Sweet Ruin

SIXTY-ONE

Rune is ruin.

Jo paced outside the tree entryway, her hands balled into fists. She needed to go somewhere and scream. What was so weird—if she left, Rune would come find her. After. He’d told her he would never let her go, and she believed him.

Last night, before they’d made love under beckoning stars, he’d brushed his fingers over her cheekbones and assured her he had a plan B.

He’d known screwing the nymph was a possibility.

A flash of a dream hit her, a snippet from his memories. He’d been sitting back in his chair in Orion’s stronghold. “If one of my tarts is stupid enough to want more,” he’d told his allies, “then she deserves all the heartache in the worlds.”

Huh. This stupid tart got what she deserves.

A beautiful blonde loitered by the entrance, watching her intently. Could that be Dalli, Rune’s “friend with benefits”? Add some more humiliation to the pile. Jo was about to tell her to go fuck herself with an oak splinter when she scented a demon.

Deshazior??

He’d just traced inside the barroom! Standing taller than everyone else, he seemed to scent her as well, lifting his face, then turning toward her outside.

Jo had a friend! “Desh!”

He grinned and traced to her. “Hello, little luv!” He wrapped his brawny arms around her and squeezed.

“You don’t know how happy I am to see you!”

“Why these tears?” He cleared his throat and backed up a step. “These black, poisonous tears?”

Oh. Blood had dried on her face. She must look like hell washed over.

“Bet this has somethin’ to do with yer baneblood. Where’s the poxy scum?”

“With another woman.” And Jo was sitting outside, waiting like a tied-up pet, more pitiful than she’d ever been.

“He’s up there in a love nest?”

“Is that what they call them? Hi-fucking-larious.” Tonight, Rune had gone out on a limb. She laughed bitterly.

Desh’s gaze landed on her neck, her mark. “The baneblood claimed you as his mate, and he’s still with another?”

“He’s here to get information.”

Desh scratched his head with confusion. “I’m not followin’.”

Jo found herself telling him parts of the story—her fight with Nïx, her brother’s captivity, the failed attempts to overpower the wraiths—ending with: “And now I’m supposed to cool my heels while he bones Red.”

“All this to get into Val Hall? If ye wanted in, I wish ye’d come to me.”

Jo’s breath caught. “Do you know a way?”

“Gettin’ in’s the easy part. Gettin’ out’ll be the kicker.”

She grabbed his big hands, squeezing to urge him on.

“If ye fought Nïx, go surrender to her. They’ll take ye inside in a heartbeat. Ye’ll likely be dispatched to Val Hall’s dungeon, but at least ye’d be closer to yer brother.”

Thad was in a dungeon? “How do you know all this stuff?”

“I know a few Valkyries.” He scratched his chin. “And ages ago, Nïx mentioned somethin’ I was never able to figger. She says to me, ‘Demon, when ye see the girl with black tears, tell her to surrender.’ Drove me mad with curiosity, but she’d say naught else about it, seemed to have forgotten the entire conversation.”

Tell her to surrender. Yet another invitation from Nïx.

Jo had thought she’d known Rune. She had been wrong. She’d thought she needed him to save her brother.

Wrong again, girl.

His mind filled with Josephine, Rune touched Meliai by rote. He was as out of his body as he’d been with the serpent.

If the nymph noticed, he didn’t care.

Normally he would’ve been inside her by now. He could replay the last twenty-four hours with his mate to get it up, but his mind resisted that trick.

To stay hard with another, he was going to have to make a conscious effort. A conundrum. Because he couldn’t stray in the first place if he was mindful of what was happening.

His thoughts were turned inward, puzzling over his fight with Josephine. Why in the hells had she been that upset? She hadn’t cried when Nïx had been snapping her bones, but tonight tears had flowed.

Was Josephine so used to getting her way she’d cried out of resentment? She’d vowed she’d sleep with others, was all but making plans to drink from them. Yet another ridiculous vow. He’d never known anyone who abused them more.

In the future, while he was struggling not to become deadened in some distant covey, she’d be making besotted males come from her bite.

When Rune had claimed her, he’d thought, She drinks me alone. After tonight, she fucks me alone.

Not quite, baneblood. No one could pleasure her more than he did—but what about his taste? What if . . . what if she preferred another’s blood? She’d never bitten anyone else.

She’s me, and I’m her. What if she never wanted to darken her blood again?

