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Some said the knight’s creed in greeting, others threw gowan flowers and pleaded—oh, how they pleaded—for our attention, our words, our kisses, though the wall was too high and we were more satisfied to watch them beg than to offer up our lips.
What is going on here
Still, I felt it, somewhere between my stomach and throat, the instant he spotted me on the wall. His shoulders went rigid. Slowly, he reached for his helmet. Removed it. There was a mess of black hair. He shoved it from his face, and I drew in a breath. Sharp features. Dark brows. A prominent nose. His skin was olive, golden from sun, yet there was no warmth in his face. Light caught along three gold bands pierced into his right ear. Severe, rimmed in charcoal, his eyes were so brown they might easily be mistaken for black.
HOTTTT
The half-naked knight slid off the table. I kept my gaze stubbornly aimed at his face and nothing below it. Not the lean muscles etched into his abdomen, not the sharp V they made over his hips, not the line of dark hair that trailed from his navel into his waistband—
Girl
“It’s been a privilege, Diviner,” he threw over his shoulder. I seethed all night and got no rest.
Soooo me
“She’s mad because my knight told me her knight had a wife and two little Wentworth pups back at home.” “Something the bastard conveniently failed to mention while his mouth was between my legs,” Four said, braiding her hair with furious fingers.
I looove this dynamic
There was nothing to do after that but to agree. But I couldn’t scrub Rodrick pissing Myndacious from my mind.
Cause you likeee him
“You dolt.” Maude reached behind Rory and smacked King Castor’s back until he stopped hacking. “Diviners can drink and smoke and fuck just like anyone else.”
Ayyyyye
“Be your escort.” “That’s what I said.” He shrugged. “No.” “What do you mean, no?” “Just that.” He smiled. “You might have ridden other deferential knights hard and put them away wet—but I’m no one’s errand boy. Besides, we leave for Coulson Faire in an hour.”
Loving the dialogue
He wrapped his fist around the chisel’s stem, dropping his voice to that low, gravelly rasp. “Point this thing in my face again and it’s mine.” “I’d sincerely enjoy watching you try to take it.” I could feel the eyes in the room on us. “Whatever Aisling or Diviners or the Omens have done to garner your hatred, well done.” My voice was shaking. “I’ve been duly insulted. Now—you’ve stolen Aisling’s spring water. I won’t ask why, and I won’t speak of it again, but I want something in return. So be a good little soldier, and escort. My. Diviners.”
Be ready by nightfall. —R (The idleweed is to spare my fucking boots. Don’t smoke it all.)
Need
We smoked all the idleweed. Four danced around the room, her white dress and a trail of smoke billowing behind her.
Im actualy obsessed with these girls
Three grinned at Five, who opened her mouth with a wolfish smile and swallowed the smoke Three blew into it. Two lay back on her mattress, limbs loose, and stared up at the ceiling. Of all of us, she was the least unlikely to say, “Let’s do this when our service is up. Lie in bed. Smoke. Drink. Eat. Do absolutely nothing.”
Sisterhood
“Which of you is buying my first drink at the Faire?” The knights grinned in her wake. “Gods, I envy her,” One murmured. “I never know what to say to these eager, puppy-dog knights.”
“Are you married?” I asked abruptly. Hamelin laughed, drawing looks. “Not even close—” “Fantastic.” I turned to One. “I’m taking a turn in the grass. Don’t wait for me.”
Crazy turn of events
“You’re lovely. Yesterday’s Divination—” He cupped my breast through my dress. “You looked mythical—practically fearsome. I couldn’t look away. No one could.”
Really have the male gaze in their hands dont they
“No one back home in the Peaks is going to believe I fucked a Diviner.” What little desire I felt fled my body. How rough the tree suddenly felt against my back. How cold his gauntlets over my skin, how brutal his armor between my legs.
I get this feeling girl
“Let go of me.” He didn’t. He reached his other hand to my shroud instead. “Please, Diviner, all I need is a sign—” And then he was thrown backward, falling with an ungracious thud onto the floor of his stall. I felt a presence at my back—saw an armored arm. When I turned, my shoulder hit a breastplate. Two eyes, unfathomably dark, combed my face. Gods.
