He glanced at the cups on the table. “Do you feel strange after having consumed mead?”
“Having…what?” She hurried to the cup she’d been drinking, smelled regular beer, then looked at Morpheus’ empty mug. It smelled of that divine sweet taste she’d had before. “Oh my God. I drankmead?”
“Yes, yet you haven’t become more aggressive than usual.” Khent nodded. “Something that didn’t seem to surprise Hecate when she fed it to you. I wonder why that is.”
“So do I!”
He watched her.
She watched him back. Felt no urge to rip his head off or tear anyone to pieces. “Why aren’t I going crazy?”
“That’s an excellent question. Because only the immortal can consume mead. Thus you, Valentine Darkmore, are not exactly human.”
Hecate had been eavesdropping.But as soon as she heard Khent confess to his talk with Shai, heard him call Val hismerytand put that together with the black wings stirring at his back and the odd fluctuations in Val’s powerful aura, she knew.
Crap on a cracker.
Thatwas why Nergal and Vladimir of the Void’s all-consuming hunt for a certain gemstone—not a Bloode Stone—made her so uneasy.
As if she didn’t have enough to worry about.
The Darkness That Comes might be the end of them.
But not if Valentine succumbed to her fate before then. If you-know-who rose from their cradle of slumber, there would be no more world to end. So sad that Khent had a chance at love only to have to destroy that which would have made him whole.
He wasn’t the only one who’d talked to Shai over five hundred years ago. Hecate had done her best to ignore it, but now that the future had come to pass as was foretold, sacrifices had to be made.
Talk about a clusterfuck ofhellishproportions.
Time to see a major pain in her ass about a favor.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-NINE
Khent didn’t knowwhy Valentine’s insistence that she would soon die bothered him as much as it did. The woman had accepted that the battle she’d soon take to Vladimir—and by extension to Nergal—would be brutal. She was pragmatic, focused, and not prone to drama.
It was no wonder his necromancer suited him.
Thus he intended to do his best to enhance her magic with robust spells and schooling. They would have to work together whenthey,notshe,engaged in glorious battle.
He smiled, pleased that the end was coming soon. He’d waited centuries to find his purpose, and now, here at last, he had the chance to do what’d been created to do.
Khent ignored the ugly looks from the hobgoblin and gods he’d earlier interfered with as he escorted his mate through the speakeasy and upstairs to his room.
They didn’t pass his kin, who’d probably sought shelter from the dawn he could feel creeping closer, the sluggish call to rest pressing on him.
Valentine yawned. “I’m tired.”
“The sun is close to rising.”
“We should go to bed then.”
He didn’t smile, but he wanted to. She was already adjusting her sleep patterns to match his. He liked that.
Hell, he liked hismeryt—his beloved.
Crazy how he’d just blurted who she was to him out of the blue like that. But he couldn’t help it when the knowledge insisted on being heard.