He would recognize her little bite anywhere—in a way, it was like his claiming mark. If he encountered one of her lovers and saw it . . .

He ground his fangs. She didn’t have to feed from others. What was the point? They would keep that separate from any arrangements between them. He’d make it a condition.

Maybe he would use a vow to the Lore!

He would convince her blood-drinking was for them alone, their special act. As she’d described: with the licking, and the lips, and the penetration. Damn it, that should be private! Just last night, their heartbeats had synchronized; she’d commented on the bond, how she was different.

Why would she ever share that—

He stilled. Josephine viewed sex the way he viewed her feeding. As private and special. As something that bonded them and altered them. She’d left her claiming bite on him, just as he’d done with her.

It didn’t matter that he gave little meaning to sex with others. She did.

He hissed in a breath. Unfortunately, he’d come to this gut-wrenching conclusion when he was naked in bed with another female, after deserting his mate—while she’d looked as if she were dying inside. Fuck!

He yanked Meliai’s hands off him and sat up.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, her voice sounding far away.

He shook his head hard, bringing himself back to this room. When Josephine had told him that they’d think of another way to get her brother back, Rune had been confused; wouldn’t she do anything for Thad?

She didn’t care less about her brother; she cared more about Rune. Just the fact that she hadn’t sent him off with a smile and a wave told him how much.

Her heart had opened up to another!

His spike of excitement faded. Tonight, she’d cried, You’re breaking my heart.

She hadn’t been throwing a fit like a scorned lover; she damn sure hadn’t been trying to manipulate him.

Josephine had reacted like a female grieving a lover she’d lost.

She would be finished with Rune after this! Panic seized him by the throat. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, tracing to his clothes.

He could still fix things with her. She’d be outside waiting—because he was supposed to return with the means to free Thaddeus.

“Rune, answer me!” Meliai cried. “What’s wrong?”

He yanked on his pants. “I’m done,” he said, and he meant it. Rune had just retired from his millennia-old job as secrets master. He had time to figure out something with the Møriør, but how was he going to save Thaddeus?

Meliai scrambled to her knees. “You can’t be serious!”

By spurning her, he risked angering coveys the worlds over. There was no worse insult to her kind.

“What do you need to get back into this? I’ll do it.” She cupped her breasts, tweaking her nipples. “Imagine your filthiest fantasy, and it’s yours.”

His fantasies all involved the beautiful, brash, courageous mate he didn’t deserve. The one waiting outside for him to finish bedding another.

“Anything, Rune.”

He stomped into his boots, then pulled on his shirt. “No.” That word, from his lips, about this subject . . . “No.” Gods, that tasted delicious.

“Why? At least give me a reason!”

“I’ve changed.” A thought struck him. He would never have to do this again—dragging on his clothes, wishing for a shower and the peace of his chair by the fire.

He was free.

Meliai sputtered, “Short of sex with me, there is no way you can get past the wraiths.”

“I’ll figure something out.”

“Are you going to fuck your way in there? You’d do it, wouldn’t you? Screw creatures as repulsive as the Scourge?”

How was he going to face Josephine? By promising her he’d get her brother back, Rune had set himself up to fail her in one way or another.

I don’t want to fail her. He strapped on his quiver, slinging his bow over his shoulder. Just as she’d said, there had to be an alternative, something he wasn’t seeing. . . .

He traced his fingers over his bowstring. Tonight, he’d forever sheathed one weapon.

I have another.

He unslung his bow and nocked a bonedeath arrow. He stared down Meliai, his voice deadly as he said, “Give me that key, or I’ll release my arrow, pulverizing the bones of anyone within screaming distance.”

Meliai gasped. “You risk a war with the Nymphae? You’ll never enter our sacred places again!”

“So be it. Now talk. What do you have?”

Her gaze betrayed her, darting to her wall, to a raised knot in the wood. A concealed hollow?

“Something to show me?” He waved his bow. “Retrieve it.”

With a fearful look, she crossed to the wall. “My sisters and I will make you pay dearly for this.” She pressed a hidden latch, and a compartment opened. Among her cache of amber jewels was a glass case.

When he realized what she possessed, sweat beaded his upper lip. No, not a lock of Valkyrie hair. In the case was a fire-red feather.

A phoenix feather. He could sense its mystical power from here.

To an archer, it was priceless; to Rune, a game changer. He could use it to fashion the flights of an arrow, amplifying his magicks exponentially.

With that feather, he could create the most destructive arrow ever to fly.