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Humans were not good at taming their feelings. They felt everything so rudely, right out in the open, with no awareness of how their reactions might affect those with finer senses.
“What do you think I’m doing?” I snarled. “I’m saving the fucking fox!”
“I swear to all the gods. You leave a room and say you’ll be right back. Next thing I know, I see you galloping across the dead fields, charging headlong at the undead!”
“And the day you save me on a battlefield, I’ll put on a dress and dance a fucking jig.”
“Never doubt your powers, sweet one,” she’d told me. “Each one of them is a gift. Each one will prove exactly enough when you have need of it. Have faith in yourself. You will always be enough.”
Gods, she was so fucking beautiful. The moonlight painted her skin silver until she looked like she was glowing.
There isn’t much I wouldn’t sacrifice to make you happy, Osha.
“I am no child. My name is Saeris Fane, and I am your queen.”
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.
He had no idea who I was or what I was capable of and, therefore, had no clue what heinous crimes I would commit to ensure my mate’s safety.
But where Nimerelle bit through the flesh, a thick black substance crystallized along the blade like frost. “What the—” Nimerelle screamed.
If fire didn’t work, we were fucked.
Being stabbed hurt. Being poisoned by a feeder’s toxin, too. But burning alive? That really fucking hurt.
And I could deny it as much as I liked: I didn’t have to feed to survive the way Taladaius and the other members of the Sanasrothian Court did… but I wanted to.
“She isn’t my girlfriend. She’s my mate,” Fisher said quite amicably. “And if any part of your body, literally any part of it, comes into contact with hers, then I will remove it.”
I just… I could never imagine the kind of love I would need to feel to choose that path for myself.
“I said there wouldn’t be a wedding. Because there can’t be, Saeris.”
“A Fae wedding ceremony is extremely sacred. It is the greatest commitment two lovers can undertake in Yvelia. Not because they swear to love and honor each other for all their days. Not because they give each other their hearts, either. It’s sacred because they give each other their names. Their true names. And I can give you everything else, Osha. But I can’t give you that.”
“I don’t know it,” he whispered. “I’ve never known it. We usually receive our true names on our fourteenth birthdays, and my mother—” He blinked. “Well, she died before I turned fourteen. And my father was already gone. So…”
We can’t get married because I don’t have a true name to trade.”
“I love you, and nothing else matters beyond that. Wherever you are, I’ll beg the gods and all the fates to let me be there, too,”
Getting high wasn’t the answer. I knew that even as I did it. But, for a brief period of time, it was a crutch that helped get me through the day.
“I’ve killed more people than I can count. I lost the parts of myself that knew how to feel anything other than pain and sorrow centuries ago. But for better or worse, you have brought me back to life.”
“Three nights. That’s how long I’ve paced this room, fantasizing about fucking you raw, Saeris Fane.”
“You taste like the end of the fucking world,” he purred. “Just kill me and be done with it. Nothing will ever be better than this.”
“You possess the kind of magic that could undress me, I’m sure of it. Care to give it a shot?” “No! Gods, no. What if—what if I set you on fire or something? Or—or, I don’t know, accidentally dismember you?”
“Come now, Osha. Where else would an acolyte kneel to worship but at the altar of his god?”
“Suck,” I told him. His eyes rolled back into his head, and Kingfisher of the Ajun Gate, slayer of the last dragon and Lord of Cahlish, obeyed me.
Fisher’s blood was an eternal song. It cleaved my soul from my body. The taste of him was more exquisite than fresh, clean water. His blood was holy, and I drank like I needed to be saved.
“What does that mean, called by the gods? Like, you found religion?”
I swear to the gods, if you talk the entire time, I will kill you and leave your carcass for the crows, Carrion Swift.”
“I mean, who doesn’t love a blood-soaked orgy?”
I had convinced myself so thoroughly of this—that I was strong, that I was all I needed, that I didn’t want anyone else’s concern—that now it made me feel like crawling out of my own skin when anyone showed the slightest bit of care for me.
To my eyes, the room was in monochrome, the chaos unfolding before me in different tones of gray.
All libraries contained magic. Even libraries that didn’t specialize in such things. Because what was a book, if not a portal into another realm, another time, another life even.
At least a dog was loyal enough to die in solidarity if its owner dropped down dead in their own home. I’d heard too many tales of cats eating their owners’ faces under those circumstances.
“You can command me not to,” she said. “But I would strongly advise against it. You never know when you might need me to hear your thoughts.”
“His holy name is Joshin. Lord of the Desert. King of the Dark Dream.”
“Scorpions, Carrion. That is the sound of a million fucking scorpions.”
“He is an indoor cat, Your Highness,” she spat viciously. “He’s never stepped foot outside of this library.”
“Because, no matter what.…” Lorreth said under his breath. “A wolf never becomes a leech,” the vampire finished.
Ahh, fuck this. I wasn’t being eaten by another demon. Not this time, when the magic of Malcolm’s cursed maze wouldn’t bring me back from the dead.
“They can be many,” I said through gritted teeth. “Or they can be one. Right now… they’re becoming one.”
“What kind of secret?” “One valuable enough to balance the scales of our bargain,” I answered, knowing what I was demanding.
“If you destroy this body, it will take me lifetimes to regenerate,” he snarled. “Sounds like a you problem to me.”
I’ll face your nightmares if I have to, and I will still be the most frightening thing prowling around in the dark.”
My mind was so loud. There were five trains of thought careening through my head at all times. The very idea of trying to quiet them enough to enter a trance was laughable.
to me. I wanted to hold her; the fact that she wasn’t in my arms right now felt like the greatest injustice that had ever been inflicted
So yes. I love Saeris Fane, because she’s electric, and fierce, and loyal, and being around her brings the world back into
feet!” “It’s okay, Saeris. Really. I can understand how touching any part of me would drive you to distraction.”
