Planted his claim deep inside her womb.
Left his venom in her veins.
Desecrating that sacred feminine altar, he'd set his knot and pumped her full.
Refusing to leave the Black Sea until her child drew its first breath and the paternity became known.
Nyxarion's rage was a thing untethered.
Vibrating through Vorynthar's bones, his fury a living thing that made the coral shudder. The sovereign of Vorynthar was teetering on the edge of violence. Circling their chambers, coming unhinged. Reeking of possessive wrath. And in his fist, the Trident hummed with a constant need for bloodshed.
War.
Nyx spoke as if it were inevitable, as if the only solution to Thalos's claim was to make the dark waters run red with royal blood.
Butbothcircled her in a relentless, greedy loop.
One far above, the other below.
Bothconvinced of his right to the life growing inside her.
Fingers dimpling her skin, where there was only the faint swell of what was to come, Kore's lip curled.
"No," she murmured, teeth flashing, and a spike of golden light rippled through the reef, making Vorynthar shiver.
She'd said she wasn't a prize to be claimed. Not a trophy for either throne. "You will not be their weapon," she whispered to the restless presence swimming behind her navel.
It was a promise.
A vow.
Devotion was the only thing Kore had ever really known.
A thing no longer given to a Deity who refused to answer.
Not offered to kings who answered and took too much.
Her worship was for the tiny thing squirming in the cradle between her hips.
Beloved.
Cherished.
Already.
The scent reached her first.
Metallic.
A sharp tang singing on her palate.
Rage.
Pure, festering wrath that bled through the water in heaving waves that left her gills singed with the flavor.
From their chamber's wide-open archways, Kore watched him circle. A predator nosing through dark waters, his massive form sliced through the current.
The Trident left the stench of ozone humming in his wake, the afterglow of that ancient weapon leaving streaks of pure white staining the gloom. Frothing for bloodshed as Nyx swept past their chamber for the hundredth time.