How easy for him to say! Uthyr voluntarily chose his shape.
Sian would kill to be a shifter. He'd even dreamed about shifting from his hell-change form to his previous guise and back.
--That's your only chance for a lasting future with your female.--
"Lasting future? I despise her. I could never again trust her. Even so, any male would want to be attractive to his mate." They continued on.
--If raised differently, Kari could be changed from before. Nature versus nurture, demon.--
"In this we agree. In fact, no longer will I call my prisoner Kari. This fierce new version, Calliope, is in a class all her own." Because she wasn't a royal in this life?
Maybe a princess's restraint had been ingrained into Kari from birth. The same restraint that had curbed Kari's temper could have controlled her sexuality.
Calliope had an explosive temper. Would her lusts be just as volatile?
"Turn Princess Kari feral . . . and you have Calliope." Could that also mean she wasn't narrow-minded and heartless? "Unless she's playing games with me. The possibility remains that she's a planted spy."
--Games? Mayhap you're attributing your own traits to her.-- Uthyr flicked his tail, a movement he often made just before saying "checkmate." --I'm surprised you haven't decided to seduce her.--
Sian glowered at the dragon. "I'm sure you heard what she makes of my appearance." He waved at himself. "She finds me repulsive."
--What did you want most out of life? Ah, yes, a challenge.--
"An attainable one." But hadn't Sian also lamented never knowing a hard-won victory? If he could seduce her in this guise . . .
--Considering her age, she might be feeling the effects of overstimulation.--
Her senses would be growing ever sharper, bombarding her with stimulation, her desires increasing in time.
--I remember my own transition. I would have tupped a sweet-talking ghouless for relief.--
"You think I could use her new lusts against her?"
--I don't like the conniving gleam in your eyes.--
Sian had been in battle. He'd suffered physical agony and horror. He'd lived through the amputation of his horns. But nothing had hurt him like the hole Kari had left in his chest. He needed to make her experience the same! He wanted her to fucking ache for him.
To think of nothing but him for the next ten thousand years.
"If someone who looks like me used and tossed her away, she'd be humiliated." He might be able to punish her worse than the labors he'd planned.
--This was not the direction I'd hoped your mind would go. And how could you mate and discard her? You'd have to withhold your claiming bite. Is any demon male strong enough to resist marking his mate's neck in the throes of first spending?--
If Sian did mark her with his fangs, she would irreversibly become the queen of hell. "A strong enough demon male? How about the primordial"--Sian pounded a fist against his chest--"of the entire godsdamned species?"
Uthyr gave him an unimpressed look.
"I'll think on this, dragon. For now, let's see how my captive reacts to amusing new torments." Amusing for him alone, of course.
Before Sian could trace away, Uthyr said, --I've seen some of your recollections of her.--
Not surprising. As bonded as a family, the members of the Morior were telepathically linked, with few secrets between them. Though he trusted his allies with his life, Sian had shielded certain memories from them. Yet snippets always slipped through. "When we all communicate, we learn much about each other." A fact of life.
--True. And I might have dug a bit.--
Sian bared his fangs again. Digging into masked memories was taboo! If Uthyr saw Sian's shameful pleas to Kari . . . "I've killed for lesser slights. Have I tried to find out why you refuse to shift back to your human form? No. But I will now."
Uthyr shrugged his wings. --I investigated so I might be of more service to you, friend. I must know the history.--
There was a reason Sian didn't want the others to know. Unbidden, his thoughts turned to the past.
After he'd revealed to Kari everything about his kind, she'd avoided him for weeks, refusing any contact with him. He'd been helpless to do anything as a future with his mate slipped from his panicked grasp.
Separated from his twin for the first time and without a single friend in that world, he'd walked around in a daze, doubt his only companion: Was I too rough with her, too demonic?
Maybe she'd had trouble accepting the totality of their fated connection. Or she'd been spooked by it. But surely she could never doom him to an existence with no female or family.
Then he'd heard the announcement of a surprise wedding between her and the Draiksulian king--set for that very afternoon. Sian had sprinted to the castle to stop her. He couldn't lose both of his parents and his fated female in the space of a year! He climbed through her window. . . .
