Though I’d been forgotten during the confusion of the Myridian’s dramatic entrance, as soon as the High Priestess uttered her proclamation, all eyes found me.

I squared my shoulders, refusing to let them see how my knees quaked.

Varian crossed to my side, gesturing for guards to follow. “Aurora, go back to your chamber. Let me handle this.”

Aidoneus strolled closer, his gaze moving over me as if I was an exotic animal caged in a menagerie. “Why should she? It is her birthday, after all.” A mischievous smirk spread across his face. “And the party is just getting started.”

Varian whirled. Dagger gone, he reached for the sword strapped across his back. Deimos, the blade was named. For the god of fear. “Speak to her again. I dare you.”

Aidoneus only stepped closer. “But we haven’t even been introduced.”

I laid a restraining hand on Varian’s arm, gripping the leather vambrace there to still my quivering fingers. “If he is so desperate for his moment, let him have it. It will hardly kill me to listen to a list of meaningless titles.”

“Oh, the list is long, I assure you. But I’ll only bore you with the important ones,” Aidoneus said, smirk widening. “Lord of Myridia, Commander of the Seven, First among the Shardian Privateers, son of the famed Siren, Yara . . ."—he paused then, something glacial and dark swirling in the depths of his strange eyes—“and the only son of Hades, Lord of the Dead.”

The Myridian’s voice cut through me. Hades. Son of Hades. The words rang like a death knell.

Everyone watched me, waiting for my reaction. For me to speak, but my lips were suddenly carved from marble, my tongue a hard, immovable rock.

Aidoneus moved forward, his movements graceful and dangerous—a panther, truly. He paused a few steps away and inclined his head, a hand lifting to rest over his black jacket. A gleam of red—the heart of a glowing coal—reflected off an onyx ring wrapped around a long finger.

And without warning, the flame within my blood heated.

I hissed a breath, my hand dropping from Varian’s arm to hide in the folds of my gown as light flared at my fingertips.

Aidoneus tracked the movement. A tremble of darkness rolled from him, invisible to the eye but as cold as night’s kiss. It brushed against my skin and another pulse of heat ran through me in answer. “My lady,” he said. “It is a pleasure to finally be in your presence. I apologize for causing such a stir.”

The sick sweetness of overripe fruit, its flesh bordering on rotten, exploded through my mouth as if his insincerity was born of my own tongue. I grimaced. “Is lying a habit of yours, my lord?”

“Some would call it a skill.”

“Then I’m afraid we won’t have many pleasant conversations.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. I think you’ll be surprised at just how . . . pleasant I can be.”

“We could start with the truth.”

“Of why I’ve interrupted Doria’s misogynistic traditions? To win you, of course.”

I was surprised by the sudden taste of truth that filled my mouth, clear as a mountain spring. Sour fear followed. “To win me so you can use me for yourself. How very forward-thinking of you.”

He smirked. “Maybe I just want you so he can’t have you.”

Again, a hint of truth. Varian tensed at my side. His hand went to my back, and I leaned into his strength.

Aidoneus watched me closely. As if he knew what I’d sensed. “You know, I’ve never met one of the Korai before. I’d thought your gifts . . . exaggerated.” At that, his gaze drifted lower, as if he wondered what other gifts I might have. Hot anger flared through me and a rosy luminance filtered through the thin material of my skirts.

“I trust I am not a disappointment,” I said through my teeth.

“Oh, no. Quite the opposite.” His attention slid to Varian, who shook with rage beside me. Aidoneus backed away a step. “I look forward to learning more about you, Aurora of the Dawn. But I suppose I should bid you goodnight before your guard dog does more than just bark at me.”

With a flashing wink and a barely discernible trail of shadows, Aidoneus and his followers retreated, the crowd closing around them.

In a breath, Varian’s hand moved from my back to circle my waist and I was being pulled in the opposite direction, towards the ornate marbled corridor that led from the great hall to my chamber.

“Why are you insisting I go?” I demanded as we reached the cover of the darkened hall.

“You were eager to leave before Aidoneus arrived.”

“No, I was eager to go to the terrace . . . with you.”

He kept his silence, feet pounding down the corridor.

“Varian . . . Slow down.”

He continued to pull me towards my chamber, his long legs moving too fast for me to keep up. “Did you not hear his titles? Did you not hear his pedigree? What you don’t know is that his mother, the Siren—”

“I know what the Sirens are, Varian.”

