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“Mm. You’re right. I don’t think you will invite me. When the time comes, I think you’ll beg—”
I knew he wasn’t talking about Onyx. “Just don’t, Carrion.” “Revenge fucking on his bed.” I shoved a piece of apple into my mouth. “Oh, yeah, sure. Sounds like a great idea. Idiot. What do you think he’d do to you if you fucked someone in his bed?” Carrion waggled his eyebrows. “I think he’d never know.” I nearly choked on the apple. “Oh, he’d know.”
detected your scent from three miles away, plastered all over that boy. Pheromones are signal flares to our noses, Little Osha.
“Just so I know,” he said, chewing. “Is that a no to fucking in your captor’s bed? Or a no to fucking in general?” “What do you think?” He pointed at me with the corner of his slice of toast. “You could eviscerate a man with that expression. It’s one of the things I love most about you.”
He prattled on, but the bite of toast I’d just taken had turned claggy, like glue. “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.”
“And then,” he said, taking another grape. “They rubbed me down with this special kind of moss, which is where things got interesting. They paid particular attention to my…” His eyes trailed down his body until they rested in his crotch.
Kingfisher didn’t seem to think anything of the little sprite’s strange behavior. “Of course I want you to stay. You’re the only Alchemist we have,” he said. “I’d keep you here and have you working in that forge until you died of old age if it were up to me. But a deal’s a deal.”
Fisher nodded toward my plate. “Eat, Little Osha.” His lips moved, but he spoke softly, casting his voice. “Gods, will you stop doing that?” I hissed under my breath. “Why? I’ve seen the way your skin breaks out in goose bumps when I speak to you like this.”
“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?”
“If I compelled you to do it, you’d be innocent. Your actions wouldn’t be your fault. You wouldn’t have to face the fact that you wanted me.”
“You’re thinking about my hands sliding up the insides of your thighs right now,” he said. “About my fingers slipping inside the wet folds of you. Working against your swollen clit, rubbing you until you’re panting and whimpering, begging for me to sink my cock into your—”
was. I did want Fisher. I hated myself for it. Hated that he knew it.
He crossed the tent so fast. Cupping my face in his hands, he kissed me again. Hard. Fast. His lips were on mine again, though they didn’t part. It only lasted a second, but it caused complete and utter fucking chaos inside my head. “Fisher—” He shook his head emphatically, his eyes begging me not to speak. Quickly, he took hold of my hand and placed it onto his chest, right in the center. Thum, thum, thum, thum, thum, thum.… His heart was racing, the space between beats negligible. Nothing like the slow, steady beat he’d shown me back in the forge at the palace. I tried to pull my hand away,
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He didn’t say a word. He held my gaze, unblinking, and for once, the quicksilver that marked his eye was still.
“She’s mine,” Fisher said.
craved more of him, even though he could be selfish and cruel, and even knowing that wanting him would more than likely be my downfall.
“Malcolm’s a high Fae vampire. The very first. We were cursed thousands of years ago, and the Fae turned into something very like Malcolm. When a cure was found, my great-grandfather and most of the other Yvelian Fae took it. They were horrified by the monsters they’d become and wanted to return to their old lives. But there were those who liked the dark magic the curse afforded them. They liked the power and the promise of immortality.”
“My, my. So worked up already? You’re slick as hell. What do you taste like, mm? Are you going to scream for me like a good girl when I have you ride my face?”
“I can’t wait to hear what kind of sounds you make when I thrust into you for the first time,” he purred. “I’m going to make you pant for me, Little Osha. And when we’re done, I’ll close my eyes and replay the sound of you moaning in my head every time I stroke myself to completion.”
He was absolutely fucking incredible, all hard lines and taut muscle and shifting ink.
“Yes. I want it. I want you.” His smile was pure, powerful male satisfaction. “Hold on tight, then. I hope you’re not afraid of the dark.” He thrust forward, slamming himself inside me, and I screamed.
“Gods and fucking martyrs. Holy fucking shit. That’s right. Come. Show me how pretty you are when you fall apart.”
Fisher stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes wide. “I don’t pretend to understand you at the best of times, but why is this funny to you?” he demanded. “I can’t have children, Fisher. I was cleansed when I was fourteen.” I expected to see relief on his face. But instead, his face drained of color. “What the fuck did you just say to me?”
“I was cleansed. When I was fourteen. They do it to about seventy percent of the girls in my ward.” He came and stood very close to me, his head bowed over mine, nostrils flaring. “What do you mean… cleansed?” “I mean… they sterilize us,” I whispered.
‘Never forget. Monsters thrive best in the dark. Commit all you read here to memory. Prepare for war!!’
Carrion’s grin faltered. “You are extra fucking miserable today. You should really get laid. Might help improve your mood. Tell him, Sunshine.”
“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.”
“When we turn twenty-one, we kneel before the Firinn Stone and make our decision. Every one of us. We have a choice. Bleed on the stone and make our vow. To always be truthful. To always be bound by our word, no matter what it costs us.”
“It’s a sex thing. If a male drinks from someone, it’ll make his dick harder than it’s ever been in his life. It makes you euphoric. Both of you. While you’re fucking.”
“Yeah. Oh,” he said. “But it’s a slippery slope. If we bite someone, we can still lose ourselves to it. It takes an immeasurable force of will not to keep drinking. It’s… not something that’s spoken about in polite company.”
Bright lights twinkled everywhere I looked, a million of them flaring and flickering in the trees and the long grass that stretched out before us like a carpet. The early evening air hummed with soft, upbeat music, the smell of cooking meat, sugar, and the sound of many voices.
“This,” he said, rubbing at the back of his neck, “is Ballard. It’s… I came here once or twice when I was little. It’s just a small village. Tonight’s one of their feast days. They’re celebrating the longest night of the year.”
Ballard was full of life.
This place was a home.
I left them for a hundred and ten years.
I was wrong. The sound of Fisher’s genuine laughter was rarer than water had ever been back in Zilvaren; it almost brought tears to my eyes to hear it.
Edina of the Seven Towers. Lady of Cahlish. Kingfisher’s mother. He’d said she had brought him here as a child. She was important to the people of Ballard. Fisher was, too.
now he was opening up a door to a building on the square because he had a fucking key?
This wasn’t just an apartment Fisher had rented for the night. This place belonged to Fisher. It had belonged to his mother once, maybe, and now it was his.
“I don’t want bright and happy,” he whispered roughly. “I want real.”
Fisher was bound in some way and couldn’t answer—had, at some point, solidified as fact in my mind.
There were memories that could be put into words, even if it felt like dying to give them light and air. And then there were those that couldn’t. I would never repeat the words that man said about my mother.
When he let his hand fall again, he let it rest against my leg. Comfortable. Familiar.
Fisher finally twisted over and laid his head back on his pillow. “Come here,” he said. “What?” “Don’t make me drag you down here.” There was a tired but playful catch in his voice.
Fisher hooked his fingers underneath the hem of my shirt and rested his hand against my skin. The move wasn’t sexual. It was simple contact between one person and another. Grounding. Intimate. A connection. “My mother was killed, too,” he whispered thickly. “We have that in common, Little Osha.” I wanted to ask him what he meant by that, but he had already fallen asleep.
I didn’t want the door to close.
The tension building between us was infused with a different kind of energy.
Fuck me. Please fuck me. Take me. Own me.
riding his hand as he rubbed me. Fuck me with your fingers. Choke me. Hold me down and ride me until I scream.
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.
