Every ounce of doubt evaporated when the back of his knuckle glided across her bundle of nerves. She sucked in a breath as he pushed lower and sank two glorious fingers into her. She gasped—she was so wet, so tight, they practically filled her on their own. Her hips bucked beneath his hand, and she whimpered.

  A roll of his tongue, and he bit down. Sera moaned and pushed his head lower. She needed him lower.

  Ropes of shadow bound her hands, lifting them above her head.

  “You’re cruel,” she said on a soft sigh and tipped her head back, arching for him. The sensation that coiled within her from his fingers had her panting. It had been so long since she was this needy. Shadow, she didn’t think she’d ever writhed beneath someone like this.

  “You have no idea.”

  Sera huffed in frustration as he slid his fingers out of her.

  “So impatient,” he said and lowered his tongue to her clit. One swipe had her bucking again, and he groaned. “You taste just as I expected you to. Utterly divine.”

  Over and over again, he lapped at her. The pressure building had her gasping for air, for release, for something she couldn’t name. She was so close. Sera pulled against his bonds, and he released her.

  She gripped a handful of Vasso’s hair and made him look at her as she ground herself into his mouth. His groan vibrated through her, his eyes grew so dark they were almost black, and he plunged two fingers into her once more.

  “It was this,” he rasped against her sex. “This was the image of you that Ophelia had shown me. The image I’d pleasure myself to every night. And when I saw you in person, I knew it would never be enough, not until I tasted you.”

  Another slow agonizing rake of his tongue, and she exploded.

  “Fuck me,” she said.

  “What was that, Nula?” he asked with a wicked smile. He brought his dripping fingers to his mouth and sucked them clean.

  “I said, fuck me,” she panted.

  “As you wish.” He grabbed his pants and slid them down his hips, letting his length break free. He rubbed the tip on her entrance, barely giving her a moment, then impaled her.

  She cried out, more in pleasure than pain, at the sensation of him stretching her. Sera let her head fall back as he thrust into her over and over again.

  “You’re so fucking perfect.” He pulled out and slammed back into her. Pressing another bruising kiss to her lips, he whispered, “And you’re mine.”

  Sera moaned as he drove deeper. Her need coiled tight in her belly.

  “Don’t you ever forget it, Seraphina. You were made for me,” he growled.

  She was going to die from her own pleasure, and she didn’t care. His hands glided over her in worship. Every inch of his skin against hers was ecstasy. Every roll of his tongue, every word he whispered in her ear, had her spiraling. She clung to him, raking her nails down his back, staring into that beautiful face.

  “That’s it.” He pounded harder, circling her clit with his thumb, and she screamed. She clenched around him, her nails tearing into his back, and rode every wave rolling through her. Shadow, she never wanted this to end. He worked her body as if he were made for this task alone.

  “Fuck, Seraphina,” he cried, then came undone, pumping into her until they were both spent.

  He held himself on his forearms and kissed her. Their breaths mingling, both coming down from their trance. Sera clung to him, trailing her fingertips over the raised lines her nails had just made.

  When he pulled away to look at her, there was such tenderness in his features, such admiration, so many words unspoken. And deep in her chest, wrapped around that fateful thread, was something she was scared to name. She searched his gaze, and in those strong features was tenderness so deep it made her eyes well up with tears.

  Vasso kissed them away. She traced the length of his spine, refusing to let go… and never before had she wished that she could stop time.

  Chapter seventy

  Seraphina

  She slipped on Vasso’s nightshirt, letting the sleeves fall past her fingers. The demon lord lay on his side, watching her.

  The tether between them—she’d always envisioned it as a rope. But each time she met his gaze, it changed from fibers to steel links.

  Sera lay back down beside him and caressed the curve of his cheek. Her fingertip followed his strong jawline to his chin, then down his corded throat. His eyes never left her. Not while she learned every dip and curve, committing them to memory so that even in the darkness of death, she’d be able to find him by touch alone.

