He stilled, and only then did I fathom how much I might’ve changed from the uncertain sixteen-year-old he’d known. He’dkeptme uncertain, but one moonlit night in each other’s arms, he’d made the mistake of speaking the truth. That was when I’d learned that the night he’d dragged me to this realm, he was never saving me.
Yes, I was changed. Nearly three years away from this bastard had achieved that. I’d gone through a chapter of life that had changed me forevermore, and been plagued by lust to boot. I wasn’t the girl he’d known, and I would do fucking anything to get what I wanted.
I took another step.
“You will not reach the checkpoint,enamai,” he announced.
Mate.
I smiled. “I am no enamai of yours, Carmine.”
Twenty feet remained between us. And then the distance was gone.Poof.
The demon king’s calloused hand cupped my jaw and most of my neck under the hood. With the other hand, he ripped my hood back.
My black hair brushed my shoulders. Scales extended up both sides of my neck and bordered my face, only leaving myjaw and chin bare. He jolted at the sight of me, and I took gross satisfaction in his shock.
Yeah, I got stronger, asshole.
A rumbling sound escaped him that he snuffed out. I felt the same sound wanting to escape my chest. I wouldn’t let it.
“You’re in my way,” I grunted around his grip.
“I cannot allow you to fight in Tiers, Syera.” He drank in the sight of me, and that was how I could be certain of his shock. Carmine would hate his subjects seeing this raw reaction.
Except my name on his lips was just like I remembered.I breathed through the wall of lust that wanted to crush me into submission.Arch into his hands. Get on your hands and knees. Dress in a loincloth and nipple string.The whispers of our half-finished mating filled my head and body. Myheart raced at the proximity to him, and my body overheated more and more with every passing second. I had existed in this torture of lust for three years, and I’d known that proximity to him would make it so much worse.
I tilted my chin and peered at his lips, then forced my gaze to his where his tortured lust mirrored mine. Anger and resentment and dismissal were there too. He didn’t know what to feel. That turmoil was no doubt why I could gauge so much of his feelings right now.
How the tables had turned.
There was a relief in that. Like I’d passed some invisible test.
“I wasn’t asking, Carmine.” I purred his name. I’d use that lust against him any day.
But to reach the checkpoint, I needed to reveal an element of my power that I’d wanted to keep hidden.
Though, I’d also intended to fight a yellow scale. And use my daggers instead of Father’s blade.
I’d also planned to escape a group attackandthe detection of a demon king.
So screw it.
Carmine was bending his head to mine despite the hate radiating from him. I could kiss him. I could melt into his body as I’d melted so many times. Doing so would be an enormous relief. So easy. Every part of my body yearned for it. A thousand sleepless nights. Thousands more hours spent training—not because of Tiers, but because the sexual deprivation of being apart from my mate while partway through a mating ritual was daily, excruciating agony.
If I’d guessed at the extent of that torture, I might never have left.
But I had, and I’d survived, and now I wouldnevercomplete the mating ritual.
The craving for him was so strong, strong enough to make my knees shake. Even prepared as I’d been to see him, I could barely pull myself together. Carmine wanted to devour me, and my body wanted to devour him.
Give up, give in.
But I’d learned my lesson hard and all at once. I wasn’t the same. I’d never be the same again, andhehad ensured that.
I drew up my magic with a speed I hadn’t possessed while with him. I portaled as close to the checkpoint as possible and sprinted for my life and for the lives of those I loved.
So close!
