“My mother is out hunting,” Carmine said after a beat. Like me, he hadn’t touched a morsel of the delicious food.
Sylk brushed over my nipples, and I shifted on the chair. “I don’t care where your mother is.”
Gratia sucked in a breath.
Carmine didn’t say a word.
My skin itched. I’d released smoke prior to my return, but this damned dress was agitating me.
A demon’s blood was poisonous even to the demon it resided in. Smoke release was a pressure release for the poisonous effects. When demons came into their power at sixteen, they smoked constantly in an effort to vent the poison from their bodies, while demons as old as Carmine only had to do so on occasion, being desensitized to the poisonous effects.
The idea was to release less and less over years and decades, but to do so without weakening yourself too much.
A demon who desensitized to the poison of their blood became stronger. They developed more scales, and demon scales were very hard to penetrate. A demon covered in scales, especially scales of crimson or purple—or black like me—was difficult to kill. As a demon’s power grew, that demon would also take on a more human appearance. Which was an ancient design meant to allow us to walk among humans and other supernaturals to feed off their pain.
Carmine could banish his scales entirely, though a human would need to be out of their mind to look at him and believe the guy was human.
“Release it,” Carmine snapped, bringing silence to the entire hall. Crimson eyes were on us, and interest gleamed in them. A bit of entertainment with their cold dinner.
While trapped for one hundred years in the dungeons, Carmine purposefully weakened himself by keeping his smoke inside. That was how he’d become strong so impossibly fast.
He hated when I didn’t release mine, and I’d assumed that it poked at old dungeon scars. But the choice to release smoke, or to weaken myself bynotdoing so, was my choice and my choice alone.
“You mind your smoke, and I’ll mind mine.”
His hand clamped down on mine, and he didn’t seem to mind the sharp thorns of his throne embedded into his arm one bit. “Stop fidgeting in that damn dress, Syera, and release it.”
Gratia paused with her wine goblet halfway to her painted lips.
I blew out a breath, recalling my decision to forfeit my ego.You need to play Tiers.
First meeting his furious gaze, I released the tiniest wisp of black smoke. Just enough. No more. Carmine whipped his handinto the haze I’d released. He rubbed his fingers together as my smoke licked over his flesh.
My smoke didn’t hurt him. His smoke didn’t hurt me either. Part of the ritual we’d started.
He lowered his hand, and though he didn’t smile, triumph smoldered in his eyes. I was well aware of the steps we’d taken in the ritual—first touch, the first kiss, and sex. Those steps couldn’t be reversed, and everyone knew which steps we had already taken, but apparently Carmine still wanted to gloat.
I broke from his appraisal and returned the stares of the crowd until they got back to eating their cold food. I shifted on the seat, gasping at the brush of sylk over my stomach. I gripped the armrests.
As the demons finished eating, they watched their king for the signal that dinner was over.
Their king?
He hadn’t stopped watchingmesince the smoke release. If I looked at him, would he look at his minions, and would they look at me? How many times could we go back and forth?
I pressed my legs together, feeling the arch of my chest as I tried to escape the sylk caressing my back.
Fury started to burn in my stomach. Lust often turned to fury, I’d learned. Usually training was the only antidote. Well, the only antidote I would entertain.
“Your grandfather has not been seen in three years,” Carmine said, and I was powerless to stop the arching of my neck, which exposed the skin there for his touch.
I didn’t answer, focusing on breathing through the torture.
“How did you find him?” the demon king asked.
I didn’t answer.
“If I find him, Syera, I will kill him.”
