Dark Skye (20 page)

Those scars made him look hardened, as dangerous as he’d become. Which she found . . . sexy.

And when she’d explored the marks, she’d noticed things about his body she hadn’t before.

How smooth the unmarked areas of his tanned skin were. How sensitive his flesh was to her touch. How his muscles leapt to her fingers.

His breeches had ridden low on his hips, and she’d realized he didn’t have a tan line. She’d always heard that Vrekeners frowned on nudity in any circumstances. Yet sometime when he’d been transitioning to immortality, he must have lazed naked in the sun.

How
intriguing.

He’d said he’d had dreams about her every night. Had he thought of her as the sun kissed his rugged body? Her breaths shallowed as she imagined Thronos touching himself to fantasies of her.

When she adjusted her position on his legs, he grated, “Melanthe, we need to make haste to find a portal.” He looked like he was struggling not to stare at her damp cleavage—and failing.

She glanced down, saw him stiffening. If she scooched a couple of inches closer, she’d be able to feel his swelling erection against her hip. “I’m on board with the idea now.” Because the only thing she feared more than dragons and demonic hordes was getting pregnant by a Vrekener. Thronos was clever and unexpectedly sexy. If he ever managed to cut the insults . . .

She couldn’t give this male several days to figure out her weaknesses.

So she attempted to concentrate, to sense a portal amidst all this confusion on the mountain. Hunger and thirst made it even more difficult to focus. Plus her gold senses were pinging like crazy. She swiped her palm over her cheeks, but the gold dust was gone. Could she still be sensing that temple?

“Anything?”

She did feel the tiniest vibration of portal power, like an echo. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Try—harder.”

She glared at him. “Back—off,” she snapped, then regretted it
immediately. Why was she being so adversarial with him? She wasn’t the type of female who always kept her cool, but she also didn’t go around provoking male anger, not with her history with men.

So what if Thronos continued being a dick? It wasn’t like she was going to keep him; they didn’t need to hash out their problems and come to a grand understanding. She just needed to beguile him so she could get back to Rothkalina. If she beguiled him hard enough, he’d take her directly there!

Back to enchanting. She leaned into him, inching closer to his erection. “Tell me a secret.”

“What?”

“Whenever you’ve enclosed me like this, I’ve received a secret from you.”

“I don’t . . . why are you acting differently?” he asked, voice hoarse.

Uncomfortable, Thronos?
“You haven’t been around many females, have you?” He would have no clue how to find his footing with her—making her plan all the easier.

It wasn’t even fair. Which was okay, since Sorceri only cared about fair play when it benefited them. Otherwise, they were
not
fans.

“Females don’t belong on a battlefront, and I spend most of my time there, so no.”

Don’t belong?
She and Sabine had been in the Pravus front line against an army of rebel vampires.
Bite your new tongue, Lanthe, bite it!
“But you’re with a female now, and she’s instituting a new rule. Under these wings, you have to tell me your secrets,” she said softly. “Consider this our confessional, the wing sauna of truth.”

A raised brow. “Wing sauna of truth? Peculiar sorceress. You always did have a fertile imagination.”

“I know something you could tell me.” She trailed her finger down the slickened skin of his chest, dipping it just inside the waist of his breeches.

He released a sharp breath.
Puh.

“Why does an angel like you have no tan line?”

He coughed into a fist. “We don’t have roofs in the Air Territories,
have no need of them because we’re above the clouds. As I told you, in the months of my transition, I was searching for you. Often I’d come home, shower, then pass out in bed before dressing again.”

“I would have liked to see that,” she said in all honesty.

“What is this, Melanthe?”

“This is me realizing we could die at any moment. It’s my responsibility as a sorceress to play out my best hand all the way up to the end.”

“Is that what I am to you? Another hand of cards you’ve been dealt?”

Well, yes. “You know what I think? I think you’re surly because you didn’t get your peek earlier. Get me to safety, and I’ll show you
anything
you want to see.” She eased her thighs open a touch.

He sounded like he’d bitten back a groan. He shifted his position again, probably because his breeches were cutting off his circulation down there.

“Don’t you have a private question for me?” she asked.

“You told me you had sensual dreams about me when you slept.” He narrowed his eyes. “Tell me, sorceress, was I scarred in those dreams?”

He was reaching for his anger because it was familiar to him.
Hating me is what he knows best.

She’d chip away at that as well. “Yes, you were scarred. And I was kissing every one of them from top to bottom. You were so sensitive, but you craved more, your big body shuddering.”

He frowned at her. “You’re not . . . you’re
not
lying.”

“No.”

In a gruff tone, he said, “I would’ve thought a fickle Sorceri would find the marks distasteful.”

“Thronos, we have problems between us—gods, I know that—but lack of physical attraction is not one of them.” A regrettable truth.

The hope in his eyes almost made Lanthe lose her nerve with her plan.

“You must have noticed our crackling sexual chemistry?” she asked.

“I thought that was just the way one felt around a mate,” he admitted.
“Yet you feel it for me as well.” His brows drew together. “So why did you tell me I left you cold?”

“I said I felt physical attraction. But I find it difficult to desire a male who insults and hurts me.”

Instead of addressing this, he said, “How many have you felt this chemistry with?”

And here we go.

“How many males have there been, Melanthe?” he asked in a quiet voice, as if he were bracing for her answer.

“You’ll never get a number out of me.”

“Then it must be huge.”

“I’m more than just a number,” she pointed out. “Besides, it’s not only the number that’s bothering you; it’s the fact that I was with others after we’d met, and you couldn’t bed just as many.”
Bite your tongue!

