“Are you going to drag me around for old times’ sake?” I murmured. He’d dragged me around for two years. To be fair to him, I’d been very draggable after losing my entire family and discovering I wasn’t a weak magus of paltry divination magic, but a strong demon too. This mega-hot guy had appeared to pledge his everlasting adoration, and he’d had a realm at his fingertips. No one could hurt me when I was with him, and to a scared child, that had meant everything. What was I meant to do? Most people of sixteen years would be hard pushed to figure outEarthby themselves, let alone the demon world.
So I’d clung to him and the security he'd offered, and Carmine had loved every second of that. I’d truly felt crazy about him, above and beyond the lust created by the mating ritual.
His voice was less than a whisper, yet when he spoke, it was as though someone had muted the crowd. “Don’t tempt me, Syera. There is nothing I like better.”
“You could try,” I replied, sinking my fingertips into the arm he had clamped around my waist. I extended my black talons into his skin for good measure. “That would embarrass you far more than me.”
I faced him, and neither of us backed away. I tilted my chin.
He watched my defiance with no visible emotion. “Embarrass is the wrong word, enamai. I love the sound of your screams, and so long has passed since they have rung in my ears.”
Cold Carmine was still here.
A chill always settled over my soul when he was around. I’d tried to separate this cold version of him from the rest for so long. So foolishly long before I’d given up. I’d realized that carving the ice out of him would be like carving the magus out ofme.An impossibility. “What a shame you’ll never hear them again.”
I couldn’t stay facing him in such proximity. I turned again to the floating portal, deliberating and kicking myself. I’d really believed the rules would stop him from interfering. He was such a stickler for them, and Tiers was an age-old tradition for our kind.If Carmine didn’t let me play, his subjects would be angry about the breach of rules. Butno onewould challenge his decision.
My greater concern wasn’t walking through this portal. It was that Carmine may not let me continue playing the game.
That wasn’t an option.
After failing to keep me from the checkpoint, Carmine also needed to assert his dominance and power for those watching.
He could have his fucking power. I knew what real power was now, and only I could take that from myself.
I walked toward the portal, then glanced back. “Hurry up, Carmine. I haven’t got all day.”
His snarl was cut off as I stepped through the sulfur portal typical of demon magic—not at all like the magus portals I’d grown up around.
I glared at the black graphite walls of a place I’d hoped to never see again.The royal fortress.A cold, humorless, and empty place where cold, humorless, and empty people lived.
He’d opened the portal to his living room. One of them, and his favorite. He tended to occupy this place in the late hours after the parties and festivities and banquets when he’d sip a smoky whiskey and stare into the fire like a mysterious hot guy. I used to love watching him do that. Now I preferred to believe that as he stared into the fire, a monkey crashed symbols together inside his head.
The smell of sulfur dissipated, yet I didn’t face Carmine, though he must be behind me. Dealing with him in the presence of thousands was far easier than in this cloying quiet.
I took a breath, focusing on my goal.
Keep your mind on all his lies.
“Why did you enter Tiers?” he asked, still yet to move.
“Why that question and not others?” I wrinkled my nose at the single piece of art over the fire. In the painting, a monster plunged a fiery blade into his reflection, and in the doing, plunged the blade into himself. Always hated that.
“Because all other questions lead to that, and you answered my only other question.”
About thinking of my escape while I screwed him into oblivion? “You always did like to save time.” He’d hated myhuman rambling. Though later I’d learned he didn’t hate it at all; he’d hated thecontentof my rambling, which had been about missing my family and what I’d do if they were alive.
I guessed guilt was a bitch like that.
He circled the room until we were face-to-face. Even if he didn’t hate me immediately after my escape, hate had formed in him after years of using his hand to keep the worst of the mating ritual at bay. He’d failed time and again to find real satisfaction, like me, and as he’d hated me, he’d also dreamed night after night of sinking between my legs.
Mating rituals were a messed-up thing.
The only difference between us was that I’d hated himbeforeescaping.
Cold Carmine disappeared as we gazed at each other. Time had always disappeared in his company. I used to think that meant we were meant for each other.
“You’ve changed, Syera,” he said, tilting his head. “You have changed so much.”
