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This bastard would shit himself if he realized he had the Saeris Fane in his grasp.
Sometimes, objects shook around me. Objects made of iron, tin, or gold. Once, I’d been able to move one of Elroy’s daggers without touching it so that it had spun around and around on my mother’s dining table, balancing on its cross guard. But so what? I met his exasperated gaze. “If they track me down, they’ll kill me for a slew of other reasons before they kill me for that.” He huffed. “I’m not asking for you. I’m not asking for me, either. I’m asking for Hayden. He’s not like us yet.
The lad still laughs. I only want him to keep that innocence a little longer.
“Saeris, if I knew I could buy your time, I’d be bankrupt, and you would be a very rich woman. You’d have spent the past three months on your back, begging for me to ride you harder, and—” “One more word and I’ll relieve you of your fucking balls, thief,” I snarled.
“Good. Oh, and, Saeris?” The guy just didn’t know when to quit. I spun around, scowling at him. “What!” “Even filthy and tired, you’re still beautiful.” “Gods and martyrs,” I whispered. He was relentless. Carrion Swift’s silver tongue didn’t bother me for long, though. I had bigger things to worry about. When I stepped out into the brilliant evening, Hayden was gone. And so was the gauntlet.
He rained down blows with his blade, calculated and measured. Each of his moves was a question to which I had an answer.
Do you know much about metalwork, Captain? I do. It’s under the most unbearable conditions that the sharpest, most dangerous weapons are forged. And we are dangerous, Captain. She’s turned us all into weapons. That is why she won’t suffer my people to live.”
bed. I assumed they’d come to do me in. I’d stabbed one of them in the buttock by the time they told me I was being called back to court.”
“Don’t worry. I wasn’t planning on stealing it. It isn’t very impressive. Looks more like a toothpick to me.”
A slow, terrifying smirk spread across his face. “It’s big enough to make you scream and then some.” “See.” I jabbed a finger at him. “You’re not going to be honest.”
“Maybe the issue is that you asked me a question about my cock like a hungry little bitch in heat and didn’t ask me something that mattered.”
Everlayne had been waiting for me when I returned to my room yesterday. She hadn’t banked on Kingfisher kicking in my bedroom door, me thrown over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and wailing like a banshee. Nor had she expected his ultra-foul temper, his split bottom lip, or the thin line of blood trickling down his chin. She’d squawked when he’d thrown me unceremoniously down onto my bed and snarled, “Bad human,” at me.
“Careful, human. We Fae have an excellent sense of smell. You’d be amazed what we can scent floating on the air.” “I… I wasn’t doing anything. I didn’t—” Oh, gods.
paste. “I like being surprised,” Fisher said, spinning his fork over in his hand. “I’m also a fan of aggressive foreplay. It’ll be a fun reminder.” I breathed in sharply, inhaling cheese. Choking and spluttering, I tried desperately to get rid of it, but it wasn’t going anywhere.
I jerked when he snapped his fingers in front of my face. “You could at least say hello before you start eye-fucking me.” “I wasn’t eye-fucking you. I was trying to see through all of this… steam.”
“Pants and a shirt,” I said dryly. “And a pair of boots with really good soles. Do you have any idea what those boots cost me?” “Let me guess. Your virginity.” “Fuck you, Fisher.” “Sure.” He smirked. “But I’m afraid I don’t have any new boots to trade you for your time.”
I had grown up in a pit of misery, where people died more often than they lived. I hadn’t seen many beautiful things in my short life. But, of all the beautiful things I had seen, Fisher was the most beautiful of all.
It would have been wrong to think of the men I’d encountered back in Zilvaren in that way. Some of them had been attractive. Some of them had even been hot enough to make my toes curl. But Fisher was the epitome of everything that was strong, and male, and powerful. He was so much more than anything I’d experienced before. He was beautiful. Looking at him made me feel like I couldn’t catch my breath. “If you want it, come here and touch it,” he rumbled. Holy. Fucking. Gods.
“I don’t hate your kind. I’m just disappointed by how breakable you are. If I held you down and fucked you the way I’m imagining fucking you right now, I doubt that you’d survive it.”
“That your body is betraying you in other ways. That I can smell you, Little Osha, and I’m thinking about drinking the sweet nectar you’re making for me straight from the fucking cup.”
“Aren’t you curious? Don’t you want to know what I taste like?” “Let me fucking go!”
Principally, where the fuck are we, why are we here, were the people who came in here about half an hour ago and laid their hands all over you really Fae, or did I hallucinate that part, and lastly…” He pointed at his foot. “Where the fuck is my other boot?”
“Mm. We’ll see what the boy has to say for himself.” “He’s twenty-six years old. He’s hardly a boy,” I muttered. “He’s an infant with a smart mouth, as far as I’m concerned. But… you’re defensive of him,” Fisher mused. “I
“I’m not walking away from anything. I swore I would try to bring your brother back. I tried to bring your brother back,” he said. “Oath fulfilled.”
“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—”
“You know what’d really piss him off?” I knew he wasn’t talking about Onyx. “Just don’t, Carrion.” “Revenge fucking on his bed.”
dining room. “Your phenomenal tits, that’s why. They would have looked great in that dress. And your ass. The material was sheer as hell. Wouldn’t have left much to the imagination. Not that I need to use my imagination when it comes to your body, but—” A sinister growl echoed around the dining room. Carrion had enough common sense to stop talking.
“Yes!” “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?”
He was hard-packed muscle and hot, demanding breath, and the scent of fresh, cool mountain wind, and mint, and the forest at night, and— “Gods!
‘Never forget. Monsters thrive best in the dark. Commit all you read here to memory. Prepare for war!!’
“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.”
“But the Fae still do it sometimes?” A pink tinge was developing on his cheeks. “Yes.” “But you don’t need blood to survive?” “No, we don’t.” “Then why would they do it?” “Because…” He cast another wary look around, shifting awkwardly in his seat. “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.” “Oh.”
Fisher’s nose grazed my ear, and a sigh worked its way out of me. How to explain the feeling of a male like Kingfisher breathing heavily into your ear. It wasn’t easily done. First, there was the shiver. It started on my neck and spread outward, prickling up the back of my head, trailing a hot-cold pathway down my spine, hitting each vertebra as it went like a skipping stone.
Fuck me with your fingers. Choke me.
Hold me down and ride me until I scream.
When the song finally came to an aching, bittersweet end, Lorreth panted, his eyes full of stars as he watched the aurora dance in the sky. “It’s fucking outrageous that he can sing, too.” Carrion had woken up and was stood to my right, arms folded across his chest, balefully regarding Lorreth. “That was nice, though. Messed up, but nice.”
“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.” 31 THE DARN LIGHTNING RAKED its claws across the night sky.
“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.”
“Did you hear that?” he said. “What?” “That smoking hot blonde said I was pretty.” “Gods alive, Carrion. Do not tell me you have a thing for Danya. She’s fucking awful.” “Eh.” He shot me a rakish grin. “I love a girl with a sharp tongue and a bad attitude. Kinda makes my dick hard.”
You did this for me? It felt wrong to speak out loud. I didn’t want my voice to ruin the illusion he’d created for us, so I asked him in my mind. Yes, he answered simply. 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.
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.
“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.”
