Shadow's Seduction (The Dacians #2)(72)

The black-haired female gazed up at him, and a tremor passed over her, no doubt at Sian’s horrifying appearance. “I’m Melanthe, queen of the Vrekeners. And this is my sister, Sabine, queen of Rothkalina.” The redhead gave a careless wave.

“You have a lot of bloody nerve contacting me.” The Vrekeners were the ones who’d invaded his realm! He’d get to that soon enough. For now, his eyes couldn’t stray from Kari.

The tips of her pointed ears poked out from her mane of damp brown hair. So she was fey once more. As before, she stood a little over five feet. Her mud-coated dress revealed the same willowy figure.

He hadn’t expected a replica.

When he realized he was gripping that pink chemise, he used magic to make it disappear to his chambers. “What is wrong with your captive?”

“I commanded her to sleepwalk.”

“I’ve heard of your powers.” Melanthe could control minds and create portals between worlds. Her sister could make a victim see anything she wished. Their talents would be particularly valuable for bounty hunting. “Why not attempt to ensorcell me?”

“Something tells me you’ve developed an immunity over your long life.”

True. It would take more than a fledgling sorceress to control his mind. “Why is your bounty covered in mud?” He wanted to see Kari’s face clean.

Melanthe said, “She fell for our ruse.” Both Sorceri chuckled at that.

“How did you locate her? N?x?”

“It doesn’t matter how,” Sabine said. “Just know that your reincarnated mate is in play.”

“N?x plots my downfall. If the soothsayer wants me to have Kari, perhaps I should resist acquiring my mate.”

Resisting Kari was not Abyssian Infernas’s strong suit.

Which N?x must know. In his last encounter with the soothsayer, she’d warned him, “Hold on to your ass.” She’d also told a group of gathered M?ri?r, “To win this war, I’ll use every trick in my tricksy little bag of tricks.”

The Valkyrie has begun.

Melanthe said, “Your mate’s name is Calliope now. Not Kari.”

“I don’t give a fuck what her current name is.”

“You put a Lorewide bounty on this female. Will you not honor it?”

“Perhaps I would have if you and your husband hadn’t taken over one of hell’s mountains and declared it a sovereign territory.” The winged Vrekeners might technically be demons, but they acted . . . angelic.

In hell?

It wasn’t to be borne! “Not to mention the havoc you wreaked on my subjects.” She and her husband had freed the legions—the most warmongering of Pandemonia’s demon population—from their interminable labors of hell.

Melanthe waved his comment away. “So we freed thousands of demons from unending strife. Ish.”

“They were to be punished for an uprising against my sire.” Though Pandemonia hadn’t been actively ruled for ages, Sian’s father and brother had set up controls. This self-governing dimension was filled with protections to punish intruders and to keep its unruly inhabitants in check. “They are bloodthirsty. Now they hunger to war on you.”

“You either want your female or not.” Melanthe tapped that claw against Kari’s neck.

While he applauded the sorceresses’ daring, he wouldn’t be trapped by it. Sian shrugged. “Keep the bitch. We war. I’ll destroy you, then take her.”

“You’d risk her?” Melanthe said. “So apparently you didn’t love her during her previous life.”

I adored her, would have done anything for her. “I want her for revenge only.”

Sabine exhaled. “All the best with that.”

Melanthe shook her head. “I’ve ensorcelled her to die within the hour—unless I release her from my commands. Your mate’s perished once already.”

Sabine added, “You won’t get a third chance with her, I assure you.”

“What do you want?” Sian demanded of Melanthe.

She pressed her advantage. “The mountain we’ve settled, two thousand leagues in all directions from it, and your vow never to attack our kingdom of New Skye.”

Even her sister raised her brows at the greedy demand.

“That range would encompass my keep, sorceress. If you think I’ll hand over Graven Castle, you’re as mad as N?x.”

“I recently learned that the king of Pandemonia becomes one with the realm, manipulating it like a god.”

N?x had to be giving them information. Few knew that the king and the kingdom were connected, his mind shaping the world, and the world controlling his appearance. The soothsayer was proving to be a wily adversary.

Then leave your female alone, Sian. Refuse the godsdamned bait.

“You can make the dimension as large as you want,” Melanthe said. “Add territory between us. Keep your own lands as they are, but expand ours.”

He could. His magic in hell was limited only by the level of his life force. But the process would temporarily deplete him, and he needed his strength for the M?ri?r.

“Time’s a-wasting,” Melanthe said. “If your mate dies, so does your chance for offspring.”

Though Sian fucked—irregularly since his transformation—he had never spilled seed. He never would unless he claimed his mate. Just once was all he needed to rid himself of his demon seal. He could then have offspring with a different female, one he chose for himself, instead of fate’s insane match for him.