“Do you see yourself as such?” I murmured. His chest rose against my back, but he didn’t answer. So, I did. “You should.”
His hand firmed on my hip as his chin grazed the side of my head. “You think that? Even now? After everything?”
I knew what he was talking about. Veses. “Even now,” I admitted. “You being a complete jackass doesn’t change that.”
Nyktos said nothing.
Taking another drink, I looked at a guard’s stoic, painted face. Those faint memories stirred once more. “There’s something about those masks,” I said, clearing my throat. “I can’t put my finger on it.”
“They’re another symbol that once belonged to my father,” Nyktos said after a moment, the fingers at my hip beginning to move idly. “Hawks represent intelligence, strength, and courage. A reminder to be careful, but to also be brave.” His whisper grazed my temple. “The wings are those of a hawk, but when my father ruled as King, they were always silver.”
I stiffened. “Silver? Like a silver hawk?”
“Like the great silver hawk,” he confirmed. “My father was always fascinated with the creatures. He thought they were…” Nyktos trailed off as his hand tightened on my hip. “You tensed. What is it?”
“I don’t know.” I turned my head to his, swallowing a gasp as my lips brushed his. My grip on the glass trembled as I swallowed. “I keep seeing silver hawks. Like the night in the Dying Woods. There was one then.”
“That’s impossible.” Nyktos’s fingers began to move once more, trailing in idle circles along my hip and waist. “You were lucky to see one in the Red Woods, but not even a hawk would enter the Dying Woods.”
“But I did—” I went quiet as a door behind the dais opened, and a broad-shouldered male entered, bare-chested with two-toned hair like Nektas—crimson and black. I didn’t need to be any closer to see his eyes or whether his tan flesh carried the faint ridges of scales to know this man was a draken.
“Davon,” Nyktos shared quietly, having followed my gaze. “He’s a distant relative of Nektas.”
“Oh.”
“Not distant enough, according to Nektas.”
“Oh,” I repeated, watching the draken hop down from the dais.
Brushing the long hair over his shoulder, he looked over at us as he stalked across the atrium. Then he smirked.
I stiffened.
“Ignore him.” Nyktos swept his thumb over my hip.
It was kind of hard to do that as he continued eying us as he went to the curtained doorways. How in the world would a relative of Nektas’s remain in Kolis’s Court after what he’d done to Nektas’s wife? But hadn’t Nektas said that some of the draken who served Kolis had been forced into it? Therefore, corrupting them? Either way, it took no leap of imagination to figure out why Nektas wished this Davon was a far more distant relative.
An arm parted the curtains as Davon approached them. I could only see a bit of the man who waited in the hall since his back was to us. Golden skin. Fair, shoulder-length hair.
“We’ve got something to take care of,” the man spoke.
I frowned as Davon replied, “Of course, we do.”
There was something familiar about that voice—the soft lilt of his speech. I was almost positive I’d heard it before.
Nyktos turned his head again, catching my attention with a slide of his lips over mine. “Hanan comes.”
All thoughts of the hidden man and the draken fell to the wayside as Nyktos sat his glass of barely touched whiskey on the side table.
He pressed a kiss to the corner of my lip, one that sent a shiver of mixed reactions through me before I could remind myself that this was an act. A show. Slowly, he lifted his mouth from mine. “Hanan.”
“Nyktos,” came the deep, gruff reply.
With my heart thrumming unsteadily, I turned my head and looked up at the Primal of the Hunt and Divine Justice. He looked to be about Attes’s age, in his third or so decade of life, with pale and sharp, angular features—beautiful in a predatory, cunning sort of way that left me cold.
“I was wondering when you would show me the respect of acknowledgment,” Nyktos said, and I heard the icy, smoky smile in his voice. “But I figured you were waiting for a small army of Cimmerian to accompany you before doing so.”
Good gods…
I watched Hanan’s lips thin. I still wasn’t quite used to the swift change in demeanor when another Primal was present—how quickly Nyktos could go from dangerous to deadly.
“Well, since you killed those I sent to your Court,” Hanan began, “you should not be surprised to see that I have none with me.”
“And what a shame that was.” Nyktos’s fingers continued their slow traces along my hip. “To have wasted so many Cimmerian lives on your boldness and cowardice.”
Hanan stiffened. “That mouth of yours will get you into trouble one day.”
“I believe it already has, but here I am.”
“And here…” Hanan’s gaze settled on me. “She is.”
Ice pressed against my spine. I placed my whiskey on the side table just in case I needed both hands. The smirk settling onto Hanan’s lips concerned me, as did the frigid power ramping up behind me.
“She is not what I expected,” Hanan said.
Nyktos trailed his fingers up my waist to the band of my bodice. “And what did you expect?”
The Primal of the Hunt and Divine Justice raised a brow. “Anything but a diamond that will inevitably be shattered into tiny pieces.”
I sucked in a sharp breath, surprised by what might actually be a compliment…and a veiled threat. “I am not the type of diamond easily broken,” I said before I could remind myself of Attes’s warning. “After all, diamonds do not crack.”
Hanan tilted his head. “But they do break.”
“Careful, Hanan,” Nyktos warned softly as Hanan knelt at our feet, bringing himself to eye level with me.
The other Primal ignored Nyktos as he inhaled deeply, sniffing at…at the air much like a predator would upon scenting its prey. “You are but…what? A godling? Or so I’m told. On the cusp of her Ascension,” he said, and I couldn’t have been more grateful for his apparent lack of senses. “But as of now, you are just a mortal.” He smiled, revealing two sharp fangs. The embers hummed in my chest, threatening to loose violent anger. “And there is nothing more breakable than that.”
“You know what else is breakable?” Nyktos asked, his thumb swiping beneath the swell of my breast. “Your bones.”
Hanan’s lips parted, but before he could respond, he was scooting backward over the marble. His eyes flared wide, bright with essence as he smacked a hand on the floor, stopping himself. If I could taste anger like Nyktos, I imagined I’d be drowning in it.
“I warned you once, purely out of amusement,” Nyktos drawled, tone soft and at complete odds with the words he spoke. “I will not warn you again. Speak to her one more time? Look at her? And I will shatter every bone in your cowardly body and then drag you into the Abyss to bury you so deep in the pits that it will take you a hundred years to claw your way out. Do you understand me?”
It was now my lips that parted. A hot, heady flush swept through me, pooling low in my stomach. No part of me should’ve been anything but terrified or disturbed by Nyktos’s words, especially since I didn’t doubt them for one second. But a whole lot of me was…aroused. And I didn’t think any of those parts were the Primal embers, even though they seemed to throb in agreement with Nyktos’s words.
Hanan rose, tension bracketing his mouth. “You think it wise to threaten me?”