Dark Skye (Immortals After Dark #15)(51)

“Why don’t you rest? We’ve got a long way between us and water.” Maybe there’d even be fruit growing nearby that the little sorceress would actually eat. She’d thrown up her last meal.

Had that been two nights ago?

In that short time, she’d gotten to him—until his thoughts and emotions were in chaos. “Try to sleep, Melanthe.”

“While you carry me? When we’re in a place chock-full of swamp serpents, demons, dragons, and pests?”

“I’ll watch over you.”

“Ha. Never’ll happen . . .”

Ten minutes later, she was out, her head turned toward his chest, her hands curled against him. She’d fallen asleep in his arms—and it felt like one of his greatest accomplishments.

Surely this meant she trusted him? He squared his shoulders. She believed he would keep her safe against all the dangers they kept encountering.

He frowned. Or else she had heat exhaustion.

Inwardly waving away that thought, he regarded her relaxed face, her lips parted in slumber. This wasn’t the first time he’d held her sleeping. When they’d been young, they would lie in the meadow together, peering up at clouds to identify shapes. Sometimes, she would doze in his arms as he lifted her raven locks to the sun, just to watch them shine.

Their cloud pastime always made him grin because she thought every single one resembled some small befurred creature or another. “That one looks like a tree,” he’d say. She’d answer, “Or a squirrel on its hind legs with a mouthful of acorns.” He’d offer, “That one’s like a cottage with a chimney.” She’d sigh, “Or a very fat rabbit. With short ears.”

One time she’d woken from a nap, lifting her head from his chest to sleepily ask him, “When we’re apart, do you ever gaze down at clouds as I gaze up? Do you ever miss me as I miss you?”

More, Melanthe. So much more.

And that left him conflicted. Thronos had heard of the mate effect, that the mere presence of one’s mate would be a balm on all woes. His mate was as soothing as a cyclone.

After Inferno, his customary sexual frustration had been ratcheted up to a painful degree. But he was also experiencing this new . . . fascination for the female in his arms. She was a woman with her own desires. He wanted to learn them—so he could tease her and make her crazed for him.

He’d been committing offendments left and right, but he couldn’t muster much regret. Holding her hand like that had been the most sensual act he’d ever enjoyed.

He still burned for the kiss he’d almost taken. At the time, he’d thought she’d wanted it just as dearly.

And after that kiss? Even more delights awaited him! If you ever looked at me like he looks at her, I’d consider it.

Thronos had predicted a bleak future for them. But what if they could share pleasure, building on that?

Melanthe is misery. Had he really thought that only yesterday? Now he realized, Melanthe is doubt.

She’d always made him doubt his beliefs. He remembered a time when he’d tried to explain what she was to him. She’d been only nine, yet she’d questioned something he’d thought was absolute.

“Lanthe, when we get older, you’re going to be mine.”

She blinked up at him from a garland she’d been braiding. “How can I be yours when I’m my own?”

“You’re my mate. Do you know what that means?”

“Sorceri don’t have mates,” she pointed out.

“But you’ll belong to me.”

“That doesn’t sound very fair.”

“It . . . doesn’t?”

“Let’s just stay best friends. That sounds fairer.”

Now they’d been together for less than three days, and she’d already made him doubt the word of Vrekeners. He . . . believed her about the attacks.

He gazed down at her pale hand, curled so delicately on her torso. Those faint scars still filled him with rage. She’d said she had to bite back her screams. He didn’t understand how she could have at her young age. Was it because she’d already grown so used to pain? Or because she’d been that terrified of being discovered?

For centuries, he’d believed her existence had been filled with wanton revelry, a sorceress’s dream. He now knew those years with Omort and his poisons had been hellish for her. Running from Vrekener attacks? Hellish.

As a girl, Melanthe had wept over the death of a single rabbit.

Yet she’d had to scoop up her sister’s brain.

Perhaps Thronos should consider himself fortunate that she hadn’t grown to be evil like every other Sorceri he’d met outside of the Territories.

But evil or not, once she regained her persuasion, she would use it against him. Every day, every hour, her sorcery was replenishing itself, and he was defenseless against it.

If he could get her to the Skye before then, he could harvest the ability with one of his people’s four fire scythes.

She would have even more reason to hate him—but he would never lose her again.

As soon as the thought arose, so did his guilt. Though Vrekeners didn’t believe a power could be a soul, Melanthe did. He could never do that to her. Which made him the biggest hypocrite. He was the one who’d pressed for his kind to collect sorcery, in order to spare lives.