to understand the demon tongue to translate the dismissal. At least she knew he was still coherent.
To a degree. A fading degree that wouldn’t last much longer.
The female shrugged again before sauntering over to a couple on a divan.
Haven struggled under Stolas’s weight as she guided him toward the tent. “So we don’t have to pay?”
He made some noise that sounded like a grunt. “No, they will be . . . overjoyed to have me . . . drain them.”
She truly couldn’t tell if he was being arrogant or telling the truth.
“Tell me they’re not slaves.”
“The only true lightcaster slaves are inside the Demon cities. The rest are . . .” He dragged in a breath. “Former slaves turned addicts or . . . or free Solis trapped here after the war.”
Many blamed the Demon Lords and their demon trade for the war and the Shadeling’s fall. Portals that had connected their two worlds for countless millennia had been destroyed.
Or so they had been told.
If the Morgani Queen still had an active portal to the Demon Realm then others surely did as well.
Somewhere nearby a flutist began a haunting tune as they neared the large tent. The same cloying metallic aroma drifted from the half-open flap leading inside. As they crossed the threshold, the scent became near overpowering. Incense smoke layered the room, illuminated by the remnants of a dying fire inside a brass chimenea and hanging sconces that harbored a sage green flame.
Two females reclined on a large couch. Just like Haven, the faint shimmer of fleshrunes appeared on their arms and legs, only visible when the light hit at the right angle.
Solis.
“Leave,” Stolas growled.
She thought he was addressing the second Solis female until he turned to her, his face near unrecognizable. His features had hardened, shadows trapping in the severe hollows beneath his cheeks. His pupils were so dilated that only a thin band of silvery-white remained. The tips of his fangs glinted softly, their size swelling his upper lip. “This is going to be unpleasant, Haven.”
She shook her head. “I can handle it.”
Like Netherfire she was going to leave him alone and defenseless in this state.
He moved so fast he became a blur.
When he resolved from the shadows behind the first Solis female, Haven realized her mistake.
There was nothing defenseless about him.
His wings instinctively stretched to form a wall around the bed, either for privacy or to keep the females corralled, she didn’t know. Not that they needed much corralling. Their eyes were slits of need as they rubbed against him.
Stolas’s arms held the female tight to him, one arm banded across her upper chest, the other around her waist. He had held Haven the same way hundreds of times before, but there was nothing affectionate in this embrace. More like the way a cat held down a flailing bird with its paw before burying its teeth into the bird’s breast.
But the only distress the female in his arms displayed was impatience as she moved her long dirty blonde hair to bare her neck—
Stolas’s fangs sank deep into the flesh below her jaw. Her mouth peeled wide, but instead of a scream, a moan of pleasure slipped from the Solis female’s throat. She writhed seductively against him—or tried, but Stolas growled, arms tightening until she relaxed and gave herself to a different kind of pleasure.
Haven knew Stolas was trying to make the event as civilized as possible. Every time the female in his arms moved, even a tiny bit, he growled low in warning. The female’s lips were parted, eyes dazed and pupils swollen.
And her runemarks were burning brighter and brighter in tandem with her growing ecstasy.
Gathering her courage, Haven let her gaze drop lower to where Stolas’s lips pressed flush against the wound. She thought it would be messier. Louder. But he drank with a quiet efficiency that was undoubtedly for Haven’s benefit.
The other female tried to touch him—
He snarled, sending her scuttling back to wait her turn, and Haven found herself glad.
Glad.
Her stomach clenched oddly as heat swept through her. Heat and a whisper of anger—of jealousy. Not that he was feeding from the Solis females, although a part of her was bothered they could offer him the life blood she refused.
No, she remembered the brief taste of euphoria he had given her. How absolutely wonderful it felt. Like liquid sunshine.
She remembered and she longed to feel that ecstasy again. To experience that inside his arms. Which was incredibly confusing because at the same time