“Find another way to deal with rut.” I give him a thin smile. “Do it the old-fashioned way and fuck it out like the rest of us. Or use your hand if you’re still too disgusted by the idea of letting anyone touch you.”

Low blow. I see the hit land.

A muscle in his jaw tics. “Not an option. Seventeen hours.”

I rise to my feet, lightning dancing across my fingertips. “Seventeen hours,” I repeat softly. “Like the twelve you took last centennial that left the western coast of Vartena a smoking crater?” I close the distance between us. “How do I know you won’t slip up again and turn on my Claimed?”

“I’ve done the math.”

“Fuck your math. When the rut-fever takes over and the bloodlust hits, your calculations won’t mean shit. Try again.”

“I can track the girl’s corpse at full power.”

My anger pauses. Now that is interesting.

Bryony Devaliant’s missing corpse is becoming a problem. And problems make my head ache worse than it already does. I need Hellevig compliant, but I can’t have that if they keep wailing for her remains.

“Fifteen hours.” I seize his chin between my fingers, and a stillness goes through him at my touch. I know he hates this. “I’ll even throw in a village of oathbreakers you can tear apart. Consider it a gift.” My grip tightens. “But don’t go near my Claimed again. You remember where you ended up, don’t you, Blade?”

I feel that tiny flex in his jaw. The one that tells me he’d love to have his shadows tear me apart.

“All that dirt pressing down,” I whisper, my lips close to his ear. “The darkness so complete you forget what light looks like. Twelve years buried alive was a kind punishment for breaking the Accords. There’s a reason gods who want to die beg to be unmade and buried beneath the realm. They want to sleep. But you didn’t sleep, did you? Imagine a century with nothing but our dead for company.”

His pulse quickens beneath my fingertips. The only tell.

“I’ve lived it before, you know. When I was much younger than you are now, and still a demigod. My bones were so fragile. My father’s other punishments were too extreme for an object lesson, so when I tell you it could be worse, I mean it. I doubt I spent much of the first thousand years of my existence not disciplined for some slight, real or fictitious. Imagine the weight of rocks crushing your lungs, the soil filling your mouth when you finally broke enough to scream.” I drag my thumb along his jawline. “Your fingers bloody and broken, clawing upward through rock and dirt, inch by inch. Never knowing if you’d reach air. Never knowing if he’s buried you too deep this time. Do you remember what it felt like to go mad down there? Because I do.”

“Yes.” The answer is flat, emotionless.

“Then we understand each other.” I release him, returning to my throne. “Enjoy your village. Try not to make too much of a mess.”

He leaves, the door booming shut behind him.

As I settle back on my throne, the whining static gnaws at the edges of my control. So many voices battering the inside of my skull. I can’t think, I can’t breathe…

From the corner of my eye, I catch a flash of purple—a fevered illusion. A glimpse of my sister’s dress from the last day I saw her alive.

I squeeze my eyes shut. “Don’t,” I snarl at her. “Not now.”

You can’t keep going like this. My sister’s voice. As if she’s standing beside me and not a figment of my fracturing mind. You’re breaking yourself.

“Your Majesty?”

That gentle voice drags me back to the present.

I lift my gaze to the courtier. Her pale wings—dove gray, delicate—are tucked tight against her spine.

“Come here.” I pluck open the fastenings of my trousers and wrap my hand around my cock. “If you’ve changed your mind, now’s the time to run. I won’t punish you for refusing.”

She hesitates, breath quickening.

Honestly, she should be afraid. I am ancient and hungry and only half-sane.

“I won’t make this offer again.” My tone is sharp. I don’t have the time to soothe timid courtiers. “Decide.”

The sweet scent of her desire fills my lungs as she draws near, and beneath it all, the clarion call of her blood. “Take what you need,” she whispers, holding my gaze as she steps between my thighs. “My body is yours.”

Thank fuck.

I grasp her hips and haul her into my lap, positioning her above my straining cock. A shift, an angling of bodies as I take care not to touch her wings—because even rut-stupid and half out of my mind, I remember the sanctity of a demi’s wings. Then I bury myself inside her with a brutal thrust. She arches with a sharp cry.

I rock into her with ruthless, punishing strokes. Shoving deep, deeper, until my vision blurs and yes, more, harder.

Her pulse flutters against my fingertips where they cup her neck. I duck my head, lips brushing her skin.

“This is going to hurt,” I murmur against her throat. “Try to keep the screaming to a minimum.”

She swallows and nods.

And I rip into her jugular with my teeth.

Her blood floods my mouth, a rush of heat and copper tangling together on my tongue. I drink and drink, desperate and greedy. Losing myself in the wet heat of her, the drum of her heart, the sting of her nails sinking into my shoulders.

The Shroud’s threads loosen infinitesimally, the crushing pressure on my chest easing to a dull throb. Not gone, never gone—but muted. Manageable.

For a few moments, I drift. Insensate. Nothing exists beyond this—the flex of muscle under skin, the rhythmic slap of flesh, the warmth of her. Aethertide’s fever easing the more I fuck up into her.

Click-click-click.

Footsteps pierce the haze. I lift my head to see Zephyr framed in the doorway, arms crossed. Watching. Those black-and-silver mismatched eyes flick over the courtier, and something tightens in her features.

See anything of interest, Whisper? I keep moving, rolling my hips nice and slow now. Something you want? Something you like?

Zephyr unfolds her mind to me, the familiar walls and fortifications lowering. Her cool, collected thought patterns lap against my own, the only mind I know of that doesn’t feel like plunging a hand into a bucket of glass shards. But it’s not easy for her anymore; I sense the effort it takes, the strain to let me in.

After I sent her to Eternal Calder’s court three hundred years ago, she came back different. Still Zephyr, but… less. There are pieces missing.

I remember that night. She had stood in my chambers with blood still drying under her fingernails, and her eyes had been empty.

“He needs to be put down,” she’d said simply.

She told me enough—the bare minimum to justify killing Calder—but not what he’d done to put that look in her eyes. Still, I did what kings do and eliminated the threat. While humans raided our villages and the realm went to shit, I dropped everything to deliver that judgment.

I put an Eternal in the ground for her.

After that, Zephyr built walls around herself that no one could scale. She’d never been particularly warm, but this was different. This was ice—the kind that burns when you touch it.

But on days like today, she keeps her headspace soft for me. Sanded down, nothing serrated to slice me open when I inevitably bleed into the secret spaces of her.

I’m making sure she’ll survive your attentions mostly intact, Zephyr says. You’re not blessed with an endless supply of demis willing to play donor and bedmate.

She’ll live. Report.

You have a situation.

I give her a sharp smile. Just one? Must be a slow day.

She glares, motioning toward the exit. Get rid of her. I’ve got news out of the Dark Court and I’m not giving it while you’re balls deep. Finish up.

Finish up? Hmm. I lean back and watch Zephyr as the demigoddess bounces on my cock, letting my gaze trail over her and imagine how my spymaster’s glittering, light brown skin would look against my sheets. That long black hair undone and spread across my pillow. Her long legs would fit so nicely around my hips—that’s one memory I’ve indulged in weak moments. She and I fit.