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Still, I don’t resist. Nor do I drop my guard. All my nerve endings tingle as if lightning is about to strike. Now, I know exactly what he’s doing, what face he’s wearing. And why. I war against the persistent throbbing heat in my center as he hovers, cooing, “So much wanton desire in your blood. It reminds me ofElysium…”
When his mouth etches its frost lower to the gown’s neckline, I know I should be thinking of Neo. But I can’t remember his mouth trimming the edges of my body that night. I can’t remember his mouth bowing prostrate to my sex and stoking ardor into my fire blossom. Instead, all I feel is Thanatos’ hand slipping into my gown, dipping into my sex to inject his frost inside me and quelling my fire. I remember his hand dangerously close to my breast. And his finger icing along my spine to calm my pain and panic.
Thanatos chuckles darkly against my throat. I stiffen as he fondles my upper thigh flesh to wet his fingers with liquid gold, which yanks me back to the Soul Plane. But only because it’s what Ishoulddo.
What I want to do is lean forward and show him how I yearn for more. But it’s not him. It’s not Thanatos. He’s not like this. He seduces with his soul, with his words, with his hands. Not his whole body. He doesn’t use seductive dominance like this. Too lost in my thoughts, I hadn’t realized he’d swept part of the slit in the waterfall gown to the side so he could touch me.
“Wherever did you go just now?” He entombs his fingers into my thigh and kisses my neck down to my collarbone and the curve of my shoulder. “Somewhere lovely, dark and deep, I imagine? You settle.” I cringe when he digs those fingers in further and his teeth close over the strap of my shoulder to tug it down to finish, “when you could have the loveliest, darkest, anddeepestdream within a dream.”
As soon as his dastardly fingers thrust into my sex, I shoot to my feet, upending my chair. But it’s too late. Grinning, Thanatos wags my queen chess piece, his fingers holding it—gold-slicked with my fluids. I cock my head and match his grin, swinging up not his queen but hisking! “You said a distraction,” I point out. He simply believed he was distracting me.
Neo would growl. Thanatos controls himself. His dark eyes besiege mine, but he goes for the stalemate, sucks on those gold-slicked fingers, a low snarl in his throat before offering me my queen. I checkmate him by twirling my tongue around the head of the king and concluding, “You wear him well, Thanatos. But not too well.”
He played Neo’s mask of Destruction, his distraction. But I still recognized Death’s dark humor and the depth of his seduction. All steeped in sensual truth, unlike Neo and our witty battles, our flirty chemistry.
Neo could never hope to wear Death. Not in a million lifetimes. And Thanatos only wore Neo to prove a point. Now, I understand he hasneverworn a mask with me.
“So sweet…” He slips his fingers from his mouth and nods to me, approaching. “I look forward to our next game, Elysia. Perhaps I will take more than your queen next time.” He pushes the strap of my gown back up my shoulder and kisses my cheek, a peck of ice crystals.
“Who were you in the Tower months ago?” I inquire as the king piece disappears along with the board.
Thanatos bows his head to me, palm to his chest. “Death will keep his secrets, Elysia. But you’ve earned one today. Do you want that one most? Or Neo, the Scourge, or Lux?”
Weighing the options while chewing on my inner cheek, I sort through all the questions prowling around in my mind, how I could ask about these polar opposite twins’ history, where the Scourge is coming from, and how I can give Neo a new heart.Your bond is the key, I remember.
So, I open my mouth, jaw set, and say, “Neo: how can I possibly reach him, Thanatos?”
Thanatos’ mouth presses into a tight seam as if disappointed by my question, but he settles and spins his frost into an elaborate silvery ice mask before my very eyes, offering the symbolic piece to me. “You will not be able to burn his mask off this time. You must tempt him. Sometimes, if one wishes to be raised higher, first they mustkneel.”
“Never,” I snarl, infuriated at the notion. Fingers trembling from my anger, I grip the edge of the mask, prepared to shatter it, but Thanatos stabs his head toward mine, a wraith-like sound rumbling in his throat.
“I wasn’t finished, Ice Princess.” He taps the mask so it tingles like a little bell, then traces the curve of the eye hole. “It’s not Neo’s mask you should prioritize. It’s hers.”
Chapter12
I was not created for abuse! No one is
When I stride down the staircase to the Commons, I almost trip over my skirts to make it to the base, where I discover Nita…no. That isnotAmanita.
My breath turns shallow because I recognize the body language; it’s Bryony curled into the fetal position with Neo standing over her. My heart lurches as his shadow practically strangles her body, his muscles bulging, neck veins pulsing in his umber skin. Quillion stands next to him, posture defeated, head lowered with his fingers rubbing his eyes. No sign of Lux.
I’d woken to this morning, renewed and ready for Court. Now, all I want to do is claw Neo’s eyes out.
“What the fuck did you do?” I seethe at Neo, lowering myself to Nita’s saddest alter—the one I’d met that day in the dungeon when she feared I was going to kill her brother. The same brother who saved her, who traded everything he could to his Father. Now, he’s the cause of her pain. “Just because I broke your little spatula last night doesn’t mean—”
“You brought this upon yourself, bride,” Neo interrupts, voice hard as black diamonds, alerting me as he steps to the side. “Remember that.”
Without touching Bryony, I form warm Halo dust to sprinkle upon her skin, then glare up at my husband and chastise him, spewing holy fire, “Does being the Prince of Destruction give you free license to be an emotionally unintelligent dickallthe time?”
“This brings me no pleasure, Elysia. She is my sister.” Neo kneels beside me, gaze sweeping to eye level. He glances down at Bryony as she whimpers, but her sobs have stopped, soothed by my stardust.
“Then, please, Neo…” I plead in a gasp, “Start acting like the brother she loves, the husbandIlove, and not the Dragon.” The word is a trigger because Bryony throws her head back in a desperate cry. Cupping her shoulders, I apologize over and over, curl up next to her, and create miniature star-fire hydras to circle her horns, little flames flickering from their throats. I warm her as much as possible with my body and Halo heat. Empath Elysia overthrows my heart.
I flinch when Neo brushes his knuckles across my cheek. There is no trust in the gesture, no familiarity of the past. It’s a cruel gesture. Because he’s holding something back. “You may return to the border later, Elysia, but I require you at Court today. Today, you will sit in thebox.”
When I glimpse up at him to meet his eyes, Neo is gone. I heave a sigh as Quillion joins me on the floor. Together, we spend the next hour listening to Bryony while she talks of the dungeon cracking beneath her weight like an earthquake, how she’s swallowed all the pain and demon breaths of that darkness. She collected their teeth and hair and flesh—bits and pieces of their wings until it felt like they were sealed into her skin. She can never escape but swallows that and bears that death in her youth’s heart.
“For years, I wished for a handsome prince to ride in on a white horse and save me from Father’s torture,” Bryony tells me, shaking in my arms as I do my best to hold her tight, hushing away the nightmares in her mind.