Yessss my fav dont touch her trope
A few knights danced, strangers with happy eyes, but I liked dancing with Diviners best. Hands, skirts, bare feet. The thump, thump, thump of my pulse in perfect time with the music. When we twirled in bold turns near the licking flames, I felt wildly astir. And I wondered why. Why didn’t the Omens speak to me like this? In a melody or a spin or the heartbeat of a drum? Not in the spring, in dreams, where I was in pain and afraid, but like this, loose and infinite, when my soul was split open and thrown skyward in delight.
King Castor’s finger, slightly wobbly, pointed once more. “The pretty one.” Rory’s eyes flitted to me. But the King’s finger, the knighthood’s collective gaze, was trained on Four.
AAAHH HE THINKS SHES PRETTYYYYY
“Let . . . me . . . win.” His lips curled at the corners. “You are nervous. Why’s that, Diviner? Thinking of kissing me, too?” “I’d rather put you on your back.” “Don’t threaten me with a good ti—”
Hottt
“You’re a fucking scourge.” He groaned, dropping his gaze to my mouth. “Wouldn’t it have been easier just to kiss me?” “And deny myself any pleasure?”
Rory paused. Slowly, he brought his hand to his mouth—and bit the pad of his thumb. Red bloomed over his skin. Rory glanced down at his bloodied thumb, then at my mouth. “This good enough?”
Rory didn’t. He was waiting. When it dawned on me why, the spring was not so cold. Permission. He was waiting for me to grant it. I nodded at his bloodied thumb. “Go on.” A line drew between Rory’s brows. He held out his hand and I took it—his skin rough and warm—bringing it to my mouth. “What name, with blood, would you give the Omens?” I whispered. “My name is Rodrick Myndacious.” With shocking gentleness, Rory pressed his bloodied thumb to my lips. The sound of his exhale thrummed through the cathedral. “What’s yours?”
Has something already happened to them? I shook myself. “Don’t let your mind run wild.” “What pace should I let it run, then?” I screamed, and so did the batlike gargoyle behind me. “You idiot!” I put a hand to my breast. “You scared me.” “Don’t shout at me, Bartholomew.”
Haahahahhhauuhy
He was on top of me in a second, pinning my wrists above my head. Dark eyes roved my face, his mouth turning in a distinct, familiar sneer. “Well, if it isn’t my least favorite Diviner.” Rory.
He was still bowed over me, hands braced on either side of my head, knees pressing just outside my hips. Looking up into his face felt unmistakably similar to other things that might occur upon a mattress in a darkened room. He seemed to think it, too, because the corners of his mouth lifted. “You’re welcome to search me for them.”
Hotttt
outside.” I moved to step off the bed. Rory lurched forward, bracing my hips. “What are you—” “Don’t kick me. I’m trying to help you.” He nodded at the floor, moonlight kissing over thousands of shards of glass. “Unless you’d rather rip your feet to tatters.”
No thats so hot
“Put you on your back at Coulson Faire easy enough, didn’t I?” That got a smile out of him. A moment later I was in the air, slung over his shoulder like a dead deer. I swore and he chuckled, glass crunching beneath his boots as he moved through the room. “Threw you on that bed easy enough, too,” he murmured.
Actually cant handle this
threw myself against the shed door. There was a blunt thud, hot pain ripping up my shoulder. The door stayed shut. Rory’s thumb was on his bottom lip, tracing a smile. “Shut up.”
Hrs so fuckibg hot
“Did he just try to smite me, Bartholomew?” Rory’s gaze jerked. “Bartholomew? That’s your name?” “Pith, you’re thick—no. He calls everyone Bartholomew.” “What the hell for?” Rory pivoted back to the gargoyle. “What the hell for?”
“Our business may get . . . animated. Stay close.” My brows shot up. “Animated how?” “Will there be kissing?” the gargoyle asked. “What—no.” Rory made a face. “We’re going to . . .” He turned to Maude for help, but she offered none, grinning as he struggled to articulate.
