Swallowing the rock, she decided to hell with it. “Was he a relative?”

“Even if he had been, I don’t abide lack of intelligence in those around me. Egan was punished for his idiocy.”

Ashwini truly didn’t want to know what Nazarach had done to the slender angel who’d attempted to make her his playmate. But the wildness in her couldn’t help asking, “Because he tried to go after a hunter . . . or because he failed?”

Another cold smile. “You should ask Egan—his tongue has regrown.” Rising from his relaxed position, he held out a hand. “Fly with me, Ashwini.”

Even from a foot away, it felt as if he was wrapping her in a thousand ropes, strangling, crushing, killing. “I can’t touch you.”

His eyes gleamed and she saw her death in them. “I’m so distasteful?”

“You have too much in you,” she whispered, fighting for breath. “Too many lives, too many memories, too many ghosts.”

That hand lowered, his expression intrigued. “You have the eye?”

Such an old way of speaking. But then, Nazarach had seen empires rise and kings fall. “Of a kind.” She backed up, trying to find air in a world that suddenly seemed to have none.

When Janvier’s hand came around her nape, she accepted the touch without startlement, as if something in her had known, had reached for him. One touch, and suddenly her throat opened, the summer air sweet as nectar to her parched lungs.

“Sire,” Janvier said, his voice soft, his address one of respect. “Don’t destroy a treasure for a moment’s fleeting pleasure.”

“Audrina was not to your taste?” the angel asked, his eyes never moving off Ashwini. “I find that hard to believe.”

“My tastes have changed.” Janvier’s free hand came to rest on her upper arm. “Even if Ash isn’t cooperating.”

Nazarach went motionless for a moment—and at that instant, Ashwini knew she’d fight the death he threw at them. Because she’d brought Janvier into this. He was hers to protect.