Anjhela had left him dying. The man who had helped make her, the man she once thought she’d loved. The man she’d been so certain she could regain.
But she’d gone too far. Infuriated beyond tolerance by the disappearance of the village Solchran, she’d interrogated Trevarr far beyond any point of any recovery and still failed. She’d known it then; she still knew it now.
She’d paid the price. Her skin still bore the imprint of Shahh’s fading black glyphs, still hummed with pain; her eyes still stung with unshed tears, though she’d learned long ago to writhe and beg for him. Even so, the glyphmaster’s restraint revealed much about his desire to obtain Trevarr’s powerful benefactor.
An entire village gone. Ghehera’s ultimate leverage over Trevarr, gone.
It had been such sweetness, to hear his unfettered scream—his body wrenched completely out of his control, his immense strength of will irrelevant. The gauntlet crushed him with pain, with sorrow, with the viscerally clear memories of a small body flying through the air—
She had crushed him. Taking him past the brink of survival. Knowing it.
But now she stood at the doorway, watching him breathe freely and regularly.
Alive.
She did not care to guess how. No one should be able to reach him in this place. On Ghehera or off it.
Her minions finished tending him, scurrying low in her presence. The squat, barely sentient beings forced sustenance on him and bathed him of blood with their own long tongues, using enslaved healing entities to tend internal damages. The natural marks of his kyrokha nature were etched clearly over the strength of his shoulders and biceps, curving to follow the distinct musculature of a back and spine now supported by warm stone.
“Leave us,” she snapped to the minions, a rough edge over the usual silky smooth seduction of her voice.
They hesitated just long enough to spike her ire, not quite finished; she lifted the perfection of her upper lip at them, exposing sharp fangs and feeling herself settle as they scurried away with the appropriate amount of fear. They were little more than dullbloods—there was hardly any sport in frightening them.
Of course, some had once said the same of her.
Until Trevarr.
She stood inside the heavy door of the main interrogation chamber, her chest again rising with enough emotion to invoke fury. Nothing touched her with any depth these days. Nothing. She did not permit it.
And yet he had.
He lay against rock, head lolling, arms sagging against the heavy geas shackles. His breathing came evenly; his pain had receded. His old wounds were no longer swollen, no longer seeping. If he opened his eyes, she knew his gaze would meet hers directly, strong and clear.
She would not play games with him now. Not any longer. One did not hold a being of Trevarr’s nature for long. If he strengthened, he would sooner or later strike back. Just as pushing her to lose control had been, in its way, taking control of his own destiny.
Fark. She should have seen it coming. Only Trevarr knew her well enough to strike so hard, so deep, just right.
Only Trevarr. Body mate, play mate, confidant, mentor...protector. He’d once given her control of herself. Of her destiny...of her heart.
And now it seemed he would be the one to take it away.
Only Trevarr.
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