Brimstone (Fae & Alchemy, #2)

by Callie Hart

And he could have his reasons, so long as none of them involved him harboring any sort of hope that Saeris was going to confess her undying love for him. That wasn’t happening.

“What do you think I’m doing?” I snarled. “I’m saving the fucking fox!”

“And the day you save me on a battlefield, I’ll put on a dress and dance a fucking jig.”

“You can’t be serious. That will absolutely ruin her outfit,” Carrion said, aghast.

LMAO

“She doesn’t need a garrote,” Taladaius objected. “It isn’t a garrote. It’s a belt,” Fisher replied amicably. In my head, he said, It’s a garrote.

why are they extra fckn funny lmfaoooo

He took one of his own daggers from the sheath at his waist, then dropped down to one knee in front of me. He looked up, his eyes locking with mine again, burning with a myriad of emotions as he slowly… carefully… parted the material of the dress along the slit to expose my bare thigh.

PLEASE.

Taladaius threw his hands in the air. “There’s no time for this!” “Oh, I don’t know. I think we might be able to spare a minute,” Carrion said.

I AM HOLLERING

“Your father was felled by his own hubris. He was too arrogant. He believed himself invincible, and I had the pleasure of showing him otherwise. A god sword will make worm food out of any of us, no matter who wields it. But, regardless,” I called in a clear voice. “I am no child. My name is Saeris Fane, and I am your queen.”

MY FCKN GIRL

Oh? So you’ve been imagining this, then, have you, Little Osha?

You can own your fantasies with me, Little Osha. There is nothing in this realm or the next that I won’t give to you if you desire it. All you ever need do is ask.

“Don’t even think about it, or I’ll take you right here,” he panted.

“I am ruler of this court, and I will be heard!”

“From this point forth, whenever you are in my presence, this is how you will greet me: on your knees!

“Yes, I was harder than that fucking steel in your hands. Is that what you want to hear?”

LMAO

But the rest of me was relieved that my friends still had laughter in their souls. They had suffered, too. Their losses also piled high. They’d had to watch our people being brutalized, eaten, and turned every day. And if my friends could still find it in themselves to laugh, then I was glad of it. That meant that maybe there was hope for me, too.

I wanted to ask you about your new hairstyle. What prompted the dramatic cut?” She stared at me blankly. “A burning corpse set me on fire.” Gods a-fucking-live. Perfect.

LMAO

It’s hard to concentrate on camp logistics when I can smell you across the room, though, Osha.

JESUS

“I heard from Lorreth that you got yourself a new sex tattoo at your coronation. Can I see it?”

CARRION SWIFT STFU LMFAO

Wherever you are, I’ll beg the gods and all the fates to let me be there, too,”

“I despise the gods, Saeris. I’m Oath Bound by this land and the blood of kings. I swore I would never offer up a word of gratitude to them again, but you have made a liar of me. You’re a gift that cannot be ignored. My heart…”

“Three nights. That’s how long I’ve paced this room, fantasizing about fucking you raw, Saeris Fane.”

FILTY MOUTH FISHERRRRRR

“Careful, Osha,”

“You might just get what you wish for.”

“You taste like the end of the fucking world,”

“Just kill me and be done with it. Nothing will ever be better than this.”

“Come now, Osha. Where else would an acolyte kneel to worship but at the altar of his god?”

JESUS FCKN FUCK

“No, don’t stop. You can grind yourself against my mouth all you want.”

I wasn’t even remotely self-conscious as I reached out to his mouth and painted myself all over his lips. He groaned, eyes flashing with need, when I pushed my index and middle finger into his mouth. “Suck,” I told him.

JESUS

“Come now, Anterrin. A hand for a hand is hardly like for like. Yours will grow back,” Taladaius argued.

“In a month or more! How am I supposed to do anything like this?”

“When it grows back all tiny like, at least it’ll be in better proportion when you wrap it around your cock.”

“Fisher? Fisher. Are we nearly at the door? Ow, what the hell was that? Something hit my arm really hard.” “It was my fist. Now shut. The fuck. Up.”

Carrion had lived in Zilvaren for lifetimes, but he had done so as one of them. Glamored. He’d been tall and broad for a human, but now he was hovering near seven feet and possessed the pointed ears of the Fae.

YES LAWDDD

“No one has ever broken into Madra’s treasury. No one even knows where it is. And believe me, I spent a good part of the last thousand years trying to figure that out myself. We don’t have time to solve that mystery right now, so I’m taking you to the next best source of silver I can think of.”

“The Brigand’s Bank.”

“Why am I not surprised that you have an account at a place called...

“Oh, I don’t have an account, Lord Cahlish.” He winked ...

“Aren’t we just the same? Made from the same material as the sea and the dirt and the sky? Folded from the scraps of the gods and entrusted with a spark of magic that makes us real?”

“I stabbed you,” I spat.

“Now I’m gonna pull out the blade and watch you bleed.”

I didn’t love this realm, but it had produced someone I loved with a fierceness that took my breath away, and I was not going to leave this place worse off than when I had found it. For Saeris’s sake, I would protect it.

Carrion rammed his elbow back into Shah’s stomach. He kicked out his leg to the side and twisted, sweeping Shah’s feet out from underneath him.

YES BABY

He wore a look of grim determination that I had seen many times before. The face of a male who knew he was about to kill and was set upon the task.

“Then tell me, Joshin. You filled me with enough venom to take down three horses… but do you scent any fear on me? Do you think I am afraid to face my demons? I’ve faced them before. I know them all by name. I’ve conquered them and bent them to my will more times than the sun has risen over Yvelia in my lifetime. I’ll face your nightmares if I have to, and I will still be the most frightening thing prowling around in the dark.”

She is Keeper of Records. I am queen of all Sanasroth.

“Until you learn how to be gentle, I will not teach you how to be violent.”

“She made that, y’know.”

“You had her hammering out quicksilver, but she made other things before. The man who gave her work after her mother died? Elroy? He makes incredible etched glassware. Delicate. Sells them to the people in the Hub. The stuff Saeris made was never fine enough for the likes of them, but they were more than good enough for the people of the Third.”

A long time ago, someone told me that the pain of loss was a temporary thing. That it would soften as the years went by, until the ache became an old friend that felt comfortable to be around.

So yes. I love Saeris Fane, because she’s electric, and fierce, and loyal, and being around her brings the world back into focus. But I’m not in love with her, Fisher. I tried. But my heart was just too full of sorrow to make room for her.”