Ridiculous. “I’m not going to live with you.”

“I’ve decided you’ll also be sharing my bed.”

“Become your concubine?” She scoffed. “The demon has jokes! Just a few hours ago, I let you know how I felt about that prospect. Hell freezing over? Ringing a bell, relic? I would never have sex with you after your treatment of me.”

No matter how frenzied he’d just made her.

She shivered to recall the sight of his mighty body as he’d roared . . . those primal shadows . . .

Even now—in the moonlight, with the wind ruffling his midnight black hair—she found him . . . compelling.

“My treatment of you? Then perhaps I’ll do as you did and simply declare myself a different person now. I’ll disavow my past actions—as you did Kari’s.”

“That’s not the same.” It’s kind of the same.

“I’ll never hurt you again, Calliope.”

“Never hurting me again shouldn’t be a selling point; it should be a given,” she said, wondering why they were still discussing this subject. “I might be your mate, but that doesn’t make you mine.”

A muscle ticked in his wide jaw. His voice dropped to a menacing level. “Trust me when I say that you—as Kari—made that fact abundantly clear.”

Because Karinna was his mate. All evidence pointed to Lila being her reincarnation. I’ll have to . . . process that later. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I plotted revenge for the past.”

“More reason why I don’t want anything to do with you.”

“Do you not? You came quickly enough against my cock.”

Her face heated. “You’re the most arrogant asshole I’ve ever met. Have you forgotten that I have a fiancé?”

Tick, tick, tick went that jaw muscle. “In hell, you have no one but me.”

“There’s nothing you can say to convince me to become your concubine. Nothing.”

“No? How about peace for Sylvan? If you became mine, the Møriør would refrain from attacking.”

Her lips parted.

“Each hour I’m here enjoying you is an hour I’m not warring against the fey.”

“And how long will that last?”

“A standard demonic concubine contract lasts for a minimum of a thousand years.”

A millennium? With this fucker?

“However, since you are my mate I’m interested in securing you . . . indefinitely. I will make you my queen.”

She gaped at him.

“You were willing to risk your life to warn your kingdom about my invasion. Wed me, and you can end the specter of war entirely.”

Marrying him would mean surrendering forever all of her pie-in-the-sky dreams: to live safely in Sylvan, to be the queen of that realm, to start a family that would also live in safety, and possibly to fall in love.

What if Saetth was innocent in all this? If she could get back to him, she could have a wedding and coronation this very season. They could start having kids right away.

Her fey children would run the forests as she had.

Even if Saetth had dicked her over, she could find someone else for herself. Anyone else.

A male who was normal. Who knew what a phone app was. Who didn’t accessorize with a battle-ax. Who wouldn’t cringe to picture the kids they’d have together.

Abyssian squared his shoulders. “For as long as you are my wife, I vow to the Lore that the inhabitants of Sylvan are safe from my alliance. None will fall by a Møriør’s hand.”

She drew back her head in disbelief. A vow to the Lore was unbreakable, yet she knew how badly he wanted to punish her kingdom. “Ah, I see, the master of trickery is playing with me. You’ll figure some way out of your vow, and make me a victim of your games yet again. You’re illustrating why I could never trust you!”

“The time for games has passed.”

“You’re . . . serious? Then this is coercion.”

He shook his head. “A mutually beneficial arrangement.”

If she was bound to Abyssian, Rune would have to back off.

Was she actually considering this marriage? How could she not when it would save her people and herself? “You’d vow to keep me safe from any threat to my life? Any at all?”

“Yes. I easily make that pledge.”

Eventually he’d find out she was Magh’s descendant. His vow would force him to protect her—even from Rune! “Maybe if you didn’t demand sex—”

“Not an option,” he said, tone unyielding.

“We aren’t physically compatible. I’m too small compared to you.” When he’d loomed over her in that glen . . . “You’re well over a foot taller than I am. With your wings, you must have three times my weight, and you’ve got to be ten thousand times stronger.”

He’d begun shaking his head before she’d even finished. “I promise you, we will be compatible.”

Sex. With Abyssian Infernas. She ignored the spike in her pulse. “You said you wouldn’t hurt me. Losing my virginity with you will hurt.” Despite her new immortality.

And he’d need to bite her during the claiming. She recalled his reaction at dinner when she’d said she would accept a mate’s bite. Abyssian had looked like he’d forgotten how to blink.

Perhaps in that past life, she—or Kari—had rejected the possibility. Lila had been truthful, though. If she were mated to a male she loved—and trusted—she would bare her neck, taking her medicine.

Loving and trusting Abyssian weren’t in her future.

“I would be as gentle with you as possible.”

Her lifelong aspiration to be Sylvan’s queen faded from distant hope toward wistful memory. But if she kept the Møriør from attacking her people, she could do more for them than any other ruler before.

Isn’t sacrifice what queens do?

When she imagined Abyssian’s ax raised against the Sylvan army . . . or one of Rune’s arrows piercing her heart . . .

Dear gods, she was going to have to surrender to the king of hell.

Dear. Gods.

She’d wondered whether fate had some kind of cosmic plan in store for her. Lila’s mind flashed to a memory of playing with her dolls, pretending they were her subjects in need of protection. Maybe she’d been reborn to sacrifice herself—damning herself to hell—for Sylvan.