I’d had enough of this. If he was the reason she was so unmoored, I’d kill him. God or not. “Then why are you here?”
He, of course, ignored my question. “You have to help her.”
“What do you think I am doing?” I growled.
“Do it better.”
“Fuck you.”
“Has our bonded’s wicked mouth worn off on you?” He licked his lower lip. “Or is that an offer?”
“Touch me, and I will sever your cock from your body. Can gods regrow their limbs?”
“If the fae can, I can,” he sighed heavily, as if explaining things to mortals was the bane of his very existence. “She is questioning everything. The Seven Gates gave her purpose. Then you and your bargain took away her accomplishment. She does not know where that leaves her.”
“With me.” Even as I said it, I knew. So did he. Damn him.
The Dark God pushed off from the wall and took a step closer. The narrow corridor felt even smaller. “As enviable a position as that is, it is not enough, and we both know it. Koryn is more than that. It is why we both want her.”
He was close enough to touch. Or strangle. “You have not been honest with either of us about what you truly want.”
His blue-black eyes slid up my body, pausing too long at my waist, then at the throat of my surcoat, where the top button was loose, before he finally met my gaze. “I want her to be ready for what is coming.”
He’d said something like that before. I’d assumed he meant the gates, but… “What exactly is coming?”
“Find the talisman and get back to the gates. You are running out of time.” His gaze locked with mine.
I’d been told my entire life that my eyes were remarkable. By my mother, who cooed about them when I was a baby. Then by men and women alike who wanted to find their way into my bed. In Balar Shan, they were noted for their resemblance to the king.
But the Dark God’s were stranger still. At first glance, there was no distinction between the pupil and the iris. It was all darkness, befitting his title. But the longer he held me captive, the more I saw the details. The tiny, crooked lines of blue that striated the black. They seemed to pulse in time with my own heartbeat. The effect was otherworldly.
I was used to being the other, the supernatural. But with him, I was the unremarkable one. I could breathe.
He did not even have a name.
I was so transfixed by his eyes that I did not notice his hand until it pressed against my hip. Two long, strong fingers pressed into the bone. That one touch was enough. The muscles in my stomach tightened. But he did not stop there. He slid his fingersup, over the crest of my hipbone, past my tight abdominals, over my nipple standing at attention beneath the layers of fabric.
This could not happen. I could not let myself feel this. Koryn was only a door away. This was the need for her, not for him. There was no emotion the Dark God would not weaponize.
I curled my hand around the pommel of my sword. But by the time I drew it, he was gone. All I was left with was heat low in my belly, and a yearning for things that I could not, should not, and would not ever have.
CHAPTER 25
GARRICK
Before
“How doessomeone even get muscles like this?” Alair wondered aloud. As he spoke, he punctuated every word with a kiss along my bicep.
I groaned as he reached my shoulder and tongued the sensitive inflection point that he knew drove me mad.
“Half fae,” I managed to get out as he sucked on the soft spot. Hard. I’d have a mark tomorrow. I should care. Others might see. But it felt too good to tell him to stop.
Alair detached himself from my shoulder with a little pop that made my cock twitch, even though only minutes had passed since I’d emptied myself inside of him.
He rolled onto his back and stretched his arms overhead.
“I am half fae, too,” he said. He darted a look down at my cock. His grin grew. So did mine. “But I think we might be different halves.”
