“Or we can wait for the right opportunity to present itself. Regardless, it is an advantage we didn’t have before.”
Issac nodded. “Yes. Osiris has always been ten steps ahead of us. Maybe it’s finally our turn to be a few steps ahead of him.”
Lucian faced them fully, his eyes glimmering with knowledge and power. “I have an idea.”
Caro awoke in the dark.
No lights.
No sound.
No life.
The pod. A scream threatened her throat, but she forced herself to swallow it. If she allowed them to know she was awake, they’d use their abilities to force her back into lasting slumber, to listen to the mantra on repeat about Seraphim and their purpose in this world.
She didn’t want that.
She wanted warmth, love, feeling. Seven years of emotion had destroyed her. She would never be stoic again. Too cold. Too boring. Too inanimate.
She desired heat, passion, life. She needed to breathe, to fly, to love.
Her heart thudded loudly in her ears, echoing off the shell around her. All glass. A room of white and sterility. The basement of a perpetual morgue.
When the Seraphim pulled her out of the ocean, she knew this had been her fate. She’d accepted it only to hide the truth—a truth she’d forgotten because of Vera’s help. However, she recalled it now, the reason for all of this.
Astasiya.
Caro’s heart stopped. Knowing the name was fine, but all the secrets they’d vowed to hide were rioting in her mind. Even the memory of Vera removing it all.
Oh, no… they know!
Her chest pounded back to life, her lungs filling with a gasp of air she hadn’t meant to inhale. But if they knew, then she had to fight. She couldn’t let them have Astasiya. Not yet. It wasn’t time! It wasn’t—
“Caro.” The familiar voice gave her pause.
Sethios?
Something sharp touched her collarbone.
“Angel.” The cold edge drifted along her skin. “Do you remember the last time we were in bed together? You pressed a knife to my throat that morning before kissing a path downward to my cock.”
Warm lips met her ear, his voice whisper-soft. “I promised to return the favor later that day, but things didn’t go as planned. Shall I return the favor now, sweetheart?”
Her blood heated at the prospect, her nipples pebbling on instinct. This isn’t real, she told herself. It’s another trick, one to teach me not to feel.
Oh, it’s very real, Sethios whispered back into her head. “Allow me to prove it,” he added out loud, the razor point drawing downward to her breast to circle a stiffened peak.
She flinched as he pressed the tip into her sensitive skin. The subtle scent of iron tickled her nose, confirming he’d made her bleed. Then his mouth sealed over the wound, causing her to hiss at the pleasure-pain sensation he elicited with his tongue.
Her thighs clenched, her body awakening beneath his familiar assault. She inhaled deeply, his woodsy cologne filling her nostrils and making her want to weep. You’re here, she breathed. Unless—
His teeth sank into her breast, lighting her blood on fire with his bite. She arched into him, her eyes flying open to reveal the darkness around them.
But it wasn’t the darkness of her pod.
They were in a bedroom with windows displaying a beautiful night sky.
She tried to process her surroundings, to remember how she’d arrived here, but a pull of his mouth had her eyes falling closed once more and a moan spilling from her lips. The sensation felt so fresh and new and right.
How long had she gone without this? Without him? Her memories were raw, broken pieces that drew jagged lines across her heart.
No.
She didn’t want to think about them right now.
She was here, with Sethios, in bed, and he was drinking the essence from her veins and sending fresh waves of heat through every fiber of her being. Yes, that was more important. He mattered most. This bliss. This embrace. This experience.
“Kiss me,” she begged. “I need you to—”
He silenced her with his tongue, his mouth demanding and true and exactly what she needed.
Peppermint filled her senses, followed by his woodsy scent. Pine, she thought. No, cedar. Maybe both.
It didn’t matter.
It was him. Her Sethios. Her love. Her impossible man, the one who infuriated her and enamored her in the same breath.
He grounded her, made her feel alive, created the air inside her lungs, and forced her heart to beat.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, holding him to her as he settled firmly between her thighs. They were both naked. Both aroused. Both entirely