Under His Wings(52)

The longer Evander remained free, the deadlier he became…and the more dangerous he was to Tamar.

This hunt had ceased being about Nicolai’s people and the safety of their existence days ago. If he were honest, it had changed the moment he’d stared down into Tamar’s unconscious face on that dark street. But it had been cemented the moment she’d swallowed her fear and asked him to change into his hippogryph. Then she’d caressed him. Accepted both sides of him. Whispered her heart’s desire against his chest.

She was a woman of worth and beauty. A woman who had been betrayed in the cruelest of ways and yet had the courage to surrender herself into his keeping.

Tamar had trusted Nicolai not to hurt her when she was at her most vulnerable. Making love to her had rocked him to the core. His soul had once been battered but intact. But after burying his cock inside her, after sleeping with his head against her breast and her arms holding him close, a jagged fissure had cracked his heart wide open.

And she’d reached inside and captured the pieces with her small hands. His soul, spirit and heart belonged to her. Forever.

Even with Pria—whom Nicolai had loved before meeting her—there hadn’t been this…fuck, how did he describe it?

For once after all these centuries, he understood how a hippogryph could go rogue. If any harm came to Tamar, nothing would keep him from hunting and destroying. No law. No tradition. Not his people.

When Pria died, he hadn’t opted to follow her into Eirene or go into nepenthe. Instead he’d channeled his rage and grief into hunting and exacting justice.

But with Tamar…

He wouldn’t choose sleep or the diversion of work.

He would choose to die with her.

So she had to survive.

And when this was over—when he didn’t have a choice but to walk away from her—it would mean another kind of death. One of his soul. But he refused to put a bull’s eye on her back. As he’d learned in the most brutal way, abdicating as Dimios wouldn’t keep her safe. As Tamar had so eloquently put it, he knew the risks.

Yet even if he was willing to take the risk—if Tamar was willing—there remained the biggest elephant-in-the-room hurdle of them all.

She was human.

Though he didn’t give a damn about the law when it came to her, taking Tamar as a mate condemned her to certain death not only from enemies but from his own people. The hippogryph that succeeded him would be honor-bound to take her out.

Then Nicolai would be forced to kill a friend.

Lukas’ words came back to haunt him.

What a clusterfuck.

“Lukas?” he called out.

“Yes.” The response was immediate but clipped with irritation. Apparently, the male was still angry with him for insisting Adon remain with Lukas and Dorian at the cabin. His second-in-command most likely figured Nicolai wanted to take Evander down himself, without interference. True, revenge for Bastien continued to burn in his chest, but another concern overrode that desire. Tamar’s safety. And if Nicolai had to wing it by himself to provide her with the best security possible, then that was his decision.

The three men who served under him were the best warriors of their people and would guard her with their lives.

“Is it all good there?” Nicolai asked even as a faintly darker mass slid among the column of clouds that rolled across the sky.

“Yes.” A pause. “Any sign of him?”

“Not yet,” he sent, but his eyes zeroed in on the fast-moving billow. Shifting his body with the current, he followed the shadow. “Gotta go. I might be on to something. Luke?”

“Yes.”

His heart dipped as he sped up. “I’m entrusting her into your care. Ensure her safety. Please.”

A long beat of silence passed before his second’s deep, solemn oath rang in his head. “I swear it. On my life.”

“Thank you, my friend.” Without waiting for a reply, Nico cut off the line of communication and arrowed in on his prey. It was Evander, he was certain of it.

He switched directions, climbed higher to come over the cloud. Blood pumped in his veins, conveying fury throughout his body like a parasitic toxin. He blocked everything but Evander from his mind. Evander and his imminent death.

A crimson mist shimmered at the edges of his eyesight. Nicolai sucked in several deep breaths, shoved the fury down and forced a calm to settle the rage-fueled beat of his heart.

He couldn’t afford to lose control.

Tamar’s life depended on it.

“You are so predictable, Nico. It makes this moment almost anticlimactic. Almost.” The smooth, aristocratic voice emerged from the stormy mass seconds before Evander did. The hippogryph hovered like a specter of death waiting to feast on the carrion of whatever poor soul he chose. “I knew it would come down to the two of us.”