He grunted in pain. “Little wife, you are the hellfire for me. My beacon in the dark.”
Was he going to die? Maybe the fey archers had found something equivalent to the L?tān venom for their arrows! Tears blurred her vision. Yank. Yank. Yank.
“Lila, no. I’m fine.”
“Clearly you aren’t! We need to get to hell—”
The clock tower began to toll midnight.
Her heart stopped. “Up, demon!” She wrapped an arm around him, helping to haul him to his feet. “NOW, Abyssian.”
They careened out of the castle’s entrance as the third tolling sounded. . . .
Sian dazedly stumbled with his female out into the rain and wind.
“We’ve got to beat the clock!” she cried. “Keep going.”
If they ran into more soldiers before they reached the portal, he might need what was left of his wings and horns. As he lurched beside his mate, he imagined his transformation stopping.
His body ceased its transition. He pictured himself with his hell-change fully in place. The edges of his wings and horns reformed.
Just as he’d once dreamed, he could change back and forth between his guises—like a shifter.
Though he was in his hell-change form, the thrumming along his spine had disappeared. Which meant the deterioration had stopped, that engine dead.
Find the fire, and your appearance will be pleasing. In Old Demonish, that could also be translated as Find the fire, and your appearance will please you.
Sian had control over his own form.
“I can see it!” Calliope increased their pace. The fiery white outline of Uthyr’s portal hissed in the rain. “We’re almost there, demon.” She murmured to herself, “Nine clangs.”
They blundered around shrubs. He’d forgotten how many bloody plants were in this realm.
“Ten clangs,” she cried. “Hurry!”
He and Calliope barreled through the portal just before the fire dwindled to nothing. . . .
As soon as Sian crossed into hell, he began to strengthen. He drew on magic to protect his mate against any poison transference, then turned to his own injuries.
“The arrows, Abyssian.”
With a nod, he willed them to disappear. One by one, his wounds sealed. As she checked him over, he healed completely, stretching his regenerated wings for good measure.
Her face was pale, her skin damp from the rain. Confusion filled her eyes.
“Need to get you warm.” He grasped her elbow, then traced them into their room before the hearth fire. He raised his brows at the L?tān’s single remaining fang, then gazed down at his mate. Her worry had heartened him. “I haven’t lost you. You can’t deny that you still care for me.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Okay, so maybe I didn’t want you to die from that poison.”
“I wasn’t dying. I was changing. Or reverting.”
“I don’t understand.”
“When a demon inherits the crown of hell, he transforms into his most monstrous self. I didn’t always look like this. . . .” He explained to her about his own hell-change, that ever-present feeling of deterioration, his fears that she could never want him.
Or that she wouldn’t for much longer.
“As soon as I let go of the past, I reverted to my former guise. But when I was trying to reach you, I lamented the lack of my demonic features. Suddenly they started to grow.”
She appeared skeptical.
“I can show you what I used to look like.” He willed himself to shift forms.
Her eyes went wide when his horns and wings burned once more.
With a cocky grin, he said, “I think you’re going to like the old me very, very much.” His claws disappeared, his facial structure changing. He popped a crick in his neck when he’d completed his transformation.
Her lips parted as her gaze roamed over him. “More trickery?”
“I had no control over this. I should have told you, should have warned you that my appearance would keep getting worse. But I was selfish; I didn’t want to scare you off.”
In a measured tone, she said, “This is what you looked like for almost all of your life?”
“Not bad, huh?” His cocky grin faded when she shrugged noncommittally.
“You don’t have horns in this form? What happened to them?”
He raised his eyes to her crown. “You’re wearing them.”
SIXTY-ONE
Pardon?” Lila was still reeling from his appearance. The male before her was just as N?x’s dossier had described: physically flawless.
He had the same raven-black hair and green eyes, and his frame was still leanly muscular. But his smooth skin was tanned. His features were chiseled and masculine, his face beyond breathtaking.
Yet to Lila, he was a stranger with her husband’s eyes and voice. He didn’t even look like a demon!
“My old horns are part of your hell crown.”
“How did they get from your head to this crown?” she asked, but she had a suspicion.
“Graven gets the thanks for that. When they were severed ages ago, I had my brother cast them away. All this time, I assumed they’d been lost forever. But now the sight of you wearing them fills me with satisfaction,” he said, his tone indicating the greatest understatement.
“You’re hedging, demon. How did they get severed? Keeping secrets is how we both got into trouble in the first place.”
“You’re right.” He exhaled. “I cut them off during your past life.”
“Why would you do that?”
After a hesitation, he grudgingly said, “You told me you could never love an animal like me. One with horns. You were about to wed another, and I would’ve done anything to stop you. So I took my ax . . .”
The dimension seemed to spin. He’d carried out that grueling amputation to himself?
For her.
“I brought them to you, vowing that I would look as your kind and live as your kind.”