Page 26 of Bought By the Manticore

He didn’t pull away. The stems inside my body stilled, pulsing with a comforting heat that held me secure. The tendril slowly slipped out of my throat, retreating to let me breathe the cool air of the chamber.

Smaller shoots stroked my hair and brushed the dampness from my cheeks. He held me in the quiet darkness, and for once, we didn’t feel the need to say anything at all. I had never felt so safe in my entire life.

But our peace was not meant to last.

The wooden door of the healing chamber flew open, slamming against the basalt wall.

I flinched, my eyes snapping toward the doorway.

Iaso stood on the threshold. A tray of glass vials slipped from her hands, clattering and breaking across the floor. Beside her stood a tense Eryx. His obsidian serpents writhed and hissed, already fixated on the mass of vines holding me aloft.

“By Thanatos,” Iaso breathed, her voice trembling. “Eryx… it has her.”

I took one look at her horrified face and I knew. Asphodelia was no longer welcoming to me. Perhaps it never had been.

10

Safe

Skaros & Ianthe

Death-touched brides were a treasure in Asphodelia. I’d always known this, even before I’d turned into a creature that was neither alive nor dead.

For me, the brides had been meat. The silver death-woman, every other human just like her—I’d only seen them as food. It had been my greatest shame, the source of my guilt. Of my sorrow.

Ianthe had changed that. She had cured me of my hunger. The moment I’d sensed her, my lust for flesh had all but disappeared.

But the healers didn’t know that. Standing in the doorway of the chamber, Eryx and Iaso stared in disbelief. They did not see thecure. They smelled the raw death energy pouring off my roots. They saw the feral vines suspending a naked, exhausted woman in the air, and they saw a monster.

I tasted the sudden, aggressive shift in Eryx’s energy. The air around the blind healer turned sharp and volatile. “This is… Asphodelia has never witnessed such a horror since the first Woven emerged from the Moirae’s hands.”

I couldn’t reason with them. And for all that they were healers, gorgons were dangerous monsters at heart.

I carefully settled Ianthe down. The moment her back touched the bedding, I withdrew the vines from inside her body. She scrambled backward against the pillows, pushing herself up onto her elbows before pulling her knees to her chest.

I couldn’t let them look at her. I couldn’t let their serpentine eyes rest on her bare skin while she was entirely vulnerable.

I surged upward, drawing on the death crystals embedded in the floor, in the walls. Using the overflowing death energy, I wove a dense, overlapping canopy over the mattress. I buried Ianthe in the dark, shielding her completely from the doorway.

Our bond remained in place, and I could still reach for her mind.“Stay beneath the leaves. They don’t understand what we have.”

“Skaros, let me talk to them!”she pleaded, her thoughts pushing frantically against mine. I could not bring myself to deny her, even though I knew it was no use.

When Ianthe parted my vines enough to look at the healers, I didn’t stop her. “Iaso, please!” Ianthe called out. “This isn’t what you think. He took the pain away!”

“Ianthe?” Iaso took a hesitant step forward, her voice thick with horror. “Eryx… This is horrible. It’s making her defend it.”

“Do not listen to her, sister,” Eryx said, taking a heavy step toward the bed. His boot scraped harshly against the stone. “The death energy of a starving shade clouds the mind. It weaves sweet illusions to keep the prey docile.”

“I’m not prey!” Ianthe sobbed. “He’s helping me! Why can’t you understand that?”

“I understand perfectly,” Eryx replied, entirely unmoved by her tears.

I pushed her back, shielding her behind the canopy once again. If the gorgon thought he could take her from me, he would soon learn otherwise.

“Get away from her, predator,” Eryx ordered. “I know what you are. I won’t allow you to touch this innocent woman again.”

I should have been the one to issue that threat. He had no right to touch Ianthe or be anywhere near her, yet he was the one making her cry. The manticore that lived inside me roared in anger. I wanted nothing more than to rip him apart.