City of Thorns (The Demon Queen Trials #1)(54)

“A bit more warning would have helped,” I panted.

His muscled arms were wrapped tightly around me, one around my waist, and one under my ass.

“I couldn’t risk anyone overhearing me,” he said. “They need to think that you are the one flying, not me. You’re supposed to be the Lilu.”

In the darkness, his pale blue eyes seemed to glow.

I sucked in a sharp breath. “So…hang on, you’re secretly a Lilu? And no one else knows?”

“No one except you knows that I am an incubus. And if the other demons realized that, they’d try to kill me.” A faint smile. “They’d fail, but they’d try, and it would be messy and disrupt my plans.”

My mind could hardly keep up with this new information. “So I’m the only person who knows what you really are?”

The corner of his lips twitched. “Either I trust you, or I’m just making stupid decisions because you robbed me of the ability to think clearly when you were sitting in my lap. When I could hear your heart beating faster and your breath speeding up, it was difficult to think straight.”

With a jolt of surprise, I realized he was letting me know what made him vulnerable. “If you’re an incubus, then how are you still alive?”

His wings pounded the air, and he held my gaze, his eyes searching mine. I’d never seen him look uncertain before, but he did now. “I’ve been in the City of Thorns the whole time,” he said at last. “I’ve lived here for centuries. I was locked in the prison underground. The same prison where I locked you up that night. That’s where I lived for hundreds of years, and for most of that time, I saw no one except Mortana. Until she disappeared.”

“What?” My heart squeezed. “Didn’t she leave two hundred years ago?”

He looked out over the sea as he flew, his face a mask of indifference now. “Yes.”

“So you were in a dungeon by yourself for centuries.” I had so many questions I wanted to ask that I didn’t even know where to begin. “Why does everyone think you’re a duke? If you were a prisoner that long, how are you so stupidly rich?”

His expression had grown cold. “It’s not mine. I demand money from the king.”

Every response just invited more questions. “And why does he give it to you? Why is he scared of you?”

A bitter chuckle. “He has good reason to fear me.”

Vague. Okay. “And does the king know you were in prison? Does he know that you’re an incubus?”

“No. He only knows that I’ve learned one of his secrets, and he’ll do anything to keep it hidden from the rest of the city.”

It was hard for me to picture this powerful, dark force of nature in a prison cell for his whole life. Really, it was dreadfully sad. As we flew, the wind swept over us, whipping at my hair. “Was your mother with you when you were a kid? In the prisons?”

“Yes. But it wasn’t long before she was executed. Mortana helped make all that happen. She helped round up every Lilu in exchange for her own protection.”

“But how did you survive?”

I felt his fingers tighten on me, nearly imperceptibly. “Mortana liked to toy with me. And when she left, I was simply forgotten. No one knew I was there. Demons don’t need to eat. We feel hunger, but we don’t require sustenance to live. So I just stayed there.” His eyes had darkened, and his expression seemed haunted. “Until at last, I found a way to escape.”

I breathed in deeply, watching his wings as they pounded slowly under the dark night sky. “What do you mean, she toyed with you?”

Darkness slid through his eyes, and the wind seemed to grow more bitter. “I mean she amused herself by torturing me in her own way.”

Holy shit. No wonder he was desperate for revenge. “And you have no idea what happened to her?”

“No,” he said quietly. “I don’t even know if she remembers what happened to her. I don’t know that she has any idea who she is.”

“What do you mean?"

He took a deep breath. “She once told me about a spell. It’s one we use to forget what we’ve done, to rid ourselves of guilt. A spell for forgetting. She offered it to me, and I said no.” The wind tugged at his silver hair, and his eyes gleamed in the night. “That was why, when I met you, I was so convinced you were Mortana. I thought she’d used the spell on herself. You seemed nothing like her, but I thought there was a chance she’d forgotten everything. I was sure of it until I tasted your blood.”

I was pressed right against his chest, like he was clinging to me for salvation. This close to him, I could feel his chest muscles moving slightly as his wings shifted. “Must we talk about her right now?” he murmured. “I’m afraid the mood will be ruined.”

But it was hard to let it go when he was a mystery I wanted to solve. “Why did she offer you a spell to forget your past? What was it you wanted to forget?”

“Because at the heart of me, Rowan, I’m evil.” His gaze pierced me, the blue in his eyes shot through with shadows. “And sometimes, I’d like to forget that.”

It was hard not to hear the ragged edge of pain in his voice. I almost wanted to touch the side of his face, to tell him that he wasn’t all that bad. But what did I know? He hadn’t told me his history.