“He isn’tmine.”
He walked around the edge of the bed, his movements like the dark, feline creatures I’d seen occasionally in the mountains. Creations of the witches, long since run amok. He wore tight, dark trousers and gleaming black leather boots that reached his knees. The dark fabric of his shirt, buttoned at the wrists and cut close so that it showed off his lean but muscular frame, was made from a fabric that looked to be somewhere between silk and linen. Slightly shimmery, but I could see the crosshatch of fibers if I looked closely enough.
Which I had no fucking idea why I was.
Self-preservation.
I held the sheet to my chest, even more self-conscious. But he did not look at me. The first sign of interest he showed was for Isanara, whom he regarded with a slight moue of his too-perfect mouth.
I did not like that at all.
“Koryn has always had a special talent for lying to herself,” he said to her.
“You don’t speak to her!”
That got his attention. Not right away. Slowly. He dragged his gaze up to meet mine with infuriating slowness.
I’d thought his eyes were black, like his hair and his clothing and the dark realm over which he presided. But I’d never seen him in the light of day. There were veins of blue amid the black, just enough to differentiate the irises from the pupils. As he looked at me, the striations of color seemed to pulse brighter.
Cold spread through my body. I glanced down at my hands, still clutched around the sheet, expecting to see the whorls of frost that appeared when my power overwhelmed me. But my skin was solid and unmarked.
If this continues much longer, I will have to start gnawing on the fire irons.
I didn’t need to glance down at my familiar to sense her impatience. I did not even know what this was—other than a humiliating, infuriating violation of my privacy and mind. A thought which, even now, the Dark God across from me could probably hear.
Eat whatever you like. Him, if you want,I said to Isanara. I hoped he heard it.
I will eat nothing here, Isanara scowled, spreading her wings wide and ignoring my suggestion. Before I could make another, my familiar was already halfway to the window.
I will bring you back game, she offered.
She lacked fingers to open the windows. I was not going to turn my back on the Dark God. In part, because I did not trust him, and also because my backside was currently and completely bare.
I took careful steps back, toward the window, all while holding his gaze and trying not to trip over my overeager dragon. Isanara butted her horns against the crowned glass window.
The patience of a toddler.
Been around many toddlers, have you?Isanara quipped. She butted my arm instead of the windowpane as I reached behind me and fumbled with the latch.
Only Kyrelle. None of my sister’s other descendants had ever let me close enough.
I shoved that thought and all of the associated ones forcibly out of my mind. The Dark God did not just watch with his eyes; I could feel him lingering at the edges of my mind. I recognized the cold, slightly different than my own. Older. Even more dangerous.
The latch gave easily under my fingers, a cold wind blasting through and shoving the panes open. None of us shivered. The window was large, reminiscent of a time of warmth. A few minutes, and the brutal breeze would snuff out the roaring fire.
Isanara had already clambered past me up onto the ledge. It could not be this easy. Maura had captured us, and now my familiar could just… go?
This could be a trap.
Isanara snapped her jaws.They know I will not leave you.
You should.She’d be safer.
I’d rather die.
That was dramatic. I felt the same way.
I could only watch from the corners of my vision as Isanara flared her wings, the pale lavender membranes catching the white morning light, glinting deep turquoise then shifting to emerald.
