When she didn’t answer, I leaned my body closer. I might not be in the mood for her games, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t willing to play one of my own. She arched into me, pressing her soft curves against me as she hooked a leg around the back of one of mine.
A feminine purr made her throat vibrate beneath my hand, and I had to fight the instinct to let go. I’d forgotten that detail, how pixies purred like kittens when they were aroused.
The sensation made me want to wretch.
I was all twisted up inside as I brushed my lips against her ear, willing myself not to crush her windpipe. Yet. I hated her with every fiber of my being, and I could not, for the life of me, remember what it was about her that had allowed me to lay with such a creature.
“What do you want, Anya?” I whispered roughly.
She sighed, but instead of pulling my cock to attention, it just grated on my nerves. Disgust rolled through me.
I asked again, throwing a fresh wave of power into the whispered words.
Her body shuddered against mine, and I nearly shoved away from her. Just being close to her made my skin crawl and my stomach churn.
“Last chance,” I warned, letting my lips graze the shell of her ear. I hated doing it. Hated myself for giving her even a hint of pleasure after the way she’d viciously attacked Never when we were battling Petra.
But I was feeling especially heartless.
Anya had nearly killed the woman I loved months earlier. If Never had still been mortal, she would have succeeded. It was an assault she needed to pay for.
Her eyelids fluttered. She was clearly enjoying the attention but woefully oblivious to the revulsion pulsing through me. “You,” she finally breathed.
With a snarl I couldn’t keep caged, I tightened my grip. Her eyes flew wide, bugging out of her mischievous little head. Fingernails clawed. Feet kicked. She bucked and writhed, but I had my power back. Even shared with Never, I was stronger than I’d been in centuries.
I glared at her, tempted to get in some final, cutting remark, but all I could think about was Never. All I could see was the river of crimson that had poured out of her after the ruthless attack.
Fear glittered in Anya’s eyes—real fear, the likes of which I couldn’t be sure I’d ever seen—but it was no match for the white-hot anger that scaled my back like a panther on the prowl. With a snap of my wrist, I let it loose, and the last pixie in the Nassa went limp in my grip.
I held her up for another few moments, inching her higher and watching her intently to make sure she hadn’t found a way to fool me. When pixie dust began to fall in waves around her dangling feet, I smiled a mirthless smile and let her body fall to the ground.
“Good riddance,” I muttered.
I couldn’t be sure how much time would pass before I crossed paths with Never again, or if it was even possible, but it helped knowing she had one less threat in the universe.
And speaking of threats…
“Nerebis!” I bellowed, tipping my face toward the lightening sky.
I didn’t believe for a moment the fate would deign to grace me with his presence again. Especially considering the way we’d left things last time. That didn’t mean I was above trying, however.
I called for him again, my voice and power ringing through the realm with the summons. I didn’t care in the slightest that I was summoning a creature as powerful as a fate, to my cursed realm, while I stood barefoot in the sand wearing only a pair of pants.
What was it Never would have said in a situation like this? “Fuck him if he can’t take a joke,” I said to myself, wincing at the pang of longing that struck me.
“Always the rebel.” The accusation hit my ears as a form coalesced in front of me.
The stranger came together slowly, as if pulling elements from my world into himself. He was about an inch shorter than me, with hair that carried a brilliant orange tint in the coming dawn. Interestingly, it was styled so it appeared as though he had horns.
When he dipped his head in a silent greeting, those horns turned out to be dual mohawks that stood about two inches tall.
“You are not a fate,” I said curtly, taking in his crisp button up shirt and the way his pressed black pants were rolled at the ankles, showing off ruby red combat boots that had surely never seen even a moment of combat.
“You caught that, huh?” he asked with a smirk.
I rolled my eyes at the interloper. “I killed the last fool who tested my patience, boy.”
He shook his head, but his cocky humor shifted when he caught sight of Anya’s quickly degrading body. Within hours, a small pile of pixie dust would be all that remained.
