CHAPTER 24
A MAN THAT STUDIES REVENGE, KEEPS HIS OWN WOUNDS GREEN
“Y
ou’re still angry.”
“Angry? About what?” Damien did not look at her. It was easier that way. “That you’re a dirty, rotten, little thief? Why would I be angry that you have turned out to be exactly the thing you’ve presented yourself as the entire history of our unfortunate affiliation?”
Amma said nothing. She was probably glowering or pouting or doing something else with her eyes and lips that was simultaneously alluring and annoying, and Damien refused to even acknowledge it just like he’d refused to speak with her that morning. She was right, of course, hewasangry, but not with her. Not really. Because it was true, wasn’t it? She was only being the person he already knew she was, and it was he himself who had tried to be someone else. And that had been very stupid.
But the trouble of it—all of it—would be gone soon enough. They would have the Lux Codex by the day’s end, and he could be rid of her entirely with the right spell to purge the talisman from her heart. Then she could run off to whatever guild or slum she’d come from, and he could continue on to Eirengaard alone as it was meant to be to get on with things he had put off thinking of for far too long.
Morning had burned off into afternoon as they came upon the quaint barony of Faebarrow on knoggelvi masked as horses, Kaz disguised as a dog again though less upset than normal as the imp found a certain joy in Damien’s willful cold shoulder.
Amma had swaddled herself in her cloak, hood up as if the full sun of the day were not warm enough. She had been opposed to going after the book from the moment Xander had told them of it, but perhaps it had not been the book she was against. He chanced a look over at her, sitting there with her shoulders slumped in, hood pulled all the way down—that was never how she rode, always with her back straight, face turned to the sky, sun dappling her cheeks and the tops of her breasts and—
Infernal darkness, why in the Abyss did his mind insist on casting her back in that light? Damien grit his teeth, remembering the night before and the subtle sense that had been tickled by her hand. He was briefly alarmed then that she had taken his invitation a step further, welcome, but not what he had meant by wrapping an arm around her, and then the deep disappointment when he realized what was actually going on.
After he had used her to demonstrate knots and seen her reaction, it was probably a good thing she’d been called away by the elven conclave, otherwise very little save for Amma’s own protests could have stopped him ripping off her clothes right there—and she wouldn’t have protested, of that he was sure. But after, when he was left riled up and stuck in that absurd cage, he was both gifted and tormented with the time to consider what any of it meant.
He had convinced himself that she was simply attractive, and he was simply an animal, and while it was frustrating, it was tolerable, until Amma had spoken to the elves. Simple as it was, her request for information on the Lux Codex, and then her defense of infernal arcana and, in turn, him, had complicated his—and of this he was not proud—but hisfeelings.
Of course, he’d still like to strip her, slowly and preferably with his teeth, but that festering desire had evolved, and he wasn’t exactly sure when it had happened. Certainly he’d like to pin her hands above her head again, but he also wanted to pin her entire body against his own, and not just in some carnal entanglement. He wanted to press his flesh against hers tofeelher, and for once not pull away, to bring her as close as possible, to touch her and to allow her to touch him back.
But that was asking quite a lot of himself, something he had been told he was incapable of, in fact. So, when he had risked putting an arm around her, inviting her to simply lay beside him, and things had gone so quickly to shit, he really should have known better. But perhaps there was a little room to make her pay for the annoyance she had caused him. Damien was evil, after all, and revenge was meant to be one of his specialties.
“Amma, you seem very nervous,” he began in a drawn-out way, glancing up the wide, pastoral street that led to the city proper of Faebarrow. “Is something wrong?” He knew very well there was.
“Let’s just get to the library, take a look at that book, and get out,” she mumbled.
“Oh, I intend to take the Lux Codex with me, so I believe we’ll be spending at least one night in town.”
She snapped her head up, catching her hood before it fell back. “We should camp outside the city,” she said in a shaking voice, a terrible suggestion when they were already heading into it, one she had to have known.
“And why would we do that? I have plenty of coin, and look how nice it is here. Much better than Elderpass even.” He gestured to a wagon headed toward the town, full of people and being pulled by a set of donkeys. Damien called out a greeting.
Amma dipped her head even lower. “Will you stop that?” she hissed.
He smirked, but allowed their small convoy to fall back so that the wagon pulled ahead. “Stop being friendly? Is that not the behavior you’ve been encouraging out of me all this time? Ah, good day, sir! How fare thee?”
“Oh, by Osurehm, you sound like an idiot—no one talks like that,” she grumbled, hunching her shoulders even more and scowling at her knoggelvi’s braided mane.
“Then maybe you should translate. Here’s a good opportunity.” A couple leaving the city was coming toward them, and he waved. Kaz even joined in, standing to balance on the knoggelvi’s head and giving a friendly yap. The couple greeted them back, and he turned his smarmy grin on her when they’d passed.
She glared back from under the edge of her hood. “Damien,please.” Ah, yes, so this was how his revenge would have to go. It wasn’t as torturous as manacles and fiery pokers, but at the very least she was begging him to stop, so it would do.
Over the next hill, the city’s official gates were laid out at its base, wide open but attached to a proper wall which made sense for a place that boasted both a scholarly bastion and the production of rare and expensive goods that was nestled into a valley with no other natural defenses. There were a dozen soldiers standing at the entrance in full plate armor, half carrying halberds, the others with long swords strapped to their sides.
The wagon pulled by donkeys had gotten well ahead, reaching the gate where the riders were being instructed to exit it for inspection, even an elderly man that had significant trouble getting down. When Amma saw this, her whole body went rigid.
Damien’s glee at her discomfort shifted to a brief pang of pity and then to the logical realization that, if there were trouble in Faebarrow for her, it meant trouble for him as well. He tugged the reins of his knoggelvi and dismounted, gesturing for her to do the same. Standing between the horses, he still couldn’t quite keep the smirk off his face. “What’s going to happen when we attempt to enter this city?”
Her eyes were searching the bottom of the hill where the guards were busy poking around the wagon and questioning the citizens. “They can’t see my face,” she said in one, frightened breath.
One of Damien’s brows shot up. With the masked knoggelvi’s reins in hand, he began to walk backward toward the gates down the gently sloping hill, eyes set on her. “You’d actually be recognized on sight? Sounds like quite the crime you’ve committed.”
She didn’t move to follow, gripping her own knoggelvi’s reins tight as if that would somehow comfort her as she stood still.
