“Avoiding the truly licentious acts is supposed to help.” Gazing to one side of her, he said, “I’ve seen males with bite marks on their arms, from where they’d muffled their reactions. That’s a common enough practice.”

She knew she looked gobsmacked, but this was just too wrong. “What’s the point if you’re not getting overly excited? I guess you’ve never heard the phrase ‘bellow to the rafters’?” Especially since they didn’t have rafters.

At his blank look, she said, “When you throw back your head and roar with pleasure? Come on, roaring isn’t just for battle.” Or for unleashing fury in a tempest.

“In a sexual situation, that would indicate . . . a significant loss of control.”

She’d begun to recognize the expression he wore now, the one that said, This goes against everything I know. But, gods, tell me more.

“If we had sex, ‘overly excited’ would only be the beginning,” she explained. “Next would come the point of no turning back, when we’re angry at our clothes for getting in the way and our hips move on their own and we can’t seem to kiss deeply enough and your fingers grip the curves of my ass and my nails dig into the muscles of yours.”

“And then?” he said hoarsely.

“Then comes the really fun part of the program.” She was getting caught up in this, savoring her virginal Vrekener’s reaction: utter enthrallment. “The panting, licking, rutting, keening, sucking, mindless, animalistic, about to explode/erupt/die with ecstasy part.”

A sharp breath escaped his lips. She loved the puh sound he made. “Next?”

“The last part’s difficult to put into words. Better explained by example. Let’s just say that we would be anything but quiet.”

When he tried to speak, his roughened voice dropped an octave. He coughed into his fist, then finally managed: “I see.”

She expected him to make some comment about her sexual past, something along the lines of “How many men have you been rutting with? Did they all make you erupt with pleasure?” But he didn’t, so she asked, “What about flyovers?”

“Huh? Oh. It’s bad etiquette to fly over another’s home.”

“I’ve heard that all the buildings look the same and all the walls are white, with no color to be seen.”

“They are uniform.”

“And there’s not a drop of wine in your realm? No gambling or carousing?”

“Correct.” He was describing a floating, whitewashed, sterilized, stifled, mirthless hell.

She was surprised he’d acknowledged these things about his home, even as he knew how much she would dislike it. “What would you expect me to do all day?”

“Perhaps selfless acts, helping others. Or even studious contemplation.” He seemed to have found his footing again. “You could read about our culture, studying Vrekener history.”

She’d used to enjoy reading about history, but only if it wasn’t lame.

“Would those pursuits be so bad?”

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Which begged the question: How exactly did he plan to get her to stay there? Once her power was replenished, no one could hold her.

She skated away from that subject. “Thronos, if there’s a splinter group up there with its own agenda, then what’s to prevent someone”—your brother—“from attacking me now?” She expected him to deny, to bluster.

Instead, he said, “If someone disobeyed my order and tried to hurt you, or your sister, he will pay.”

“Anyone? Absolutely anyone?”

Curt nod. “I give you my vow,” he said, having no idea of the bind he’d just gotten himself into.

And this was why Lanthe rarely kept her promises. “You’re starting to believe me?”

“I’ve learned your tells. I know when you speak untruthfully.”

Her eyes darted. That could prove disastrous! Damn it, what were her tells?

If he noticed her distress, he let it go. “There’s water ahead. But I also scent resin pits.” Seconds later, he pointed out a shallow depression filled with some kind of amber-colored gel. “Resin will trap you like an immortal-strength tar. Step where I step.”

In a pit farther ahead was a dead animal, an unidentifiable reptilian beast that had gotten its legs caught. Predators had eaten its guts.

Lanthe shivered. What if an immortal like her got trapped? Those predators would chomp on her, but she might live through the ordeal—only to regenerate for subsequent feedings.

Potentially for eternity.

Being an immortal had its downsides.

“I’ve been pondering something,” Thronos said. “How did Rydstrom forgive Sabine?”

Ah, so the Vrekener was moving his mind toward a pardon for Lanthe? With his new tenuous trust of her, he was starting to look for more between them. He probably figured he could shed some of his anger if he absolved her.

One problem: Lanthe didn’t see her sexual history as something that needed absolution.

Especially not from him.

Did she wish Thronos hadn’t found her with Marco? Sure. Did she want Thronos’s forgiveness for sleeping with that vampire?

Hell. No. “Why do you ask?”

“Rumor holds that Sabine trapped him to use as a sex slave, tormenting him until he agreed to wed her. Then he made a slave of her.”

She blinked at him. “Like those are bad things?” At his look of astonishment, she said, “They enjoyed tons of bondage, some master/sub stuff, a real-live dungeon with shackles, role and cosplay. Spankings and repeated orgasm denial. You know, typical BDSM. But don’t worry, they were doing it before it became cool.”