So basically, Sorceri had evolved with senses only a little better than a human’s, bodies that were weak compared to other Lore species, and life spans that could end from far more than just a beheading or mystical fire.
Her species sucked at evolution.
“What realm trumps this one, Melanthe?”
—At least there’s rain here.— She started wringing out her hair. —We could have gone to Oblivion, forced to fight other demons for water.—
His wings twitched with irritation. “Other demons?”
—Would you rather we’d landed in Feveris?— Anyone who entered that plane was bespelled with unending, uncontrollable desire.
“Feveris, then?” Had his voice grown huskier? “The Land of Lusts?”
If she’d had more blood left in her body, she might have blushed at his tone.
“Have you been there?” he asked.
She had, just to dip a toe, to see if the rumors were true. Her servants had tied a rope around her waist to drag her back if she got bespelled, a precaution they’d been forced to use. Within minutes, Lanthe had begun stripping for a gnome.
—Maybe.— She’d never forget that perpetually sunny, coastal plane, redolent with the scent of Hawaiian Tropic, island flowers, and sex. Or its twinkling rays of sun . . .
“I’m sure you felt right at home there,” he grated.
She was still smarting from his harlot comment on the prison island. —Maybe YOU influenced me to open this door to Pandemonia, demon! All last night I was captive of a demon, so naturally I opened a threshold to YOUR home world.—
He stalked up to her, yelling, “Do not call me demon!”
She forced herself to hold her ground, then repeated his earlier words: —Sensitive about this, creature?—
“Demons are savage. Vrekeners have grace and a sacred purpose. We are descended from gods!”
—How do you know this?—
“From the Tales of Troth—sanctified knowledge passed on from one Vrekener generation to the next for millennia.”
—I’m going to have to stop you, because you’ve already bored me. In any case, my brother-in-law Rydstrom is no savage. He’s one of the best males I know.—
“Enough of Rydstrom! You sound infatuated with him.”
—He is hot.—
“That’s what you like? Ever superficial, sorceress.”
—And you are ever pathologically jealous.—
“It’s much deeper than jealousy. The males you bedded stole from me. You stole from me.”
—What did I steal?—
“Years and children. I would have killed any other for such a grievous loss.”
—That’s what you’ve wanted from me all this time? Years and children? Even if those years would have been miserable?—
“I accept that our existence together will be bleak. The most I hope for is that we can raise our offspring without killing each other.”
Lanthe’s biological clock—which had no idea Thronos was a kidnapping, judgmental prick—quickened at the words our offspring.
Being a doting auntie to the twins had jump-started Lanthe’s clock. Caring for little Ruby in the prison had put it into overdrive.