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“I had whole beast inside me for a score of years. I can take piece.”

Tobi shakes his head. He cannot make this choice. He chokes around the words. “No. It will send you mad like mother.” He points at Mareena.

“No. I will not. It did not. There is no man in the world who can hold Diazuul inside better than I.” Harok takes hold of both Tobi’s hands in his own. “Suskara, for your mother.”

Tobi swallows hard; he cannot speak.

“Suskara,” Harok says in a low, dark tone, “must I command you as your Irgorye?”

Tobi shakes his head again. But then stops. He looks up at his beautiful forest king. He sees such love in Harok’s eyes. A tenderness that takes his breath, blurred through his tears. All he can do then is stretch on tiptoe and kiss Harok. He does not mean it to be a heated kiss, just a soft press of his lips to Harok’s, but he finds himself softening in Harok’s big arms, overwhelmed with so much emotion, but under it all, through it all, he has Harok. Harok loves him. He has Harok as he never had anyone before. And Harok would do this for him. Doom himself all over again.

As he pulls back from the kiss, ready to tell Doroth Zain what he is to do, the door to the chamber opens to reveal the dark-haired woman he now knows to be Princess Karo. His father’s first wife.

She looks a little shocked to have seen Tobi and Harok kissing, but gathers herself quickly to address Doroth Zain. “Word of Zai, Perlash-zeren-ai is here.”

“Perlash. He is here? In Ceruleum? Does he have The Magician?”

Karo shakes her head. “No. He has brought The Warrior. And his consort. And the consort of the Thief."

33

ELRIC

THE BRIDE HOUSE, CERULEUM

Elric hangs back in the doorway of the chamber, sulking. He should not be here.

He watches as a slight man with dark skin and curly hair to his shoulders, races to Damon. Elric has never seen Tobi Darekul before, but he knows enough of him to be sure who this is. Tobi embraces Damon with a cry of emotion, sobbing as Damon lifts him off the floor and spins him around.

It looks to be a happy reunion. But Elric's heart is so heavy. His throat hurts. He’s shed so many tears on the journey to Ceruleum that he cannot shed more.

And now he finds himself in a chamber at the top of the Ceruleum Bride house, with two Darek bastards and their lovers — at least he assumes the giant, glowering man is Tobi’s lover from the way he is staring only at him — Princess Karo, a former High Word of Zai, a faerie and a dishevelled woman who is stroking a lycat like a pet. He thought he had a strange life when he was a concubine. He could not have imagined, when he took that doomed mission to the Mortingale Mountains, that he could have been starting on a path that would lead him here.

A path that brought him to Lukas, and ripped Lukas away again. He aches for his Bastard Prince like no pain he’s ever known. For Lukas’s touch, Lukas’s growl of a voice, Lukas’s hook tracing his skin. Lukas’s mouth, spitting savage comments, then laughing at Elric’s own bold replies, then licking Elric’s hole until he is screaming to be fucked.

It has been four days and he misses Lukas like Lukas misses his own right hand.

When Damon sets Tobi down again he says, “You have grown no taller, little brother.”

Elric swallows. Damon has a new brother now. Perhaps he prefers this one to Lukas and will decide Lukas can rot.

Elric feels like a piece of baggage. A useless addition, dragged along on this mission for no purpose other than the lack of other options for what to do with him.

He did not want to make this journey, but when he returned with news of what Lukas had done, staying in Sanglora Manor, even remaining in Attar, was not an option for any of them. They had fled the city and left Lukas behind.

Lukas and Trysta are in the dungeons of the Rose Palace and will be executed at Atticul’s ascension.

Elric begged Damon that they ought to do something to rescue Lukas before they left Attar. He had never stood up to Damon before. But he had done so, even though it made him shake with fear.

Damon had put a heavy hand on Elric’s shoulder and said, “We have time before the ascension. We will find a way.” It had made Elric remember Lukas’s angry insistence that Damon cared for nothing except for destroying his demon king.

Lukas might have some time before his execution, but he is still stuck in a cell, likely being beaten or tortured. Or worse. Elric knows Lukas has never told anyone else what happened to him in Lunatum gaol. And he knows he cannot betray Lukas by telling that secret to Damon, but he feels sick in his belly thinking about what it must be like for Lukas, locked up again at the mercy of the Empire.

Elric knows that Damon had rescued Lyr from the very same dungeons. But Damon claimed that was a different situation. Lyr could have been killed at any moment, and besides, it had been a desperate plan, likely doomed to fail if they hadn’t been aided by Doroth Zain.

“I know he defied you,” Elric said to Damon, “but we cannot abandon him to his fate.”

“I would not. And in any case, Trysta is with him.”