A Light in the Flame (Flesh and Fire #2)(13)

Nyktos laughed, turning away. “That is a lie, and you know it.”

Anger rose quickly. “Are your super special abilities some sort of lie detection?”

“Life would be so much easier if that were the case. But, no. Emotions can be faked, especially if someone is determined to hide their motives and how they truly feel.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him that nothing I had felt around him had been a farce. How much his words and his touch had…pleased me, and that what I’d felt then was real. I had finally felt real. But he wouldn’t believe me. I didn’t expect him to. He knew I had been groomed from a young age to carry out my duty. And I had been determined to do so…until I hadn’t. But if I were in his place, I wouldn’t believe a word I said either.

I looked down at the scuffed toes of my boots. “Then you can’t possibly know what you claim to.”

“Except all of your actions tell me what I need to know,” he said. Several moments passed. “I mean no offense when I say that you don’t value your life. I didn’t mean it as an insult.”

I snorted. “Sure sounded like one.”

“I apologize if that was how it came across.”

My head jerked. “You’re seriously apologizing to me? Don’t answer. It doesn’t matter. Half of this conversation doesn’t matter. What I was trying to say is that there is no reason to go through with this coronation. Whatever protection being crowned as your Consort offers cannot be worth it.”

He slowly leaned forward. “Your safety is worth everything.”

“Even the Shadowlands?”

His now-swirling eyes had never left mine, but, somehow, he’d moved without me even realizing, crossing the space between us. “Yes.”

The breath I inhaled rattled through me, full of his citrusy scent. “You can’t mean that.”

“I mean it with every part of my being, Sera.”

Sera. Not liessa. He hadn’t called me that since I’d been in his bed, after I’d given him my blood. That had been a slip of the tongue then, something done in a moment of pleasure.

Nyktos loomed, a good head or two taller than I was. “You are…” His jaw flexed, nostrils flaring. “What you carry inside you is far too important. They have to be part of the key to ending what Kolis has done. You may value those embers as little as you do your life, but I do not.”

What I carried inside me. The embers were important. Not me. Never me.

I backed off, taking several steps. Did I expect him to say something else? That I mattered? To him? And that he cared for me, even though he couldn’t love? After what I’d plotted? I didn’t.

I just wanted it to be different.

Nyktos’s chest rose sharply. “Sera—” A knock on the door interrupted us. His head cut in the direction of the sound. “What?” he barked.

My gaze flew to the entryway. I wouldn’t have been surprised if whoever was there had simply backed away.

The doors opened to reveal Rhahar, his skin a warm, deep brown in the soft glow of the lamplight. Though nothing about his expression was warm as his gaze flickered over me. “There’s a problem at the Pillars.”

Most souls faced judgment at the Pillars of Asphodel. They were either rewarded with the Vale or sentenced to the Abyss. The Pillars couldn’t judge some; their lives were far too complicated, and it required Nyktos’s presence.

“How urgent?” Nyktos demanded as Rhahar’s cousin drifted in behind him.

“Urgent enough to risk interrupting you,” Saion replied blandly, a hand resting on the hilt of the sword strapped to his hip.

Nyktos cursed, shoving a hand over his head as he stalked to the credenza.

“Is everything okay?” I asked as Nyktos reached the cupboard.

Rhahar didn’t look in my direction as he nodded, not elaborating. Pressure clamped down on my chest, even though his reaction didn’t come as a surprise. My betrayal of Nyktos was a betrayal to all of them.

Breathing through the tightness in my chest, I turned to Nyktos as he grabbed the back collar of his shirt, then pulled it up and over his head. My eyes nearly fell out of my face as the lean muscles running down the length of his spine appeared, along with the swirling drops of blood inked into his skin—drops that represented all the lost lives Nyktos believed he was responsible for.

Proof that he cared deeply for more than one.

Muscles bunched along his broad shoulders and biceps as he tossed the shirt aside and pulled out a gray tunic from a lower cabinet in the credenza. His body was a masterpiece, proof of years spent fighting with heavy swords instead of using the eather inside him.

I knew I shouldn’t stare as he tugged the tunic on. It didn’t feel like I had a right to do that now, nor did it seem like something I should be doing at the moment. But he was…well, really nice to look at. And I really liked looking at him.

“I clearly remember someone saying that it was inappropriate to stare,” Nyktos’s low voice interrupted. “Especially when it’s clearly intentional.”

My gaze flew to his as warmth blossomed in my chest. The wisps of eather were churning again. “It wasn’t intentional.”

He smirked. “You lie so prettily.”

I had totally lied. The apples of my cheeks burned as he donned the tunic with an iron-hued brocade around the raised collar and across the chest in a diagonal line. But the warmth cooled rapidly. I was sure there was a coded dig there, except all I could think about was when he’d said that to me before. He’d been teasing then.