“That wasn’t regular gold. It’s red silisk gold, also known as dragon’s gold, the rarest and most valuable in all the known realms. I must have it, Thronos.”
“Your timing is poor. I can’t believe you’re still thinking about it, considering our current circumstances.” He was one to talk. He’d just glanced down, glimpsing Lanthe’s thighs spread around his waist, her skirt worked up perilously high—and his thoughts had boomeranged back to the temple, to the treasures he’d almost seen. Even in this situation, his shaft hardened for his mate.
As if that weren’t uncomfortable enough, the temperature continued to escalate. Like metal, his wings were still emanating heat from those direct flame hits. The river of lava below didn’t help matters.
While Melanthe’s skin grew flushed, he began to sweat. A drop slipped from his forehead onto her leg, high on her inner thigh. His eyes locked on the drop as it clung to her pale flesh, poised . . . before it slid down like a lazy touch.
He wanted to follow that trail with his tongue—then tug her little panties aside and discover what made her moan. . . .
“Um, Thronos, maybe we should change positions?” When her thighs flexed around his waist, he jerked his gaze up.
There was an unexpected metallic gleam in her blue eyes. Was that interest?
The urge to investigate this, to test boundaries, was overwhelming. Wrong place, wrong time, Talos. “Good idea. Yes.” They shifted limbs, until she was seated with her legs together, perched across his own.
“Interesting that you can read those glyphs,” she remarked casually.
“The language might not be demonic in nature.”
“Uh-huh.” Her way of saying untruth.
No one got his wings up like this sorceress! “You have much invested in convincing me I’m a demon. You want this to be true, solely to make you feel better about yourself.”
“You’re changing, and you know it. You lied earlier when you said you heard nothing, even though a dragon was approaching. You told an untruth to get what you wanted: a look at my body. But a Vrekener never lies, right?”
“How would you know if I’ve acted demonic? How many of their kind have fallen prey to your charms?”
Instead of answering, she said, “Forget it. If we’re about to die, I don’t want to fight with you.” She wiped moisture from her own forehead. “This is like a sauna in here.” Her gaze dipped to his chest, to the scars visible between the sides of what remained of his shirt.
Now it was her turn to follow drops trailing along his body. She watched them as they meandered over the rises and falls of his scars.
She’d mentioned them more than once yesterday. How foul did she think them?
He should be used to his appearance after so long; instead he was often dumbstruck by his reflection, hating each slashing scar, each raised welt. He would absently trace them when lying in bed.
Did she feel any guilt for them? Was she even capable of it? “Go on, then.” He grasped her wrist, forcing her hand to his chest to explore the damage she’d done. “Feel the marks you gave me.” He peered down at her, assessing her reaction.
To his surprise, she slowly ran the pad of her forefinger over one, a line below his collarbone. She continued on to another one, her expression contemplative.
Though he’d wanted Melanthe to acknowledge his pain—to comprehend it—he grew uncomfortable with her appraisal. He was about to stop her when she traced the worst one, the one that had nearly taken his life.
That shard of glass had pierced him deepest. He had hazy memories of each heartbeat causing him agony. And of his mother, reeling from her mate’s death, sobbing over Thronos’s hand, begging all the gods to spare her youngest son.
Wrath. He grasped Melanthe’s wrists.
She blinked up at him, as if waking from a trance. “What?”
“Do you ever regret what you did to me?” He released her.
She leaned away, until her back was against his wing. “Sorceri disdain regret. We consider it the equivalent of an offendment. So no, I don’t.”
Yes, he was learning her tells. Whenever she lied, something in the timbre of her voice made his wings twitch. Plus, she always leaned back from him, as if she wanted to put distance between them, and she blinked for much longer. “Untruth, Melanthe.”
“Is that a Vrekener way of saying bullshit?”
“So you do feel guilt.” She was capable of it. “You must have heard I feel pain when I fly. It seems everyone in the Lore has. I always wondered if you were gladdened.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Do Vrekeners not have healers for their young?”