Thalos's fingers stretched toward her, triumph etched across his aristocratic features as he cut through her prison. Brutal. Efficient.
Time seemed to slow.
Each pulse of Kore's heart stretched long and cruel, warping time as she watched him approach through the collapsing corridors.
Those gleaming moonlit scales.
Frigid, icy eyes.
His perfect form.
Something began to simmer beneath her skin. A buzzing pressure that built with every stuttering heartbeat. Fury, hot and thick, rose inside her chest—unhinged rage at the thought of this selfish male moving to claim her.
Yet another in a long line of males who never asked permission.
Another who took.
Meant to hurt.
Break what she was to suit himself.
The priests who'd held her down. The elders who'd bound her wrists with sacred cord. Her father who'd traded her for a season's good harvest. Nyxarion who'd stolen her humanity with his venom. And now Thalos, with his cold smile and merciless judgement.
Always taking.
Never asking.
Behind him, through the shattered layers of the Gauntlet, she could see Nyxarion's massive form surging upward. Blood trailing from a dozen wounds as he fought through the current, desperate to reach her first.
But he wouldn't make it.
Thalos was too close, his hand nearly upon her, lips already forming words of conquest—of law and necessity and duty.
"Mine by right," he breathed, those perfect lips curving. "Mine to unmake."
Something snapped inside Kore's chest. A dam breaking, flooding her veins with liquid fire. The buzz beneath her skin intensified, crackling between her fingers, dancing along her spine. Her vision blurred at the edges, darkening to tunnel focus on the male who dared reach for her.
The liquid prison hummed around her, vibrating in sympathy with the rage building inside her bones. Her scales lifted, her gills flared wide, and that tingling sensation coalesced into something primal.
Something electric.
Kore screamed.
CHAPTER 12
Amaelstrom ignited above him.
Violet light.
An explosion that sent Nyx tumbling backward through the layers he'd fought with everything he had to breach.
Dazed, scales ruffled by the aftershocks, he blinked in the haze.
He was… blind.
Just for a moment.
The scent of ozone was heavy in his gills. Cloying. Sharp and acrid. An overwhelming stench that reeked of Kore's bright flavor.