“Why couldn’t you have settled down with one? I know that some Sorceri wed for life.”

“Would you have preferred to find me in love with another male, happy, with ten children? Why, that would make me a virtuous woman! Would you kidnap a virtuous female for your own selfish needs? Would you separate her from her beloved husband and children?”

He bit out a sound of frustration.

“If our sexes were reversed, everyone would’ve
expected
me to take lovers. I would have been applauded for it. You would have been revered for your purity. And if I were a demon male
like you,
I would have bedded thousands, searching for my mate. You know”—she made air quotes—“attempting.”

That’s what demons called it when they had sex just to see if a female would break their demon seal. Though a demon could usually scent a female and know she was his mate, the only way to be a hundred percent sure was through intercourse.

Baring his fangs, Thronos grated, “Have you been
attempted
by many demons, then?”

“I’ve never been with one.” He parted his lips, no doubt to call
“untruth,” so she explained, “Like Vrekeners, the Sorceri stupidly think demons are savage. I didn’t know better until Sabine fell for Rydstrom. By the time I realized demons could be wildly attractive, I was locked into celibacy for a year.”

“You find demons wildly attractive? I thought you were drawn to the more polished, slick liar sort.”

Right now she was drawn to seven-foot-tall males who simmered with pent-up lust and untapped carnality. “Hmm. Physically, I like—”

“Straddle me,” he bit out.

Her brows shot up.

“I’m about to need my hands.”

Without question, she wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck yet again. He’d just latched onto the side of the mountain when the path disintegrated beneath them, rousing the dragons once more.

B
ehind the crumbled stone was . . . an opening. A tunnel no more than five feet in height had been revealed.

Despite his claustrophobia, Thronos clutched Melanthe with one arm, then swung his legs in, scrambling to get as far inside as possible. His horns hit the low ceiling, the jagged rock abrading the tops of his wings.

“How are you doing with this tight spot?” she asked.

“Not my favorite environment.”

He thought she muttered, “I figured swaying trees were.” Meaning that night on the Order’s island.

He winced to recall his behavior. But he’d believed she was different then—

A dragon shoved its snout into the opening, its breath stirring up grit, making it difficult to see. Effectively trapping them.

No other choice but forward! Red light spilled from some opening farther in; he made for it with haste, fearing the beast would fire on them.

It reached in, pawing, disturbing rocks. Thronos covered Melanthe with his wings as the ceiling began to rain stone and sand. Piles of it heaped around Thronos’s legs as if from an upended hourglass.

Panic threatened to take hold, but he fought it. They had to get out
before the tunnel was choked, burying them alive. As Thronos slogged onward, his throat felt just as choked.

The farther inside, the hotter the air was. That red glare grew as they neared. When he reached it at last and paused in the arched opening, he saw a larger cavern, filled with bubbling lava. A sole raised path bisected it, one that appeared to lead straight into hell.

Kicking free of the piles of stone weighted around his legs, he launched himself off the edge. He glided down to the path, then set Melanthe on her feet.

As he shook sand from his hair, he gazed back at the tunnel.

Completely caved. Only one way to go.

He turned back to the path. Ahead, more streams of lava wound along it. A metal bridge in the distance glowed red hot. “I think we’re in one of the armies’ lairs.”

“Then we need to find a way out, before anyone sees us.”

“I scent food cooking from one direction,” he said, “and corpse rot from the other.”

“So there’s a camp and a burial area? Let’s head toward the latter. It’d be less populated, less guarded.”

As they walked in silence, he kept his hand on her arm, in case he needed to shield her in a hurry. With each step away from that cave-in, his unease faded.

“When you find yourself going through hell, keep going, right?” she asked, casting him a look from under her lashes. Again, he didn’t recognize the look, but he thought it was . . . flirtatious.

He tried to focus, lest he get them captured or killed, but he couldn’t stop replaying their interaction under his wings—and how she’d run her finger down to his breeches. He’d been a heartbeat away from taking her hand and making her feel what she was doing to him. He’d imagined how he would groan her name as she outlined his shaft through the leather. He’d barely defeated the urge to lick sweat from her neck.

Finding this realm’s portal had become even more important, because
his sense of right and wrong seemed to be eroding. He could no longer trust himself to heed the laws of his people.

He was the prince of the Vrekeners, a general of knights. Yet how easily she had him falling under her spell! He’d known she was using her wiles on him, but that hadn’t lessened the effect of her charms.

Until he could return home, he needed to steel himself against her, a task that would be even more difficult after his discovery today.

Sexual chemistry is addictive.

Whenever he’d felt that electricity sparking between them, the pain from his old injuries had ebbed under the heat of excitement. . . .

She cast him a quizzical look. “What are you thinking about?”

“Chemistry,” he answered.

Her lips curled, and she left him to his thoughts.

All his life, he’d speculated how she would react to his scars. He’d been astonished to learn that she had no issues with him physically—merely issues with, well, everything else.

Even she admitted that their chemistry
crackled.

From thousands of lofty perches, he’d gazed down upon Lorean wickedness. Watching an offendment was almost as bad as committing one, so he’d always turned away, but those glimpses had taught him much. He’d seen immortals addicted to intoxispells, begging to do anything for more.

Thronos had never understood addiction before. Now he wondered what he wouldn’t do for more of this sizzling interplay with his mate.

Might he stop insulting her?

Perhaps he should go even further and court her. As a boy, he’d done so and found success. She’d liked to be given presents. Good thing he’d snagged that medallion from the temple.