Off? Aria shot her a look. “What are you talking about?”
Tyrez cleared his throat. “You are secreting pheromones.” His voice seemed hoarser than usual.
“No, I’m not. I’m on the herbs.”
“Trust me, you are.” His eyes gleamed, and Dani drove her elbow into his ribs. Hard enough to make him grunt.
Jacques poked his nose out of his cape coverings. “She smells delicious. If it wasn’t so damned cold—”
“Keep it in your pants,” growled Tyrez.
“Are you quite serious?” Jacques regarded the Dragon with incredulity. “It would freeze right off. Not that it isn’t hopeful. Her scent is worthy of a Satyr.”
Aria’s desperation rose. “But I’m taking a ton of those herbs. It can’t be that.”
“Perhaps not.” Cara stated calmly.
“I have heard that Dragona bodies might burn themselves up unless satisfied.” Jacques couldn’t quite keep the hopeful note from his voice. “Aria might die attempting to deny her pheromones.”
“We don’t know if that is what is going on,” Cara said.
“If that is the case,” Tyrez snarled at Jacques, “she needs a Dragon.”
“Some other Dragon,” Dani inserted. Tyrez exhaled and added, “Yes, of course. But a sharding Satyr isn’t any help to the issue, no matter how eager you are to offer your services.”
Jacques held up his hands. “Okay, okay. Don’t get your scales in a knot.”
Aria had heard that cycles had their risks, but had never really believed it. If it was true—then there was more at stake here than rescuing the men she loved.
And suddenly, that was okay. Because if they didn’t survive this, she didn’t care what happened to her.
Cara’s gaze had never left her. Now, the Watcher offered, “It will be all right, Aria. We’ll get them out.”
Aria shot a glance to Ash, who leaned against the ice-cold stone. His silver eyes gleamed in the darkness, and his chin dipped in the smallest of nods.
“Soon,” he said. “It will be soon, now, if it’s going to happen at all.”
She took a deep breath. If it wasn’t for his ability, Aria would have been frantic. Or more frantic. Where was her warrior implacability when she needed it most? Maybe pheromones were unraveling that, too. She was betting a lot on Ash’s abilities. Not as much as Lucas, though. What if Ash was wrong? He’d said that only a single timeline showed this as a workable plan. That it was their only chance to save Nikolai.
What he hadn’t said was that saving Nikolai was really about saving so much more. And if they couldn’t get him back with a sane mind—she’d asked that, and Ash had only shaken his head. His remarkable eyes had skittered away.
There was a helluva lot riding on a onetime thief that could change his skin at will.
Aria swallowed, leaned against the wall, and closed her eyes. She opened her soul and sent a pulse of pure, powerful emotion out to the two men at the heart of who she was. And who she might become.
45
Lucas hid the collar in the straw and contemplated what he sensed from Nikolai.
Perditor.
The word had never seemed so accurate. Because what trembled through the link terrified Lucas.
He’d only caught glimpses, undercurrents mostly, of the rage that seethed within the Liberi. It wasn’t necessarily new. He’d seen it before—remembered it from when Nikolai had attacked Demeti. But that had been a burst of raw emotion, a loss of control based on circumstances. Lucas understood that. Everyone was capable of raw, unadulterated rage when those they cared about were threatened.
But this was different.
Galeran had leashed the demon, and in so doing, he’d bottled the anger and frustration within Nikolai’s mind. It had reached the point that if the rage didn’t find an outlet, it would destroy Nikolai entirely. The only thing holding it in check were the runes giving Galeran the control.
