Now it was her turn to follow drops trailing along his body. She watched them as they meandered over the rises and falls of his scars.

She’d mentioned them more than once yesterday. How foul did she think them?

He should be used to his appearance after so long; instead he was often dumbstruck by his reflection, hating each slashing scar, each raised welt. He would absently trace them when lying in bed.

Did she feel any guilt for them? Was she even capable of it? “Go on, then.” He grasped her wrist, forcing her hand to his chest to explore the damage she’d done. “Feel the marks you gave me.” He peered down at her, assessing her reaction.

To his surprise, she slowly ran the pad of her forefinger over one, a line below his collarbone. She continued on to another one, her expression contemplative.

Though he’d wanted Melanthe to acknowledge his pain—to comprehend it—he grew uncomfortable with her appraisal. He was about to stop her when she traced the worst one, the one that had nearly taken his life.

That shard of glass had pierced him deepest. He had hazy memories of each heartbeat causing him agony. And of his mother, reeling from her mate’s death, sobbing over Thronos’s hand, begging all the gods to spare her youngest son.

Wrath. He grasped Melanthe’s wrists.

She blinked up at him, as if waking from a trance. “What?”

“Do you ever regret what you did to me?” He released her.

She leaned away, until her back was against his wing. “Sorceri disdain regret. We consider it the equivalent of an offendment. So no, I don’t.”

Yes, he was learning her tells. Whenever she lied, something in the timbre of her voice made his wings twitch. Plus, she always leaned back from him, as if she wanted to put distance between them, and she blinked for much longer. “Untruth, Melanthe.”

“Is that a Vrekener way of saying bullshit?”

“So you do feel guilt.” She was capable of it. “You must have heard I feel pain when I fly. It seems everyone in the Lore has. I always wondered if you were gladdened.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Do Vrekeners not have healers for their young?”

“Of course we do! My bones were set true, and healed strong.”

“Then what happened?”

“I pushed the torn muscles before they were ready, continually reinjuring my wings and leg.” As well as my back and my other leg. My neck and shoulders. “I did this up to the point when I froze into my immortality—never stopping.”

“You had to know the pain you were courting.”

“What do you think would make me do that, Melanthe? I was on your trail before I was thirteen.”

“So you overused your wings, and I overused my power because of your knights, and now we’re both screwed. Blame me, and I’ll blame you. Again, I can do this all day, demon.”

His brows drew together. For all these years, he’d never imagined that she might have a legitimate cause to hate him.

“Maybe I would feel guilt if you stopped treating me like a slave and insulting me at every turn.” She leaned forward aggressively. “And for gold’s sake, enough with trying to shame me about my sexual past—just because you’ve never been with anyone.”

As much as he hated that fact, it couldn’t be changed.

“So you haven’t been,” she said in a quieter tone.

He couldn’t read her expression, and that frustrated the hell out of him. Probably inwardly mocking him! “Unlike your kind, Vrekeners mate for life. So, no, I haven’t enjoyed a horde of other lovers, as you’ve done.”

Another flashing blue glare.

“It seemed you were with every male but the one fate intended for you. From me, you ran.”

“What did you expect me to do whenever I saw you? Skip into your arms and hope you weren’t bearing a pitchfork? I didn’t have any reason whatsoever not to run from you.”

He had no answer for that. He wasn’t her mate. She’d told him that she had just lived her life.

Without me. As if he’d never existed for her.

Maybe that was what angered him the most—how easily she’d forgotten him, when his every waking moment was filled with thoughts of her.

TWENTY-ONE

Lanthe actually did feel the seeds of guilt.

Seeing that memory of his had softened her toward him. And now that she’d acquitted him of all the things she’d once blamed him for, she found it difficult to hold on to the worst of her hatred.

In fact, she could almost see herself and Thronos coming to an understanding, except for four things.

He now hated her for his injuries. He hated her for the loss of “years and children.” He treated her like a war prize. And he had a pathological level of jealousy and distrust.

She would never convince him that his own brother had tried to kill her as a girl. She’d never convince him that she was more than a light-skirt, and she had zero tolerance for his slut-shaming.

Yes, she understood his jealousy and anger better; didn’t mean she could accept his disgust.

So why was she feeling an intense attraction to Thronos? Like right now, with his face set with determination, his wings enclosing her, and his scarred skin sheening with sweat.

Those scars made him look hardened, as dangerous as he’d become. Which she found . . . sexy.

And when she’d explored the marks, she’d noticed things about his body she hadn’t before.

How smooth the unmarked areas of his tanned skin were. How sensitive his flesh was to her touch. How his muscles leapt to her fingers.