Assyria sobbed for at least twenty minutes before she finally drifted off to sleep. I know, because I counted them, her agony as much a torture to me as it was to her. After waiting to ensure she wouldn’t wake again, I slipped into the darkness of my tent. Grem popped open an eye but didn’t move from his position with Assyria wrapped around him.

I was an asshole, but at least my dogs did something for her.

Honestly, I didn’t know how to deal with all of this. She felt everything so deeply, which meant I felt it all too. I heard her plans of escape earlier and nearly left the meeting to stop her. My attention had not been on my officers, but on her. Again.

I couldn’t get her out of my head, and I fucking hated it. She interfered with everything. And now, our bond begged me to curl myself around her and comfort her. And also fuck her into oblivion again. She didn’t have the protective masculine urges like I had, and although she thought we suffered the same, I suffered more.

The weight of millions of lives rested on my shoulders, for I was the only person standing between the horde of sycophantic Angels and the extermination of the Demon race. The Giver had blessed me with the power to call upon the dead for a reason.

I would do anything to save us all.

Fuck, she had no clue what I had done to earn the title of Halálhívó, what my father had forced me to do to become an officer in the first place. At least he died before I rose to lead the entire army. He would only claim that my success was because of him, when I fought for my position to spite the fucker. That was what the brother of the Kral decided would make him feel like he had some use in this world—his son grabbing power for himself since he would never be more than a spare. Kiira’s father was no better, so when Xannirin was ready to rule, I slaughtered them both like the pigs they were.

The leading killer of House Vrak wasn’t the Angels.

It was me.

The three brothers wouldn’t have protected the Demons like Xannirin, Kiira, and I did. I didn’t have an ounce of remorse for what I’d done either. I’d do it again, kill more, if I thought it would save us all.

This female sleeping in my bed put it all at risk.

And yet…

I stood here, every night, when insomnia visited me, watching her.

Memorizing her.

Craving her.

Why had the Weaver brought us together?

If only I could possess the answer to that question, all this angst might be worth it. Especially as I was beginning to wonder if it were merely the bond that dragged me in here. The mask she wore was similar to her magic, and beneath her fiery exterior was a deep pain. Perhaps even as deep as mine. Yet we dealt with it in two entirely different ways.

I locked my traumas so deep inside that they’d never find their way into the light again. She should learn to do the fucking same so I didn’t have to feel all the time. That flashback she’d had of her husband clawing at her, trying to hurt her still weighed heavily on my mind. At least I’d been able to yank her back from that abyss. I knew all too well how easy it was to fall into that darkness, for the dead to cling to the living though haunting memories.

Assyria’s chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm, her bow-shaped lips parted ever so slightly. Those burgundy eyes were hidden under a curtain of dark lashes, and her long hair was braided back, as it always was. A small part of me wanted to see it unbound, cascading down her shoulders while she rode my cock. Another part wanted to wrap those thick locks around my fist and bow her back while I sank into her.

I couldn’t deny that she was beautiful and that I was attracted to her. But I couldn’t grow attached. No, that emotion was a dangerous one, one I’d never allow myself to feel again. That would only destroy everything I had worked for.

Because Assyria, in the wrong hands, was one thing.

A weapon.

And I couldn’t let the Angels disarm me.

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39

The Paks Desert opened like a blooming rose before my eyes as we rode through the final pass between it and the rolling valley that nestled the capital region. Where there had been one piercing mountain after another, there was now a flat, endless sea of earth. Hues of red and gold dusted the expanse, almost glittering as the sun struck them. I halted Blaeze on an overlook and stared in wonder at the landscape.

Deep scarlet rock, striated with colors like silver, purple, and green, guarded the sides of a winding downhill road that led to the first stretch of burnt sand. In the distance, a twister kicked up, billowing about and spreading dirt in all directions. Unlike the ones that leveled homes and tore through fields in the southernmost parts of the Demon Realm, this one lived and died in only a few moments and caused very little destruction.

“Keep moving,” Rokath barked at me, and I ignored him, keeping my eyes firmly ahead as I searched for Ustlyak, where we’d meet the rest of the Demon army. We still had at least two weeks before we’d reach them, but from this vantage point, I thought I could see the other continents.

Rokath moved on anyway, and the bond seared into my back, making me curse. He knew exactly what he was doing. Despite riding beside each other all day, sleeping mere feet from each other at night, the bond was displeased with our inattentiveness to one another yet again. I kicked Blaeze into a trot to catch up with him, and the pain relented when we were parallel.

The moment we left the mountains, the sun scorched my skin, stronger and hotter than even the deepest days of summer in Stryi. I glanced sidelong to Rokath, who was, as always, dressed in his black metal armor and horned helmet. “Are you not hot?” I asked him.

“It doesn’t matter if I am hot. Should the Angels ambush us, we need to be protected,” he stated. Typical.

I scoffed. “That’s ridiculous. You’ll sweat to death before that happens.”

His head whipped to the side, and he stabbed me with a glare. “Do you know how the war with the Angels started?”

The iciness in his tone gave me pause. As I searched my memories, I realized I didn’t actually know. At the time, a missive had arrived in Stryi with orders for increased food production, and so my family had worked diligently to expand our farm. My father had no sons, but my sister and I had plowed, planted, and carried as much as we could from sunup to sun down to help.

“I have a feeling you’re going to tell me regardless,” I grumbled. He’d done the same when I didn’t care to know why no one knew his name. Yet now I knew, and I reluctantly admitted he had a point.

Rokath grunted and shifted slightly in his saddle. Then with a sigh, he removed his helmet and attached it with a leather strap, easily within reach should he need it. From his bag, he pulled two scarves and handed one to me. “I know you don’t want to cover your face with a veil any longer, but drape this over your head and shoulders so you don’t burn.”

I accepted his offering, confusion sweeping through me.

Is he actually taking care of me?

Rokath wrapped the dark fabric around his head, draping it in such a way it covered every bare inch of skin. I mimicked him, using my hair as an anchor so it wouldn’t fly away in a gust of wind.

The relief was immediate.

“A little over ten years ago, I was ambushed on a patrol at the edges of House Turrokar’s vidék. We were vastly outnumbered, and every single male was slaughtered in the attack, except for me. When I returned to Uzhhorod with my tale, Xannirin decided we could wait no longer to declare war against them. That attack alone was done with enough aggression to warrant it.”