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"Then it e"

"I’m more than just a number," she pointed out "Besides, it’s not only the nu you; it’s the fact that I ith others after we’d ue!

"Why couldn’t you have settled doith one? I know that some Sorceri wed for life"

"Would you have preferred to find me in love with another male, happy, with ten children? Why, that would make me a virtuous woman! Would you kidnap a virtuous female for your own selfish needs? Would you separate her from her beloved husband and children?"

He bit out a sound of frustration

"If our sexes were reversed, everyone would’ve expected me to take lovers I would have been applauded for it You would have been revered for your purity And if I were a de for "

That’s what demons called it when they had sex just to see if a feh a demon could usually scent a female and know she was his h intercourse

Baring his fangs, Thronos grated, "Have you been attempted by many demons, then?"

"I’ve never been with one" He parted his lips, no doubt to call "untruth," so she explained, "Like Vrekeners, the Sorceri stupidly think dee I didn’t know better until Sabine fell for Rydstrom By the time I realized demons could be wildly attractive, I was locked into celibacy for a year"

"You find deht you were drawn to the ht now she was drawn to seven-foot-tall males who simmered with pent-up lust and untapped carnality "Hmm Physically, I like--"

"Straddle me," he bit out

Her brows shot up

"I’m about to need s around his waist and her arain He’d just latched onto the side of thethe dragons once more

TWENTY-TWO

Behind the cru A tunnel no ht had been revealed

Despite his claustrophobia, Thronos clutched Melanthe with one aret as far inside as possible His horns hit the low ceiling, the jagged rock abrading the tops of his wings

"How are you doing with this tight spot?" she asked

"Not ured swaying trees were" Meaning that night on the Order’s island

He winced to recall his behavior But he’d believed she was different then--

A dragon shoved its snout into the opening, its breath stirring up grit,theht spilled fro the beast would fire on the rocks Thronos covered Melanthe with his wings as the ceiling began to rain stone and sand Piles of it heaped around Thronos’s legs as if frolass

Panic threatened to take hold, but he fought it They had to get out before the tunnel was choked, burying theed onward, his throat felt just as choked

The farther inside, the hotter the air was That red glare grew as they neared When he reached it at last and paused in the arched opening, he saw a larger cavern, filled with bubbling lava A sole raised path bisected it, one that appeared to lead straight into hell

Kicking free of the piles of stone weighted around his legs, he launched hilided down to the path, then set Melanthe on her feet

As he shook sand froazed back at the tunnel

Coo

He turned back to the path Ahead, e in the distance glowed red hot "I think we’re in one of the armies’ lairs"

"Then we need to find a way out, before anyone sees us"

"I scent food cooking from one direction," he said, "and corpse rot from the other"

"So there’s a camp and a burial area? Let’s head toward the latter It’d be less populated, less guarded"

As they walked in silence, he kept his hand on her arm, in case he needed to shield her in a hurry With each step away frooing through hell, keep going, right?" she asked, casting hinize the look, but he thought it wasflirtatious

He tried to focus, lest he get the their interaction under his wings--and how she’d run her finger down to his breeches He’d been a heartbeat away fro to hiroan her nah the leather He’d barely defeated the urge to lick sweat fro this realm’s portal had beco seeer trust himself to heed the laws of his people

He was the prince of the Vrekeners, a general of knights Yet how easily she had hi her wiles on him, but that hadn’t lessened the effect of her charms

Until he could return hoainst her, a task that would be even more difficult after his discovery today

Sexual chemistry is addictive

Whenever he’d felt that electricity sparking between them, the pain from his old injuries had ebbed under the heat of excitement

She cast hi about?"