse. Despite Thronos’s mind-blowing body and heartbreaking past, he stood no chance. “Even we ‘easy quarry’ girls have standards. And you, Thronos Talos, are leaving me cold.”
He scoffed. “I could seduce you with ease. You’ve welcomed scores before me with only minuscule effort on their part. But I’ve no intention of taking you, nor even of touching you. Both are offendments. I only want to see my female.”
“You think you can resist seeing your mate nak*d?”
“You think I can’t?” A cunning light shone in his gaze. “You Sorceri like to gamble? To make bets? Then I’ll enter into a wager with you—my first.”
Dudley Do-Right makes a bet.
“If your body tempts me to touch it, then I’ll tell you how I found this temple and opened the door.”
“And if it doesn’t tempt you?”
“The blow to your enchantress pride would be reward enough.”
That is it! Now it was imperative to wipe that smirk off his face. “I’ll take your bet.” She thought she spied a flash of surprise in his expression. “No sex, though.”
He glowered, as if she’d suggested something ludicrous. “I’ll breed no bastards! Already my offspring will be half Sorceri. Do you think I’d allow the first to be illegitimate on top of that?”
Asshole! Only Thronos could ruin this: her, in a temple full of gold with a physically attractive male. He was like the anti-Sorceri—created to repel her.
Forget enchanting him! He didn’t deserve her beguilement. “I’ll remember this.”
“What?”
“That you kill joy wherever you find it.” She gave him her back as she unfastened the first of three clips on the side of her breastplate.
Had his breaths quickened?
She gazed over her shoulder, saw his claws digging into the gold shelf, his throat working. His voice dropped an octave when he commanded, “Off with it.”
She unfastened the second clip.
“That’s it,” he murmured, his words dripping with pent-up lust.
As she was undoing the last clip, she heard something from beyond the main cave, and paused. The sound came again, growing in volume—movement down the mountainside. Something big was approaching. “Thronos, what was that?”
“Heard nothing. Continue.”
“Come on, demon!” She began fastening the clips again.
“There’s nothing to fear out there!”
When the entire temple rocked, she snapped, “Oh, really?”
He made a coarse sound of frustration; then she heard the swoop of his wings. She whirled around to find him charging toward her, that determined look on his grave face.
His eyes appeared to have darkened, and she could swear his horns were straightening—just like a demon’s would when he became aroused.
In other words, Thronos doesn’t live here anymore.
Reaching for her, he bit out, “To tide me over.”
Till when?!
A roar sounded in the cave. Seeming to wake out of a daze, Thronos dropped his hands. And she could have sworn upstanding Dudley Do-Right grated, “Fuck.”
EIGHTEEN
Thronos lunged for her, shoving her behind the stone door that led to the main cave. He pulled her close, then wrapped a protective wing around her.
“What is it?” she whispered.
“I smell a creature, but scarcely trust my senses. I thought they were going extinct across all worlds.”
He couldn’t be talking about a dragon? When she heard some great beast breathing at the outer cave entrance, she shuddered. Two bright lights blazed inside like a car’s high beams.
Thronos craned his head around the door to catch a glimpse. His heart pounded at whatever he’d seen.
She delved into his thoughts . . . then sucked in a breath.
A dragon had its head in the cave opening, its brilliant yellow eyes glowing. Heated air blurred around its nose. Its scales were onyx and silver, glinting like metal.
She switched to telepathy. —This place, the benches . . . —
As if reciting something, he muttered, “Sacrifice the pure, worship the mighty, behold a temple unequaled.”
So this place was dedicated to virgin sacrifice for mighty dragons? She wasn’t surprised. Many demon cultures worshipped dragons. Rydstrom had the image of one tattooed on his side.
In Rothkalina’s Grave Realm, the badlands of the kingdom, basilisks roamed wild. Lanthe had gone to visit them with Sabine a few times. Her sister had the power to communicate with animals, and had gotten to know one or two well.
But Lanthe wasn’t Sabine. And this dragon looked hungry for a sacrifice.
If she weren’t petrified, she might have laughed. Lanthe was no cherry-holder of yore; the dragon would probably spit her out like a pit.
The headlights shining into the cave shuttered off and on. Oh, gods, the dragon had blinked. Then the entire mountain rocked and claws skittered into the cave. Had the beast shoved its lethal paw inside?
The dragon sounded like it was blindly patting around the cave, reaching all the way to this door. It must have locked in on them!
Pat . . . pat . . . pat . . . pat.
Oh, yeah, the dragon knew they were in here, and it wanted its treat.
