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“I’m stronger than you, idiot. I’ve spent hundreds of years forging barriers and wards around my mind that you couldn’t begin to comprehend. My mind is an impenetrable vault, and I still paid a heavy price for my transgression. Your mind is as shallow as a fucking teacup. It would have splintered into a thousand pieces if you’d stepped into that pool.”
“It won’t be me hurting you,” he said softly. “It’ll be Belikon. And even I can’t withstand him.” “Then I guess I’ll die.” “Foolish girl.” He slowly shook his head. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.” “Look into my eyes. No, wait. Why don’t you listen to my heartbeat, Kingfisher, and tell me if I’m lying.”
“Close this gate the moment I’m through. Wait an hour, and then activate it again.” I shook my head. “I should leave it open. What if—” “What if a horde of feeders burst through five minutes after I leave? You forget, if this pool is open, then all the pools are open. Everywhere.”
White fur, and a bushy tail, and black-tipped ears pinned all the way back. The fox. My fox. He’d come back for me.
Was this supposed to be some kind of joke? No. Fisher didn’t have a sense of humor, and this… this wasn’t funny.
“It’ll take a while for him to… wake up. Humans are so…” Kingfisher groaned. “You’re all so fucking fragile.” I rounded on the warrior, the dull roar in my ears growing progressively louder, louder, louder… “This is not my brother, Fisher. This is Carrion fucking Swift!”
“I hate that fucking place, but I went there for you. I got stabbed seven times in various parts of my body. For you. This prick said he was Hayden. His blood said he was Hayden. I did what I said I was going to do. Now move. We’re getting the hell out of here.”
“You fucking tricked me!” “No,” he said bluntly. “I taught you a valuable lesson that will serve you well for the rest of your very short human life in this realm. Always pay attention to the fine print. The devil’s in the details. Now go.”
“Wait! Where’s my bag?” I twisted in the saddle, searching for it. “I have plenty of food and water for the both of us. You don’t need it.” “I don’t care about the food and water. I care about Onyx!” “What’s an Onyx?”
“Just give me the bag, Fisher.” If he fought me on this, oooh gods, I would raise the worst kinds of hell. Luckily, the bastard just sighed and went back into the barn. He returned a moment later with my bag. “The second that rodent becomes an issue, I’m skinning it,” he said, hoisting the bag up to me. “He’s not a rodent. If anything, he’s a dog.” I pulled open the mouth of the bag, making sure Kingfisher hadn’t replaced Onyx with a rock or particularly dense loaf of bread or something, but the little fox poked his head out of the hole, ears swiveling as he took in our surroundings, his pink
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“We are not leaving him here. Belikon will kill him the moment he realizes you’ve kidnapped me.” “It’s not kidnapping if you come willingly,”
“I’m not doing any of this willingly! I want to go home!” He shrugged as he swung himself into the saddle. “And yet you’re coming to help me end a war, aren’t you. What more noble cause could there be? Congratulations on achieving fucking sainthood.”
“We’re nearly there. Only another half an hour. We’ll arrive even sooner if we trot.” Trot? I laughed scathingly. “Nothing you can say or do will incentivize me to smash my genitals against this saddle any harder or faster than they’re already being smashed.” “Feeling a little sore, human?” “Sore doesn’t come close,” I grumbled. “I’ll happily kiss all of your aches and pains better for you once we strike camp. I’ve been told my mouth has healing properties. Especially when administered between a pair of thighs.”
“I’m surprised,” I snorted. “Why?” “Surprised that you’d offer to spend any amount of time between my legs. Not when I was able to steal something so precious from you the last time I tricked you into letting me close.”
“I’m glad you think this is funny,” I groused, accepting the beer he handed to me. “I think it’s hilarious,” he countered. “You’ve been a persistent pain in my ass since we met. Now the universe has seen fit to make your ass smart. I’d call that justice.”
“I’d call it highly fucking annoying. Wait, what are you doing?” He’d reached across the table and grabbed hold of my wrist. I tried to yank it back, but his grip was like a vise. Hissing between his teeth, Fisher gave my arm a non-too-gentle tug. “Listen. In the last twelve hours, you’ve been bitten by that mangy fox, scorched by a sword you had no business touching, and now bitten by a faerie as well. You aren’t from here. There are probably countless germs and illnesses floating around in the air that could put you in the ground. Your body is weak and slow to heal as it is. I need to
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He didn’t give me any warning. He dumped the bright green liquor in the shot glass all over my hand and held my wrist even tighter as my fingers spasmed. Underneath the table, Onyx let out a nervous whine, scratching at my legs. “Breathe,” Fisher ordered. “It’ll pass in a second.” The pain did begin to subside after a moment, but my anger… that was another story. “You’re sick,” I hissed. “You enjoyed that. What kind of male likes hurting people?” His face was a blank mask when he let me go. “I don’t enjoy hurting people. I don’t like it at all. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t necessary. To
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“Where are you taking me?” “Home.” “And where is home?” I pressed, my frustration levels rising. He took a deep pull from his beer, the muscles beneath the tattooed skin of his neck working. “The place where I was born.” “Urgh! Do you have to be so difficult?” His eyes danced. “It isn’t mandatory, but I do enjoy it.” “Kingfisher!” “I’m taking you to the borderlands, Osha. A small fiefdom at the very edge of Yvelian territory. A place called Cahlish.”