  “Can you feel it?” he asked, lips pursed with worry.

  “Yes,” she said.

  Something had changed—some cosmic shift between them. The thread was now a chain. Placing her hand on his chest, she looked into his beautiful moons-gray eyes and told him, “I feel you.”

  Vasso pushed a stray curl from her face, tucking it behind her ear. The contact sent bliss deep into her skin.

  “Tell me we’ll make it. That I’ll be able to rescue Nora, and then you’ll build me that castle. Tell me we can hide away until we turn to dust.”

  His dark brows scrunched tight. “I won’t lie to you. That isn’t something I can promise, Nula. Eventually, Supay will come for me. Send every monster created to get me belowground.”

  “And what makes you so important? Don’t your wards need to be ruled?”

  Vasso gave her a sad smile. “Alas, they do.”

  She twined her fingers with his, rubbing her thumb across the calluses he loved to pick at. “When it’s done, when Nora is out, regardless of what that looks like, what would you want?”

  “Besides this, every waking second?” He rolled on his back, searching for the answer in the canvas ceiling. “I’ve built my life around my duty and prophecies. I’ve been expected to follow both. And honestly, I’ve never really thought what I could be, what I could do if I had the chance.”

  Her heart ached for him.

  “But if you’d be willing to”—he swallowed, then stared deep into her eyes—“I’d like to figure it out together.”

  “I’d like that too.” Sera kissed him. Their lips together felt right. She should be ashamed of how hard and fast she was falling, but who was she to question fate?

  Pulling him on top of her, she nurtured that bond connecting them. Skin brushing against skin, nothing between them but the sounds of their own ragged breaths falling over each other like fresh-fallen snow. And when he had her screaming his name for the whole world to hear… Seraphina Wildrick decided there would be nothing better than to be loved by him.

  Sera woke up to an empty bed and voices in the distance.

  Slipping on the satin sleeping clothes he’d left her, she smiled at the new leather armor he’d constructed. Carved into the thick black leather of the shoulder pads and corset were floral designs. He knew how to make her feel beautiful, even before a battle, it seemed.

  The air was cool off the ocean. For a second, she stood in the dark, breathing in the salt and breaking waves. The voices grew, and Sera followed them.

  On the other side of the dune, he was shirtless, hair tousled from lovemaking, and the way the moonbeams gleamed off his chest made her needy for him all over again. His companion was lurking in the shadows. Sera couldn’t make out anything about them, only that the voice was decidedly female.

  “Are you going to tell her?”

  “Eventually, that’s my intention, yes,” Vasso responded.

  “And how do you think she’s going to take it when she finds out you’re the reason her sister is captive?”

  Her heart froze. Her lungs fumbled their air.

  No.

  Sera swayed, hands sinking deep into the sand for stability before a rush of blood to her head made her wince.

  No.

  Do not break, her magic said.

  On shaky legs, she made her way back to the tent. The crashing of waves covered the sound of her heaving. How? How had she been so fucking stupid?

  Her flames surged within her as her disbelief morphed into rage. She had given herself to him. Body, yes… but her heart, her soul.

  Sera ripped off his sleeping clothes and pulled on her Legion uniform. As much as she wanted to leave them, she threw the leathers into her pack.

  “You fucking knew,” she said to her magic.

  Yes.

  “This entire time?” Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes. She threw her pack on her shoulder and ran out into the night.

  It was written.

  She was an utter fool. Every word her mother had called her came rushing back. Spineless. Sniveling. Deficient. I do not care if you die; bring her back to me.

  Sera slipped up a dune. As she continued west into the Deadlands, she felt with misty tendrils over rock and sand for a doorway, a gate, anything. She’d do it without him. How dare he? How dare he!

  She choked down her bile.

  Some things must come to pass.

  A collection of tumbleweed moved. Snik emerged, bleary eyed.

  “You need to get me into Gehenna, now.”

