Lycheron reaches for a garment much like Ianthe’s, only bigger, and inserts his thick arms into the sleeves. He ties the sash, covering his nakedness and leaving only a vee at his neck, his striking face and his long mane of black hair visible on top. Strong calves and attractive bare feet flash as he rounds the table to reach Ianthe. He steps toward her and then cups her jaw in his large hands, gently tilting her face back up.
Lycheron’s thumbs brush a tender stroke over her cheekbones, as if writing an apology right onto her skin. “I consulted Artemis in her icy labyrinth, but she wasn’t talking. I went to the lake at the Phthian Gap, but that bastard Titos didn’t even show up for me. I combed Sykouri a hundred times and then a hundred more trying to pick up her scent, but the God Bolt cooked everything within the walls. I don’t know how anyone survived in there, even though they somehow did. I smell her going in, but there’s no trace of her ever leaving again.” Frowning, he delves his hands into Ianthe’s thick, dark hair, holding the sides of her head. “I’m sorry, my love. I don’t know where your sister is.”
I startle at the importance of the endearment, even though I knew just from watching them. Talk about taming the beast. It took Ianthe a matter of weeks to have Lycheron laid out at her feet.
Ianthe forces down a hard swallow. She tilts her head, leaning into his touch, and the vulnerability she’s willing to show makes it pretty clear that she’s laid out at his feet as well.
I look back and forth between them, trying to shift everything I knew about them into this new paradigm. The Lycheron I encountered those few times was sly and volatile and patently out for himself. I can scarcely reconcile the care and calm I’m seeing in him now.
Then again, while compassionate and ready to defend, the Ianthe I last saw was also a tight, brittle ball of rage and reserve—hardly the unguarded woman in the tent.
She lifts a hand between them and lightly touches the triangle of bronzed skin at the hollow of his neck. “I missed you. While you were gone. I…” She presses her lips together, flattening her mouth before speaking again. “I didn’t sleep as well.”
Lycheron’s ocher eyes slide closed as he leans down and places a lingering kiss on her forehead. It’s ardent. Not chaste, but not invasive or demanding, either.
Ianthe’s hand slides down, opening the garment to the center of Lycheron’s sculpted chest. Her fingers visibly tremble as she traces the hoof-shaped scar on his left pectoral. Lycheron straightens, holding very still.
Her eyes flick up, meeting his. “Will you make me forget?”
My chest implodes, collapsing into a hard knot. She’s not talking about me. Well, maybe a little bit, but my disappearance isn’t really what she wants to forget.
Lycheron knows it, too, and his eyes flare with amber light. His glowing eyes are still frightening, but not to Ianthe. They burn with an I will crush all your nightmares under my hooves and defend you with my body and my life kind of light, two blazing infernos of absolute promise—and what woman doesn’t want that?
Ianthe shivers, and Lycheron sweeps his hands down her arms, chasing away her chills.
She leans forward and presses a sweet kiss to the arching blemish imprinted onto his torso. It’s a little awkward. A lot hesitant. Lycheron looks like he’s in pain.
His voice drops to a quiet rasp. “If you want to stop, we stop. You’re in control.”
My heart shatters, my eyes burn, and just like that, Lycheron earns my eternal gratitude. Somewhere between Ianthe deciding to gallop off with him to ensure the Ipotane’s menacing presence on the Fisan border and this moment now, she and Lycheron have become friends, and so much more. I didn’t think it was possible, didn’t imagine it, but Lycheron must have depths he chose to reveal—or found—only for her.
The expression on his face as he looks down at my sister—passion, protection, need, patience—it all combines to tell me that she’s confided in him, trusted him with things that happened at the hands—and body—of Galen Tarva that she’s hardly even hinted at to me, and that Lycheron was worthy of her trust. And that means that no matter his strange past behavior toward me or his dubious dealings with Griffin, for as long as Ianthe wants him in her life, he has a place with us.
Unfortunately, life may be a problematic term for them. Eternity rarely mixes well with mortality. There are things about it that simply don’t work.
But Lycheron and Ianthe don’t seem to care—at least not right now. They’re more interested in the kiss that begins heating up between them. It turns positively scorching.
Lycheron breaks the embrace to drag Ianthe’s roaming hand over his heart. Breathing hard, he holds it there.
“Do you feel this?” His powerful rumble of a voice could never be soothing, and his eyes glow with a heated intensity that’s not even close to being metaphorical. Everything about him screams danger, but Ianthe isn’t threatened at all.
“I feel it,” she answers huskily.
“It beats for you.”
My breath catches. Ianthe molds herself to her surprising creature and seeks his mouth again with hers. I reach out and smear my blood across their images, wiping the scene from the rock. She’s in good hands, safe, and whatever happens next is no one’s business but their own.
I close my eyes, still seeing them. Ianthe and Lycheron are two beings that needed each other. As individuals they were one thing. Together they’re something else. A new creation. Something more.
And that reminds me of the person I most need to get back to, of how in Griffin my jagged pieces found a safe place to become a whole. He shored up my foundation, but I’ve always been the mason of my own construction. I know the placement of every stone. I know that each building block has a flip side that’s shown itself and will show itself again—light, dark, forgiving, vengeful, protective, violent. I know there are things I’ll do, things I won’t, and things I’ll always struggle with. And in the perpetual gray of Tartarus, I take a deep breath and finally decide that that’s okay.
CHAPTER 28
The sudden burn in my shoulder blades catches me off guard. The unexpected rip and pop and grow lasts mere seconds, but for the time it takes for my wings to spring free, it hurts like Cerberus is scraping poisonous fangs down my back.
The throbbing quickly fades. I glance over my shoulder, and my new wings reveal a regular pattern of white and black. White is the more dominant color, with only the tips of each feather steeped in shadow. The root is light. The periphery is tarnished. I look at them, and know that each individual feather is a reflection of me.
Deeply satisfied with the fitting new shading, I flex my wings. Balance. I have it now. Or at least I know what it looks and feels like. I understand how it functions inside me. Some days the scales will tip one way, some days the other, and as long as I don’t lose sight of what’s at my center, I can accept that, just as Griffin always has. I don’t need to be perfect, or have all the answers. I just have to be me, and fair, and do my best for the people and place I love.