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But that would mean Thronos would have to marry Melanthe first He couldn’t even explore her body until then The mere kiss he’d taken from her was an offendment

He peered down at her in his ar he’d heard about her? When he didn’t know the extent of her involven?

He reo, "Your mate and her sister have allied with their brother Omort the Deathless, leader of the Pravus Reports filter out froit’s beyond appalling"

Incest, blood orgies, child sacrifices

Melanthe--the sister of O?

WRATH He felt like he was drowning in it Engulfed in it

"You’re hurtinginto her He didn’t loosen his grip

"What are you thinking of to ed?"

He clenched his jaw, unable even to speak He listened to her heartbeat, focusing on it Get control, Talos Early in his life he’d seen the tragedies even a brief loss of control could wreak

Glass shards like fangs flayinghis speed

In a softer voice, Melanthe said, "N&iu to hurt o in thethe foot he’d lost because of Melanthe N&iu reality when she’d told Thronos where to be to get captured--and when to be there, just a week ago All those

"What did that Valkyrie tell you about me?" Melanthe asked "What was her advice?"

It’d been one cryptic sentence: Before Melanthe becaabout s intensified steadily

With the pain came equal parts wrath

Because of the creature in his arms, he’d had lifetimes of both

FIVE

Numbed to the drizzle and cold, Lanthe was lulled into a kind of exhausted stupor as the flight went on and on and on When they’d crossed over an expansive forest, the noises of the battles grew dilance back, could still see bursts of spectral light Soon that melee would spread outward all over the entire island Thronos had to know that

His face was tensely set--as if he were concentrating on blocking out his pain There’d be no talking Think about so else

Yet now that she was his captive (tehts of hiether, when he’d tried to feed her--his idea of courting

Unfortunately, he hadn’t known she was a vegetarian

"For you" Thronos proudly dropped a carcass of bloody meat at her feet

She burst into tears

"Why do you cry?" Despite all his confidence, he looked confounded--and pained, as if her tears torift?"

"Th-that was my bunny!" One of the woodland creatures that she called friend

"It’s decent "

Her face heated "I as, lamb"

"They’re b-berries! I like to eat berries"

The next , when curiosity had driven her back to the meadow, she’d found it littered with piles of berries Thronos had been standing aers stained, his chin up, and that cocky look back on his face Delighted, she’d leaned up and pecked his lips His wings had snapped open, a reaction that had seerown to be best friends, just as he’d promised

Later on, he’d asked her why her parents didn’t buy food She couldn’t oldit could purchase Not toher oay through life--

Thronos’s grip was loosening in midair! "Wait!" she cried

But he’d only repositioned her in the cradle of his ar her for the duration--and wasn’t about to dump her like an arh she had recurring night down on her, she was now trapped directly under a pair of wings Talk about iht, histling through his healing sound As a girl, she’d been obsessed with his wings, touching them all the time

She’d been fascinated to discover the backs were covered with scales like those of a dragon As if in adesigns that rese the day, the undersides were dark gray At night, they turned black, stark against the electrical pathways that forked out along the bones Each of those pulselines shone as bright as phosphorescence

One night when they’d secretlyher how the pulselines s He’d dee his wings so they’d be invisible in the dark

When he’d grown embarrassed by her wide-eyed stare, those pulselines had quickened, like a blush