Page 89 of Above Cursed Winds

Everything had changed. While gravity was still realigning, Zia had found her center. Jeremiah had taken her life by storm, and there was no way she’d ever let him go.

The taste of his lips was sweet, and the glutton inside of her yearned for more. Her mind, however, knew they had an audience. Though she revolted at the thought of parting from his kiss, it was Nero’s pointed cough that brought them out of their intimate embrace.

Unfortunately, the claim they both desired would have to wait.

Zia reluctantly stepped away, but when Jeremiah’s arm cinched around her waist, she could only beam at the possessiveness.

“Happy Mating Day.” Nero’s grip tightened on Sehrin as he knelt in the grass beside him. “We do, however, have other pressing matters to attend to.”

Jeremiah suddenly paled, his hands retreating from her waist to reach toward her back. “Your wing!”

She grimaced, but Luna was already placing hands on her, gently conditioning the healing waves into her twisted appendage. Instantly, the wing ceased its agonizing ache, replaced by the warmth of Luna’s mending gift.

“How are you alive?” Zia asked her new mate. “I watched you fall.”

“Rona.” Almost breathless, Jeremiah’s cloudy gaze shot over to where the vampire was clasping hands with Gideon. “When she took my blood, she borrowed my ability. Rona stopped my descent, saving me from falling.”

“How did she even know you were falling?”

“Your scream,” Rona answered. “When I heard it, I saw him falling. The element reacted instinctively and caught him, stopping his descent, and depositing him safely on the ground up here.”

“And then I tried to jump again.”

Rueful, Jeremiah pursed his lips and blinked over at Sehrin. Bitter hatred darkened Zia’s vision. Baring her teeth, she looked to her sovereign, but Nero was already glaring at the man who was on his knees.

“Atonement must be made.”

Chapter Forty-One

Jeremiah frowned. “Atonement?”

“Sehrin attacked you—multiple times—when the one condition of his entry into clan lands was that he never harm any of my people,” Nero inclined his chin. “His life is forfeit.”

“I understand the conditions, but Nero, Sehrin is Myko’s father,” Jeremiah shook his head, distressed. “There has to be another way.”

Nero’s grimace turned dark. “Oh, there is. But he won’t like it.”

Beside them, both Zia and Luna shuddered, and the Elemental turned his frown toward them. “What is it?”

Before they could answer, Sehrin was gasping, righting himself after Nero ungagged him. He blinked twice, then turned his fury on the sovereign. “How dare you!”

“Silence.”

The single word iced up Jeremiah’s spine, Nero’s jovial demeanor having vanished in the face of Sehrin’s betrayal. The clanless Raeth balked, paling before the sovereign, before rocking back on his heels.

“You’ve broken the trust I put in you, Sehrin.” Lifting his chin, Nero glowered at the male. “As such, your life would be forfeit. Fortunately for you, the man you attacked is of finer stock than you.”

Sehrin’s hands fisted. “And my punishment, then?”

A smile ghosted on Nero’s mouth. “You’ve never once asked what my abilities were, Sehrin. That’s your own fault.”

Stepping toward him, an oppressive pressure scrubbed at Jeremiah’s skin, his gut sucking in at the power that laced the air.

“No!”

Sehrin must’ve sensed what Nero intended. He scrambled backward along the ground, brought low as he crawled through the muck and mire left by the storm.

The sovereign took the male in a stranglehold despite feeble attempts at resistance. An itch crawled across Jeremiah’s skin, the eerie sensation pulling at his core. He shut his eyes, briefly blinded by the brilliant flare that transferred between Nero and Sehrin. When the light no longer bled through his eyelids, he opened them.

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