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I’ll make you beg, Little Osha. I’ll fill every one of those pretty little holes. I’ll fuck you so hard, you’ll never want another male ever again.
Every warrior in Irrín will smell me on you,
I’m going to make you hoarse from screaming my fucking name. I’m going to mark you in every way imaginable, so that everyone knows you’re fucking mine.
Ruin me.
The stars tumbled from the heavens, and hell rose up to meet them.
Everything and nothing, here and gone.
“When I imagine you, Little Osha, you’re very rarely wearing clothes.”
“The one on the left means blessed one,” he said, his tone light. “The fingers…” He shrugged, looking up at the ceiling far too casually. “They mean all kinds of things.”
“Could you be any vaguer?” “I mean, probably…” “Fisher!” “Okay. All right. A lot of them are connected. Light. Dark. Silver. Steel. Earth. Air. Fire. Water. That kind of thing. Alchemist stuff.”
No, I can’t take that back. And I’m sorry for that.
“Swear it.” “A promise doesn’t bind me the way it binds you.” “I know. But humans still make promises to each other, even though they can be broken, don’t they? Because they trust the other to honor their word.”
“Good. At last. This is as it was always meant to be, Saeris Fane.
“Be unrelenting and unmerciful in the face of the wicked dead,” Fisher said.
Ren laid a steadying hand on my shoulder. “And if you should find soul sundered from flesh, order a drink for us at the first tavern you come across in the afterlife. We’ll settle the tab when we get there.”
“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.”
“WELL, HE CAN’T HAVE HER!” Fisher’s declaration boomed over the Darn; it could probably be heard in the bowels of Ammontraíeth. The terror that rolled off him hit me like a slap to the face. I felt it deep in my bones. And… I felt something else, too. Taladaius. His attention shifted to me, though his dark eyes, brimming over with merriment, remained locked on Fisher.
My cheeks were burning, a thousand degrees and climbing, when Fisher quietly came forward and knelt at my feet. His halo of dark hair was all over the place, his skin pale in the flickering torchlight. His eyes were steady, though. They ran me through as he withdrew Nimerelle and closed his fist around her edge. When he placed his hand against my chest, he tapped his index finger and middle finger against my sternum, in time with my racing heart. Giving me a very tired, very sad smile, he said, “I give you my blood in thanks, Saeris Fane.”
“The Oshellith hatch once in most Fae lifetimes. Up north, in the wastelands, far beyond Ajun Sky, where the dragons used to live. The air’s so cold there that it’ll freeze in your lungs if you breathe it in without a mask. No life exists there for long. But once in a thousand years, the howling winds drop, signaling the coming of the Oshellith. News of that event travels quickly. That’s when the bravest of our kind set out. They go on foot where no horse can go. When they reach the valley where the Oshellith hatch, they find the butterfly’s cocoons and they shield them with their bodies. They
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that’s capable of healing. The Oshellith mate and lay their eggs, but once that’s done, they fill the air, and they dance. Protecting them while they live is considered a sacred rite that many die in order to perform. That’s what Oshellith means in Old Fae, Saeris. Most Sacred.
“I’m not well,” Fisher whispered. “I can’t sleep. I’m haunted, constantly. I see things. I hear things. And it’s getting worse.
“I was looking for a way to save you.
She wrote only that I’d find you, and the fates would guide our path from there.”
“Fuck the fates. They don’t get to decide shit for me. I decide what my future is going to be.”
He threaded his fingers with mine and looked down at our joined hands for a very long time. “You’re right,” he said at last, looking up at me. “Being driven to the point of madness by pain and horrific hallucinations won’t kill me, no. But it’s no life. At least not one that I want to live. And I won’t be safe. I’ll end up hurting the people I care about. In the very least, I’ll be a burden, and I won’t saddle you or anyone else with the burden of caring for me. That’s just not happening.”
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.”
“If it were up to me, we wouldn’t spend another night without each other again.”
And for me, too. I am selfish, Saeris. I wanted something quiet and small and special for the both of us. Something we could keep.
Make me forget that I’ve ever suffered, I commanded. Make me forget that I will again.
My soul was on fire, and I didn’t care if I burned for all eternity. So long as I was burning with him, then so be it.
When I get you out of these clothes, you’re in trouble, he snarled in my head. I’m going to fuck you so hard you won’t be able to sit down for a week.
God-bound. We were God-bound. Mates.
Your scent drives me crazy, Fisher rumbled. You’re like a fucking drug. You light me up.
Whenever I caught the smell of him in the air, it made my heart race.
He would be my end, this male. He would claim my better days and carry me during my worst. He would show me the meaning of ecstasy and drown me in it until I fucking died.
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.”
You want me to worship you? I’ll worship you,
“Maybe I was. But I’ll be damned all the way to hell and back if you use that sweet mouth on me and I don’t get to watch.”
“And, anyway. I’m not afraid of them, Little Osha. Are you?
He was going to eat me alive. I was going to let him.
“Gods alive, you’re so pretty with your mouth wrapped around me like that.”
“My lips to kiss. My mouth to fuck
“Tell me to fuck you, Saeris,” he ground out. “Tell me that you want this.”
Will you forget you asked that question if I find the energy to make you scream my name again?”
“Careful, Osha,” he chided. “My teeth are much sharper than yours.”
“All right, fine. I’ll tell you. In the past, one party always got the mating marks first. When the other party accepted the bond, sometimes Marks showed up on their bodies, too. It didn’t happen all of the time. But sometimes…”
“I accepted the bond. Earlier. When I was inside you. When my soul was wrapped around yours.”
“I’ll be grateful for every second that I can say that I belong to you, Saeris Fane. Eighty years or eighteen hours. It doesn’t matter to me. It’ll still be the highest honor of my life.
He’d accepted me as his mate.
“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?”
