“If the man can’t get it done in two hours—”

“Put a sock in it,” Riley advised Doyle. “Not everybody just wants to knock one out and be done.”

“Two hours was the deal,” he insisted, and Bran nodded when Doyle pointed to the hourglass.

“Exactly.”

“It’s barely ten minutes more. And they’re safe. There’s no need to— They’re coming.”

At Sasha’s words, Doyle got to his feet, reached for his sword.

“No, not her. Them. Sawyer and Annika. So everyone relax.”

Even as Sasha spoke, they were there.

“I could’ve cheated,” Sawyer said immediately, and his grin could’ve lit the entire island. “And done a time shift.”

“He wanted to, but I said it was a kind of lie, and we had a night of truths.”

“Yeah, we did.” Still grinning, he hugged Annika close to his side. “Are we grounded?”

“Time matters,” Bran began.

“Don’t have angry.” Annika spun over to hug Bran. “I’m too happy for angry. Sawyer loves me.”

“There’s a news flash,” Riley commented.

Still hugging Bran, Annika frowned at Riley. “I know this voice is . . . sarcastical.”

“Just sarcastic,” Bran corrected.

“Sarcastic. You know he loved me?”

“If you just figured it out tonight, you’re the only one here who didn’t. But yay—sincerely. Now, since the kids are back, I’m going to get some sleep.” Riley looked up at the moon. “I won’t get any tomorrow night.”

“Sawyer needs sleep, too. We had much sex and he should rest now. He’s ready to dive again,” she told Doyle. “But because of the sex, it’s good to wait one more day.”

Riley rolled her eyes, kept walking. Doyle rose.

“I’m going to take a last patrol. Get that rest, brother. Another day for the dive, but you’re in for full training tomorrow.”

“Right. Well, we’ll go up, get that rest.”

Sasha looked after them with a sentimental smile. “That’s why their happiness kept ringing like bells.” She rose, took Bran’s hand. “No point in being annoyed with them. All’s well—right now much, much more than well. And we should get some rest, too.”

“So we will. After much sex.”

To amuse her, he floated them both up to the terrace, and into bed.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

In the chamber inside the palace inside the mountain, what had been Malmon ran up the wall, across the ceiling, down the wall, over the floor—a monstrous hamster on a wheel.

He ran for hours, occasionally snagging one of the birds in a clawed hand, consuming it. Often more for amusement than hunger.

More rarely than that, as he ran, chortling, something would flash inside his mad mind. Images of colorful rooms, plush beds, of a man with golden hair in a dark suit staring back at him in horror, as if through a fogged glass.

The flashes made him scream, and the screams echoed off the polished stone.

Whenever she came, his queen, his goddess, his world, he would drop to the bulbous knobs of his knees. Tears of fear and joy and crazed love filled his slitted eyes when she stroked his head. He would call out to her in a guttural grunt when she left him again.

Then he would go back to the wheel.

On the day she came to him, took him by the hand, led him out of the chamber, he trembled. His small, spiked tail twitched.

She guided him through a maze of stone hazed with smoke from sputtering torches. Bats and birds perched among the flames, eyes glinting, watching. He saw a creature with wings and three heads shackled, saw the bones and blood scattered around it.

Then they entered a large chamber, alight with candle-glow, glinting with gold and silver and jewels. Like his, the walls were mirrored and reflected the throne on a gilded floor that rose on three silver steps.

She released him, ascended, sat. Then gestured with long fingers ringed with rubies. “Pour us wine, my pet.” When he neither moved nor spoke, she inclined her head. “Don’t you remember how?”

Words grunted out of him. “Remembering hurts.”

“I wish for you to pour the wine. Do you not want to give me whatever I wish?”

“Yes! All you wish. All!”

“Then give me what I wish.”

His hands shook. The man with golden hair flashed again, and the pain spiked in his head. But he picked up the glass bottle, poured the red liquid into a goblet studded with the bloodred rubies she favored.

The claws of his feet clacked against the silver steps as he carried it to her.

“And for you.”

“For me?”

“We’ll have wine together, my pet. Pour the wine, and sit.” She gestured to the steps at her feet.

Quaking—such joy, such fear!—he did as she bid. He wanted to lap at the wine in the goblet, but remembered, painfully, drank with his long sharp teeth clicking against the silver.

“And now, Andre—”

Hearing the name had the pain erupting inside him. He cried out, spilled wine, red on silver.

“You needed to forget,” Nerezza continued, “so you could become. Now you are become, and must remember. Remembering will be useful.”

“It hurts!”

“Do you love me?”

“I love. You are my worship.”

“Then you will bear the pain for me. There is a man’s mind inside you still, and I will have need of it. I will have need of you . . . Andre. You failed me once, but I show mercy. You sit at my hand and drink wine. You live, and with speed and strength no human can match. How will you repay my mercy?”