go somewhere—”
He whirled. “I suppose you despise me for not telling you about the Yazdans?”
Niko stilled.
The prince grinned, his teeth white behind his ironic smirk. “I didn’t tell you about the Yazdans because you would have come to Seran. And I…” He looked up and blinked into the sun. “I would have lost you.” His shoulders fell, the weight of his words suddenly upon him. When he finally looked at Niko again, rage and fear made him snarl. “You left me with a brother I no longer recognize and this thing in my head that won’t fucking shut up!”
Niko grabbed him by the arm and yanked him close, jarring the prince hard against him. “Listen to me!” Vasili’s snarling mouth burned so temptingly close. He twitched in Niko’s grip, tensing to fight. “I’m not leaving you now, even though every instinct is telling me to, so get your shit together and be the prince Loreen needs.” Niko locked an arm around Vasili’s lower back, trapping him. Vasili, taut and fierce, fumed back at him. “We’ve come this far. I need you to be better than this.”
“And what if I’m worse?” His gentle touch landed on Niko’s cheek. Face-to-face, with nothing between them, Vasili’s layers came tumbling down.
“Then I’ll deal with it.” Niko tilted his head. Vasili’s breath fluttered against his mouth. He looked into his eye, the blue so brilliant it blazed like the ocean under the sun. “I’ll do whatever needs to be done. I’ll stop you if I must. But until that moment, I’m here, protecting you from everything that would hurt you, even yourself. Do you hear me? A griffin must forever hold the flame. I’m holding you. I am your protector. If I weren’t, I’d have killed you a hundred times already.”
“No…” Vasili sank his fingers into Niko’s hair and twisted, holding him rigid. “You’ll be my assassin,” he snarled, then slammed his mouth into Niko’s.
He tasted of heat and spice, and Niko’s body burned where Vasili touched. This was so wrong. Vasili was high and hurting, but by the gods, the need to have him stole all the wrongs and made them right.
Vasili tore free with a gasp but clutched Niko’s face between his hands, preventing him from retreating.
Color touched Vasili’s cheeks and lips and his eye shone with lust. He was beautiful and fierce and utterly mad, and Niko knew he could never tame him. He’d always be this man of wild contradictions, impossible to predict, dangerous to contain. Lightning in a bottle.
Niko reluctantly pried himself from the prince’s grip. “You’ll regret all this once the spice wears off.” A small, tentative smile played on Niko’s lips. For all the rage, Vasili looked at him now with a rampant heat in his gaze, like he wanted to ravage Niko and didn’t care they were in public.
Vasili brushed his thumb across his own lips, tasting Niko or spice. He breathed too fast, but delight made the pale, cold prince glow with warmth. “I regret nothing.”
Niko laughed despite himself and shook his head. “Come then, to Walla’s Heart, Your Highness. May Yasir’s ship give us sanctuary until we figure out what the fuck to do with you.”
Chapter 19
By the time Yasir boarded his ship, the spice had worn off, and Vasili was once again aloof and untouchable.
“Ah, the palpable tension between you both,” the captain declared. “I have not missed that.”
Vasili, propped against the wall of the cabin, gave Yasir a dry look.
Niko stood at the edge of the captain’s table. The map of Seran lay open. Vasili had seen the black wax’s zigzag path and barely lingered to examine it.
“One of you must stay with me at all times,” the prince announced.
Yasir immediately looked at Niko, making it clear whose job that was.
“If more bodies are found,” Vasili continued, “in the same fashion as you saw at the Yazdan house, and my whereabouts are known, then we’ll know I’m not to blame.”
“And if no more bodies turn up?”
“They will.” Vasili pushed off the wall and approached the table. “The dark flame wants freedom. It will ruin and wreck everything in its path to get it. In the past, that meant destroying everything and everyone close to the Caville it possessed. Since Talos harbored it and killed my elder sister as sacrifice, it appears to be strengthening. It’s reaching beyond the Cavilles, seeking to eradicate old families, probably due to their link in the past.” He looked down at the map. A few thin lines appeared