Chapter 2 #2
I doubled my pace, releasing a funnel of black smoke to clear a path in the blues who’d decided to give me a run for my money as well. If I didn’t make the checkpoint, then despite my kill, I wouldn’t qualify to return to the Pinnacle for next week’s round.
I ran harder, not daring to stop even when the crowd hushed. I didn’t stop when the demons between me and the checkpoint conveniently found other places to be. I couldn’t stop.
I’d promised him.
He was depending on me.
A demon landed twenty feet ahead in a crush of rock. Debris hurtled in every direction, screaming as it was ripped from itself.
I had a lot in common with that stone.
I halted, and fury rippled over me in tandem with the dust dragged forward by my slipstream.
Fury and shock too. I’d run through any number of scenarios where my mate-intended cornered me after the match.
I’d expected him to storm the Pinnacles after the game.
Was it idiotic that I’d never expected him to actually come down here during a fight?
He was the demon king.
He never did anything that called his power into doubt, and a mate-intended who’d ditched him three years ago… she had definitely called his power into doubt.
His boots were gleaming, lending to the air that he was untouchable. Did he know there was dirt down here?
The dust and debris settled, and the male unfolded from his crouch in the rocky crater. His shoulders heaved, and his lips were white as he stretched to his full towering height.
His hair is different. He’d cut the black strands short again.
My chest tightened at the sight of the ink-black symbols covering most of his torso. The demon king was made for war, made for fighting. Made to conquer—and not just land. He was made to conquer everything, including minds and hearts.
In two huge steps, he was out of the crater.
I studied his gray eyes from the depths of my hood. His eyes had changed to the same color as mine the day we’d met. Though my gray eyes were rimmed in a ring of black, blazing crimson surrounded his—the same color of his scales and magic.
He’d professed to having saved me that day when we first met. Fucking liar.
He hadn’t lied about one thing, though. The change in his eye color meant we were intended to be immortal mates. If only both of us still agreed on the matter.
His shoulders were still heaving.
I could guess why he appeared out of sorts.
The last time we were together, I’d ridden him like my life depended on it.
I’d ridden him like I was saying goodbye to the only male who could ever give me sexual gratification.
Because I had been. That night he’d looked at me with awe and wonder and something akin to love in his eyes.
I’d poured every bit of love I’d ever thought that I felt for him into that act. I’d poured it all out forever.
Hours later, I’d hatched my plan to escape.
The demon king must’ve thought back on that night one thousand times, wondering if I’d planned to run even as I fucked him like my life depended on it.
“Yes,” I told him.
The slight flicker in his red-rimmed gray eyes asked me what the fuck I was talking about.
I tilted my head. “Yes, I was thinking about my escape the entire time I fucked you that night.”
The nearest demons laughed and turned to spread the whispers through the crowd.
The king’s jaw tightened.
I took a step to the right.
I had to circle him. Hysterical laughter almost got the better of me then. Circle the demon king? Was I a fool now? Like he hadn’t planted himself in my path to stop me getting to the checkpoint.
Despite the hopelessness of the situation, I had expected to feel much more fear in this moment of reunion. Seeing him hadn’t shaken me from my goal one bit.
I had to reach the checkpoint.
“Why have you returned?” His gaze tracked me as I took another step.
I arched a brow. “This and that.”
He stilled, and only then did I fathom how much I might’ve changed from the uncertain sixteen-year-old he’d known.
He’d kept me uncertain, but one moonlit night in each other’s arms, he’d made the mistake of speaking the truth.
That was when I’d learned that the night he’d dragged me to this realm, he was never saving me.
Yes, I was changed. Nearly three years away from this bastard had achieved that. I’d gone through a chapter of life that had changed me forevermore, and been plagued by lust to boot. I wasn’t the girl he’d known, and I would do fucking anything to get what I wanted.
I took another step.
“You will not reach the checkpoint, enamai,” he announced.
Mate.
I smiled. “I am no enamai of yours, Carmine.”
Twenty feet remained between us. And then the distance was gone. Poof.
The demon king’s calloused hand cupped my jaw and most of my neck under the hood. With the other hand, he ripped my hood back.
