It was… outrageous to see her surrender so completely. To close both eyes and relinquish every ounce of perception. Every defensive instinct, entrusted to a predator like Nyxarion?
Incomprehensible.
Neigh-on suicidal.
And…
Beautiful.
Her fingers twitched. A tiny spasm that sent a ripple of color cascading across her forearm. A shimmer of gold to violet, bleeding through to silver and pearl. Each hue blending with the next without conscious intention. Chaotic by nature of whatever pretty pictures were dancing behind her eyelids. A show of light that existed outside of her control.
Croon deepening, Nyx traced the curve of her spine. Shifting her so he could cup her little belly.
Thalos stopped breathing.
It was scarcely a suggestion of fullness. Merely a swell utterly swallowed by the sheer size of Nyx's palm.
But it was there.
Taut and glowing. Luminous with that impossible, entrancing halo of light peeking out from between the beast's fingers.
And as Thalos watched this stolen moment, he saw something splinter in Nyxarion. Heard it when that droning purr cracked, bleeding into something wounded. Reverent.
Thalos's camouflage slipped.
An accident. Something that pulled at his legendary control and tore it clean in half. Chromatophores firing, opalescent silver bled through the dark in a brilliant, damning cascade he couldn't control and couldn't stop.
A shower of scattered prisms that drew Nyxarion's glare up from the girl trapped on his knot.
Molten silver clashed with glacial blue across the yawning void of dead waters.
The soothing croon perished between flashing teeth.
The Raskoril pulsed blue, a deadly warning in the dark.
And for a moment, the silence that fell over the Black Sea was absolute. Crushing.
And then, "Korrides," Thalos murmured, inclining his head. "Hard at work, as usual."
CHAPTER 4
Asnarl ripped through the water before reason might catch it.
Startled.
That the whoreson could enter his kingdom at a whim. Slip past sentries and scouts without a whisper of his passing.
Fury bled through his muscles.
And, arms cinching tight, Nyx dragged Kore flush. One hand splayed across her spine. The other locked to her hip, keeping her pinned tight against him. Sealed atop his knot. Saturated in his claim. The gentle slope of her belly was pressed to his abdomen.
Protected.
But trapped.
He could not throw her aside. Could not dislodge himself without causing her pain. Could not charge, or strike, or reach the trident and unleash the violence screaming through his veins without leaving her exposed to the enemy drifting throughhiscurrent.
Thalos had chosen his moment well, the shining, arrogant prick.