Surrounded by her handmaidens, she stood on a dais, dressed in a white gown. Her beauty stole his breath.
"What are you doing in here?" she demanded, giving him a look of distaste. "Get out now."
He ran his hand over his face, comprehending his own appearance. He hadn't shaven, and his garments were a mess. "I won't leave until you talk to me."
She dismissed her attendants. Something about her was different. She seemed both older and colder.
"What are you doing, Kari? Are you wedding that king to take yourself out of my reach?"
With zero emotion, she said, "I am marrying my fiance because I want him. I have loved him since I was a little girl."
Sian's stomach lurched as if it'd been punched. "Do not do this, Kari. You love me!" Hadn't she told him as much? The tender regard I feel for you . . .
"I do not--and could never--love an animal with horns." She returned her attention to her reflection.
He gaped in disbelief. But their kiss . . . the way she'd responded . . . their plans . . .
Adjusting a lock of her shining hair, she asked, "Can I make it any plainer, prince of beasts?"
His actions later that day would shame him for the rest of his unending life. . . .
--Demon?-- Uthyr's gaze narrowed on Sian's clenched fists.
He'd dug his claws into his palms until they dripped blood.
--At least tell me how Kari died. It must have been before she became fully immortal.--
Sian grated, "She died at twenty-four, giving birth to the child of another male." He turned his mind from that enraging memory lest he trace to Calliope and do something dire. "Ask me no more about it. Just go, Uthyr. Fly with the other dragons."
--I'm not a dragon; I'm a dragon shifter. But that juvenile pack is fun to spar with. If you refuse all of my advice, I might as well go.-- He paused. --One thing, though . . . --
"What?"
--If history often repeats itself, and she's on the cusp of immortality . . . could she currently be pregnant?--
To lose her again?
The king of all hells threw back his head and yelled until the whole realm quaked.
FIFTEEN
You can do this! Lila peered down at the bowl of . . . soup. She could swear this one was more animated than the last, but she needed the nourishment.
She'd been imprisoned for six days, had scratched as many slashes into a wall.
Trays of food appeared for each meal, always with demon dishes. The only good thing about her hunger and exhaustion: a subdued sex drive.
After her last encounter with Abyssian, Lila had berated herself for responding to a Morior. For some inexplicable reason, she'd felt . . . chemistry with that crazy demon. Lots of it.
Far more than I felt with Saetth.
Just minutes ago, Abyssian's roar had echoed over the kingdom again, though this one sounded more enraged than sexual. What had set him off this time? Would he take it out on her?
Anticipation of a blow could sometimes be as bad as the hit. She would know. Nightmares of the archer had plagued her since childhood--but ne
ver as badly as they had here.
If she could fall asleep. She often got the sense of being watched, keeping her on edge. Most nights, she huddled for warmth on the stone floor, listening to hell's soundtrack. While spiders skittered inside the castle walls, dragon calls and the howls of distant hellhounds drifted in from the wilds.
Other times, she'd watched the dramatic storms. Last night, rain had poured while electric-blue lightning forked above the tops of nearby volcanoes. Lava had steamed in the downpour, solidifying into bizarre shapes.
None of the tales she'd read could convey how surreal Pandemonia was. . . .
During the days, Lila had paced along a narrowing trail between fire vines, conceiving and discarding escape plans. Despite all of her reading, she didn't have enough knowledge about this realm to plot her exit from it. And she needed to build up her strength.
With that in mind, she sat on the edge of the fountain and dipped a spoon into the soup.
Though she hadn't eaten since her last sandwich in the employee lounge, she'd lost zero weight. Was she so close to immortality that her figure had already frozen forever? Next would come tingling regeneration. Then she'd become bulletproof. Few things could kill her other than a beheading.
Stop stalling, Lila. Soup. She lifted the spoon. The dish smelled appetizing enough, but small creatures that resembled jellyfish fluttered in the warm broth.
How did one go about this? Swallow a jellyfish whole? Crush it up first?
Chew it . . . live?
She could drink the broth, but she needed protein. Scrunching her eyes closed, she eased the spoon toward her mouth. For good measure, she pinched her nose. She wavered when she heard a flutter and a tiny splash in her spoon.
The jellyfish wasn't going down without a fight. Literally.