Chapter 31
EVANDER
I TRACK THE Devaliant’s scent across the night sky.
Caelestis’ spires emerge through the mist ahead, all lit up for the festival.
Thousands of lanterns float on the breeze as I approach.
The drumbeat of music reaches for miles, a grating, relentless beat of the festival’s fertility rites.
I’ve never bothered to attend—I prefer to take my pleasure in private—but the Devaliant is missing, and I know exactly who’s responsible for dragging my human to this floating deathtrap of a city.
Amara. That reckless, insufferable—
Another punishing wave of rut-fever whites out my vision.
I grit my teeth, getting my wings back under control.
My cock is so damn hard it hurts. The start of Aethertide is always the worst time: everything burns too bright, too much.
My skin is hot. The urge to hunt, to claim, to mark pounds through my veins as I swoop down to the largest island in the chain.
I land in a crouch on the cobblestones. My magic flexes, seeking her. Demis surround me, their power signatures grating against my heightened senses. One female across the road eyes me with interest, but I bare my teeth in a snarl.
Not what I want.
Not who I want.
I shut my eyes, breathing hard through my nose. Tasting the air. Sorting through the layers of sensation. I block out the spice of ichor wine, the musk of arousal, the stinging bite of magic.
There it is—a ribbon of sweetness curling through the chaos, unmistakable.
Her.
I let that tempting scent guide me through the throng, past the markets, toward the bonfires. I round the corner into a small courtyard and pull up short.
Every predatory instinct suddenly flares to life.
A demigod has the Devaliant backed against a wall. A red haze fills my vision, and suddenly, I’m picturing exactly how it would sound if I snapped his spine with my bare hands and ripped out his heart.
Then I notice the dagger in the Devaliant’s hand.
Remember her training. Let her handle this.
Jaw clenched, I force myself to lean back against a nearby pillar and observe. A veil covers her face, but there’s a lethal intent in every line of her body. The way she shifts her weight. The calculated stillness before she strikes.
She shoves the blade into the demigod’s side.
“Fuck,” I breathe.
If my cock weren’t already hard, the sight of my Devaliant this dangerous would have done it. The graceful pivot of her body—movements that Amara has spent hours teaching her, honing until they’ve become instinct.
The demi staggers, blood staining between his fingers, but my girl’s not done. She angles low to hamstring the bastard.
That’s it. Make him bleed. I want to see him suffer.
I’m so caught up in watching her that I almost miss it—his hand reaching for her veil. The only thing hiding who she is.
I move in a blink, pinning the fucker to the wall by his throat.
He scrabbles at my forearm. “Wait,” he wheezes. “She’s a human—”
I squeeze harder. Something gives beneath my fingers. “That human,” I say through my teeth, “is mine.”
Behind that veil is her face. Her identity. The family name that would get her killed in this city. The decision makes itself, really.
I pull back and punch my hand through his chest.
The Devaliant gasps behind me. But I’m focused on the wet crunch of bone, the sudden give when I shove into his ribs, the way his beating heart constricts against my palm. A rattling whine leaves him as he fights against me. Pointless.
“You shouldn’t have messed with her,” I whisper.
Power floods from me into him, burning everything it touches—heart, lungs, muscles. The demi’s skin splits with glowing cracks, and embers drift from his gaping mouth as he incinerates beneath the heat of my magic. No screams, no whimpers, just him strangling on my flames.
Someone in the crowd lets out a sharp cry, but no one intervenes or comes to his aid. They know what happens when someone fucks with what the Wolf of Asteria has claimed.
This is a lesson.
When I yank my hand out of the demi’s chest, he collapses to ash at my feet. Not even a body. Just a pile of dust.
I pull back my power, forcing down some of the madness. Breathing hard, I turn. The Devaliant is—
Fuck. Me.
I’d been so distracted by her fighting earlier that I didn’t notice the dress.
Sweet merciful fuck. The Devaliant is draped in semi-transparent silk that barely qualifies as clothing, held up with nothing more than ribbons and delicate chains.
The slit along her thigh is high enough to show off the curve of her ass and inform every male in the vicinity that she’s not wearing anything underneath.
When she lifts a hand to straighten her veil, I see her nipples pebbling through the fabric.
She’s every depraved fantasy pulled straight from the filthiest corners of my mind.
My control shatters, and I lunge for her like a feral animal.
