Deep breath in...out... Yes, she was safe. He’d said so, and Sent Ones couldn’t lie.
“Th-thank you,” she managed.
He traced his thumbs over the rise of her cheekbones—more contact, even better than before—every cell in her body coming to unexpected, dreaded life, snagged by the magnetic pull of him...reaching for him, desperate, hungry....
Vulnerable already, she was no match for his dark, wicked allure... It was as unattainable as a whisper, as heady as a caress. Undeniable. Inexorable. So powerful it nearly dropped her to her knees.
I’m so sorry, Bay. I promised you forever, and now I’m reacting to another male. I’m slime. No, I’m worse than slime. Though all she wanted to do was burrow closer, she forced herself to tug from Thane’s hold.
“You have two choices, female,” he said with a frown. “Return to the humans and chance being hunted and tortured by the Phoenix. Or come with me to the third level of the skies and work at my club, where you will be guarded.”
Work for him? Stay with him?
Determination pushed her shock to the curb.
“You’ll pay me?” Life goal one: escape. Life goal two: make bank. He could be offering both.
“Yes.”
“How much?” She may be tempting fate, but in the past few seconds, a mini-war had waged in her brain, and shrewdness had won.
His frown deepened. “We’ll figure it out.”
A nonanswer. “I...I...” Didn’t know what to do.
His gaze sharpened. “Never mind. I’ve decided for you. You’re coming with me, and that’s final.”
What! “Now hold on a second, angel boy.”
“I’m not an angel.” He clasped her by the waist—holding on—and passed her on to Neon. “See that she gets there.” Then he vanished, ending the conversation.
Well, well. Next stop: the skies.
CHAPTER THREE
ENDLESS RIVERS OF EMOTION cut different paths through Thane, though they each intersected with his heart, one bleeding into another, until he could no longer tell them apart.
Last night, thirty-eight Phoenix prisoners regenerated, the oldest and strongest first. Two had yet to reform, and might have reached their final death.
Kendra had been the fourth to reform.
One by one, Thane had hauled every single warrior to the courtyard in front of his club—and staked them to the ground. Hands, shoulders, pelvis, knees and ankles. He’d ensured every head was propped up with a rock...so that every warrior could witness the suffering of his friends.
Kendra was at the head of the line.
The Phoenix wouldn’t die quickly. As children of the Greeks, they were immortal. For weeks, perhaps months, they would starve, the sun blistering their exposed flesh, crows constantly pecking at their eyes and, later, their organs. And when the warriors finally succumbed to the sweet oblivion of death, they would regenerate, and Thane would be right there to repeat the entire process.
Merciless, yes. He didn’t care. Now enemies would think twice before challenging him.
The problem was, this would upset Zacharel, the leader of the Army of Disgrace. Thane’s leader. This would anger Clerici, the new king of the Sent Ones, Zacharel’s boss, for Thane was abusing the spirit of the amended law—do not kill, unless captured—not acting in an effort to protect others from the same fate, but to exact revenge. This would also disappoint the Most High, the commander of them all.
This would jeopardize Thane’s future.
He already stood at the corner of Last Chance and Doomed, and with one wrong move, he could lose the only thing he loved.
His boys.
Can’t be parted from them.
But he couldn’t let the Phoenix go, either. Not until their suffering blotted out the hated memories they’d given him.
Thane sat at the back end of his tub, boiling water pouring from the overhead spout, raining over his naked body. His hands clenched the edge of the porcelain so tightly it was already cracked. His legs were bent to his chest, his forehead resting against his knees. It was a position of shame. One he knew well.
He should have already rebounded. He was no stranger to sex and bondage. For almost a century, he’d found a delicious sort of comfort in the way pale, feminine flesh reddened under his ministrations. He’d adored watching wrists and ankles strain against bonds. Delighted in seeing the first gleam of fear in his lover’s eyes...knowing tears would soon follow.
Messed up? Yes. But then, he’d also enjoyed being on the receiving end of such treatment.
He was probably worse than messed up, and it didn’t take a lot of digging to figure out why. The months he’d spent inside a demon prison— Stop. No. Every muscle in his body tensed as his mind fought the abhorrent direction it was traveling, but he forced himself to continue on. Remembering kept his darker emotions at a razor’s edge, each ready to cut him, make him bleed.
He liked to bleed.
He remembered the way clawed hands clutched at him as they dragged him into a dank cell, stripped him, and strapped him to an altar. He remembered Bjorn, a stranger then, being strung up above him—and skinned. He remembered the copper scent of fresh blood, the warmth of it as it dripped onto Thane’s face, chest and legs. He remembered Xerxes, also a stranger, being chained to the wall across from him and raped repeatedly.
A roar of denial clogged his throat. Thane punched the side of the tub, leaving a gaping hole in the porcelain. What do you know. There was a limit to what even he could bear.
The pain of his friends.
As the days passed inside that terrible prison, Thane was never touched. He hurtled threats and insults, but the demons laughed rather than feared. He begged, desperate to remove focus from the other men, but the demons ignored him.
His frustration...
His hatred...
His rage...
Each had slunk to the back of his mind, and just never left him. Eventually, after his escape, his sexual gratification became tied irrevocably to the very things he’d been denied, creating a hell of a lot of crazy.
“I put your human with the barmaids.”
Xerxes’s gentle voice came from inside the bathroom, a comfort to him.
“Thank you.” Thane had questions for his lovely, unlikely savior. How had she, a human, come to live with the Phoenix? What was her name? How old was she? Did she smell as clean and sweet as he remembered?
Did she belong to one of the warriors staked outside, or perhaps to one of the soldiers out
