“Doing so would rip a mortal apart,” he continued, and that managed to shift my focus from his thumb. “We will have to enter another way.”

The only sound when the Primal fell silent was Odin’s hooves upon the ground. No birdsong. Just like the night at the lake when there had been no signs of life. It was as if the animals had sensed what I hadn’t realized. That death was among them.

After what I had seen, I didn’t think I could forget that again. But that damn thumb of his was still drawing small circles, over and over. Even through the cloak and night rail, I felt the coolness of his skin. I didn’t understand why his skin was so cold or how his touch could still make my skin feel so warm. Hot, even. “Why is your skin so cold?”

“What do you think death feels like, liessa?”

My heart lurched as I stared ahead. This wasn’t the god Ash, who had teased and touched me by the lake. This was the Primal of Death, who had set all of this in motion along with the Golden King. I couldn’t forget that.

“You are surprisingly…amiable at the moment,” Ash observed.

I glanced back at him. “It probably won’t last.”

Another faint smile appeared. “I didn’t think it would.” He guided the horse around an outcropping of boulders. “You’re still angry with me.”

It would be wise to lie. To tell him that all was forgiven. That was what I had been taught. To be submissive. Never challenging. Become what he desired. Vocalizing my anger wouldn’t help, but my thoughts were far too scattered to formulate a plan, let alone behave as if I weren’t furious that he hadn’t told me who he really was and that he never planned to fulfill the deal. That I wasn’t confused as to why he’d even intervened today.

“Why?” I demanded. “Why didn’t you tell me who you really were at the lake? Why did you lie?”

“I didn’t lie.” His gaze cut to me. “Some do call me Ash. Not once did I say I was a god or deny that I was a Primal. That was your assumption.”

“A lie by omission is still a lie,” I argued, fully aware of the fact that my anger was utterly hypocritical since I was also omitting a whole hell of a lot. Like, for example, what I planned to do.

Ash said nothing.

And that didn’t help. “We talked. We shared things about ourselves.” A bit of warmth crept into my face. “There was time. You should’ve told me before I—”

“Before you told me to kiss you?” His breath touched my cheek, startling me.

“That was not what I was going to say.” I was totally going to say that.

The rumble of his low laugh came then. “If you realized who I was, would you still have been so…interested?”

My head snapped in his direction, and I sucked in air as I felt his cool breath dance across my lips. Our faces were so close, our mouths lined up in a way where if either of us moved half an inch, they would meet.

I would’ve been more interested, but for all the wrong reasons. Or the right ones. Whatever. My gaze flicked to his mouth. A heightened, heated edginess swept over me. His thumb moved at my hip, and warmth spread there. That warmth and electric edginess had felt right before—welcomed and full of anticipation. Of heated, sensual promise. And it still did, but I didn’t think that it should, knowing what I could and would do with it—how I planned to use it.

I turned my head away, my chest and stomach twisting. For some reason, I thought of the first night I’d been taken to the Shadow Temple. When I had soaked in that scented bath for hours and then had the hair removed from places I never even considered before. It was almost as if what I had been expected to do hadn’t become a reality until that very moment. Not even the time spent with the Mistresses of the Jade had truly prepared me for the fact that weakening the Primal called for a level of seduction. And it had only been after the hair had been stripped, and the balm applied to soothe the sting that it had struck me that I would have to be naked with the Primal of Death. No horrendous wedding gown. No tunic or tights. Not even a dagger. There would be no shields, and that…that had terrified me. In the time since, whenever I allowed myself to be someone, anyone else while in The Luxe, I was never completely nude. And maybe being so exposed still terrified me. But I had been nude with him in the lake. And outside of it? I might as well have been.

In the entire time spent preparing for this very moment, the time when he claimed me, I’d never once considered that I might actually enjoy the seduction. I hadn’t believed the Mistresses when they’d said that I could. Not because I didn’t think I would find pleasure in such intimacy, but because I didn’t believe I could find pleasure seducing the Primal that I needed to kill.

The heat in my veins now told me that I most likely would. And that had to be wrong. Twisted, even. Monstrous. But this was partly his doing. He’d made this deal. He’d known that it came with an expiration date. He’d shown no sign of compassion toward the mortals who were now suffering because of it. Pressure clamped down on me again just as the twinkling surface of the lake appeared between the trees, and the sound of rushing water greeted us.

I sat straighter. “Why are we at my lake?”

“Your lake?” He laughed again, still low but longer this time. “Interesting that you feel a sense of…ownership to this lake. Is it because of how it made you feel?” Odin carried us past the last stand of trees. “How did you describe it? Calming?” There was a pause. “Perhaps at home?”

I clamped my mouth shut and said nothing as we neared the shore.

His grip tightened on Odin’s reins. “You do know what covers the floor of this lake.”

“Shadowstone,” I whispered, my stomach beginning to tumble.

“This is the only place in the mortal realm where you’ll find shadowstone. There’s a reason for that.” His chest brushed my shoulder and arm, and I tensed. “There’s a reason mortals fear these woods. Why spirits haunt them.”

My gaze swept over the water pouring from the rocks and the ripples cascading across the lake.

“Perhaps there’s even a reason you never feared them.” His breath was against my cheek again, and the beat of my heart skipped and then sped up. “Why you felt so calm here.”

“What are you saying?” I whispered.

“There are ways to travel to Iliseeum. One is to travel east—far east until we cross not only the Skotos Mountains but even farther to where mortals believe the world simply ceases.” He shifted Odin’s reins into my numb hands. “That would take far too long. There are quicker ways, through what one would consider gateways. Only those from Iliseeum know how to find and reveal them. Use them. Each gateway can take one into a certain part of Iliseeum. Your lake is a gateway to the Shadowlands.”

To him.

A shiver erupted over my skin as I stared at the dark waters.

Ash lifted his hand, and everything stopped. Froze. The water spilling over the rocks halted, suspended in the air. The ripples ceased, and my heart could have, too.

My hands slipped from the pommel as the lake…split in half, peeling back and exposing the flat, glossy shadowstone bottom. In the moonlight, a fissure appeared in the stone. Wisps of silvery-white mist seeped from the crack, and without a sound, a wide and deep rift appeared.

I’d been in this lake hundreds of times throughout my life, splashing and playing as a child, hiding and forgetting. This lake, the water and the land around it, had felt like home. And the whole time, this was what existed under the surface. This was what my lake was.

Ash’s fingers brushed mine as he nudged Odin forward. The horse followed, whinnying softly.

“You’re right, you know? There was time at the lake to make sure you knew who I really was. I should have told you.” His arm curled at my waist, and he tugged me back. I didn’t fight him. I pressed against him, my heart careening.