Quicksilver (Fae & Alchemy, #1)

by Callie Hart

For those who live their nightmares so that others may have their dreams.

We've been reduced to embers, yes, but the coals that lie beneath the ash of my ward are still hot enough to burn. Do you know much about metalwork, Captain? I do. It's under the most unbearable conditions that the sharpest, most dangerous weapons are forged. And we are dangerous, Captain. She’s turned us all into weapons. That is why she won’t suffer my people to live.”

If he'd left you where he found you, you'd be dead. Gods, even the little voice in the back of my mind was turning against me. Well, I wasn't thanking him. Not when he was being so openly hostile.

“I don't hate your kind. I'm just disappointed by how breakable you are. If I held you down and fucked you the way I'm imagining fucking you right now, I doubt that you’d survive it.”

“That your body is betraying you in other ways. That I can smell you, Little Osha, and I'm thinking about drinking the sweet nectar you're making for me straight from the fucking cup.”

Fuck. I was still standing between his legs. What the hell was wrong with me? I made to step back, but Kingfisher placed his hands on my hips. Lightly, the same way he'd placed his hands on the small of my back. “Go on. Pull back. I won't stop you,” he said. “Or you could kiss me. You could kiss me. I'll just sit here. I won't move a muscle.”

He held me so tight now that he was definitely leaving bruises. I wanted them. I wanted to remember this. In the years to come, when I looked back at this moment, I would be glad that I'd taken the leap and jumped. This was the kiss to end all kisses. Demanding, urgent, and carnal.

“There's every way,” Fisher rumbled, his eyes darkening. “I'd know the smell of you anywhere. On anyone. I'd know it blind and in the dark. Across a fucking sea. I'd be able to scent you—”

“Because she is moonlight. The mist that shrouds the mountains. The bite of electricity in the air before a storm. The smoke that rolls across a battlefield before the killing starts. You have no idea what she is. What she could be. You should call her Majesty.”

Not Danya's sword, the quicksilver hissed. We are reforged. New unto this place. You do not claim us, Lorreth of the Broken Spires. We claim you. “This is going to be hilarious,” Fisher said. But he wasn't laughing. Neither was Lorreth. “Danya's going to lose her mind.”

See, Little Osha. Just like the butterfly I named you after. So weak. So vulnerable.

“Stubborn girl,” he growled. “Don't you dare die on my watch, Saeris Fane! Fisher will never forgive me if his sole reason for living is torn to pieces on her first fucking battlefield.”

“Where are you going, Saeris?” he called after me. “To sleep. And in the morning, I'm going to the library, and I'm going to research how to save Everlayne and you. Because I don't just throw my hands up and accept defeat when things get hard. I'm honestly shocked to learn that you do.”

Please, Fisher. Gods, I want you. His low, rumbling chuckle skimming over the surface of my mind was pure sin. You've got me, Little Osha. And I've got you.

“Nobody will ever fuck you the way I'm about to fuck you, Saeris Fane. I'm about to introduce you to all seven gods. When you meet them, don't forget to tell them I'm the one you worship on your knees.”

“I'm in love with you, Saeris Fane,” he whispered quietly into my hair. “And I'm already half-mad, anyway. What's a little complicated thrown into the mix?”

“When we were here last time, you said that the people of Ballard had something you needed. But you never got it,” I whispered. Fisher gently kissed my forehead, and all around us, the flickering candle flames started to blink out. “Yes, I did,” he said. I barely heard his next words as I drifted away. “I came for a little hope.”