Page 40 of Bought By the Manticore

“I was afraid of you,” she continued. “After you bid for me. I thought you’d ask for things I couldn’t give. But you never did, and I’ve carried that kindness since. Now you’re back. I don’tknow what you are, but I know that kindness is in you still. I can see it. The way you hold yourself between us and her.”

She looked past my wing to where Ianthe stood wrapped in the dark pelt. Her expression softened into something almost like wonder.

“You found her,” Medea said. “In the dirt, in the dark, you found someone who could hold you. I’m glad, Skaros. I’m glad you’re not alone.”

There were so many things I could have said, but the words refused to come. I’d been honest when I told Ianthe I hadn’t blamed Medea for my death. Did I blame her now? I couldn’t be sure.

In the end, Ianthe saved me from having to find an answer. “You’re right,” she said, lifting her chin in defiance. “He’s not alone. Skaros has me now. I chose him already. So whatever it is that you want to do here, whether it’s an apology or something else… we don’t need it.”

She was speaking for both of us. She had claimed me in front of my mother and the woman who had once been my bride. She didn’t ask my permission. She didn’t need to.

“We’re not your enemies, Ianthe,” Aion said, his metallic voice low, almost gentle. “We never were.”

“Medea unwove him,” Ianthe replied. She looked at the bronze colossus and crossed her arms over the pelt, holding it closed.“And so did you. You were culling the asphodels, gathering him in death spheres when he was reaching for me.”

Aion had only been doing his job as a harvester, and I hadn’t blamed him for it either. But Ianthe had no reason to feel the same.

“The city didn’t understand,” Aion stated. “But I did. I watched the way the vines moved toward the infirmary. And I knew.” He turned to me and met my gaze. “You were starving, but you weren’t planning to attack her. You recognized her the moment she set foot in Asphodelia. As your mate. And so I helped.”

I stared at him. I remembered that day, desperate and frantic, my consciousness pushing through the avenues in the hope that a single bloom might reach her. I’d thought I was clever, outsmarting the construct who visited her ward. I’d thought my own cunning opened the door.

But all along, Aion had been helping. He’d looked at a starving weed fighting for territory, and he hadn’t seen a feral monster. He’d seen his friend. And he’d offered me a lifeline when I’d most needed it.

“You’re talking about the petal,” I whispered. “The one I slipped into your hair.”

“The one I carried,” Aion corrected me. “I suspected you needed a physical bridge to reach her mind. And I knew you’d never hurt her.”

My claws flexed against the basalt floor. “If Iaso had caught you planting feral weeds in a patient’s bed, the Moirae would’ve stripped your rank.”

“I chose to take a risk,” Aion replied. “And looking at you now, I’d say it was worth taking.”

Phix rose from her haunches. “The reunions are touching,” she said, her tail flicking against the stone near the doorway. “But we have a much larger problem.”

And so, we reached the true heart of the issue. The real reason for their visit. “Tell me, then, Mother. What claim does Asphodelia still have on Ianthe?”

“Your bride isn’t the one being claimed,” my mother replied. “You are no longer dead, Skaros. That is a transgression we do not lightly ignore.”

As her words sank in, I cursed my own foolishness. I should have realized this much sooner. Death was the ultimate gift in Asphodelia. To be unwoven was to accept the grace of Thanatos. To return from the dirt—to pull bone and fur back into existence—was an absolute affront to everything Asphodelia stood for. It implied that death was a mistake that needed to be undone.

Now that I was back, I was a problem.

“To the city, you’re a walking blasphemy,” she continued. Her voice was calm, almost dry, the same tone she used when stating facts that couldn’t be argued. “The Moirae watched you unravel,and they watched you pull the sickness from the girl. They silently sanctioned what was done. They wish for you to remain, my son. But they’re bound by Thanatos’s own laws, and the rest of the city is watching.”

“What does that mean?” Ianthe asked. “What will they do to him?”

“A creature refusing its end can’t remain in the heart of the city,” Phix answered. “If Skaros is merely a ghost clinging to his old threads, the Moirae will have no choice. The two of you will be returned to the Korinos Wilds.”

The Wilds.

I’d traveled into the depths of Korinos many times as a harvester. I didn’t fear the beasts there; they were no threat to me. But that wasn’t what my mother meant.

I was a creature woven from pure death energy. The cold air, the black stones, and the ambient magic of this city were the only things that sustained my flesh. If I were pushed into the Wilds—a realm overflowing with wild, chaotic life and relentless fertility—I would starve.

Without Asphodelia’s death energy, I’d slowly wither away. No matter how much carnage the Wilds held, it couldn’t actively feed me forever. I’d fall apart all over again.

I turned toward Ianthe. The golden mark on her hand caught the ember-light. I felt her heartbeat through my fur, steady anddefiant. She had barely survived a terminal illness. She’d spent years in a failing body. We’d just been reunited. I wouldn’t let anyone pull us apart.

“I won’t leave,” I growled. “I’ll hold this ridge. I won’t take Ianthe out there to suffer.”