She’d rested her chin in her hand and asked in a saucy tone, “And your fangs? Do they stamp out evil too?” He’d looked troubled for the rest of the day. . . .

Seeing him in this lightning, his species was plain to her—just as it was to many others in the Lore. When Loreans called Vrekeners demonic angels, it wasn’t because they resembled demons.

She recalled Sabine and Rydstrom debating Vrekener origins. Rydstrom had said, “They are sanctimonious, maniacal, and deluded. My kind claims no affinity with theirs.”

Now Lanthe blinked, and Thronos was gone. As thunder rocked the night, he moved from limb to limb, an eerie predator. He alighted on one above her. From there he could have spread his wings, blocking the worst of the storm for her, but he was content to watch her suffer.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this helpless, this powerless. The key to her collar was on the other side of the island. Thronos had separated her from her only shot at getting this thing off her neck. Not that she could simply walk up to Emberine and Portia and ask for it back. But Lanthe could’ve planned a sneak attack, anything.

Her portal power sure would come in handy right now.

He moved to a nearby limb, hanging from his arms to bring their faces inches apart. “I told you that I’d have you soon.”

“You also told me you knew a way off this island. But you can’t find it, can you?”

“We’ll reach it in the morn.”

“Uh-huh.” Bully for us. When she turned away, he vaulted to the other side, leaning in once more.

“In the tunnel, you let go of the witch’s hand so she could protect her young. Why would someone like you be moved to help her?”

Again with the someone like you? “Why should I tell you anything? You won’t believe a word I say.”

“Lies do spill so readily from those red lips. But I learn much from the very untruths you speak.”

She dared to loosen one gauntlet to give him a vulgar hand gesture. “Learn this, demon.”

Between gritted teeth, he said, “Call me that again, harlot.”

She detested that word! With all the countless immortal and mortal languages, why was there no male equivalent?

A gust of wind drilled rain against her, sending her into a fit of coughing.

His voice a harsh grate, he said, “A male shouldn’t be heartened to see his mate’s misery. But this pleases me well.”

“Mate? I’ll die first.”

He brought one of his wings closer to her, easing that talon to her face. The silver length was rounded, smooth as ivory on the outside of the curve—but she’d witnessed how sharp the tip was.

“I could have killed you so easily, so many times.” He ran the back of the talon across her throat, letting the threat hang between them.

“Instead, you sent your knights to do it!”

“These lies again?”

Did Lanthe ever lie? Of course. In the noble pursuit of gold, she pulled out all the stops. She also lied to avoid trouble. Those outside her new family might get an earful now and again. But few things irritated her more than disbelief when she was actually telling the truth.

“You foul Sorceri pride yourselves on falsehoods!”

Foul Sorceri . . . Someone like you. “I’m so sick of you! You’d think after five hundred years that you could take a hint. I will never want you like you want me!”

“WANT?” His claw-tipped hand slashed the tree, his fury bubbling over—as if she’d hit an exposed nerve. “Do not ever mistake my interest in you! Fate has saddled me with you, cursing me with a female I find lacking in all ways!” His voice continued rising with every word. “Instinct compels me to pursue you, to protect you. Otherwise I’d take your head myself! I want you like a man with a badly set limb wants his bone rebroken. It’s a bitter necessity. You are the bitterest necessity.”

His words didn’t hurt Lanthe. She’d been scorned by men before. Why would she care what a scarred, maddened Vrekener thought of her?

She didn’t care at all. He mattered not at all.

When she just blinked up at him, he seemed to rein in his fury. “What either of us wants is immaterial. I’ve taken you because that’s what fate decreed. You’re mine by the laws of the Lore, the laws I uphold.”

“And you always follow the laws? You act like Vrekeners are so righteous? I’ve seen more evil in your kind than in most Sorceri I’ve met.”

“Now I know you lie! You resided with Omort!”

With each Accession, a warrior for ultimate good, or ultimate evil, was born. Lanthe’s half brother had been that warrior a few Accessions ago, bringing evil to the Lore for centuries. After her mother, Elisabet, had given birth to him, she’d been cast out in shame by the noble family of Deie Sorceri. By the time Lanthe and Sabine’s father had come into the picture, Elisabet had been . . . troubled.

This Accession, twin girls had been born for ultimate good, daughters of Rydstrom’s brother, Cadeon, and Cadeon’s Valkyrie wife, Holly. Lanthe was a doting auntie to them.

“You remained with Omort,” Thronos grated, “during his reign of child sacrifices, orgies, and incest.”

Omort had hosted orgies and made a willing concubine of his half sister Hettiah, who’d died the same day he had. Toward the end of his reign, when Omort had demanded sacrifices, he’d yelled, “Something young!”

Until that one fantastical day when Lanthe had challenged Omort, she’d been helpless to stop him. She would be haunted forever by the things she’d seen him do. Take it up with management.