His powerful back arched, and dark shadows appeared around his neck, his wrists—like thorny manacles of magic. Something about them looked so invasive—a toxic magic that didn’t belong here.
Still, Adonis’s exotic scent seemed to lure me in. Despite the shackles around him, something about the arch of his back screamed of ecstasy. Pure, carnal pleasure.
I felt myself reaching for his door, stroking my fingertips over the wood. I hated myself a little for spying on Adonis, but—
Then I noticed the stream of blood, pooling on the floor. I gasped, and my hand flew to my mouth, knocking the doorknob just slightly.
Adonis whirled, giving me a view of the blood streaming from his chest, the shallow wound, the knife in his hand.
What the hell was he doing? Cutting himself?
My jaw dropped, and I stumbled to my feet, clutching tightly to my blanket as if my life depended on it.
The door swung open, and Adonis’s gaze pierced me to the core, cold with fury.
“What are you doing?” he asked, venom lacing his voice. Already, his chest had begun to heal a little, though a thin stream of blood still dripped over the savage tattoos on his chest.
“What are you doing?” I shot back.
“Not staring through someone’s keyhole, for a start.” His arctic tone cooled my body. His dark hair seemed to stand out sharply against his golden complexion, his black eyelashes stark against his pale eyes.
“I didn’t have anything to wear. Your friend Tanit never returned after she burned my other clothes. I thought you could help. I heard something that sounded like pain…” Or pleasure. “And I just wanted to look before I knocked. For all I knew, you were torturing a human or something.” I could feel my cheeks reddening. “I have to know who I’m dealing with here.”
For the first time, he seemed to notice the blanket wrapped around me. Then, he cut a sharp gaze over my shoulder. “Come in.” He opened the door wider.
I surveyed Adonis’s bedroom—a circular space adorned with faded tapestries: a night sky, a dark-winged angel. On one tapestry, red flowers blossomed by a river’s edge. And on the expanses of stone wall, actual blood-red flowers bloomed on vines.
A tall window in his room cast silver light over a large bed, the blankets and sheets charcoal gray. Below his towering window, a few fernlike plants climbed the wall. On a small, oak table lay a dark cloth and a bandage. He dropped the bloodied knife on the table. A small pool of blood glistened on the floor. Did he get some kind of pleasure from self-harm?
“Look,” I started. “I’m not judging. I just… Do you do that for fun?”
“Do I stab myself in the heart for fun? Are you joking?”
My jaw dropped. He’d actually stabbed himself in the heart?
I swallowed hard, the soft blanket skimming against my body as I walked deeper into his room. “Okay. So—why did you stab yourself in the heart?”
I’d seen his scars before—his chest, his wrists, the knotted ridges marring his perfect skin. I’d assumed they were battle scars—not self-inflicted.
He met my gaze, and a preternatural stillness came over him—a stillness more animal than angel. It unnerved me when creatures did that. The hair rose on the nape of my neck.
“No one else knows,” he said, his tone edged with steel. “You can’t tell anyone.”
I pulled the blanket tighter around me. “I won’t tell anyone.”
He grabbed the dark cloth off the table, swiping some of the blood off his muscled chest. “You know that Kratos and Johnny have been cursed. It’s because their apocalyptic seals have broken, and they can no longer resist their destiny. They must kill. For a horseman, the curse is applied when the apocalyptic seal is broken. The breaking of a seal feels like an ecstatic state. An overwhelming euphoria. And once you give in to euphoria, it’s all over. Your fate controls you.”
“And you use pain to stop the euphoria?”
“Exactly.”
I shuddered. What a miserable existence. No wonder he wanted out. “I saw something around your neck and your wrists…like manacles.”
He raised his eyebrows. “You can see them?”
“Was that the seal?”
He traced a fingertip over his throat, staring at me contemplatively. “I thought only angels could see it, but yes, that’s the curse emerging. I guess a Light Bringer gets the privilege of witnessing that particular magic.”
“How long have you been doing this for?” I asked quietly.
Only a slow, subtle shrug interrupted that animal stillness. “A few centuries.”
I grimaced. “No wonder you want to rule the heavens instead of the earth. Let me treat it, at least.”
“With what, exactly?”
“With the gifts from the Old Gods.” I crossed to the fernlike plants that grew under his window, but something caught my eye. Adonis’s sword lay against the wall, its hilt studded with red stones formed to look like flowers. I ran my fingertips over them.
“Do you like her?” asked Adonis. “Ninkasi has been with me for thousands of years.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“She. She’s beautiful,” he corrected me. “And you plan to heal me with her?”
I frowned. “No, I told you. The Old Gods give us what we need. And right now, we need something to take care of that bleeding.” I crouched down, clutching the blanket with one hand. “Even in the lair of a horseman, they give us what we need.”
I snatched a handful of the yarrow that clung to the wall. As I stood, I held up the herbs to the moonlight streaming through the window. I closed my eyes, and a warm, soothing light washed over my hand. An herbal scent curled into the air.
When I opened my eyes again, a handful of dried yarrow lay crushed in my fist.
As I walked back to Adonis, my gaze flicked to Drakon by the fire, his reptilian tail flopping up and down against the stone floor.
Adonis studied me. “The magic of the Old Gods really is fascinating to watch.”
“Maybe it’s in my destiny to become a healer.”
I surveyed the laden table, where a bandage lay. The tricky part would be fixing him up with one hand, but I could probably manage with his help.
“Lay out the bandage flat,” I commanded.
“Quite commanding for a naked fae, aren’t you?” Amusement danced in his eyes. He spread it out, the ends draping off the table.
Carefully, I offloaded the dried plants into the center of the bandage. Then, I slid my fingers under the bandage, scooping up the fabric and the dried plants together with one hand.
With a swift movement, I pressed the herbs against his heart.
This close to him, the smell of myrrh wrapped around me, sweeping over my neck, my chest. I looked up into his eyes—at the gray that blended to midnight blue, at the flecks of silver. His magic whispered over my body, stroking my bare shoulders, my hips, skimming up my thighs. The look he was giving me penetrated me to my core, and sent a dark heat racing through my blood.
I couldn’t think around him, could hardly remember how coherent ideas worked. It took me a moment to realize that I’d just been standing there, pressing a bandage full of dried plants against his chest, gaping at him.
“Do you need help?” he asked in a velvety voice that curled my toes.