Without that, and without the chase, what reason would he have to live?
Lose control, lose your mate.
Yet keeping her alive didn’t mean he had to prevent her suffering. So why had he experienced the impulse to shelter her with his body? He needed to remind himself of all he’d lost. Of all his agony.
He’d implied to her that he didn’t remember their childhood time together. In fact, he recalled every moment with a blistering, crystal clarity. Earlier, when she’d stroked his wing with her eyes full of wonder, it’d brought him right back to the first time she’d touched him. . . .
Biting her bottom lip, she tentatively reached in, tracing a pulseline. His wings had flared uncontrollably, embarrassing him, making the back of his neck heat.
“There,” she murmured with a grin. “You’re not so scary, then. What’s it like to fly?”
He took her hand. “I could show you.”
And Thronos remembered those agonizing days after his fall, when he’d fought not to succumb to his injuries. He’d heard his mother’s voice saying, “Don’t you understand what she’s done to you?” He must have been calling for Melanthe. “What her kind have taken from us? Your father is gone.” Then, lower: “And so too will I be.”
He remembered attempting to fly once more; his atrophied wings had been unable to support him. The humiliation had burned worse than the unbearable pain. He’d ignored the whispers when his people had dubbed him their “tragic prince,” forever cursed to desire the wicked sorceress who’d nearly murdered him.
He’d told himself it would all be worth it—once he had Melanthe again.
Bile rose in his throat as he remembered seeing her as a woman for the first time. He shook away the memory—lest I murder her.
For centuries, he’d vowed she would be worth all his pain. He craned his head up at the trunk of this tree.
Never forget. . . .
SIX
Lanthe woke to the feel of her stomach lurching as her body tumbled from the tree.
She unleashed a scream, fumbling to latch onto a limb; her arms wouldn’t respond, filled with pins and needles. Falling! The drizzly fog was so dense she couldn’t see what was below her—
She landed with an oomph.
Thronos had caught her in his arms. Breathless, she stared up at him as his wings held them aloft.
After the freezing night she’d just spent in the tree, his body was a hot haven. Warmth from his damp chest seeped into her, dulling some of her alarm.
Yesterday she would’ve sworn she could never sleep with a Vrekener nearby. But apparently, she’d been out.
As rain softly fell, his gaze roamed over her, and when his eyes began to glow with something other than rage, she swallowed. Though she was loath to admit it, chemistry sparked between them.
She might be the bitterest necessity, but his instincts were doubtless screaming inside him, commanding him on a loop: MATE FEMALE!
Which was never going to happen. A: She didn’t do males she hated. Just a rule she had. And B? She was in the fertile time of her infrequent Sorceri cycle, could all but look at seed and get knocked up.
She had to trust that he wouldn’t force her. She wished she could probe his thoughts, reading his mind, but her collar prevented it. He’d probably developed mental blocks anyway. . . .
Her gaze was drawn behind him, and her lips parted.
While she’d dozed, he’d clawed slashes into the tree. The marks were all around the same size, lined up and patterned along the trunk.
She’d bet there were roughly five hundred slashes, one for every year he’d gone without his mate. “You’re insane,” she whispered. She’d been around enough crazed males to last an immortal lifetime. She gazed up at this one with wary eyes.
She recalled the things she’d told him last night—I’d do it again! Maybe she oughtn’t to poke the bear so much.
Yet even as he drew his lips back from his fangs, he seemed less frenzied today; still simmering, but perhaps the night had been cathartic for him. “You’re one to speak of insanity, when your line is tainted with it.”
Had he found out about her mother, Elisabet? Or just assumed this because Omort came from Lanthe’s family? She averted her gaze. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”