“How the hell am I supposed to stay alive in the middle of a war zone, Fisher?” When he laughed this time, the sound was hollow. “By sticking close, Osha. Really close.”
“You’re the Fisher King. You can’t be anyone else.”
“You saved the rippling banner of the proud western Annachreich,” the blond warrior interrupted. “At dawn, on the fifth day, you cried against the rising sun and roused our people’s hearts so that even those who were ready to pass through the black door turned away from death and found the strength to find their feet. And their bows. And their swords. And their friends. You led the charge on the blood-red mountain—”
“At Sinder’s Reach, you quelled the horde that threatened to burn everything my people had built. Fifty thousand people. Fifty thousand lives. Temples. Libraries. Schools. Homes. They all still exist today. Because of you.”
“Innishtar,”
“It wasn’t as grand as these others. Just a small town. We weren’t kind to you when you came. Then the Fae and my lot weren’t the allies we are now. But five of you stood against the dark that night. You saved four hundred. You were there, too, Renfis of the Orithian.”
All of this, for Kingfisher. Kingfisher and Ren. So many stories of valiant battles and impossible odds. From the way the two males had reacted when they’d first realized they’d been recognized, I’d thought we were about to be attacked. But that couldn’t have been any further from the truth. To me, Kingfisher was a surly, foul-mouthed bastard who I wouldn’t piss on even if he was on fire. To everyone inside this tavern, he was a living fucking god.
“He used to be kinder,” Ren whispered. “But the quicksilver inside of him… It makes it difficult for him to think straight. It wears on him. It’s exhausting for him, shutting out the voices. It’s made him hard.”
Archer’s eyes were wet. It seemed impossible that anyone would cry tears of happiness over Kingfisher; if I wasn’t witnessing it for myself, I’d never have believed it, but it was happening all right. Every time a tear fell and hit Archer’s cheeks, it hissed and turned into a puff of steam.
“There are a lot of fire sprites here. Water sprites. Air sprites. Not so many earth sprites. You might want to spend some time learning the names of all of the lesser Fae creatures. Eventually, you’ll offend the wrong person if you go around calling everyone faeries.”
“I have fifteen thousand warriors, Little Osha. To have enough relics for my people, I need fifteen thousand relics. When you’re done with all of these rings, I’ll release you from your oath and take you to the closest quicksilver pool so you can leave. Until then…” He eyed the trunk full of rings. “But I don’t even know how to turn these into relics yet! That alone could take weeks. It could take months!” Not even a flicker of sympathy hid in Fisher’s silver-mottled eyes. “Then you’d better get to work.”
It didn’t take long to isolate the frequency for Yvelian silver. I simply held a bunch of the rings and closed my eyes, learning what that energy felt like when it traveled up my arms, and I committed it to memory. Then I went through the bucket and separated out any scraps that shared that same frequency. I had a respectable amount of the shining metal ready to melt down after only half an hour.
“Fisher’s very single-minded sometimes. There’s no gray. Only black and white. I fear that part of him has only gotten worse while he’s been away. He has to keep things very straight in his mind, otherwise lines get blurred. Right now, you’re a tool he feels he has to use to make life better for us all. My concern is that a tool pushed to its limit is a tool that will probably break. And to be blunt, Saeris, you’re a tool none of us can afford to let Fisher break. He needs to see you as a person. He needs to know that you’re more than our way out of a tight corner. And the only way to
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“It’s all right, Archer. Everybody calm down.” Fisher hadn’t changed his position. He was still sprawled out in his chair in a very relaxed manner, but he’d shielded his mouth with his hand, trying to hide his smile. He looked down and coughed, appearing to pull himself together. “You can leave the plates for now. And the dessert. Just set it on the table, and you can all go. Thank you.”
“I’ll be eating dinner in the forge tomorrow,” I said. “They won’t have to deal with a filthy, mannerless human breaching Cahlish etiquette.” “You’ll be eating here,” Fisher corrected. “I don’t get a say in the matter?” “You’ll poison yourself if you eat in the forge.” “In my room, then.” “You’ll be eating here,” Fisher repeated. He continued before I could suggest any of the other one million places I’d rather take my meals. “As for the fire sprites, they like humans. Far more than they like the Fae.”
