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“Yes.”
“How?”
“I cannot share that.”
Just as with Neo, the doors of impenetrable shadow wraiths bend only to Thanatos’ will. No whirlwind of gasps flees my nose. Thanatos does not pause at the doorway to kiss my brow. His fingers remain at the base of my spine, kissing crystal buds along the skin of my vertebrae to hush my nerves like a dark lullaby. Death holds my gaze the whole time when he carries me into the suite.
After setting me down on the floor, Thanatos’ hand does not depart from my spine…as if sensing I may need that prickling to ward off another panic attack. Everything is reversed. A smaller personal suite rests to my right while arched doorways with a long hallway lead to multiple other rooms, including the main hall and dining room to my left. For some reason, I wish to claim that smaller, personal suite to my right.
Unlike Neo’s suite with his shades, this one bears a phantasmal fog spiraling and curling around my bare feet and ankles and twisting upon the walls and mass of windows that comprise the back side of the suite. Thanatos sweeps his hand to the illusionary fog.
I gasp. Similar to Neo’s, the floor is transparent crystalline, but I recognize it is not glass. Instead, Natos’ floor is pure, unbreakable crystal. I startle at the sight of the sheer cliff-like drop-off with the same crystal walls bestowing an all-consuming expanse of night sky laden with the lustrous face of the moon he turned silver…for me.
The absence of a bone door causes my lips to part in awe. I nearly fall back against Thanatos. No skulls. No Destruction. A door of pure ice stands in its place, bearing the rose designs of the Tenth Court. Colder than snow-buried corpses, but I do not step toward it. The door could never open to anyone’s hand but Death.
One frost bud on the base of my spine summons me. “What do you think of the room, my love?”
There is the bed nudged against one crystal wall—large and luxurious but not dark, and no black diamonded coverlet wreathed in slow, sensual lovers of shadows and flames. Thanatos’ bed is a wintertime dream of white drapery, sheets, and a coverlet of crystalline rosebuds. To the left of the bed is the fireplace, alive with a warmth that casts a blush on my cheeks. No ash. A white diamond chandelier engulfs the room with a seductive light. To my left is the massive-raised bath canopied with an arced skylight, stabilized by four great pillars, and filled with steamy water and dead roses. Thanatos’ fog caresses the curves of my body.
“Serendipitous,” is all I can think to breathe. “Like a dream…”
“Or a dream within a dream.”
I curve my chin to search his eyes because the phrase is familiar for more than one reason. He shakes his head, hand to his chest, bowing to me in apology. The Triumvirate.
“Please…” I turn to face him with both hands pressed to his chest, my breath coming in waves, in pants as I beg him to answer what I want to know more than anything. “Did Neo—” I force back my whimper, swallow it down so I may finish, but Natos captures my chin, fingers like a tender pedestal to my throne.
“No, Elysia. Neo did not violate you.”
“So, I…?” I lick my lips, considering the ache in my sex I’d felt this morning. I survey that bed, the way the sheets are pulled back to a multitude of scattered dead rose petals. He must have manipulated me, coerced me somehow.
“Elysia.” Thanatos summons me, his voice like ice right before he roots me with the gold swelling starlight in his eyes. “You may not ever be able to hide from Death, but I hope I never give you just cause to wish to hide. You are safe, my love. Nor would I ever violate you.”
Relieved. My shoulders sink, relieved.
Thanatos removes his hand from the small of my back, flexing his fingers and gesturing to the personal suite on the right. “I have a honeymoon gift for you.” He bids the door to open, and a dark figure emerges.
At the sight of the enormous feline creature, I suck cold wind through my teeth, but Thanatos comes alongside me before I can take to flight. “Don’t be alarmed, Elysia. He belongs to you. And he will obey your every command. As long as you feed him.”
Tiptoeing forward, I dare to stretch my hand to the powerful cat with its dark hide betraying a hot belly. His long ears prick at the motion of my hand. Something like a deep purr rumbles from his throat. My fingers tremble, but as soon as the cat shifts his massive head into my palm, purring deeper, tongue lolling out to my scratching, I can’t help but smile.
“I’ve always liked cats. He’s perfect, Natos,” I respond with my gratitude as another glimmer harnesses my vision: of binding my Halo ropes around the hellcat so I could ride him, of feeling the heat of his belly, of welcoming his warmth in bed next to me, of creating meals of flames for my…
“Spitfire,” I proclaim his name, and the hellcat’s tongue strokes my hand, lashing warmth but not fire. Because he is hungry.
I don’t know if it’s what he wants, what he’s used to, but I forge a meal of rippling flames and liquid fire to give to the hellcat, to mydaemon,and position it within the suite where he will remain for quite some time, lapping slowly at his meal. I smile when he spins around, arrow tail swinging madly before he pounces for my flames.
“Now, if you wish to bathe, I will retire to another room.” Thanatos indicates the bath of dead roses, the water still steaming through the petals. “I have some business to attend to soon, so I apologize for leaving you on our honeymoon. Death deals mostly at night, but I will join you for the border and supper tomorrow.”
“And Mordere?” I wonder, approaching that bath, sitting on the side to dip my hand and caress the dead roses.
“He cannot touch you in my tower. My claim is greater than his.”
“And in Destruction’s Tower?”
“With Neo imprisoned, Mordere may test his boundaries. If I am at your side, he would not dare. But between your allies, including your daemon, and your superior intellect and power, I trust I will not always need to remain at your side.” I hear the proud grin in his voice and turn to observe him standing a foot or two behind me, hands clasped behind his back. “But you may hide here if you wish, my love,” he finishes and prepares to retreat to one of the other rooms on the left, assuming I want to bathe.
Instead, I rise. I hardly know what I’m doing. Except that, I know I don’t want to run. Even if I could run from Thanatos, from Death, everything in me screams to stay. No running. No greater power. No Halo. Because to him, I may be a Princess, the Everblood, and the Halo-Bearer, but…
