They blundered around shrubs. He'd forgotten how many bloody plants were in this realm.
"Ten clangs," she cried. "Hurry!"
He and Calliope barreled through the portal just before the fire dwindled to nothing. . . .
As soon as Sian crossed into hell, he began to strengthen. He drew on magic to protect his mate against any poison transference, then turned to his own injuries.
"The arrows, Abyssian."
With a nod, he willed them to disappear. One by one, his wounds sealed. As she checked him over, he healed completely, stretching his regenerated wings for good measure.
Her face was pale, her skin damp from the rain. Confusion filled her eyes.
"Need to get you warm." He grasped her elbow, then traced them into their room before the hearth fire. He raised his brows at the Lotan's single remaining fang, then gazed down at his mate. Her worry had heartened him. "I haven't lost you. You can't deny that you still care for me."
She crossed her arms over her chest. "Okay, so maybe I didn't want you to die from that poison."
"I wasn't dying. I was changing. Or reverting."
"I don't understand."
"When a demon inherits the crown of hell, he transforms into his most monstrous self. I didn't always look like this. . . ." He explained to her about his own hell-change, that ever-present feeling of deterioration, his fears that she could never want him.
Or that she wouldn't for much longer.
"As soon as I let go of the past, I reverted to my former guise. But when I was trying to reach you, I lamented the lack of my demonic features. Suddenly they started to grow."
She appeared skeptical.
"I can show you what I used to look like." He willed himself to shift forms.
Her eyes went wide when his horns and wings burned once more.
With a cocky grin, he said, "I think you're going to like the old me very, very much." His claws disappeared, his facial structure changing. He popped a crick in his neck when he'd completed his transformation.
Her lips parted as her gaze roamed over him. "More trickery?"
"I had no control over this. I should have told you, should have warned you that my appearance would keep getting worse. But I was selfish; I didn't want to scare you off."
In a measured tone, she said, "This is what you looked like for almost all of your life?"
"Not bad, huh?" His cocky grin faded when she shrugged noncommittally.
"You don't have horns in this form? What happened to them?"
He raised his eyes to her crown. "You're wearing them."
SIXTY-ONE
Pardon?" Lila was still reeling from his appearance. The male before her was just as Nix's dossier had described: physically flawless.
He had the same raven-black hair and green eyes, and his frame was still leanly muscular. But his smooth skin was tanned. His features were chiseled and masculine, his face beyond breathtaking.
Yet to Lila, he was a stranger with her husband's eyes and voice. He didn't even look like a demon!
"My old horns are part of your hell crown."
"How did they get from your head to this crown?" she asked, but she had a suspicion.
"Graven gets the thanks for that. When they were severed ages ago, I had my brother cast them away. All this time, I assumed they'd been lost forever. But now the sight of you wearing them fills me with satisfaction," he said, his tone indicating the greatest understatement.
"You're hedging, demon. How did they get severed? Keeping secrets is how we both got into trouble in the first place."
"You're right." He exhaled. "I cut them off during your past life."
"Why would you do that?"
After a hesitation, he grudgingly said, "You told me you could never love an animal like me. One with horns. You were about to wed another, and I would've done anything to stop you. So I took my ax . . ."
The dimension seemed to spin. He'd carried out that grueling amputation to himself?
For her.
"I brought them to you, vowing that I would look as your kind and live as your kind."
But she'd still spurned him for that other male. This day began to make more sense. "You relived that memory after you delved into my dreams."
He nodded. "It maddened me. I wish I'd reacted differently, but in the end, I needed to acknowledge that memory, to face it." He ran his fingers through his hair, seeming surprised not to find his horns. "Lila, I'm a demon grown, have lived lifetimes, but I would do the same thing today. And I will make the same promise: to live as you do. In this form. In your realm."
"That is not what I want." Yes, his looks were stunning. But so had they been before.
"Tell me what you do want. Whatever it is, I will give it to you." He curled his finger under her chin. "I'm in love with you."
"I kind of figured." She gazed up at this strange face, trying to lose herself in those familiar eyes, but the situation didn't feel right--as if she were cheating.
He smoothed his thumb over her cheek. "I will do anything to win you back."
With a challenging lift of her brow, she said, "Anything?"
"Anything."
"Quit the Morior."
Abyssian went still. "And you will be mine once more? Forever?"
He'd actually do it? "I was just fucking with you." Maybe she was a fitting queen for Abyssian Infernas. After all, Lila had used trickery to take her own throne.
He exhaled a pent-up breath. "You got me."
"Considering that Uthyr helped me, and that Rune wanted to give us a chance, you should stay in the Morior."
"So what do you truly want?"
"If I forgive you, I will want you to change back to the demon I love."
He cocked his head. "Ah, my wife is having another go at me."
"I'm not joking."
His expression grew baffled. "You . . . you prefer me like that?" She heard his thoughts: --All that worry for nothing.-- Then: --She's saying she loves me!--
"Yes." She sidled closer to him. "I want you to be comfortable, but I also want me to constantly dream about kissing your gorgeous skin."
He jolted straighter. "At your service." He began his wondrous transformation. Glyphs arose and started to glow, stark against his bloodred skin. He gritted his teeth when his wings and horns emerged. As his facial structure transformed, he wagged his jaw. "Better?"
Heavy-lidded, she said, "Better."
He wrapped his arms around her. "You can forgive me, again?"
"How can I be pissed at your trickery today when I was such an apt pupil?" Everything was connected. Every lesson learned, every wrong soon to be righted. "But we still have a lot of things to work out. Establishing boundaries, for one. If you look into my thoughts, I'll look into yours."
His arms tightened around her. "You can . . . ?"
"Oh, yeah."
"I suppose it's only fair since I spied on you with a mirror."
"You were watching me?" The hand mirror on his desk. "I sensed something! You were always watching."
He shamelessly admitted, "No demon has ever looked into a mirror as much as I."
"You'll have to teach me how to do that." She now had a ton of untapped abilities. Then she frowned as a thought struck her. "Why do you think Nix assisted us? She had to know I'd kill Saetth."
"And that I'd send the Vrekeners' realm spinning. I have no idea why she's steering fate this way--and that will make more than one Morior uneasy. But whatever comes, we'll weather it."
"Are you sure, demon? Dealing with two realms, two different species, a queendom and a kingdom could get really complicated."
He lowered his forehead to hers. Lips curling, he said, "Or, for the first time, it could get really easy."
SIXTY-TWO
Pando-Sylvan Trade Negotiations
ROUND 1
Sian bowed his chest up for more of her touch. He lay in their bed with his exquisite mate atop him.
Calliope's eyes flickered as she greedily surveyed his body. Meeting his gaze, she told him, "I need gold, love." She rose up on his length . . . then slowly . . . so slowly . . . slipped back down.
He gripped her hips, shuddering with pleasure. "Then this is coercion."
Calliope shook her head, her hair a glossy tangle around her head. Her face was still pinkened from their afternoon at the beach. Though they worked hard, they played hard as well.
Throwing his words back at him, she said, "Consider it a mutually beneficial arrangement."
Anything in the worlds she desired was hers, but he liked withholding concessions--just so she would coax them out of him.