Her back hits the wall. She gasps as I bury my face against her neck, dragging in her scent—jasmine, arousal, the sharp tang of fear that shouldn’t excite me but does.
“You.” The word comes out in a growl. “What the fuck are you doing here? Do you know how dangerous—how stupid it was to come here? To Caelestis of all places? I almost—”
Burned down half the city looking for you. Tore apart everyone who got in my way.
I cut myself off before the truth can slip free and try to remember how to form coherent thoughts. Don’t lose it. Not here. Not yet.
My glare drops to her body, and that’s when I notice what’s painted all over her. “Why the fuck are you covered in fertility rite symbols?” I snarl.
I hear her sharp breath through the veil. “What?”
“This”—I rub at the paint on her arm for emphasis—“is an invitation to fuck. To be fucked.”
And I want to kill every male who’s seen them.
She blinks. “Oh.”
“Yeah, oh.”
Her chest rises and falls, tits straining against the fabric of her ridiculous dress. “Amara painted them on me to blend in. How was I supposed to know what they meant?”
“I’m going to strangle Amara,” I mutter.
“Why do you even care? I thought you weren’t getting attached.”
I’m not going near that. That way lies madness and stupidity and things I can’t afford to examine too closely. Why is she always like this? Why can’t she just—
“Don’t throw my words back at me. Not when I can barely think straight enough to remember whatever bullshit I said.”
“Then what am I supposed to think?” The Devaliant throws up her arms in frustration. “One day, you’re telling me not to catch feelings. The next, you’re burning someone alive because he touched me and losing your mind over some paint.”
“You don’t get it, do you? That spiral on your hip? That means you want to be taken in public. The circuit on your thigh? Means you want multiple partners. That symbol on your back says you prefer submission. The—”
She slaps my hand away. “Enough, I get it.”
“Every demigod in this city is looking at you like you’re wearing a sign that says ‘breed me.’”
“I said I didn’t know. It’s not like you gave me a lecture in Scillarian fuck symbols when I found out about Aethertide just yesterday.”
“Quiet, Devaliant.”
I ghost my knuckles down the delicate notches of her spine. Lingering in the divots above the lush curve of her ass. She shivers as I follow one of the chains down between her breasts, watching gooseflesh rise in the wake of my touch.
“Devla svaust,” I groan. “You have three little glyphs right between your tits that tell every male in Caelestis that you want someone to dominate you.”
“Then stop looking there. My face is up here.”
“Your face is behind a veil, you’re barely dressed, and you’re covered in symbols that are making me insane. Which part should I be looking at?”
She makes an annoyed sound. “Listen. The word Rhosyn—I remembered it from an old book in my father’s study. It mentioned a connection to Caelestis, and—”
I can’t take it anymore. I shove up the veil just enough to bare her throat and sink my teeth into her pulse point to shut her up.
Because I don’t care about the book right now.
I don’t care about rational thought. I don’t care about trying to justify this absolute mess of an excursion.
Not when every inch of paint on her skin is screaming at me to shove her down, take her, make her mine.
Kill anyone who even sees her with these symbols boldly declaring how she wants it.
I told her to stop talking.
She tastes like starlight. Like oblivion. Like everything I’ve ever wanted to corrupt. My sanity crumbles, and all I can think about is spreading her open, and licking into her until she screams my name to the sky—
Sharp nails rake down my nape, digging in as she shudders. Her breaths are fast and shallow. In the space between each one, my control unravels a little more.
“Wolf.” She pants as I nibble another mark into her skin. “You need to focus.”
“Oh, I’m focused.” There’s a laugh somewhere in my voice, but it’s a jagged, mirthless thing. “I’m so very, very fucking focused. So focused I can’t see straight.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know what you meant. You’re thinking, and it’s by far your worst quality.
” I push my thigh between hers, biting back a groan when she rocks against me.
“I’m not interested in thinking right now.
Not when you smell like this. Not when you feel like this.
” My lips brush her ear. “The symbol on your thigh says you want to be taken from behind. Would you like that?”
Her breath catches.
I drag the veil over her lips and crush my mouth to hers, swallowing her surprised gasp. The taste of her obliterates thought, narrowing everything down to the press of her body, the addictive sweep of her tongue.
“Is this just rut?” she whispers against my lips. “Would you care if it were Arcadia painted in these symbols?”
Arcadia? I yank back. “Why the fuck would I care about Arcadia right now?”