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Her eyes meet dark pools, a sharp contrast to the male’s pale skin and towering white-gold horns. His nostrils flared like a beast scenting his prey. His strong jaw, the arch of his pale brows, the little curl at the end of his chin-length white hair—all unchanged. Archlords could extend their life a hundred years with magic. Had he found himself a new star-maid to drain in her absence?
But that didn’t matter. Only that he didn’t succeed, whatever his mission. Someone had dressed him in an Earthling suit, but he had ditched the jacket, unbuttoned the collar, and rolled the sleeves to expose muscular arms. Whatever he was here for, it required stealth. Inez raised her fork, her expression stern. His lip curled—a look that made her insides flutter—but it wasn’t with the total confidence he carried when they first met. Something about him seemed almost… sad.
“Hello, wife.”
Chapter 3
Her.
Rylec drank in the sight of his wife. Her dark hair and the flush of her skin. The way her eyebrows pinched as she glared at him. The bright green of her eyes. The curve of her body. His blood heated. Nearly three years had passed since he last saw her. He never thought he’d see her again. Smell her again, the thick floral scent of ikaias in the air. Everything in him strained to close the distance between them and touch her.
But Rylec liked all his appendages where they were and Inez would certainly cut something off if he got any closer. Even armed with a fork.
“Sollirian,” one of the star-maids behind his wife shouted, grabbing at the first blunt object within reach.
Rylec flicked his fingers. All three of the star-maids froze, their bodies held in place. Sure, two of them had no intention of moving, locked in fear before he encased them in his magic. But Rylec couldn’t risk this… abduction.
Inez clenched her fists, but her voice remained deathly calm. “Let them go. Now.”
He wanted to heed her command. Wanted to pull her into his arms. Wanted to preserve the freedom she had gained outside the Sollir Empire.
But one thought pushed him forward.
Soriya.
The image of Soriya between those two Imperial Guards drenched him in fear like the icy rivers outside Lucian Manor, where he had trained with other future archlords. The headmaster loved nothing more than to throw his students in when they misbehaved. If they didn’t climb out and the river claimed them, then they were never meant to be archlords, now were they?
Rylec had failed Soriya. He had failed his wife. When he had dropped her on a cruise ship just like this one three years ago, he had sworn he’d rescue Soriya from the empress’s clutches and reunite the three of them. But he hadn’t. Soriya had stayed on Sollir, raised among the palace’s children. Rylec had been exiled to Janus, unable to leave the moon’s surface or else be blown out of the sky. And his wife had apparently joined the same smuggling ring that rescued her. She had taken action. Rylec had only failed.
He couldn’t fail again. Rylec had to protect Soriya. If his wife knew, she would make the same choice.
“I can’t do that, Nez.” He hooked one thumb into the ring of his belt loop and strolled forward. Inez shuffled back unconsciously before halting her traitorous feet. Good. He didn’t stop his approach. The scent of ikaias thickened the air until he was a breath away. Inez held herself still, her body a wall between him and her charges.
He leaned forward, his murmur a brush against her skin. “I really do apologize.”
She swallowed, almost audibly. “For what?”
“For this.” The anti-magic cuff he gently brushed over her wrist snapped shut with a buzz.
Inez jerked back as if she slapped him. He felt it too. As he’d approached theParadiseand his wife, the well of magic in him had grown. Even after years apart, the tether between an archlord and his star-maid didn’t fade. The Star Temple had denied him a replacement—not that he would have accepted one—and he had gotten used to life with only his own power at his disposal. But Inez wasn’t just his star-maid, a secondary battery of magical power for him to tap into—she was his star-wife. She had been tethered to him unwillingly, but he had tethered himself to her of his own volition. The connection between them wasn’t one way. She shared her strength, and he shared his magic.
Of all his crimes, that one had pissed off the empress the most.
“Inez—”
“You dirty bastard.” Her fist careened toward his face. Rylec should’ve expected it, but few people swung fists at archlords—even disgraced archlords. He shifted slightly to the left, but her knuckles grazed his chin. Pain ricocheted through his face. Star-maids certainly knew how to throw a punch.
Gods, he wanted to bend her over something and fuck her until she screamed. Nothing turned him on more than a fight.
Rylec twisted his evasive move into a smooth slide, leaning into the door frame and crossing his arms. His lip twitched further into a full-on smirk. It pinched at his sore chin, but Rylec didn’t care. Anything to get a rise out of her. “I deserved that.”
Inez’s eyes narrowed and she lunged forward with a growl to rival Archlord Kratos. She wielded her fork like a spear. A punch he could take, but Rylec liked both his eyes where they were.
He reached out with his magic and halted her bones, stopping the movement an inch from his face. Rylec shuffled out of the door frame until her huffing breath tickled his skin. Anotherinch and he could claim her lips. He made sure to stare before slowly raising his gaze to hers. “Don’t test your luck, wife.”
She spit on him. “Don’t call me that. You lost that right today.”
“It’s what you are.” Rylec raised his hand and summoned a napkin from the kitchenette. He dabbed gently at his face as he circled his wife. He hadn’t looked closely at the reports on her three escapees. A human female, a Herkleian male, and a Guroverian female. None of them moved, but their gazes flickered between him and his wife. “Did your charges know that? That you weren’t an ordinary star-maid, but a star-wife, a thing of myth.”