Thronos whispered, “Easy, Melanthe. Stay quiet.”
Quiet? Did he think she’d cry out in hysterics? Galling!
—Quiet, yourself! I have some experience with such situations. For instance, in that haystack, I never made a sound, even when pitchfork tines stabbed me.— She held up her hand, showing him the two puncture scars on the back. Granted, you had to really look for them, and she usually wore gauntlets. . . .
He clasped her hand in his, turning it this way and that. She sensed his anger and confusion, but he made no comment.
When the dragon snorted with impatience, Thronos drew her hand to his side and wrapped his wing tighter. She frowned down at it.
Metallic onyx and silver scales. Just like this dragon had. In Rothkalina, the basilisks’ scales were red-toned.
Curiosity made her brave, and she darted a glance around the door, before Thronos dragged her back. This dragon differed from its cousins in Rothkalina in one other way.
It had four horns instead of two. Just as Vrekeners had four instead of a customary pair.
As if with annoyance, the dragon pummeled its wings against the mountainside, causing a shower of grit and dust even deeper within the cave. Finally it gave a blood-curdling roar, then flew away.
“Thronos,” she murmured, “you come from this place.”
“Are you mad? I do not come from this place,” Thronos snapped the moment they were in the clear, releasing her from his wing. “One more time, sorceress: I am not a demon! Vrekeners are descended from gods. We have purpose.” His tone was harsher than he’d intended, because . . . because he had felt an affinity for the beast.
There was no mistaking the similarity of their scales, their horns. Some said demons sprang from the same tainted well as dragons, that they lived and evolved on the same types of hell planes.
Such as Pandemonia.
“I thought Vrekener horns were only for show,” Melanthe said with obvious glee. “Yours straightened when I began to undress.”
“I’m to take your word on that?” But how they’d ached!
“I’ll bet you have a demon seal. You won’t release seed until you’re inside your mate.”
Only this sorceress could make that sound like a huge failing. A Vrekener male could orgasm, but could never ejaculate until he first claimed his female. Thronos racked his brain for another species besides demons that shared this singular trait.
“So I have a couple of things in common with demons.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “I also have fangs—does that make me a vampire? My eyes turn silver, so I must be a Valkyrie.”
“Deny, deny, deny. Look at you, struggling to keep your head above water with this. Returning to this realm is crumbling your stuffy Vrekener façade, exposing your true demon nature.”
When he’d viewed Melanthe’s scars—puncture wounds that had pierced her hand clean through—his eyes had felt like they were on fire. When he’d imagined the pain she would’ve felt, his fangs had elongated to rip out someone’s throat.
As a demon’s might.
No, he was not a bloody demon!
So why had he behaved like one earlier? He’d told himself he would only look at his mate. But when he’d realized she was actually going to bare her body, he’d known he would be helpless not to touch it.
He’d imagined kneading her br**sts, suckling them, licking her ni**les until she couldn’t stand it anymore. By the time she’d started to remove her top, he was already envisioning even more forbidden taboos.
Placing her hand into the heat of his pants and guiding her to fondle his length. Reaching beneath her skirt and exploring her sex with seeking fingers.
Claiming her. Breaking his seal and spending his seed at long last.
The dragon was gone; what was to stop Thronos now? He raked his gaze over her, his thoughts darkening once more.
“Thronos, it’s not bad to be a demon,” she said, her tone softening a touch. “Some things just are, okay?”
At her words, he lifted his eyes to hers, felt like he couldn’t get enough air. He’d been about to start the madness all over!
Must leave this place. He needed to get back to the Skye. To sanity and reason and order.
She was making him doubt everything—just as she had when they were children! “If you can create portals, can you sense other ones? Feel their energy?”
She hesitated, then nodded.
“We could find Pandemonia’s portal.” Thresholds like that were valuable—and vulnerable. They were often hidden. “You’ll direct me, and I’ll protect you.”
“Ha! I will never leave a place like this to slog through a war-torn demon plane. You can close the stone door against the dragon, and we’ll wait out our time.”
“You and I could skirt the fray.” Her speed was considerable, a fact that he used to curse. “I’ll keep you safe.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Not even going to discuss this. I’m going to stay in my gold house and sleep on my gold bed and ski down my piles of gold like Scrooge McDuck.”
Whatever that meant. Another TV reference? “We can’t stay here. Sooner or later that beast will get frustrated enough to dig through stone.”
She pursed her lips. “Out there, we’ll face nothing but danger, even more than the homicidal demon armies. This place is rumored to be littered with traps.”