“You don’t know Yara. She is the worst of her kind; the sight of her sails is considered a death sentence throughout the Glass Sea. To make matters worse, she has a hunger for Dorians. Then there is Hades . . . Should I give you a lesson on the Lord of the Dead?”

“Of course not! I only gave him the chance at an introduction, so I might wipe that arrogant smirk off his face. What harm is there in that?”

“More than you could know.”

My eyes narrowed. I dug my heels into the ground, sliding against the marble. He realized how quickly he was forcing me to move, and stopped.

“What is it between you?” I asked. “He called you his old friend . . .”

Varian ran his free hand across shorn blond hair. A vein ticked violently at his temple. “I fought against him in the Shardian War.”

“A war that happened when I was still playing with dolls?” I shook my head. “This seems more personal than that.”

A beat of thick silence. “I met him when I was a child, just after my mother died.”

“Oh.” I blinked, something within me going soft and sad. The thought of Varian and this dark stranger as children together warred with the near violence I’d just seen. “Oh, Varian . . . you were friends.”

“Of a sort. For a time. But I’ve learned since then that he is as much his mother’s son as he is his father’s.”

“A killer, you mean?”

He hesitated. “A pirate. He has stolen a great deal from Doria. I wouldn’t put it past him to take more.”

“You don’t mean he might try to . . . steal me?”

Varian’s eyes lifted to mine. They were dilated, the black of his pupils drowning out the blue. It was a sure sign that Bloodlust held him in its control. He breathed deeply for a moment, then sighed. His hand lifted, moving from my arm to twine through the curtain of my loose curls.“What have I promised you?” he asked, voice soft.

I swallowed. “You promised to win me.”

He leaned in and his scent wrapped around me. “You will be mine, Aurora. Officially and irrevocably. Not even the son of Hades can stop that.”

“Be careful of your promises,” I warned.

His hand moved to cradle my cheek and his thumb brushed against the corner of my bottom lip. My breath hitched. “You doubt me?”

“Ask me again tomorrow. After I’ve seen if all the stories about you are true.”

He chuckled, leaning into my mouth. “Oh, they are, darling. Believe me, they are. But perhaps I can banish your doubts. Right. Now.”

A thrill alighted in my stomach, pooling deep and low. “Oh?”

A strong, calloused hand traced my side. Drifted lower. He tugged me closer until my breasts grazed his chest. The warmth of his body seeped into my skin and the rise and fall of my breaths quickened, pulse pounding.

When his mouth found mine, his lips were demanding. His tongue begged entrance, and I yielded, the kiss wanting and deep.

Varian’s hands moved to my hips. One of his legs pressed between my thighs and he nudged me back, towards a rarely used sitting room off the darkened hallway.

My back met wood, and, never breaking the kiss, Varian opened the door and maneuvered us through, kicking it shut behind him.

“Gods,” he breathed into my mouth. “I’ve missed you. Missed this.”

And so had I. How many nights since he’d last visited had I lain awake, retracing each breath of these rare, secret moments in my mind? Too many to count.

So, when Varian’s strong hands moved lower yet, grabbing my rear and lifting me until my skirts were bundled around my thighs and my legs wrapped around his hips, I only angled my body closer to his—pressing that needy part of me against the proof of his obvious desire.

His answering groan was a deep rumbling growl that echoed through every inch of me.

Varian moved so my back was against the cool marble wall and with one deft movement, a single hand undid his trousers and then he was there. The impressive length of him met my entrance, and he sheathed himself with one fierce thrust.

I cried out, and he silenced me with his mouth, swallowing the sound in a sea of fevered kisses.

Suddenly, the full strength of Ares’ own blood was unleashed upon me and when I whimpered against the sheer pleasure of him, he pulled away a fraction, eyes searching mine in the darkness.

“No,” I hissed, nails raking over his tunic-covered back. “More.”

And it was a command he obeyed.

Later, when we were both sated—bruises already forming on my thighs and back from the force of our joining—Varian half-carried me to my chamber door.

He sat me down, forehead lowering to touch my own. “You’re mine, darling,” he said softly. “And I won’t let anyone forget it.”

And just like that, the spell cast by our stolen moment, by the pleasurable escape from the Trials that I’d taken from his body, was broken. I pulled away, dread coiling tight in my chest. “The Trials are only just beginning, Varian. Perhaps that is what we shouldn’t forget.”

His jaw tightened, eyes growing dark. Silently, he pressed a single kiss to my forehead, and then he was gone.