Page 36 of Bought By the Manticore

I didn’t know if he actually believed that or if it was a lie meant to placate their hostile tempers. But I almost resented him for it. I wanted them to attack me just so I could destroy them, unweaving them to show that death wasn’t such a gift after all.

Eryx stood among them, his eyes now clamped shut. “We are not the ones who hurt her,” he hissed at me. “That was you.”

A blinding rage took over. Every fiber of my being screamed to tear them apart. They’d locked my mate away like she was an object, and they still wanted to pretend they’d done the right thing?

With a snarl, I dug my claws into the stone. Venom was already dripping from my barbed tail. It was so exhilarating to be whole once again, to feel like a fully formed creature, not just a cluster of death energy. And the blind healer would be the first one to learn how vicious a manticore could be when its mate was threatened.

Before I could pounce, a familiar winged figure dropped down between Eryx and me. “Enough!” Phix bellowed. “I understand your anger, but we aren’t here to fight. If there’s anyone here you should be angry with, it’s me.”

Her? She’d never once done something to anger me. Granted, I had sometimes wished she’d never held onto me so tightly. It might have been better if she hadn’t pushed the Moiraeto weave me back when they first noticed the flaw in my being. But whatever frustration I’d felt over that had long since disappeared. After all, if I hadn’t been alive, I couldn’t have met Ianthe.

No, there was something else going on here, something I still didn’t understand. “What did you do?” I asked.

The words were barely intelligible, but Phix had never had trouble reading me, no matter what I said—or didn’t. “I’m not here as your mother, Skaros,” she explained. “I’m here as the auctioneer of the bride market.”

“The… auctioneer?” I repeated, trying to grasp what she meant.

Phix nodded. “Ianthe already paid the price for the auction. But she didn’t receive what she paid for. We had to rectify that.”

“What… What do you mean?” Ianthe asked, finally getting up.

“The answer is simple, child,” Phix answered. “You are now completely recovered. As a result, you can properly choose a groom, as Charon’s trade established.”

She turned toward me, and her ancient eyes glinted with something like pride. “Skaros has already paid his price. With his flesh, with his will. Now, it is up to the bride.”

She had known what would happen. When no one but Ianthe understood, my mother had still trusted me.

“This is not the Agora of Echoes,” Phix continued, “but now is the time for Ianthe to make her decision. Tell us, child. Is Skaros who you want?”

Ianthe leaned against my flank and buried her hand in my mane. “Yes. He’s the one I choose. Now and forever.”

It wasn’t the first time she’d said that. She’d offered herself to me before, when Skaros the manticore had been only a lost hope and a dream. Even so, the certainty in her voice still soothed the raging beast inside me.

I knew then that my mother was right. There was no battle to fight here, and nothing truly worth saying or proving. Ianthe had already told me everything I needed to know.

Without another word, I shifted into my two-legged form and picked Ianthe up in my arms. Cradling her to my chest, I launched myself into the air. It was time for me to claim my mate properly, like she deserved.

14

The Venom She Touched

Ianthe

The wind raced over my flesh, damp and mean, but I barely felt it. I’d buried my face in Skaros’s mane when his claws closed around my waist, and now the golden fur was all I could smell. Earth and spice. Something darker underneath, muskier, from when he had been only vines. His wings beat the air in heavy strokes.

“Can you hear me?” I whispered against his neck.

The answer didn’t come as sound. It resonated deep in my chest, warm and familiar.“Always. Even like this.”

I tightened my arms around him. “I thought I’d lose that. When you came back.”

“Never.”His wings tilted, carrying us above the clouds with ease.“The plant was a shell. This is me. All of me.”

I wanted to believe him. The part of me that had watched him dissipate into streams of death energy wanted nothing more. But the part that had learned to trust a whisper in the dark was still adjusting to his weight and his heat.

I pressed my palm flat against his chest and felt his heart hammering there, fast, hard, and alive. I still couldn’t convince myself this wasn’t another dream the Sickness had conjured to make my death—or maybe, his—easier.

We didn’t fly long. He banked toward a ridge beyond Phix’s garden, and his wings adjusted to catch the wind. He landed with a heavy thud, his leonine legs absorbing the impact effortlessly. Shifting me to one arm, he pressed his clawed hand against the solid stone face.