23. Leah #3
I exhale. The admission is so damn vulnerable I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut.
“Can you show me now?” I ask softly, afraid to scare the moment away.
He nods and closes his eyes.
The lake’s disguise falls away like the sun’s fading light at sunset.
Marks rise up against his skin, dark shapes form around his head.
I brace myself, waiting for the Syrus I know to disappear completely, yet when I blink a few moments later, the changes are less dramatic than I expected.
Black horns rise from just above his temples, curling back over his dark hair.
Below them, on either side of his head, his ears have grown long and pointed.
The brown of his eyes is gone, completely replaced with a maroon red.
But it’s his skin that makes me draw in a breath.
It’s covered in runes—Cyrax shapes that must’ve been carved into his flesh and left to turn into scars.
They climb up his forearms and neck. There’s one on each of his cheeks, just below his eyes, and I can see more on his chest, peeking through the open buttons at the top of his shirt.
Syrus follows my gaze, touching one of the runes on the back of his hand.
“It’s how Ajax ensured I’d be everything he needed me to be when I emerged from the Morphos,” he explains.
“He put them on me when I was still human. It’s like a set of instructions for the lake to follow when it re-formed me.
It’s why I took so long to rise. My soul spent ten years in the lake, but it worked.
The runes made sure I got power, lots of it, along with size and strength. ”
His tone is wry, as if he doesn’t think much of all his gifts, and I can guess why. Those runes are also how Ajax locked him out of Strata. Syrus’s shackles are carved into his very flesh.
I swallow, my eyes shifting to the shadows dancing at his back.
“Your wings too,” I say, my voice low. “Let me see it all.”
He lifts an eyebrow, then shrugs and unfurls them, stretching them wide so I can get the full effect.
He’s magnificent. I had no idea before what I was missing. He was already powerful and beautiful and terrifying, but now he’s a true demon lord, one who wears his courage on his very skin.
Magnificent. It’s only when he laughs that I realize I’ve said the word out loud.
“Not the term I would use,” he says as I flush.
“Especially not about these.” He traces one of the markings on his wrist. “But you can see why it caught my attention, seeing you lying there on that altar, human and terrified and covered in bloody runes.” He lifts his eyes and fixes his gaze on me. “You reminded me of myself.”
I briefly close my eyes, imagining it: Syrus three hundred years ago, being cut open under Ajax’s blade, the way that must’ve all come back to him when he was summoned to that chamber with me.
He was saving me, in his way. I’m not foolish enough to believe that was the only reason he claimed me, but it went beyond bending me to his will.
“They’re magnificent too,” I insist, moving closer to get a better look at the runes. If I concentrate, I can get a hint at some of their meaning—the ones that whisper of magical abilities as opposed to those that call on physical might. But that’s not what I really see when I study them.
Slowly, I reach out, waiting to see if he’ll pull away.
When he doesn’t, I touch one of them on his inner arm, tracing the shape.
Syrus goes very still. I keep going, following the muscles of his bicep with my finger, up onto his shoulder, until I’m lightly brushing one of the runes at the base of his throat. His eyes flutter closed.
“Would you want the memory of the deal you made following you around forever?” he murmurs.
“But they’re not just a sign of the deal you made with Ajax,” I say.
“They’re proof of how much you care. Every mark is a life you saved.
A reminder that you did everything you could for your kingdom, that you were brave and selfless.
You shouldn’t feel like you need to hide them away.
” My hand slides down to his chest, resting over his heart.
When he opens his eyes, the red in them is burning so brightly it fixes me to the spot.
He covers my hand with his, pressing it down, so I can feel the beating of his heart.
I don’t know much about demon hearts, but it feels like it’s beating faster than it should.
Then again, with his thumb on my wrist, he can probably feel my hammering pulse too.
He dips his head and I lift mine, taking in a sharp breath as I realize what he’s about to do. My lips part slightly, already anticipating the press of his mouth against mine.
He stops, inches from my lips, and I hear only a second later what made him freeze. Shouts ring in the hall outside, and a second later, there’s a hammering on the door.
Syrus is across the room in an instant, pulling the door open. Quill stands there with the keeper Yealey at his side.
“My lord,” Yealey gasps. “It’s the mireborn. They’re rising from the lake, but something is very wrong.”