My black hair brushed my shoulders. Scales extended up both sides of my neck and bordered my face, only leaving my jaw and chin bare. He jolted at the sight of me, and I took gross satisfaction in his shock.
Yeah, I got stronger, asshole.
A rumbling sound escaped him that he snuffed out. I felt the same sound wanting to escape my chest. I wouldn’t let it.
“You’re in my way,” I grunted around his grip.
“I cannot allow you to fight in Tiers, Syera.” He drank in the sight of me, and that was how I could be certain of his shock. Carmine would hate his subjects seeing this raw reaction.
Except my name on his lips was just like I remembered.
I breathed through the wall of lust that wanted to crush me into submission.
Arch into his hands. Get on your hands and knees.
Dress in a loincloth and nipple string. The whispers of our half-finished mating filled my head and body.
My heart raced at the proximity to him, and my body overheated more and more with every passing second.
I had existed in this torture of lust for three years, and I’d known that proximity to him would make it so much worse.
I tilted my chin and peered at his lips, then forced my gaze to his where his tortured lust mirrored mine. Anger and resentment and dismissal were there too. He didn’t know what to feel. That turmoil was no doubt why I could gauge so much of his feelings right now.
How the tables had turned.
There was a relief in that. Like I’d passed some invisible test.
“I wasn’t asking, Carmine.” I purred his name. I’d use that lust against him any day.
But to reach the checkpoint, I needed to reveal an element of my power that I’d wanted to keep hidden.
Though, I’d also intended to fight a yellow scale. And use my daggers instead of Father’s blade.
I’d also planned to escape a group attack and the detection of a demon king.
So screw it.
Carmine was bending his head to mine despite the hate radiating from him.
I could kiss him. I could melt into his body as I’d melted so many times.
Doing so would be an enormous relief. So easy.
Every part of my body yearned for it. A thousand sleepless nights.
Thousands more hours spent training—not because of Tiers, but because the sexual deprivation of being apart from my mate while partway through a mating ritual was daily, excruciating agony.
If I’d guessed at the extent of that torture, I might never have left.
But I had, and I’d survived, and now I would never complete the mating ritual.
The craving for him was so strong, strong enough to make my knees shake. Even prepared as I’d been to see him, I could barely pull myself together. Carmine wanted to devour me, and my body wanted to devour him.
Give up, give in.
But I’d learned my lesson hard and all at once. I wasn’t the same. I’d never be the same again, and he had ensured that.
I drew up my magic with a speed I hadn’t possessed while with him. I portaled as close to the checkpoint as possible and sprinted for my life and for the lives of those I loved.
So close!
I speared magic into my legs until my sprint was a blur.
I had to get there.
I had to get there for her.
For him.
For me.
Almost there. I was almost there.
A hand latched around my upper arm.
Carmine’s panting breath filled my ears, and I smirked at his lack of control. He hadn’t had time to plant himself like a towering Viking in my path or to ensnare me in some beautiful display of power.
He’d chased me the good old, undignified way.
But catch me he had.
Breathing hard, he caged me against his body. His chest moved against my back. I was out of breath, too, but I wasn’t rattled. Because unlike me, Carmine was the same old demon I’d left.
“I won’t allow you to play Tiers,” he snarled into my hair.
There’s the real you.
I twisted to look back at him. “Too late.”
He followed my line of sight to the tip of my right toe.
That was inside the checkpoint.
The crowd roared. The arena shook with the force of demon glee and malice, and I felt just as gleeful and malicious as them. But that faded as the demon king pressed against my back. I whirled in his grip to face him, and reveled in the slight shock in his gaze.
I’d bested him and gone against his demand in front of thousands. For the scared and young person I had been, that triumph over him meant something.
I tilted my chin. “The rules of Tiers are clear.”
I qualified for the next round.
I’d done it. I wanted to crumble in a heap and shake with sheer relief.
Carmine’s lips curved, and a familiar coldness burned away the other traces of him. This was a coldness that I loathed.
“Enamai,” the demon king spoke low. “Have you forgotten?”
Had I just pushed him too far? This part of him was unpredictable to say the least.
Carmine placed his lips against my ear. “I make the rules.”