Quicksilver (Fae & Alchemy, #1)

by Callie Hart

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.

But he was all wound up about not liking the way I smelled, so I figured fuck it.

I raised my eyebrows at him. “You let a fire sprite jerk you off with a handful of Fae moss?”

“Not a fire sprite,” he said defensively. “These were water sprites. Three of them.

“I’ve compelled you three times. All three times, I think you’ll find it was for your own good.”

“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.

“That’s what they tell me. But I don’t know. Aside from the relentless chatter in my head, personally, I think I’m doing just fine.”

THE WAR CAMP was a scar in the foothills on the other side of the Omnamerrin Mountains. It sat between Cahlish and the Sanasrothian border—twenty

“That is Ammontraíeth,”

“The seat of the enemy.”

“Its walls are sheer, made of obsidian, slick as glass,”

“Built from the bones of demons. The peaks and spires are as sharp as a razor’s edge.”

I jumped when a tall, wiry-looking creature with vines wrapped around its skinny arms and legs appeared from behind the tavern and purposefully strode toward us. Its skin was gnarled and knobbly like tree bark. Its eyes were a rich brown, dark as loamy earth. Instead of hair, a riot of vines and leaves sprouted from the top of its blockish head and trailed down its back.

Holgoth.

When he attacked again, I was ready. He rained down blows on me, the steel in his hands flashing like lightning, but I met each of his advances with an appropriate block.

But now… I was myself again. The girl who’d taken down three of Madra’s guardians outside The Mirage. The girl many a Zilvaren thug had underestimated at their own peril. All of the rage and the fear that had been choking me since the Hall of Mirrors welled up inside of me and rose up the back of my throat.

“No. I wasn’t shocked. You can tell by the way a person moves if they’ve had training. I knew from the first moment I saw you on your feet that you could fight. But don’t get ahead of yourself, Osha. Ren was going easy on you.”

“Humans have never been slaves here. At least not to the Yvelians. When we were blighted with our blood curse thousands of years ago, you were definitely dinner. But never slaves.”

want you to obey me because I brought you here. That makes me responsible for you. And I need you alive so that you can work on those rings for us. Without them, we’ll be trapped in this stalemate with the Sanasroth forever, neither side winning nor losing. I’ll never be able to reclaim my family’s lands. So, yes. I will force you to obey me if I need to. And I won’t feel conflicted about it. The stakes are too high.”

It was Fisher’s mouth.

GASP

“Fuck! Fisher, I want… I want you…” I panted.

blow.

NOOOOOOOOO WHYYYY

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.

YESS KEEP GOING

“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.

D: ???? Noooooo

can smell you as well as him, Saeris. I wasn’t worried that he’d hurt you. I was asking if you were okay. There’s a difference.”

Ugh i kinda hate this

Fisher’s eyes found me immediately.

had no intention of standing. My hand raised of its own accord. The shout of panic tore out of my mouth without any doing on my part. “STOP!”

Danya’s body rocked sideways. She slammed into the table, her hip colliding with the wood. But that wasn’t what drew twenty pairs of stunned eyes toward me. It was her sword, splintering into a thousand shards, the quivering steel needles shooting through the air and hitting the wall above Ren’s head so hard that they drove an inch into the pitted stonework.

Whattttt?

“She’s mine,” Fisher said.

“Sanasroth. The enemy’s at the riverbank. The ice must be broken so that the dead cannot cross.”

And anyway, it turns out my ex can make shrapnel out of swords, so I reckon we’re gonna be just fine.”

“Vampires!”

“Good evening, Kingfisher!” a voice called out from the dark. “I’m so glad you decided to come out and play! Won’t you say hello?”

Malcolm?”

tall, slender, unassuming-looking male dressed in black. His hair was straight as an arrow and white as snow, hanging down past his shoulders. His features were fine. Handsome, almost. Bloodred eyes scoured our side of the bank, as if he had no trouble seeing through the swathes of black smoke that still rolled across the surface of the river.

This Malcolm, king of the vampires,

HE FOUND me half an hour later.

He held out his hand to me and said, “Take it, or I carry you.” I gave him my hand. “We’ll be back in the morning,” he said to Ren.

“Don’t share food with that prick again, Little Osha.”

I almost laughed. Almost. “All right. Fine.” The back of my neck prickled. Something inside of me was slipping away. I felt it happening in stages, and it was frightening. The wall between us—the barrier that existed to keep me safe—was lowering, coming apart a brick at a time. I could halt the wall’s deconstruction. Bring it back up again if I wanted. But… I couldn’t fucking breathe around him, and I knew what his hands felt like on my body now. For real. I 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.

Gently, he gathered the flyaway hair that had escaped my braid and carefully swept it behind my ear. “Breathe, Little Osha.”

“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.”

“Aren’t the Fae already immortal?” Fisher chuckled. “No, Little Osha. We’re not. Our lifespans are the subject of much research and conjecture. We outlive your kind by a l...

When his princes bite and turn someone, their victims die and return without their souls, nothing more than mindless, hungry shells. They obey their masters, and they feed.”

“You’re bound, aren’t you?” I said, dismayed. “You literally can’t tell me—”

This was all a front. Like a veil slowly being drawn back, I was starting to see right through it. “You don’t hate me as much as you pretend to,” I said.

“I don’t think you hate me at all.”

“I’m telling you to fuck me, Fisher. I’m asking you to—”

Had he thought about me like this? Naked and at his mercy? Had he imagined what it would be like to touch me, and taste me, and have me willing to do his bidding?