Page 19 of Brine and Bone
She sang.
Instinct.
Attuned to the gradual easing of tension as Nyx softened.
And then, against his chest, "I want to see them," she murmured, palm flattened over his heart, feeling the slow thunder pulse beneath her touch. "The scholars. When they arrive. I need to know."
Nyx went rigid. "No."
Liquid eyes sought those that were molten with wrath. "We need to know," she whispered, chin tilting back. "If my baby is?—"
"No." Massive hands engulfed hers, pressing her palm tighter against his chest. As if he might gulp down her fear. "Thalos is manipulating you. Pushing you toward reaction. Polluting these waters with his poisonous manipulation." Chest expanding beneath her palms, he took a careful breath. Gills whistling with the damage Thalos had wrought. "And you are rushing to fill the role he's already cast for you, my sweet bride."
Her voice cracked. "I am not?—"
"Youare." His grip tightened on her wrists. Possessive. Desperate. "He whispers a miasma about the child, suggesting vile things you did not fear before he spoke. And immediately you want to invite his spies into my kingdom? Let themtouchyou?" Nyxarion shook his head, carding his claws through herhair. "No Thalassari scholars will enter Vorynthar. They will not lay hands upon you. Onmychild."
Kore's jaw clenched.
But she scowled. Tilting her chin back, lips brushing the delicate hollow beneath his jaw, Kore pressed her face into the warmth of his throat. Where his skin was thinnest.
Peppering him with dainty kisses. Feathered across the ridged cartilage. Soft, lingering little touches. Deliberate.
Trying to appease.
Barter.
"We need it," she whispered against his pulse. Lingering at the junction between neck and shoulder. "Whatever information Thalos' scholars might offer."
Chest vibrating with a low warning, Nyxarion's spines flexed.
She ignored it.
Lips trailing higher, she found the ruined flesh where Thalos' claws had raked through tender filaments and left them ragged.
Still healing.
The wheeze of damaged tissue rattled against her lips when she kissed him there—tender, reverent, achingly gentle over each torn gill slit.
"Thalos is using knowledge as a weapon," she breathed against the wound. "And you want to hand him more power by staying blind?"
A warning prickled against her waist. Claws dimpling her skin and scale.
"He works in the light while we grope blindly in the dark." Her tongue traced the edge of a shredded gill. "Refusing to listen doesn't shieldus. It grants him the only weapon that really matters. Traps us in ignorance. Makes us reactive instead of strategic." Pausing, pulling back to meet his alien glare, she touched the pillow of his bottom lip. "Knowledge, Nyx. He's counting on your pride to keep you blind."
Silence stretched taut between them.
Long and suffering.
And then, a rumble rolled through his chest.
Laughter.
Rich and dark and entirely unwilling, it was a sound that reverberated through her chest, shaking loose the terror that had wrapped a merciless fist about her throat and squeezed.
"You—" Grinning, his grip left her waist. And one clawed hand swept up to cradle the back of her skull. "You would argue strategy with me? Now? While I am trying to keep yousafe?"
Grey-gold eyes held those that were molten silver. Defiant. "Who else?"
