Attes ducked his chin as he dragged his hand over his mouth, failing to hide his widening smile.
“And how long will His Majesty be occupied?” Nyktos asked as he dropped his hand from my cheek and moved so he was beside me.
“He will join you when ready,” Dyses replied, his pale gaze flickering over me.
“I’m sure he will,” Nyktos all but purred as frustration scratched at my skin. “And she is not my mistress. She is my Consort.”
“Only if His Majesty grants such a title,” Dyses corrected, his lip curling as he eyed me. “Until then, she should realize that she’s in the presence of her betters and bow.”
I stiffened, realizing I should’ve done that the moment I’d laid eyes on Attes. Though I had a feeling Dyses was more offended that I hadn’t shownhimrespect. Swallowing myannoyance and proving that I did, indeed, have common sense, I started to bow.
“You will not,” Nyktos said quietly, stopping me with a hand on my arm. His eyes briefly met mine, and then he turned to Dyses. “My soon-to-be Consort will bow when she’s in the presence of those deserving of respect.” His lazy smile set off warning bells. “But until then…”
Nyktos shadowstepped, appearing behind Dyses in the span of a heartbeat. There was no warning. Dyses’ chest simply exploded in a spray of hot, shimmery red-blue blood.
I jerked back out of instinct, hand going to my thigh where the dagger was strapped, but then I saw Nyktos’s hand.
My gods… Nyktos had punched his hand straight through the god’s back—through bone and tissue.
Nyktos jerked his hand free, and he was…he was holding a fleshy, reddish-blue lump in his palm. Dyses looked down at his chest, his mouth gaping.
“Youwill bow before her.” Nyktos’s fingers closed over the heart, destroying it in a burst of silvery eather.
“Fuck,” Dyses rasped, falling to his knees.
Then to his face.
I stared at the bloody, jagged hole in the center of Dyses’ white tunic, then slowly lifted my gaze to Nyktos.
“Well,” Attes drawled. “That’s either going to annoy His Majesty or amuse him.”
“Probably the latter.” Nyktos knelt, using the god’s tunic to clean the blood and gore from his hand as his gaze rose to mine. “I didnotlike his tone.”
“Neither did I,” I said hoarsely, finding my voice. “But that was, maybe, a little excessive.”
There was nothing to discern in the hard, striking lines of Nyktos’s face. “He was testing exactly what I would allow when it comes to you.” He stood. “He failed, and others will know.”
“I have a feeling there’s going to be a lot of heartless, dead gods by the end of the day,” Attes remarked, glancing at me. His smile returned. “Their blood will match your lovely gown.”
“As will yours if you keep looking at her that way,” Nyktos warned, stepping over the fallen god. “I assume you were waiting for our arrival?”
Attes appeared unfazed by the threat. “I was. Hoping you’darrive soon, since you are, by far, better company.”
“That’s not saying much.” Nyktos folded the hand that hadn’t been inside another god around mine. “Was there a reason?”
I looked down as Nyktos led me around the fallen Dyses, hesitating as I stared at the god’s hand.
“Sera?” Nyktos glanced back at me. “Someone will retrieve him.”
“It’s not that,” I said, having sworn that Dyses’ hand had twitched. But that was impossible. Gods, unlike Primals, couldn’t survive without their hearts. However, I hadn’t felt the embers responding to the god’s death either. Knowing I couldn’t share that at the moment, I shook my head and frowned. “It’s nothing.”
“He doesn’t feel right, does he?” Attes said, drawing my attention. He lifted his gaze from the god to Nyktos. “Dyses always felt…off.”
“Yeah,” Nyktos murmured, the corners of his lips turning down. “But none of Kolis’s servants have felt right, have they? Not in a long time.” He continued staring at the god, his head tilted. “I sense no…soul.”
Attes’s head swung sharply back toward the fallen god. “That’s impossible.”
“And I see none.” Nyktos steered me farther away from the fallen god. He looked at the other Primal. “Either his soul hasn’t left his body yet or he has none. I would know.”