If he feels my heart rampaging about, he doesn’t show it, doesn’t look my way. Always the master of his feelings—until he’s not.
My few seconds to assess the room are up, and I spent them thinking about everything except how to take out a god with too much arm hair, how to make the killing blow. Or stab. Or whatever method presents itself. I’ve seen enough death to figure it out. I can do this for Eli. I can save him from his own mind.
Zandrite stands. The purple roots rearrange around him on highalert. They seem to act on their own. “I’m not sure I’ve ever had a private performance of the evening Scrape in my chamber before. How many want to play? I’ll need to call on some Trophies to choose from.”
Eli curls and releases his fingers at his sides, undoubtedly itching for his knife. Milo moves in front of him, adopting a protective stance, all the more meaningful now that he knows Eli can’t die. The roots sway toward him.
“You have something of mine,” Eli drawls, his casualness unnerving. He flops a hand onto Milo’s shoulder and hauls him back to his side.
Thisisn’tpart of the plan.
Zandrite smiles, the hauntingly beautiful and sickening kind that signals it’s time to run. But I can’t. And none of them appear to get the message. “You as well.”
I shiver, the delight in his low voice like poison traveling down my spine and hollowing one bone at a time.
“Why don’t you get your coward ass out from behind those roots and face us? What do you want?” Kaleida throws the questions at him, fearless.
His brows flick upward in amusement. “I want the girl.”
Eli swallows tightly. The feather light movement of his fingers near his pockets distracts me, every move deliberate and calculated. He brandishes his knife with the calmness of a late sunset and steadily points it at Zandrite. “AndIwant my brother back.”
My bones jump. What is he thinking? Why drag Kelter into this when he wants nothing to do with us?
Zandrite’s reaction isn’t at all what I expect. He strides forward, smacking roots that follow too closely, loitering around his face. Standing well over a foot above Eli, Zandrite studies him, taking in his angles. “How unfortunate. I thought we could ignore that little detail if you didn’t know. You’re not back only for a dramatic visit with an old friend. You’re back as Mazy’s accident.”
“No need to bring my murderous mother into this.”
“A little late for that, don’t you think? It has been since the day I showed that beauty how a god makes a woman come.”
I want to slam the metal hatch upward and attack at a run. Zandrite slept with his mother?
Eli rubs his thumb on the knife handle, tiny controlled strokes. “Give me my brother, and you can have the girl. A simple trade.”
Another act, but it won’t work.
“Why would you give her up for him?” Zandrite jerks his head to the side, signaling. “I saw how you looked at her in the arena. You’d threaten every man in sight if someone breathed in her direction.”
My eyes travel beyond the roots, past Eli and Zandrite, to the far wall I can barely see, blocked by everyone else. But two legs are visible. Two chained ankles. Two tan bare feet.
Kelter.A prisoner again? I thought he wanted to be here, that he found a home among these people.
“My brother is my blood,” Eli says.
But Zandrite considers him again, staring long enough to make the back of my eyelids itch with impatience. “I don’t need you in the middle of this. She’ll come for her link.”
Eli’s abdomen tightens with a ripple of muscle. “The only man she’ll come for is me.”
I can’t stop the smile pulling at my cheeks.
Neither can Zandrite, which makes my own smile vanish. “I’m starting to reconsider killing her so quickly. Why not one final mortal fuck before I go?” Zandrite asks, toying with the idea. The tip of a root caresses his neck.
Asshole of a god. I got this. I try to change its course and wrap the root around his throat, but it whips to the side and smacks Eli’s cheek.
Shit.
He freezes, only for a second, a dumbstruck look on his face. I know he wants to look my way but can’t. Then he strikes, his knife sinking into the god’s heart with precision, with ease.
Zandrite laughs, a horrid sound to go with his hardening body, the animosity on his face. The purple roots react with violent swings and wallops toward Eli, Milo and Kaleida, who jump back and block the blows. Zandrite watches the roots proudly. “I care for them. They care for me.”
