Mortals had no right to look at him the way she did: curious, defiant, unafraid. When she moved, the air shifted. When she spoke, the mountain itself seemed to listen. He had ruled kingdoms, broken empires, devoured beasts and yet a single girl with magic in her voice made him feelweak.
Intolerable.
It hadn’t been this way before. Perhaps because Alora had been an innocent girl in their past, a lonely princess enamored with the mask he’d worn. In this timeline, she despised him and allured him in confusing ways.
It was her scent that perplexed him. It hadn’t been so prominent before. It was as though the moment Alora had spilled her blood in the cavern, she had awakened something in her essence.
Something that made him hunger for her.
Rune had thought separation would starve the feeling. Instead, it had festered.
And then he felt her fear.
It had struck him like a banding iron through the ribs. He’d been in the depths of the fortress, buried in dark; the next, her terror had torn through him, sharp and cold, flooding his senses until the world skewed.
Then Karag Dûr shook, speaking one declaration Rune had yet to let himself process yet.
Every shadow in the mountain had risen at once, screaming for blood. When he found her alone with Sal’vathar, he’d nearly lost control.
If he hadn’t reined in his power, if he’d let the fury loose, she would have been caught in its wake. The thought of her body breaking under the force of his wrath made his bones ache.
Rune cast a glance at Alora now. She walked a pace behind him, still pale and shaken. She looked so small now. So delicate in the torchlight. Her fear clung to his senses, sweet and maddening. The bracelet he’d crafted to mask her scent glimmered faintly on her wrist. It helped. But not enough.
Either its magic was failing, or the bracelet simply didn’t work on him because Seven Hells; whenever he caught a hint of her scent his mouth watered.
Rune clenched his fist, the sting of his claws digging into his flesh helping to reign it in. The bracelet would keep most of his court at bay.
But what about him?
They reached a stairwell that led to the training yard.
“Rune…” Alora’s soft voice called, and he closed his eyes at the sound of his name on her tongue. “Should I be worried about Nexus?”
He paused at the unexpected question and glanced back at her again. The kitten purred faintly in her arms, the sight of him unnerving and strange. The creature’s dark fur shimmered faintly in the torchlight like it was dusted with stardust.
“I think he’s a Manticore,” Alora murmured thoughtfully, scratching behind its ears. “I’ve read about them before. They have wings, horns, and?—”
Rune’s brow arched. “Thatis not a Manticore.”
“How do you know?”
He looked at her sidelong, and the corner of his mouth twitched. “Because Icreatedthem. Manticores are demons with an insatiable appetite for human flesh. Monstrous entities of pure evil and nothing like that little beast.”
Her wide eyes dropped to Nexus, who yawned lazily in her arms, unbothered. “Then what is he?”
Rune was silent for a moment. His gaze lingered on the creature’s wings, on the faint of galaxies that shimmered in itsyellow glowing eyes. “Something I thought long extinct,” he said. “It’s aVareth—a Primordial familiar. A creature older than the Seven. Older than the realms themselves.”
Alora blinked, her mouth parting as she stared at Nexus. “A what?”
“They were once Guardians of the Gates,” he said. “Creatures born from the same fabric of the universe. They served the Primordials, the first gods who shaped the worlds. They cannot be summoned. They cannot be tamed.” His eyes flicked to her. “They choose their master.”
She visibly shivered. “And it chose me?”
“So it would seem,” Rune said quietly.
The Vareth had all vanished millions of years ago. They were thought extinct, absorbed into the stars when the Primordials fell.
When he had seized the Netherworld, no familiar had risen to greet him. His Gate had remained silent, its guardian dead or dormant, as though even the old powers had turned away from him. The question was, why now?
