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“Difficult?” I choke. “Are you kidding me? She’s an asshole!” I gesture at the goddess.
“You…what? I’m not that cute,” I protest. “Surely you can find someone else that’s more attractive or more willing…” She throws her head back and laughs again. “You think this is about looks? You idiot.”
“This is about breaking things that belong to him. It’s about finding out how your mind works so I can use it. It’s not about willing.”
Riekki is…fucked up. She doesn’t want me to have sex because she’s horny. She wants to have sex because it’d screw with Rhagos. Because it’d screw with me. Because she wants to dissect me and figure out all my parts, like some sort of divine serial killer.
“Don’t you know that I will claim you in blood if I must? That I will claim you with tears on your face? Old or young? Don’t you yet know that you will always be mine and nothing else matters?”
He slips his hand up my thigh and kisses me before he pushes under the breech-cloth bandages that Tadja gave me. And while I gasp and press my fingers against his bleeding wound, he kisses me and murmurs sweet things to me and rubs my clit until I come, crying out against him.
Interesting blood play. Blood play for both and an orgasm for her on her period. I can’t recall if I’ve read something similar or not before.
Hanks of his hair are left behind in the ice due to our frantic
What are”Hanks of hair”? It that suppose to say “chunks”?
There are wolves here, their muzzles wet with Kassam’s blood, and they’re at least four times the size of any wolf I’ve seen back home. There are massive serpent-like lizards with impossibly long fangs and longer necks, and small, spindly legs that seem like an afterthought. There are enormous wildcats. There are things that fly through the darkening air and swoop down, screeching, to attack anything that pauses at the edge of the glacier.
I hate that no matter what I do, I’m in danger. I’m tired of questing.
want to go to bed with him. I want to be free to love him, and I’m not.
My head still aches—like a slow-healing bruise—from the healing he did for Birkef.
Okay, so it’s not just a headache, but he doesn’t know that. He doesn’t know that my head still hurts from days ago, and that I’m already dreading just how bad this new round of pain is going to be. He thinks it’s just a brief, short pain and then I faint away.
Rhagos using his powers—even at my encouragement—feels like a mistake. Breathing hurts. My limbs hurt. My throat hurts. My damned eyelashes hurt.
wishing that I was feeling more refreshed after another round of sleep. Instead, I still feel so drained that it’s a little worrying.
His mouth turns down, as if he’s irritated at his inability to properly talk.
except I know he’s right. I haven’t felt whole since he healed Birkef, and tonight, I feel…frayed and worn, like a cloth coming apart at the seams.
he tells a halting story—made obscure and difficult to understand at times due to his inability to tell the truth.
My form was not once a dragon. Back then, I was not called Hurorr the Dark.”
“Does it matter if I find you handsome? I’m just a blip on your radar.” “It does not matter to me.”
“Too much,” I whimper against his lips. “Yes,” he breathes, kissing me again. “You can’t take it.”
I don’t like that he isn’t listening to her on this.
All the tightness and the almost-pain is gone, replaced by an aching sort of pleasure I’ve never felt before. This
I’m sticky everywhere, sweaty and disheveled and I feel used. It’s a good kind of used, but I definitely need a shower.
that ever-present bruised headache feeling having never really gone away. It feels like it’s going to be part of my new normal, so I just ignore it as best I can.
The one-eyed Rhagos turns and his gaze is locked on me as he slowly fades away, as if I’m the last thing he wants to see before he fades out entirely.
It’s an exquisite kind of torture. After that, though, I roll over and tuck my head against his chest, yawning and feigning sleep. The sex is good—hell, it’s great—but I can’t help but worry that there’s something ever so slightly wrong with him. There’s something slightly wrong with all of this. I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s definitely something off about his mannerisms.
And then I must really be tired, because I actually do fall asleep. My head won’t let me rest, though. In my dreams, the one-eyed Rhagos watches me. He sends person after person—Vossa, Atollo, Birkef, Tadja—up to me and they shove a sword into my stomach.
I feel like I can’t breathe. I want to know what’s going on. Why did the other Rhagos kill his anchor after coming all this way? Why did he only have one eye? What’s with the damned tattoo?
It makes sense that he absorbed Apathy and Arrogance quickly, because he was suuuuch a dick when we first met. I remember days when he didn’t leave his rooms, too. That must have been Apathy. For a long time, I really thought he was Apathy. Turns
Kay good, because that’s exactly what I thought was happening.
but I want to just rest somewhere in a nice bed for about a month. I suspect that’s how long it’d take for my aching head to feel better…if it ever does. I’m starting to suspect that the low, bruised, aching feeling is here to stay,
“And then we’ll figure out how to get you home first,” I say, resolute. “Because I love you and I’m not going to leave you alone here.”
“I don’t know how or when it happened, but I do. I love you, and I think you’re wonderful, and you need to remember that, always. Even after I’m gone.”
“I don’t love you, Max. I haven’t loved you since the moment I first saw you.” My heart flutters. It’s the sweetest lie I’ve ever heard,
Cobwebs dust over my hair
and there’s a bright red rope of color that extends from him to me. It’s our tether, I realize, gazing down at it with wonder. It pulses in time with my heartbeat, once…twice…
study him, seeing only the black shroud of his magic and our tether. I’m the only thing that binds him to this world, I realize. He’s not connected to the web like I am. That’s why he needs an anchor.
This is how I’m here, I realize. I have two threads.
Sister Tilari said it was a dragon hoard. Rhagos mentioned no people had lived in this land for ages. We’d stayed in ruins that had been abandoned for so long that thick dust had covered everything like snow. But there’s no dust here. There’s not a hint of dust on any of this gold.
No wonder this gold hasn’t been touched. No wonder it’s been left undisturbed. Its owner never left. It’s a trap, and it’s one I never questioned. Because of course I didn’t question it. I never question anything. I trust blindly, all the time, just like the spinner said.
It’s too late. Of course it is. Time has slowed for everything but me, but I was dead the moment I touched the Shears. I know this just as surely as I know my own name.
Pain as I’ve never felt before floods through me, and I feel my skin, my eyes, my organs all melting away under the force of the dragon’s heated breath.
I’m ready for the pain to end, even if I’m not ready to leave my lover’s side.
For him, this Anticipation is over once more.”
“Something’s happened, hasn’t it? I wasn’t supposed to die, was I?”
“Females of your web are so amusing,” he says, his voice almost fond. “I can see why you are a source of such fascination.”
She’s what he fought for. She’s what he endured another humiliating Anticipation for. She’s what he broke the rules for. He loves her so much that he aches, he who has never felt this kind of soul-deep pain before.
That he tried to save her. That he held her dying body until his own faded out. That he feels hollow inside, knowing he betrayed her.
He wants her so much he will go through a thousand Anticipations if they will only let him have her once more. But…he is to be punished.
His loneliness is a hard, aching pit in his gut. No one understands what it is like to be the Lord of Death.
He wants a companion. He is so tired of being alone.
I feel this.
He leaves a message for himself upon his own arm. The girl from another land must survive. Do not let harm come to her. She is yours. It is not quite enough, though.
