“Ely, look, look!” Shadow called out from where she sat next to Nate’s head with Nik hunkered at her side.
Ely dropped to her knees and gaped as Nate’s wounds started knitting closed, and his body transformed. His forehead smoothed back to his own beautiful bronze skin, his burned hair restored back to his luxurious, silky mane—and the fangs, talons, and snout-like nose receded, revealing his gorgeous visage once more. But while the miracle occurred, he still remained skeletal. She placed her palm on his bloodied, scale-free, tattooed chest, his heart beating far too slowly. Not that it wasn’t the norm with immortals—and he was one, since he’d died as a child from the bullet and was reborn again—but the beats felt off. “Why is his heartbeat so sluggish?”
“He needs to feed the symbionts,” Aba said, watching Nate.
“Blood?”
“I don’t know. But he will, once he awakens.”
“He’s not going anywhere near her,” Reynner snapped.
Ely’s gaze shot to him. “Nate ismymate. I will do whatever it takes for him to survive.” She held her brother’s hard stare with her own inflexible one. “You aren’t going to stop me. If it were Eve—”
“Don’t bring my mate into this,” he growled.
“Oh, right…” Disappointment fisted her heart like a punch to her chest. Her beloved brother did not understand. “Because I’m only his consort, not a soul-joined mate, so it makes our love less in your eyes.”
“Godsdammit, Ely!” He crouched at her side, scowling. “You’re my sister, I don’t want you hurt. And he—”
“He’s what? A demon and can’t be trusted, is that it?” She glared at him. “He would never hurt me. He’s shown me this over and over again. He would rather kill himself first! And he tried!” Her eyes swim with tears.
She swiped them away with the back of her hand. “I’ve waited eons for someone like him who’d awaken my heart and want me for whoIam, not because of who our parents are! I’m tired of being the little sister and daughter living my life to other people’s standards and demands. I love him, and if you can’t accept that, then—”
A low groan reached her, fisting her heart, hauling her attention back to Nate. Lips pressed in a tight line, she put the demands of others out of her mind, concentrating on Nate.
Agony twisted his features at whatever the symbionts were doing to him. She smoothed back his sweat-drenched hair, helplessness taking hold of her. “Was it like this the first time?” she asked Aba.
“He was a babe back then, so I managed to keep him under as he healed, the same way he did with Shadow when her body had to accept the symbionts.”
Ely met Shadow’s watery eyes. “I don’t remember any of it. I only knew I woke up with an insatiable hunger for…well, you know.”
For the dark energy from a demon’s soul.
“You have me now,agápi,” Nik said, drawing Shadow up and into his arms.
Nik was a magnet for the souls of demons he killed, a curse left over from his incarceration in Tartarus eons ago, and he aided her by giving her those souls. But Nate had needed something worse,fear,which briefly satiated the wraconis.Deathwas what it truly wanted.
Ely blew out an exhausted breath, needing to get to Nate a safe and quieter place.
Was the boathouse still hers?
She clasped Nate’s still scaly hand and looked up, only then realizing everyone was there—Jenna, Shae, Darci, and even Bob, the cat, who sat a short distance away, watching everything with unblinking amber eyes like a small mountain lion.
Then she finally met Hedori’s quiet orange-green eyes, dark with sympathy and understanding. He inclined his head as if he understood. “It is yours to do with as you like.”
“Thank you.” She exhaled in gratitude. “Aba, let’s go.”
Reynner frowned. “Ely, wait—”
“I’m not running off,” she muttered, still mad at him. “We need a break. It’s been a long couple of days. And I want Nate in abedwhile he recovers, and not on the darn castle floor.”
She dematerialized Nate, Aba, and herself to the boathouse, praying they wouldn’t follow.
CHAPTER32
Ely approachedthe quiet boathouse as the moon slipped past the dark clouds, casting a muted silver hue over the gently undulating ocean and snow-patched shores. She coasted over the boathouse’s deck, and the mystical wards glimmered.
Mentally, she undid the protection spells, and they shimmered and fell silent. She willed the door open and then shut, reforming in the bedroom, and settled Nate on the massive bed that wasn’t there previously.Thank you, Hedori.
