Brimstone (Fae & Alchemy, #2)

by Callie Hart

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.

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!”

“You maimed them at best,” I snapped. “And the day you save me on a battlefield, I’ll put on a dress and dance a fucking jig.”

“Don’t you know? There isn’t much I wouldn’t sacrifice to make you happy, Osha. A little healing magic is the least of it.”

“I can’t help it if he doesn’t want to live.”

“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.”

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.

“You forget that I’m a winter creature, Saeris,” Fisher murmured. “I don’t crave the attention of the sun. The snowcapped mountains, the forest, the frozen river… those places are my home. You are home.”

“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…” He swallowed, giving a tiny shake of his head. “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.”

“Careful, Osha,” he said roughly, kissing along my jawline. He stopped when he reached my ear, tugging on my earlobe with his teeth. “You might just get what you wish for.”

“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.”

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

“Fine. But I swear to the gods, if you talk the entire time, I will kill you and leave your carcass for the crows, Carrion Swift.”

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

“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?”

“Orillith ken mas cree, Carrion Swift,”

“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.”

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

“The most unique, most beautiful creature in the entire realm, on her knees in front of me, looking up at me like she’s feeling feral and might just like to fuck me? Yes,” he said, “I’d say I’m feeling pretty pleased with myself.”

“It’s okay, Saeris. Really. I can understand how touching any part of me would drive you to distraction.”

“I’m not arrogant. I’m fucking proud. I hear how your pulse quickens when you touch my body, and it makes me feel fucking invincible. You can hear my pulse do the same when I touch you, can’t you?”

“If you think a broken hand is going to stop me from fucking you properly, Osha, then please…” He spoke against my mouth, his lips brushing mine, his breath fanning over my face. “Let me disabuse you of that notion.”

“I could fuck you and feast on you until the ages turned and the suns all died and burned out in the skies, and I still wouldn’t have had enough of you.”

Don’t thank them, came Fisher’s low, resonant reply. Thank me. I’m the one who’s about to make you scream.

“I had no idea what you would mean to me. I had no idea what I would do to keep you safe. When I close my eyes, you are all I fucking see, Saeris Fane. I could be dead in the ground five thousand years and the frosts could have taken my bones, and still no other male will ever have loved another female the way that I love you.”

I want to stand behind you and watch you on your hands and knees. I wanna see your slickness running down the inside of your thighs, your pretty pink little pussy on show for me, aching for my cock.

“Sweet fucking mercy,” he panted. “Kill me. Sit on my face and ride my tongue until I fucking die. I can’t take it anymore.”

“All right. Fine. I’ll drink from you, Saeris. But not out of any love I have for the gods. I’ll do it to make you come on my tongue and my fingers. I’ll do it to make you scream.”

“Watching you come is a fucking gift.” His hands locked around my wrists, swiftly pinning them above my head. “I could watch you fall apart for me forever.”

“You are the only thing that keeps my moral compass pointing north, Little Osha,”

“My soul is on the winds,” I panted. “You’re carrying it away.”

My prince of shadows. I had been born into the light, but my salvation had been waiting for me in the dark.

“The way that you love me. Some would say that is your weakness.”

“Some would say that,” he agreed. “But they would be wrong. It’s my strength.”

“Fuck me, Osha.” His voice was rough from sleep. “That sound haunts my fucking dreams. I want to make you moan for hours.”

“There are worse ways to go mad, Osha. If I get to fuck my way to insanity with you, then I’d call that a win.”

“Irrellieth ka tintar shey an mé correshan dow.”

‘I’m going to drown myself between your thighs.’

“The good comes with the bad. The pleasure comes with the pain. I’m going to make this hurt so good for you, Osha. Are you ready?”

“Is it weird, knowing that people’s balls retract up into their bodies whenever you’re around?”

“In Ammontraíeth, is it considered incest if you sleep with your maker? ’Cause it sounds to me like someone was fucking Daddy.”

“She isn’t a half of anything. She’s all Saeris. I love her.”

“You’re a wildfire, Saeris Fane. There’s no controlling you.”

“And what if there comes a day when all of this becomes too much, and I want to be carried? At least for a little while?”

“Then it would be my honor and a privilege to do so, Saeris. Never doubt that. Whenever you need me to catch you, I am here, ready and willing. I’ll face the Blood Court for you, if you want me to. I’ll face Belikon, and Madra, and anyone or anything that wishes to do you harm.”

“You’ll have to face the sun for me, too, in that case,”

“Gladly.”

“And I will become you...