Even through the fabric of her clothes, fire barreled from his fingertips into her flesh.
She fought the sudden, overwhelming urge to melt into him. To give herself to the safety she felt in his primordial embrace. The memory of that evening in Solethenia after the ball curled into her mind like a flame, and she fought to douse it before the fire spread.
Did Stolas think about that night at all? He hadn’t mentioned what had happened between them.
Not once.
They were busy, after all. Trying to resurrect a long-dead kingdom and its defenses and basically stay alive. An impossible feat when half the realm wanted them dead and the other half had just realized she would make an invaluable weapon. Especially with the Godkiller under her command.
As the days and nights blurred into a numb stream of fighting and rebuilding, the details of that evening became lost, distorted by time and trauma and reliving it over and over. Until, like a beloved blanket, the edges frayed and fabric thinned and she couldn’t quite remember what it looked like before.
Had she forced Stolas to kiss her somehow, or had he wanted to?
Perhaps the act had been impersonal to him, a means to ease her pain and keep her going to achieve their shared goal. Perhaps knowing—or suspecting—who she was, he couldn’t say no.
Or, worse, he found her a curiosity. Seducing a goddess trapped inside a mortal body had to be something a male could notch onto his belt with pride.
The idea stung more than she thought it would, but she rejected it almost immediately. Stolas was a lot of things—but weak, bragging male wasn’t one of them. And he could have done so much more that night . . . if he’d wanted.
If he’d wanted.
She remembered Stolas right before he fed from the Asgardian. That ferocious intensity as he stalked his prey. There was no way a male like that would have stopped himself from going further—if he wanted to.
A sinking feeling weighed down her gut.
She ignored the disappointment. It would be easier this way. Her heart was already ravaged from one heartbreak—immediately opening it to another was beyond dangerous.
Especially when that person was Stolas Darkshade.
When the spires of Starpiercer Castle rose from the mist below, she forced Stolas from her mind altogether and prepared herself for the news.
7
The heads were wrapped in fine emerald silk and placed in gorgeously crafted boxes of abalone, brass, and rosewood. Seven, to be exact. Someone had lined them up neatly on the marble table in the center of the large chamber. Their eyes were open and eerily alert as they stared out at their audience, their faces molded into expressions of calm interest, as if they found this entire ordeal amusing.
They must have been drained of blood and preserved by magick after death because their skin was the exact color of porcelain, and there wasn’t a single sign of blood or decay.
Bell half-expected the heads to blink at some point or call out a greeting.
That was the intent, of course.
His gaze fell to the Sun Court sigil, a sun with flowering vines, stamped into the burgundy velvet lining of the box lid.
Bell swallowed before turning to Xandrian. “Sick bastard. What sort of ruler hides their sigil on the inside of something like this?”
If it had been on the outside, they would have had warning, at least, as to what to expect.
The only sign of Xandrian’s distaste for the grim display was a slight curl to his upper lip, as if he scented something foul.
Perhaps he did.
Perhaps no amount of magick could truly mask the aroma of death when a Sun Lord was concerned.
“All of the Sun Sovereigns have flirted with some degree of cruelty; it’s a prerequisite of survival. But this . . .” His pale blue gaze flitted over each face peering from its exquisite box, and although he didn’t so much as blink, Bell felt his disquiet. “To assassinate emissaries during peacetime is an affront to the Goddess’s law.”
Goddess knows how Xandrian was still surprised by his cousin’s increasingly depraved actions. The Sun Lord had tried to murder Haven, after all. He’d sent spies to poison the fertile fields on the island and assassins to kill innocent citizens.
And now, he was murdering emissaries and presenting their smiling heads.
Really, it had only been a matter of time before Archeron graduated to severing heads. It was a once-favored tactic of his father’s—
Don’t think about him.
The far double doors swung open and Surai entered, shadowed by Ember. Both were quietly laughing, and Bell hated knowing their rare bit of happiness was about to disappear.
Before he could warn them, they halted halfway across the room, each reacting to whatever perverted magick or decay Xandrian had picked up on.
Surai sucked in a breath before looking to Bell. “Where’s Haven?”
“With Stolas.” One of Surai’s elegant black brows arched at that, and Bell felt the need to add, “Training. The twins are alerting them.”
Bell didn’t know where they trained; that was a closely guarded secret. Only that reaching the spot required wings.
Ember whistled as she circled the heads, studying Archeron’s handiwork. “Who knew the pretty Sun Lord had it in him?” Her rich brown, amber-flecked eyes drifted to Xandrian. “Does bloodlust and insanity run in the family?”
Xandrian glided two fingers down his doublet. “Only when the moon is full.”
It was supposed to be a joke, but no one laughed or even cracked a smile. Well, except the heads.
When the boxes arrived, Bell and Xandrian had been below, inside the subterranean library that runs the length of the palace. A vault more than a true library, the cavernous interconnecting chambers that housed the Seraphian treasures was different than the glorious library of Bell’s childhood. Instead of sunlight and rich maple wood and dust, the leather-bound books and scrolls below were nestled in cool alcoves carved deep inside the earth, the soft glow of sunlight traded for the cold ethereal blue of the dark magick veining the stone.
Still, it was one of Bell’s favorite places here in Shadoria. As luck would have it, he and Xandrian were in the chamber directly below when news came of the emissaries.
Or, perhaps that was unlucky, considering.
They were the first to arrive in the Hall of Light. Any other time, Bell loved this area of the castle. The windows were cut to form herringbone and other strange patterns that emblazed Shadoria’s purple-tinged light along the black walls and mosaic floors.
But it was the stunning magenta and amethyst crystal chandelier that filled the space above that Bell loved the most.
The first day they entered the Hall of Light, Xandrian had noticed Bell gazing at the masterpiece, thousands of crystals cut to look like feathers inside a massive display of wings.
He explained that the crystals used in the chandelier and all throughout the palace were a natural gemstone found in the island’s bedrock.
The crystal contained the highest concentration of naturally occurring light magick in any organic matter, save living things.
It didn’t take much to deduce the rest. That the Seraphians drew from the crystals to fuel their dark magick. Bell had always assumed they solely relied on living donors, just as he’d always assumed Shadoria would be a dark, dismal, crude place.
He’d been wrong on both counts. Thank the Goddess for that, considering this might very well be his home for the rest of his mortal life, however brief that life would be.