Page 37 of Bought By the Manticore

The stone opened, revealing a dark space inside.

It wasn’t magic I understood. It was old, older than the temple, older than the Weaveguards’ rites and Eryx’s medical texts. The rock recognized him and sealed shut behind us with reassuring finality.

His den was larger than I’d expected, and warm. A fire burned low in a sunken pit, casting amber light over the rough-hewn walls. Thick pelts lined the floor, old and worn in patches, the fur matted where someone had walked the same path many times.

“Your mother was here, wasn’t she?” I asked. It was the only explanation. Skaros certainly couldn’t have tended to his den while he’d been in his plant form.

Skaros’s chest rumbled. “She always knew me best. She trusted me, even when no one else did.” Still holding me, he took a deep breath, his wings half-furled against his back. “No one but you, that is.”

I lifted my head from his mane and looked at his face. Reaching up, I rested my hand against his jaw. The golden fur was coarse and warm under my fingers. “I trusted you before I even knew who you were.”

Skaros leaned into my touch. A low purr started deep in his chest, rumbling pleasantly against my own. “You knew I was your mate. Just like I did.”

He stopped at the edge of the pelts and set me down. My feet found the thick fur. His hands moved to the ruined dress, clawed and careful, finding the seams. The fabric was stained with dirt and temple dust and the memory of locked doors. He pulled it over my head and let it drop. The air was warm against my bare skin. I let him look, and reveled in it.

For days, he’d been nothing but a whisper in my mind and a smooth vine in the dark. I’d learned to love a ghost who could only touch me as stems and leaves, as something green and patient that wound through my sickness without ever demanding anything in return.

Now I was standing in firelight, and the creature before me had claws that could tear stone. His wings could carry me over the city walls, and his tail could kill with a single strike. He was staring at me like I was the only thing in the world that mattered.

“You’re shaking,” he said.

I looked down at my hands. I was. “I’m not cold.”

“I know.” His voice was rough, barely above a growl. “I can feel it. You’re not afraid of me, but you’re afraid of something.”

“I’m afraid I’ll wake up. That this is another fever dream, and I’ll open my eyes on the temple floor, alone. Without you.”

He didn’t move. His eyes darkened, his pupils dilating, the amber vanishing almost entirely. His gaze traced my ribs, my arms, every patch of skin that had once been claimed by the Sickness. Then he looked down to my hips, my thighs.

He had been inside me before. He had filled me as vines, smooth and patient, while I was too feverish to know what I was asking for. He had taken my mouth, my folds, my core. But that had been dark and hidden, a forbidden secret we’d struggled for because we’d had nothing else. Having him look at me now, with real eyes, made my blood run hot.

I stepped toward him. I wanted to see him, too. No, I wanted to touch him.

I raised my hands and pressed them flat against his chest. His skin burned beneath the tawny fur, hotter than the fire pit, hotter than fever. I trailed my fingers upward, mapping the hard muscle of his shoulders, brushing through the coarse strands of his mane.

My gaze drifted past his chest. Resting on the furs behind him, swaying with a slow, restless rhythm, was his tail.

It was long and thickly segmented, leonine at the base where it met his spine, before giving way to something harder, more armored. The scales were dark gold, almost bronze, each ridge catching the firelight. It ended in a wickedly curved barb. A single drop of venom gathered at the tip, viscous and gleaming.

It was a weapon. The part of him that made him a nightmare to the rest of the world.

I walked around him, keeping one hand on his flank. His fur gave way to shorter, denser hair along his ribs, then to the scaled hide where his tail began. I reached for it.

Skaros stiffened. He let out a sharp hiss, shifting his weight to pull the barb away.

“Don’t,” he warned. “The venom—”

“Won’t hurt me.” I cut him off. I believed in him more than I did in anything in this world.

“I’ve killed with that tail. I’ve watched men convulse and die before they hit the ground.”

I didn’t pull back. I knelt behind him, catching the thickest part of the tail where the scales were still warm from his body heat. Smooth and firm, they had a completely different texture from the fur on his chest. They felt almost like the vines had been, alive and responsive. I ran my palms over the segmented ridges, stroking them with the same care he’d shown me from the first moment we’d met.

The tail twitched. The drop at the barb swelled, beaded, and fell. It struck the pelt near my knee. The fur hissed and smoked, turning black at the edges.

I didn’t flinch. I traced my fingers higher, closer to the barb.

“I love you,” I whispered, resting my cheek against his fur. “In the dirt. In the vines. And like this. I’m not afraid of any part of you.”