Page 81 of A Haven of Brimstone and Darkness

“Maybe you don’t love me,” she whispers. “Maybe you’re not capable of it—you’rehisson after all and after all this time, I wonder if the Gods can feel love at all.” I’m about to respond when she continues. “You don’t even know what love is, Kalix. You were born heartless.”

The memory fadesas the sensation of water drips into the back of my tunic, making the fabric cling to my skin. My mother’s long ago words ring in my ears, along with Kiera's question.

Do you love me?

What do you want?

You were born heartless.

“Kalix?” Kiera’s voice compels me to look at her—reallylook at her. As I face her, I take in all of the details—the components that make up the structure of her face. She is … beautiful to me. Utterly perfect, though I know that’s incorrect.

In the standard of studying anatomy, those who are perfect have even faces, an equal distance between their eyes and a jawline that matches on both sides. Kiera’s eyes are even, but her jawline isn’t. Her nose slants to one side, though the effect gives her that perpetual motion that she’s turning her head to look at you.

Still, she is the most stunning creature I have ever set my eyes upon. In ten years, in a thousand, I feel as if I could look at her and still marvel at the oddities she presents. Fucking her brings me to release far faster and easier than any other. The desire to fuck her again, even now, hasn’t waned as it has in the past. My interest in her is as strong as the first day she looked at me with those gray eyes of hers and laid down a challenge at my feet.

Perhaps this is what my mother was talking about. Perhaps this … is love.

“Kalix, you’re freaking me out,” Kiera says, and I realize I still haven’t answered her.

Shaking my head, I refocus my attention on her face. “I want you to know that no one will harm you,” I tell her. “You are mine and I have no intention of allowing my things to be slaughtered.”

Her lips twitch. “My, that’s…” She bites down on her lower lip, a flash of white teeth appearing as she sinks them into thesoft petal pink flesh. A snort erupts from her and she releases her lip once more. “That’s kind of you,” she finishes. “But I don’t think either of us will get the choice of whether or not I’m?—”

“Ruen did not mean to say that you have no emotion when it comes to killing,” I say, cutting her off as I jump to the crux of why I tracked her here.

Her amusement dies in an instant and it’s as if I can see shutters closing over her eyes as she leans away from me. “So you did come here because of him.”

“No.” I wipe a hand across my face, removing some of the water dripping into my eyes—not that she seems to notice the same on hers. “I was truthful before; I did not come because I was sent. I came because I was compelled.”

“Listen, Kalix, I really don’t—” As she begins speaking, Kiera leverages her body upward. Gripping ahold of the railing, she starts to rise.

I capture her hand and drag her back down to my side. “Twenty-one years I have lived on Anatol,” I say, holding her hand tight as the rain blankets the air between us. “Twenty-one years I have fucked, bled, and fought. I have amused myself at the whims of the Gods and the only thing that has come close to the feeling of ‘love’ that everyone else seems to understand so well has been the connection I have with my brothers.”

A fat droplet of water falls from Kiera’s lashes and lands on her cheek, sliding down and curving as she tilts her head at me, frowning. That drop collides with her mouth and the wet fabric of my trousers tightens across my groin.

“Ruen did not mean to say that you have no emotion when it comes to killing,” I repeat my earlier words, causing her brows to furrow. I’m sure it must seem to her that I am leaping through subjects with no end in sight, no conclusion, but that’s wrong. I have found my conclusion and it’s simple. “You are not me,” I say. She doesn’t have the same lack of inhibitions or care for life.It will end eventually, after all. What does it matter if I speed up the process? “But Ruen is...” I continue.In this one way, at least.“He would do anything, hurt and kill anyone, to keep you alive.”

Lie. Cheat. Steal. Murder. Whatever it takes.

Kiera’s eyes widen and her lips part. I grind my jaw as my canines lengthen and the tip of one fang juts down into my tongue. Working around the damned shift, I squeeze her hands tighter.

“I would slaughter everyone in this damned mountain—God, Mortal God, or human. It matters not to me who or what I slay. I would do it all for you in an instant, but you should know that I will feel no guilt afterwards. Ruen … will live with his for the rest of his life—and still he, too, would make the same choice.”

Her lips tremble, pressing together and parting several times before she manages to speak again. “I’ve seen too much death, Kalix.” The roar of the storm is so loud it nearly sucks away her words. They reach me as little more than a whisper on the wind. “I’m tired.” Her shoulders slump and her head turns down. Strings of silver hair stick to the sides of her face and neck.

“Danai and Makeda gave you a choice, didn’t they?” I ask, already knowing.

When Kiera lifts her head to meet my eyes again it’s with a dark glare. “Snakes,” she guesses and I merely offer her a grin. Of course my snakes watch her. They always watch her.

She blows out a breath but nods. “Yes,” she admits. “If we win—at the end of this—they have said that they’ll accept any punishment I see fit to give them for their actions.”

Not a choice I would have chosen, but then again—like most people, the Goddesses have proven to be highly emotional creatures.

“I appreciate you putting Ruen’s words into perspective for me,” Kiera says and the feel of her fingers rubbing against my own has my cock going from interested to painfully erect.Clamping my jaw shut and grinding my fangs into my lower teeth, I force myself to focus on her words. “It helps to know that he just cares about me because I care about you too. I never thought it’d happen—definitely not when we first met—but I cannot imagine getting through this without all of you.”

Once, her words might have annoyed me. Once, I might have desired to steal all of her affection and attention for myself. But it is different when those she wishes to share with are also mine. Ruen and Theos are my brothers, my blood, the only equals I have ever known—save for her.

Dragging her forward, I tip Kiera’s head back. Rain soaks into her scalp as I grip the length of her hair where it’s tied at the base of her skull. I tug the leather band loose, freeing the rest of her hair before sinking in deeper.

---