She sidestepped, dodging that first arrow-shaped boulder, the charred one from before.
“Don’t head for the tree!” She was heading for the tree! “There’s a pit between the roots!”
Still not hearing him, she skipped over the roots. Then . . . too late. Her upper body jolted forward before she righted her balance.
She murmured, “Thronos?” Even from this distance, he could hear her distinctly, felt the timbre of pure fear in her voice.
Their eyes didn’t meet this time; he was too busy hacking at his legs. Break the bones in one go or she dies. “Just hold on! I’m coming for you!”
Every muscle in his body strained. He could already hear the gravestone’s descent.
Thrashing, kicking, sweat burning his eyes. The gravestone snapped the limb high atop the tree.
Thronos’s bone cracked—earlier than before! I can do this, I can reach her! With one leg freed, he dared a look. “I’m coming!” The next limb down was bowing.
She knew a boulder that big would kill her. She struggled wildly.
“Just hold on!” He bit back yells as he cut, hacking through the bloody calf muscle of his other leg. Taking too much time, too much!
The boulder plummeted like a juggernaut, crushing one limb after another until it caught on the one directly over Lanthe, not twenty feet above her head.
A final defense.
“Thronos?” She’d gone still, as if she feared making too much movement.
“I’m not letting you go! I’m coming for you! We’re not done, Melanthe.”
“I wish things had been different,” she said, voice thick with tears.
“They will be! Fight, Lanthe!”
Their eyes met again. “Tell my sister I love her.” Chin raised, Lanthe gave him a salute.
Second leg free! The tree limb was about to go. He took to the air, diving for her; she kept her gaze on him, as if for courage.
Craaaack. The boulder crashed down. He collided with it. An instant too late.
“NOOOOOOO!”
He dug his claws into the stone; using his wings for propulsion, he shoved with all the strength he had left. Ruined my second chance!
He directed his five hundred years of hate—at himself. I am the enemy. He’d had three fleeting nights with his mate, and he’d taken every opportunity to frighten her, to shame her, to hurt her. As if hundreds of years fleeing his kind hadn’t been enough pain.
I squandered what I was given, never comprehending the treasure.
She’s dead.
Another shove. Another. And another. And another. He gave an agonized roar, clawing at the stone in a frenzy. As he rammed his horns into it, madness threatened, his thoughts taking flight in odd directions. He recalled the end of that encounter he’d had with her mother. . . .
“Melanthe will never be what you need her to be. You can’t break my daughter, and that’s the only way she’d love you.”
Thronos sputtered, “I-I don’t want to break her!” Melanthe was perfect as she was!
“Then you’ll have to break yourself, hawkling.”
Perfect, if only? Melanthe would be perfect.
If only she were alive.
As blood poured into his eyes, he closed them. Please, gods, give me just one more chance.
“Something’s behind me, isn’t it?”
Thronos’s eyes shot open. Melanthe was before him, heartbreakingly beautiful, not a mark upon her. The sun was starting to rise, purple clouds in the background like a halo over her black hair.
The hound’s howl marked the beginning.
Hell conspired.
Minutes later, the boulder was poised to fall above Lanthe.
Thronos was missing a wing and a leg. Slashes and puncture wounds covered him. The reptilian predators in the brush that had snatched the first hellhound had come for him this time.
Shouldn’t have ignored that direction. Won’t next time.
What if he didn’t get a next time? What if three was the limit?
He prayed to any gods listening: I will do this until I get it right. I will do this for eternity if I have to, but I will save her. . . .
THIRTY-THREE
Lanthe toed Thronos’s convulsing body, then hopped back. Her gaze darted from one marble marker to the other, looking for the threat.
One minute, she and Thronos had been arguing. The next, his eyes had rolled back in his head and he’d dropped like a rock. He was now unconscious, seizing on the ground as if afflicted by a supernatural malady.
What zone had he crossed into? The nightmare sector? The noxious-air belt? The markers were inscribed with those weird glyphs, and her translator was currently writhing, out cold on the path.
Lowering clouds closed in, darkening the morning. A soft rain began to fall; lightning streaking above. What to do? Despite his dickitry, she couldn’t just leave him like this.
It was almost as if she felt the same kind of loyalty to Thronos that she did to Sabine. But Sabine had never hurt her the way Thronos continued to do.
Even so, Lanthe would drag him out of the zone. All seven feet of him.
“Thronos, you are such a pain in my ass,” she snapped at his unconscious form. “Here I am—saving yours yet again! I want this noted.”
Careful not to cross the markers herself, she reached for his feet, lugging him toward her. The instant she’d pulled his head out of the zone, his eyes shot open, locking on her. “Melanthe?”
She dropped his feet; he scrambled to stand. With his irises fully silver, he jerked his gaze around, as if danger was on the horizon. He scented the air.
Under his breath, he grated, “Not real?” The crazed look on his face had her backing away from him.
Then he turned to her. “Not real.” He eased closer.
“Um, what’s happening, Thronos?”
“You’re here.” In the light rain, he reached for her, cupping her face with hands that shook. His thumbs brushed along her cheekbones. His brows were drawn together, lips thinned.
She’d seen this yearning expression before—after that three-day absence when she’d called him a demon. So long ago, when he’d finally returned to their meadow, his eyes had told her, I’ve been pretty much lost without you.
“I want your future, Melanthe,” he rasped now. “I don’t care about the past. We’ll work out the f**king details.”
Where was this coming from? Why had he changed—
His lips descended on hers. As in her dream, his pained groan rumbled against her mouth. He sounded like he’d die if she didn’t return his kiss.
A claiming kiss. A no-going-back kiss.
Despite her issues with him, she found herself parting her lips beneath his. He groaned again, as if she’d conceded far more than a kiss. When his tongue dipped, her eyes slid shut in bliss.
His lips slowly slanted, his tongue sensuously tangling with hers. For someone with so little practice, he was turning into a devastating kisser. Her hands twined around his neck, her toes curling as they began sharing breaths.
When he drew back, he left her dazed, blinking up at him. “Thronos, I think that’s the best conversation we’ve ever had.”
He didn’t release Melanthe, just kept his quaking hands on her cheeks.
She was brimming with vitality, sorcery, life. He savored the beating of her heart, the coursing of her lifeblood.
She gasped. In the lightning flashes, he looked like a . . . legend.
Like an avenging angel.
From hell.
Every inch of his skin was coated with others’ blood, his own as well. Gashes sliced his flesh, bisecting ancient scars. Stark against the crimson, his eyes were fully onyx—and locked on Lanthe as he began fighting his way toward her.
A rift was opening, drawing her attention from him! Come on, portal! Come on! Almost big enough for her to step through. Rothkalina, Rothkalina, Rothkalina, she repeated like a mantra.