  Snik looked back in the direction of the camp and whined.

  Her voice caught in her throat. “There is no time. We can’t trust him.”

  He was the reason Nora was imprisoned. She didn’t know how yet or why, but the statement had been clear as day—when she finds out you’re the reason her sister is captive. Her chest ached.

  Snik grabbed her hand with his green claw and rubbed his face within it. With a yip, he galloped across the barren lands with only the moons as their guide.

  Gripping her raven pendant, she heard its familiar caw in response.

  She’d get down there, then she’d make a plan.

  She followed the goblin over rocks as he approached a small pile of boulders. Pointing and yipping, he gripped the rock and pulled. Sera helped him, and deep in the sand was a hole.

  “In there?” she asked. The goblin nodded.

  Sera hesitated. It looked barely big enough for her to fit through.

  That chain was pulling, and pulling. She placed her hand over her chest when a roar rippled over the desert. Screeching animals ran in a flurry past them.

  Panic clawed at her throat.

  This wasn’t her.

  She knew now what he meant when he said he could feel her terror. Her chest was being chiseled apart. Her knees sank in the soft sand. She gasped, willing the pain to subside.

  He is angry.

  “No shit,” she said.

  Snik whined and looked down the hole. Again, that chain pulled.

  Vasso was hunting her. He was using the fated thread between them to find her. Sera glanced at the small shaft. He couldn’t fit.

  Tightening the straps of her pack, she dangled her feet over the lip. Another roar shook the ground. Sera didn’t wait and slid into the abyss.

  Chapter seventy-one

  Seraphina

  Falling and falling and falling.

  She screamed out as the stone walls widened. There was light at her feet, and she gripped the straps of her pack so tight her knuckles burned. Snik howled from above.

  Oh, how she wished it’d been a normal doorway with stairs.

  The shaft opened to a cavern. The floor was still a long way down.

  “Barijara,” she said, and prayed it would protect her from breaking anything. Sera hit the ground hard on her side, striking a mound of sand that had evidently collected from above.

  “Fuck,” she choked. Each inhale brought with it a stabbing pain along her right side. A second later, Snik landed directly on top of her.

  Gulping for breath, she tossed Snik off her and rolled onto her hands and knees. Through bleary eyes, she took in her surroundings.

  Torches affixed to the carved stone walls lit the space. A well-worn footpath wound between stalagmites as thick as trees. The fact she hadn’t been impaled was nothing short of a miracle.

  “Why…” she called out. “Why did it have to be him?” If Sera could have chosen a single person in this world to be honest with her, it would have been him.

  Maybe it was the distance between them, maybe it was the overwhelming desire to kill him, but the panic was lessening. Sera leaned against one of the damp stalagmites and fought to catch her breath, to bury the pain in her side.

  He’d lied. The wall he’d slowly torn down, the one that had encased her heart, was now reinforced with stone. Sera wiped her nose on her sleeve.

  Shadows danced in the torchlight along the walls.

  “Do you know the way?” she asked Snik.

  He nodded.

  With a croak, Raven landed on her shoulder. “Glad you could join us.”

  Sera slipped out of her uniform, not raising her arm any more than she needed to. She slipped on the leather armor Vasso had made her, though she wished she could bring herself to burn it, and pulled the strings tight to support her maybe broken, definitely bruised ribs. Next she slipped on the leather pants and sheathed the daggers Al had given her at her hips. And lastly, cursing much too loudly, she raised her hands above her head and braided her hair.

  Snik led her down the worn path into a tunnel. His massive ears were constantly flicking, picking up movement she couldn’t hear. Raven stayed perched on her shoulder.

  “All right, you two, let’s go get Nora.”

  She walked and walked. Drips of water sang against stone, and if she wasn’t so scared, she would have found the sound divine.

  Do not be scared.

  “Easy for you to say.”

  We are home now. Where we belong.

