Page 119

It could only end badly. Soraya knew that, but she didn’t stop.

She liked this, that was the problem. Not him. Never him. But she liked the feel of his teeth against her jaw. The cold, open-mouthed kisses that made her feel as though she was being devoured—that she was something worthy of being desired and not just who she could kill.

She liked the pressure of his rings when his hand wrapped around her throat the best, though. She moaned when he did it again, the cold metal biting into her overheated skin.

“Fuck.” The word was a deep growl against her jaw, sending her shivering. “Do that again. Need to hear you make that sound again.”

She propped her hand on the bureau beside her, using it as leverage to push herself into him—

Her palm burned with pain.

Soraya hissed. He stilled, his grip loosening enough for her to pull back and examine the red, inflamed skin of her palm. Ash dusted the fresh burn and when she looked down, the ash-stick was smoldering sadly on the bureau next to her, slightly crumbled from where she’d accidentally placed her hand on it trying to push herself up.

A strange sort of energy pulsed from Ikarus, then his hand was snatching out to grab her wrist. He yanked her forward, her shoulder stinging with pain. “What are you doing? I’m fine. I just burned my palm on the ash-stick.” She tried to snatch her hand away, but his grip was unfaltering.

She couldn’t understand the expression on his face as he stared down at the injury, at the still smoking burn in the center.

Ikarus stared and stared.

“What are you looking for?”

He gave no answer before shoving her hand away and vanishing into the shadows.

39

Ikarus shouldn’t have kissed her.

What the fuck was wrong with him? That question and so many others had plagued him from the moment he’d opened his eyes this morning, following him to the palace when he’d received an urgent summons from Ramapheal, and now as he leaned against the wall outside the Ancient One’s chambers, waiting for him to emerge.

Why hadn’t he pulled back? Grabbed a fistful of those ridiculous golden curls and dragged her and her mouth far, far away from him?

Because he hadn’t wanted to. The thought bothered him more than any gun she could press against his temple.

Letting his head thunk against the wall, Ikarus stared at the ceiling above, and tried to remember when his life had started to unravel. No one had ever gotten under his skin like this. With the exception of Ramapheal and occasionally Morana, he was rarely challenged anymore. The God Killer, though … She was fire and brimstone. She meant every insult she spat at him, challenged him wherever she could—and she certainly wasn’t afraid to use that pretty mouth of hers to rile him up.

His cock hardened now just picturing the triumph he’d seen gleaming in her eyes when she’d dragged her boot over his heart, itching to press forward and puncture his skin. She hated him, there was no getting around that, but she wasn’t afraid of him either, and that … Gods, it shouldn’t have intrigued him, but it did.

He thought he had her all figured out. After all that time spent in her head, he thought he could predict her every move, and yet she always managed to surprise him. In a world where strategy was everything and knowing your enemy was the difference between life and death, the human was the unknown. He could make a few educated guesses on how she might react to his words or to a blade against her throat, but he was never quite sure what she would do.

She was unpredictable and ferocious as wildfire. He never knew which direction she was going to burn and destroy. She kept him guessing, balancing on the edge of a blade. He didn’t think he would ever tire of their game. Thought he might do this with her forever, dance with her for eternity while the rest of the world burned to ash around them, and he would never be bored.

A small part of him couldn’t help but chuckle at the irony of it all. That a human, one of the very people that were the reason he and his had been suffering for so long, had managed to capture his attention so entirely.

She was in his head, that was the problem, making him lose his fucking mind. One trick of the light in that childhood memory, and now he was imagining she had healing abilities. Was holding her wrist captive and staring at her palm like an idiot, waiting for her injury to heal like she was one of them.

She was human.

She’d had a motive for kissing him. He fucking knew it—but what?

Did she know? Those three words almost stopped Ikarus in his tracks. He quickly retraced their interactions over the last few days. Nothing unusual stood out to him, but she was clever …

The sound of quiet footsteps brought Ikarus back to the present. He pushed off the wall, clasping his hands behind his back just as the door he’d been guarding swung open and the Ancient One stepped into the hallway.

He didn’t acknowledge Ikarus’s presence. Instead, he strode down the hall, crimson robes dragging on the floor behind him like a pool of blood.

Ikarus quietly fell into step beside him. Something was off today. No one knew the true age of the Ancient One. Legend said he came to this planet on a comet of black and red rock a thousand years ago, that he’d been a star that was called to this planet from somewhere far away to share his gifts, only to be trapped here by the very people he’d fallen to help.

The Ancient One was a little paler than usual, the skin around his mouth and face a little … rougher somehow, like a piece of fruit that’d been left out in the sun too long. Even the spiders moving through his hair seemed sluggish. Looking at him now, it was the first time Ikarus had truly thought their leader looked old.