“You lot seem tense,” I murmured. “Nervous about something, Myndacious?” The fidgeting sounds stopped. “Do you have some moral compunction against saying my name?” “Is Myndacious not your name?” “I told you the night we met to call me Rory.” “And I might have. But then we got to talking, and suddenly there was nothing about you that made me want to encourage familiarity.” “Job well done. Vomiting on my favorite boots is a surefire way to keep things formal between us.” I glared back at him. “You’re remarkably difficult to like.” “You’d like me better if you called me Rory.” “I’d like you
...more
The banter is insaneeee
I was shaking. Rory’s hand found my elbow, a warm stanchion to keep me sound— “Don’t touch me.” I jerked away, carrying myself away to the nearest tower of shelves, fighting the rabid urge to be sick.
“You say horrible things to me all the time.” “I know.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “Perhaps it’s why I worried you might be twenty miles away. That I might not—” He made a face. “That you might not come back.” “I didn’t come back. I was arrested.”
“I have disdain in me, yes.” Rory’s brows drew together, lips parted slightly enough for me to hear the shaky sound of his exhale. “But none for you.”
AAAAAHHHH
He seemed at ease, like whatever disquiet warring within him had been spent in combat— And then he saw me. He went still, mouth half-open. There was blood on his bottom lip. Some near his left brow as well. The charcoal around his eyes was smeared, staining his sweat black. I’d never seen a knight so filthy—so physically degraded by his craft. He looked entirely ignoble. I couldn’t look away.
“You and Rothspar are up next.” “I’m talking.” “Not anymore. Put your fucking helmet on.”
Hahhahahah
It could have been blood. Or maybe, just maybe, I caught the hint of a flush in his cheeks. “I’m fitting you with armor.”
“Still fixed on Myndacious, I see.” “I like the way it rolls off the tongue.” “I’ll bet.”
To prove you wrong.” Heat touched my cheeks. “I wanted to show you that I wasn’t too good for a knight—just too good for you.”
I deserved to hate it, watching you disappear into the trees with Hamelin.” He gave me his eyes over his shoulder once more. “I’m sorry I was such an ass.” I didn’t know what to say to that, so I said nothing.
Guys this is the start of great communication
“Oh. Sure.” He waited. “Must I spell it out? I permit you.” Rory rolled his eyes. Brought his wax-laden thumb to my mouth. “You don’t like it when I’m a bad knight,” he muttered, “and you don’t like it when I’m a good one.”
Hot sexy beautiful
“Have you considered that’s because I don’t like you at all?” There it was again. The stain of a flush upon his olive cheeks. “Yeah. I’ve considered that.”
“It’s not true, you know,” he said. “You don’t have to be good, or useful, for someone to care about you.”
I dreaded it would feel like a mutilation, him destroying my Diviner’s dress. But the sound—shears, cutting though gossamer—was strangely satisfying. I shut my eyes and listened to it, imagining myself an insect, the first piece of its cocoon coming away.
When he was finished he rounded my body, gave me a pointed look— And dropped to his knees. I tightened everywhere. “May I?” Rory poked my thigh. “The fronts of your legs?” I nodded.
The red returned to his cheeks. “You’re nervous,” I said, grinning. “Why is that?” “Don’t flatter yourself.” “But you’re blushing. Dying to fidget with that stolen coin in your pocket, maybe. Touching a Diviner must make your heretical heart truly uneasy—”
Rory came toward me until our noses were flush, speaking within an inch of my mouth. “You know what I think?” he murmured. “I think you like that I’m a bad knight. It’s why you feel so righteous, flaying me with your tongue—why you enjoy throwing me down and grinding your heel into my pride. It does something to you.” He wet his bottom lip. “I’d bet my oath your whole body is awake right now, aching and eager at the thought of putting me in my place.”
OH MY GOD
“You want to throw me down,” Rory said, eyelids dropping as he whispered into my parted lips. “And I, prideful, disdainful, godless, want to drag you into the dirt with me.”
“I’ll ask Maude to do the rest.” He rounded the stool. Walked away. The door to the forge closed.
Nooooo come back
