He’d been convinced—until he’d seen her the next year with a tall fey male. Laughing, the two had run through a portal rift. When the pair had kissed as they’d crossed, Melanthe had wounded Thronos far more than her command to jump ever had. . . .

Lanthe struggled to regulate her breathing after what she’d just witnessed: his memory of their first meeting after his fall.

She’d felt his devastation at finding her in Marco’s bed. She’d experienced firsthand the sickness that had taken hold in him, the disbelief. She’d been scalded by his violent jealousy and rocked from the agony of his injuries.

He hadn’t thought he could wait two years to claim her; he’d waited centuries.

Somehow she kept her lids half-closed, her breaths deep and even. The identity of his companion had shocked her as much as anything else she’d learned.

The male with the pitchfork, the one who’d dropped her sister upon cobblestones was . . . Aristo.

King of the Vrekeners. Thronos’s older brother.

Obviously, Aristo hadn’t given a damn that Lanthe was Thronos’s mate. The king had wanted her and Sabine dead. If Thronos forced Lanthe to Skye Hall, would Aristo finish her once and for all? How the hell was she going to convince Thronos of this?

Well, Vrekener, I was scratching around inside your brain, and oops, I witnessed a memory that you would be humiliated for me to see. I realized the sadistic thug who reveled in my pain is your brother! Oh, and your king! He prolly helped raise you after my sis beheaded your dad.

She now understood why Thronos hadn’t known about the attacks. Who would rat out their leader?

Looking as sick as he’d been that night, Thronos sank back against a column, then slipped to the ground to sit with bent knees. He tipped his head back, staring at the ceiling, his striking eyes lost. He was wondering if he’d ever be free of her hold. Maybe in death, he thought.

She stared at his face, then the skin of his chest, both scarred because of her. How fiercely he hated those marks!

And she’d mauled his mind even worse.

She’d known his seeing her with another would have to hurt, but she hadn’t even plumbed the depths. Despite all the anguish she’d suffered at the hands of his kind, she ached for the young man he’d been.

At that age, he’d thought she was ideal. He’d planned to forgive her for his injuries.

Until she’d inadvertently dealt him a wound he’d never recovered from.

She still couldn’t wrap her head around all she’d learned. Had someone else told his father about the abbey? And what was the “truth of that night”? Thronos had been so certain she would forgive him.

It frightened her how badly she wanted him to be blameless, even as the truth struck her: if he was, then he hadn’t deserved any of the suffering she’d—purposely or unwittingly—caused.

I broke a little boy’s body.

And a young man’s heart.

SIXTEEN

When Lanthe woke again, night still clung to the realm, the battle ongoing. Perhaps both were endless here.

Thronos was gone, probably out sourcing food. Since she didn’t eat meat, she had scant hope for her own breakfast. Would he remember the time he’d tried to hunt for her?

She was surprised he’d left her alone, not that she could escape. She rose, testing her tongue—all healed!—and stretched her stiff muscles. If she felt this rough sleeping on the cold stone, she could only imagine how he’d felt. If he’d slept.

Eager to wash the grit from her skin and hair, she crossed to the cave opening, removing her gauntlets and boots along the way. Rain poured, spattering the lava on either side of the entrance, producing steam tendrils. Sidling near the very edge, she commanded herself not to look down as she reached for warm rainwater.

Most Lore species were fastidious. Yet she hadn’t had a shower in weeks, had been forced to bathe with freezing water from a sink.

She drank from her cupped hands, rinsing her mouth of residual blood, then removed her underwear and breastplate to clean them and as much of her body as she could. While she washed, she reflected on all she’d learned in the last two days and came to a startling realization: I have nothing to hate Thronos for.

At least from the past. He was innocent of the crimes she’d pegged him for. He hadn’t had a direct hand in Sabine’s deaths, had even taken pains to prevent them. She now believed he’d kept secret the location of the abbey.

Did she wish he’d given her a heads-up that his father was going to attack that night? Absolutely. And she wished Thronos had kept a better leash on his men—on his brother—but she couldn’t have expected him to. In no universe would he not have trusted the word of another Vrekener.

After last night, her chronic anxiety over surprise attacks had begun to fade at last. She now knew who her enemy was: Aristo. And where their next encounter would be: Skye Hell, if Thronos got his way.

If Lanthe could be freed of that overriding anxiety, would her powers bloom?

After unbraiding her hair, she smoothed water over it. Once she’d rinsed it clean, she painstakingly plaited it into braids around her face. The rest she left to curl down her back.

She was glad of this time alone to digest everything that had happened—and to consider her burgeoning interest in Thronos. After she’d fallen back asleep, still heartsick at his memory, she’d had vivid dreams of him.

In one, he’d kissed her in the rain. He’d grasped her face between his palms, brushing his thumbs along her cheekbones; then he’d set in, his pained groans rumbling along her lips as he’d taken her mouth with furious need—until they were sharing breaths, until he’d stoked her own desperation.