His words sent a wicked pulse of desire from my pounding heart to my core. “I wouldn’t stop you.”
“Of course, you wouldn’t.” The arm below my breasts flexed. “You don’t value your life.”
“It has nothing to do with that.”
“It has everything to do with that.” His breath was a caress against my throat. “If I tasted you again, I don’t know if I could stop.”
“Yes, you would,” I whispered, believing that more than I did anything in my life.
Nyktos made that sound again, part growl and curse as he dropped his arm, angling his body as he turned to the road. Surprised to find that I still held the spear in my hand, I willed my heart to slow as I peeled myself away from the wall and followed Nyktos’s gaze to the road—
Nektas snapped forward, catching a Cimmerian between his powerful jaws. He shook his head, severing the god in two.
“Ew,” I uttered.
“I’ve seen him do worse.”
“I’ll have to take your word on that,” I murmured.
“Try to listen for once and stay here,” Nyktos said, and then he was gone, leaping over the side of the Rise.
I shot forward, grasping the stone edge. Nyktos was on the road, prowling past the bodies of his fallen men. Five had…five were gone. The warmth swelled in my chest as I stared at them. My palms heated—
Nektas’s head swung toward me, his crimson eyes with their thin, vertical pupils locking onto me. His lips vibrated, pulling back with a warning growl. I swallowed hard as I rested the spear against the wall. It was as if he’d sensed the eather gathering inside me. I pressed both hands against the stone, pushing down the urge and burying it as deeply as I could as Nyktos stalked toward the only standing Cimmerian.
Dorcan’s balaclava gathered at his throat, no longer shielding his face. The man appeared to be in his third decade of life, but as a god, that could mean he was hundreds of years old if not more. “I’m assuming you have a message you want me to deliver to Hanan.”
The way he spoke as Nyktos approached him made it seem as if this were something that had happened between them before.
“Nyktos,” Saion called out from where he knelt by one of the soldiers. “He’s seen her.”
I tensed.
“Then my generosity has come to an end,” Nyktos said.
Dorcan showed no reaction. “I don’t know what you’re thinking by refusing Hanan, but whatever it is, it will end badly for you. He’ll go to Kolis, and more will come.”
“I’ll be waiting.” Nyktos unsheathed a sword, striking as fast as a pit viper and severing the Cimmerian’s head from his shoulders.
Chapter 12
Rhain eyed me as if he expected me to run out of Nyktos’s office at any given second and into the middle of a firestorm. He hadn’t taken his eyes off me longer than it took to blink. Ector, on the other hand, was sprawled across the settee, eyes closed and quite possibly napping.
“It would calm my nerves if you sat,” Rhain advised with a tilt of his golden-red head. “Instead of pacing.”
“Pacing calms my nerves.” I made another pass in front of Nyktos’s desk. “And trust me when I say you’d prefer me to have calm nerves versus the opposite.”
“You’re probably right.” Rhain inclined his head. His eyes appeared more gold than brown as they tracked me in the glow of the wall sconces. “But trusting you…”
I muttered a curse. Bad word choice on my part. I kept pacing, even faster now, the skin on the back of my neck tight. Nyktos’s speech obviously hadn’t had that much of an impact on Rhain, and that left me a little sad. Rhain had been all smiles before, less guarded and friendly.
“You should trust her,” Ector chimed in. His eyes were still closed, but apparently, he hadn’t been sleeping. “Besides what she tried last night for us—for all of us—that Cimmerian was gunning for you. She saved your ass out there. If she hadn’t hit him right between the eyes, you might be standing here with a couple of extra holes in you. Or not standing at all. The least you can do is thank her.”
“I don’t need his gratitude,” I said before Rhain could say something that would likely irritate me further.
“Well, you have mine.” Ector opened his deep amber eyes.
“And mine,” Rhain grumbled. “Thank you.”
I snorted.
“That sounded as if it pained you.” Ector shot him a look I couldn’t even begin to decipher.
“It did. A little.” A muscle ticked along his jaw as he glanced at Ector. “What? Why are you looking at me like I’m being an ass?”
I arched a brow, for once keeping my mouth shut.
“Maybe because you’re being an ass,” Ector responded. “To the person who had your back out there. Who has had all our backs. Who also carries the embers—”
“I think he gets the point,” I interrupted. Ector’s defense surprised me, even with Nyktos’s speech. I’d had no idea where I stood with him. Then again, I hadn’t known before. Ector was an…odd one, joking one moment and somber the next. He was also far older than Nyktos, having known Eythos and Mycella fairly well, which I guessed played a role in why Nyktos had sent him to watch over me while I’d been in the mortal realm, along with the godling, Lathan.
“You’re coming at me?” Rhain demanded, taken aback. “In her defense? She plans—”
“Planned,” I interrupted. “Pretty sure we already covered this.”
“Does your change of heart erase the intentions that came before that?” Rhain challenged. “Does running off to get yourself killed somehow change it?”
“I didn’t say it did.”
“It doesn’t. No matter what you supposedly planned to do about Kolis or what embers you carry.” Rhain unfolded his arms and stepped forward. Ector sat up, alert. “You’re not the true Primal of Life. You’re a foster to the embers, and none of that makes up for plotting against Nyktos, no matter your reasons,” he said, and my face began to sting. “You have no idea what Nyktos has had to give up. What he’s been through. What he’s sacrificed for you, and then for you—”
“Rhain,” Ector warned.
I stopped pacing. “What has he sacrificed for me?”
“Other than his sense of security in his own home?” Rhain spat.
“Other than that,” I demanded.
“Nothing,” Ector said, rising. “Rhain is just being overdramatic. He’s prone to being so.”
My eyes narrowed. “Really?”
“It comes from a good place,” Ector reasoned, going to Rhain’s side. He placed a hand on the god’s shoulder. “She’s not the enemy at the end of the day. You should know that. But if you don’t, all you have to do is go back out onto the Rise and look at the lives lost.”
Rhain looked away as the annoying embers suddenly came alive, wiggling like a puppy greeting its owner. They might be happy for Nyktos’s eminent arrival. I, however, wasn’t.
The doors flew open, stopping midway as if invisible servants had caught them before they slammed into the walls. A ripple of icy-hot energy tore into the office first, tickling my skin.
“Daddy Nyktos is not happy,” Ector murmured.
No, he was not.
“At least it’s not in response to something we did.” Rhain looked pointedly in my direction with a raise of his brows.
“This time,” Ector added.
Nervous energy buzzed through me as Nyktos blew into the office with the force of a storm. Swirling, silver orbs locked on me as he crossed the room, unsheathing his swords.