  With every breath, her side throbbed, and for the first time since he left, she wished Alistair were with her. If only for his healing power. She couldn’t imagine the warlock underground. The very air would probably give him welts.

  Sera kept her hands ready at her sides as she followed the narrow path. Her eyes darted to the shadows. They moved unnaturally—toward the light instead of away—like something solid would. But every time she turned her head, they disappeared.

  Sera stopped short and leaned against the stone.

  Her heart thrashed, and a cold sweat beaded on her palms. Terror flooded through her. Vasso was still frantic.

  “Eeeech?”

  “Keep going, I’m fine.”

  They’d been going for hours without encountering a single demon, creature, or anything else. It was odd, considering what Vasso had described to her.

  Her steps bounced off the stone walls. The slightest touch to her ribs, even through her armor, had her doubling in pain.

  Snik growled.

  “What is it?” She listened as a faint rumble went through the ground.

  Raven glided through the cavern directly toward the sound of stomping ahead of them.

  “Come back, you stupid bird.”

  The bird ignored her, making an eerie knocking noise. There was a fork up ahead. A light was moving toward them from the right tunnel, but Raven had gone left.

  “I hope you don’t get us killed,” she whispered. Each breath was a blade in her side as she ran toward her familiar.

  The rumbles were footsteps that shook the caves.

  “Pronaki jadna,” a voice as deep as the sea grumbled. Two trolls rounded the corner. Snik clung to her legs.

  Their bodies swayed on warty feet. Sera glanced at the one holding the torch high above its head. Its eyes were milky white. These were cave trolls, adapted to live only underground. They didn’t need torchlight to see. They could hunt her in the dark if they wanted to.

  Sweat rolled down the sides of her face.

  They were almost out of sight when one stopped. Her heart was pounding, her vatra thrashing, and the troll lifted its bulbous nose to the air and sniffed. Her chin trembled. It felt like an invisible hand was gripping her throat as she held her breath.

  Please don’t turn. Please don’t turn.

  The troll with the torch turned. Light danced along the wall mere feet from her.

  Closer.

  Closer.

  The beast roared.

  “Run!” she screamed to Snik.

  Sera reached for her barrier magic. The power wound its way up her arm out of the enhancer. “Barijara.” A blue bubble of protection surrounded her and Snik.

  They dashed into the darkness. Her side was splitting, and her legs burned as she ran, but she kept going. The blue bubble around them flickered as the club crashed into it.

  She pushed faster, Snik galloping ahead. The cave walls expanded. She expected they were in another chamber.

  Sera skidded to a stop before slamming into a wall of black stone.

  A fierce burn ripped through her, and her barrier magic was sucked from her veins, through bone, and muscle, and skin. Then it was gone.

  Sera shook out her shoulders and opened her well of vatra. Her darkness roiled under the surface, lying in wait. Snik whimpered.

  “Hide,” she yelled to Snik.

  The trolls were almost on them. Their milky eyes and snarling fangs looked harsh in the shadows of the torch. The darkness stirred and snapped through her veins, enveloping her.

  Show them.

  Sera summoned her scourge. Black mist poured from her feet, blanketing the cave floor in a thick fog. The troll holding the torch took two steps before igniting into a black flame and disintegrating into a pile of ash.

  Her hands shook, the flames in them trembling. She hadn’t done that.

  The other troll looked at her and roared.

  “Te klek pred vas, Dama,” a deep voice drawled.

  The massive troll shivered and sank to the ground, lowering its head to the cavern floor. Its fallen torch played with the shadows as the man walked forward. With each step, a building rage rose within Sera.

  “You should have waited for me.” Vasso’s face was granite. He floated a mage light above his head, illuminating the chamber, and snapped out an order in the old tongue. His voice was stern, but this close, she could feel his true emotions. Panic, anger, relief, and… no, she wouldn’t name that one. Not after what he’d done.

  The troll whimpered and exited the tunnel.