Lord Malik would have broken from his compulsion by now, and even if he didn’t remember past events, once he discovered his most prized possession, the Keeper, dead—well he wouldn’t overlook such an insult.
“Let me worry about him.”
And then they were in Stolas’s personal bathhouse, steeped in the steam and moonlight and their desires, and she forgot about the Demon Lord. Forgot about the Keeper and the painting and becoming immortal.
She lost herself in Stolas for what felt like an eternity. When finally she lay warm and spent in his arms, their wolves guarding them at the foot of his monstrously large bed and his chest rising softly at her back, she replayed his words again.
Whatever consequences arise from loving you, Haven Ashwood, they will be worth it.
Epilogue
Nasira slipped quietly down the runed steps spiraling deeper into the underground vaults, passing rooms full of gold and silver, heirlooms that had been around since the time of the Gods. None of them held her interest. Her focus was riveted to the thing below. She could feel the Godkiller’s curiosity as it cast out its net, searching for the intruder it felt approaching.
Hello, Empress, it whispered into her mind. I was hoping you would return.
Heat from the molten lava below lapped at the shield she’d erected as Nasira approached the edge. The ancient weapon drew her eye. Just like every other time, a shiver of wonder swept through her at such ancient, unchecked power.
You smell of blood, it purred.
In a daze, she looked down at Stolas’s blood half-dried beneath her long fingernails, and the same emotion she’d felt while they argued bubbled up inside her. That anger and desperation hotter than the magma below.
It hadn’t started as an argument. She had been engulfed in relief when she first saw him and realized he was back from the Demon Realm. But then she’d questioned him about the rumors.
“Is it true?” she demanded. “Did Haven’s Shadow Familiar take on your wolf form?”
He hadn’t tried to hide the truth. “Yes.”
Panic had engulfed her. And when she asked, “But you haven’t consummated the bond?” and saw his crestfallen face, it felt like a dagger rammed into her heart.
“Nasi,” he said, using her childhood nickname. “I was dying when she gave me her blood. I did not know what was happening until it was done.”
“No. There has to be a way to stop this. No!”
“It’s too late.”
She knew he told the truth. There were three requirements to consummate a Seraphian mating bond. Shared dreams, shared blood, and a shared Shadow Familiar form.
When Haven freely gave Stolas her blood, she locked the final piece into place.
Tears stung Nasira’s eyes as she shook her head. She hadn’t cried when the Golemites ripped her from her bed. She hadn’t shed a single tear when she watched first her siblings die and then her parents.
But now—now she couldn’t keep her emotion in check. Stolas was all she had left. And even if she never found the courage to tell him, he was everything to her.
A wild desperation came over her. “Then you have to keep Haven from becoming immortal. Destroy the painting—”
“Stop!” he growled before his face had softened. “I will not take this from her and neither will you.”
“Have you forgotten what the Keeper told you?”
His eyes lifted to hers, bleak and forlorn and resigned. “How can I forget? I will find a lover who is my equal in every way, an immortal mate who burns brighter than the sun. I will love her more than I have ever loved another—and she will kill me.”
“If you let her become immortal, the prophecy will be complete and she will turn on you.”
“Then I can only pray that when she does, it does not break her the way killing our mother nearly broke me.”
She had struck him then without thinking, her talons slicing an ugly wound down his cheek. He hadn’t reacted, hadn’t moved an inch as blood dribbled down his jaw and fell between them.
And then she had fled here.
The Godkiller stroked its insidious claws of power over her, that fathomless magick promising so many, many things.
Tell me, the Godkiller whispered. What is it that you want, Empress?
Part of her knew once she spoke the words, there would be no turning back. But the other part understood she would do this and far worse if it meant saving the only family she had left.
So Nasira Darkshade leveled her gaze at the most powerful weapon that had