She hesitated to touch the pile of cobwebs. But she had to, else meet the web’s spinners.

When she reached for the webbing, it stuck to her fingers. “Ugh!” With clumsy movements, she began to work, coughing all the while.

A couple of false starts slowed her down, but she learned from her mistakes and found a rhythm. The tensile thread was surprisingly strong.

Her monotonous task gave her too much time to think. Sooner or later the demon would discover her real identity, and without warm and fuzzy feelings toward his mate, he’d turn her over to the Møriør archer for assassination—if Abyssian didn’t do it himself.

Rumor held that Rune Darklight, A.K.A. Rune the Baneblood, had once been a slave in the broiling fens of Sylvan, horribly abused by the ruler during his time: Queen Magh, who was both Saetth’s mother and an ancestress of Lila.

Rune had sworn to stamp out Magh’s entire line. Which meant Lila as well. If she didn’t escape this place before she was found out . . .

I now have a deadline, emphasis on dead.

She recalled the grueling tension at court whenever the archer assassinated another royal. With each execution, the noose tightened, the odds of survival growing slimmer. For months after, everyone would appear haunted and hollow-eyed.

She’d been too young to grasp all the ramifications, but she’d known one thing for certain: The bogeyman is real. . . .

In her lifetime, Rune had murdered four of her cousins, all of them caught outside the fortified safety of Sylvan Castle, all of them despicable.

But I’m not.

The tips of her pointed ears began to twitch. Foot paused on the pedal, she rubbed the back of her neck and gazed around the dim area.

She heard the scurrying of . . . things in every dark place, but she never caught sight of them. Probably for the best.

Yet she was certain she was being watched.

TEN

Reclining on the bed in his lavish chambers, Sian held a looking-glass—not to see his own reflection, never his own—but to spy on Kari. In hell, he could use mirrors to view any scene in the present.

He’d observed her as she’d first investigated her surroundings. She’d appeared to be freezing in her flimsy lingerie.

And Sian cared not at all.

She’d crossed to the balcony and surveyed his lands, her eyes growing stark at the sight.

He didn’t care.

Ashy wind had gusted into the tower; as she coughed, she’d brushed up against another fire vine.

But he could not care less.

When she’d sat at the wheel, she’d looked shell-shocked. Good.

Though his instincts screamed at him to protect her, warm her, clothe and feed her, he refused. He’d once followed his instincts with her, and look where that had left him.

With the help of his hell-change aggression, he buried those impulses deep, deeper—until a filter seemed to cover his gaze, red from his hatred.

Crimson haze in place, he didn’t even see her as his mate. She was simply a desirable prisoner.

Once she’d spun all of the webbing he’d provided, she rose and warily approached another large cobweb. Dark gods, that body. Her curves were graceful, her form proportionately flawless.

Her long, light-brown hair had dried into loose, shining curls. The dainty points of her ears poked out through the heavy fall of those tresses.

He still couldn’t believe Kari was here in his keeping. Under his control. He wondered yet again if he was dreaming.

Considering Nïx’s involvement, he’d likely pay for this pleasure.

His prisoner reached for the webbing. When it stuck to her hands and wrapped around her arms, she gave a cry, and the tips of her ears flattened against her head.

He’d once been fascinated by her ears, had never seen anything like them. The tips had twitched whenever she’d been unsettled and had flattened on the few occasions she’d been anxious—such as when he’d been about to kiss her for the first and only time.

That kiss. Her sweet lips had slain him, and he was still trying to recover.

Kari returned to her wheel and resumed spinning, her movements hypnotic. As he stared, his thoughts spun as well, tumbling back millennia. . . .

Sian swept Kari around the ballroom during yet another tedious function. He had to fight not to clasp her close to his body.

Could her hands be any softer? Her scent any more alluring?

He might have questioned why a large hell demon like himself would be paired with such an airily delicate mate—if her body didn’t heat his blood like nothing else.

Since he’d laid eyes on Kari, his adolescent desires had only ratcheted up. He’d experienced the most powerful culmination of his life—with her stolen silk shift around his member.

Yet he craved her not only for physical reasons. His female’s mind was a mystery greater than any of the ones in the magical realm of hell.

If only he could read her thoughts! Right now, her mind seemed a million leagues away. She danced with him, but she wasn’t looking at him.

“What are you contemplating, Kari?” he asked, knowing she’d never tell him. He hated it when her gaze grew distant. Though every one of his thoughts revolved around her, she lived in a world kept separate from him.

“This and that,” she murmured.

She was leading him to insanity! At times she encouraged him to woo her, only to turn around and snicker at him behind her fan with her toadying friends.

But whenever he doubted her feelings, she would tease him or allow him some new liberty, such as pressing a kiss to her wrist or holding her closer while dancing.

“Will you confide your musings to me, princess?”

Finally she gazed up at him. “You’re soon to leave us.”

Not without you. If he could teleport in this realm, he would be tempted to steal her. “Does the idea of us parting aggrieve you whatsoever?”

She shrugged.

Shrugged! He inhaled for calm. Sian had only so long before he was dispatched back to hell—and before she was wed. The king of the Draiksulian elves pursued her hand ardently.

Sian scowled in the male’s direction. The king was tall and fair-haired, an ideal elven specimen. Sometimes Kari gazed at him as if she were infatuated.

Sian scarcely prevented himself from baring his fangs at the male. But Kari grew appalled at his every loss of control, deeming these displays “savagery.” She’d once told him, “You’re as unthinking as a red-eyed vampire.”