“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—”
There were four of them—tall monsters with patchy, stringy hair and white, waxy skin. Gaunt cheeks spiderwebbed with black veins. Crooked fingers that terminated in claws. Red eyes. Not just the irises, but the whites, too, as if every capillary had burst and bled beneath the surface. Each of them bared a mouthful of elongated, yellowed fangs that dripped with ropes of viscous saliva. They wore clothes, but the garments were in tatters, barely clinging to their emaciated frames.
“We are nothing alike,” he said quietly. “You nearly died from a scratch that would have been a mild irritation to me. You are soft. You are fragile. You are vulnerable. You are a newborn fawn, stumbling around in the dark, surrounded by predators with very sharp teeth. I am the thing that exists on the other side of the dark. I’m the thing that puts the fear of the gods into the monsters who would eat you bones and all.”
“For the record, I’d never use an injury as an excuse to sneak my way into a bed,” Fisher said. His voice was even closer now. I could almost feel the brush of his lips against the shell of my ear. “I’ve never had a problem securing myself an invite.”
He was so sure of himself. His arrogance went beyond the pale. “Well, don’t count on an invite from me,” I snapped, drawing the sheets up even higher beneath my chin.
Fuck me. That smile. Slightly open-mouthed, flashing the smallest hint of pointed teeth. I had to be so, so careful around that smile. It would wreck me if I let it. “Mm. You’re right. I don’t think you wi...
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Five days. Five long fucking days. I ate in Fisher’s bed. Slept in Fisher’s bed. Whenever I needed to go to relieve myself, as Fisher had so elegantly put it, my body allowed me to get up, but my feet carried me toward the discreet door over by the armoire and permitted me to enter the beautiful white marble bathroom there. I could do what I needed to do, and I could wash my hands, but as soon as I was done, my legs carried me back to the comfortable prison of his bed. I had no idea what kind of magic kept the sheets so perfectly cool and clean, but it didn’t take me long to decide that it was
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Hes a 10 but he commands/forces you to stay in his bed for a week
“You could eviscerate a man with that expression. It’s one of the things I love most about you.”
“That I take a bath.” “A bath?” “Yes, a bath.” “That’s a weird request.” “I know. Even after being kidnapped, dragged into a different realm, and carted for miles on the back of a horse, I still smelled great. But he was all wound up about not liking the way I smelled, so I figured fuck it. Whatever. A bath for a new pair of boots was a fair trade. And it felt great to soak in all of that hot water. Strange, right? All of that water? I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that there’s just so much…”
“He said he didn’t like the way you smelled?” “Yes, and he was very rude about it. He had a bunch of sprites come in and scrub me with these stiff brushes until I was raw and pink all over. I swear they took off four layers of skin. They put this thick white clay all over me then and let it sit so long that it went hard, and they had to crack it to get it all off.”
I was going to shank him in the neck with my very dull butter knife. Then he’d see how proficient I was with a blade. I could do it, too. He wasn’t wearing his gorget this evening. His throat was bare, just begging to be opened right up, and I was in the mood to lay steel to flesh. I only realized I’d been staring at his throat when Fisher lifted his chin a little, angling his head so that the tendons in his neck stood proud. That fucking smile again. I wanted to wipe it off his smug face so badly.
Little Osha.”
“I’ve compelled you three times. All three times, I think you’ll find it was for your own good.” “That’s a horrible excuse! You—” “If I were evil and using your oath for my own purposes, I’d order you onto your knees for me,” he said, cutting me off. “I’d order you to part your legs for me. I’d order you to suck and fuck me until you passed out from exhaustion. Is that what you want, Little Osha?”
damn fisher
For the second time since we sat down to dinner, Renfis nearly choked on his drink. He spun in his seat, giving Fisher a scandalized look that said, Really? I’m sitting right fucking here, but Fisher paid him no heed. On the other hand, I nearly keeled over and died. Because if Ren’s superior Fae senses could hear what Fisher was whispering to me, then he could also scent how his friend’s words were affecting me as well, and… and gods, I would never live down the shame. I wouldn’t admit it to myself, would never allow the thought to take shape, but my body wasn’t as accomplished at lying as my
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Hes a ten but he basically tells his best friend at dinner thay he would command you to fuck him if he had his way
“What’s this?” Fisher heaved out a weary breath, unfastening his cloak. He threw it onto the bed, then sat heavily down in a chair at the table, rubbing at his temple. “It’s just a meal,” he said. “Let’s eat it and try not to draw blood this time, shall we? Please?”
“I can’t trust anything,” he whispered breathlessly. And that was when he let me go. When I needed him not to. Right when I needed him to stay and explain what the last one hundred and twenty seconds meant. He gathered up his cloak, swung it around his shoulders, and headed out into the waning light.
