“If I do to you what you want me to do, you’re not going to be able to walk for at least a week, and I’m not carrying you through The Wilds.”
“Is that supposed to be discouraging?” she squealed, squeezing her thighs together, all the relief she could get with her hands tied. “I can’t believe it—you really are evil.”
“I know,” he droned. “I do keep saying.”
Amma couldn’t help but grin up at the ceiling. She was frustrated and increasingly exhausted, but there was a giddiness in her, poking around under her skin.My sweet Ammalie, he’d called her. She had broken him, made him feel, and he cared. Deeply. “Damien? I need to tell you—”
“No.” Damien held the book up to his face, blocking her from eyeing him. “We can converse all you’d like tomorrow, but only if you don’t say another word now and go to bloody sleep.”
Amma blew out a long and sorrowful breath, but that didn’t count as talking, she was sure, even as the so-called poison finally wore off.Tomorrow, she said only in her mind and closed her eyes.
Amma could not know that once she fell into a deep, arcanely-spent sleep, Damien would carefully untie her wrists, position her more comfortably with chaste hands, and pull warm blankets over her before whispering into her ear, “Sanguinisui, forget this night.” Damien would then pause, shrug, and add, “Sanguinisui, actuallydoremember this night but only as a dream.”
She could also not know that he would do a final sweep of the room, removing any hint of what had happened, including pocketing the empty vial, and then go back to his own chamber, lock the door, and take advantage of himself. Twice.
Tomorrow would come, and with it, there would be embarrassment, but only suffered in her own mind at the obscene and vivid fantasies she’d had while asleep. It had been a very nice dream, but then it was only a dream, one Damien had made a promise in that he wasn’t beholden to keep, so she was unable to discuss with him the things he’d admitted to her as, dishearteningly, Amma didn’t believe any of his words had actually been spoken at all.
CHAPTER 17
DENIAL ISN’T JUST A SPELL IN THE LUX CODEX
Damien woke, body and mind already spent, sweaty, and, well,sticky. The desire to fall back into a dream-filled sleep where he hadn’t been such a noble idiot tugged at him, but time was short. Amma would not rise early, not afterthatdisplay last night, the one he couldn’t even needle her about as he’d arcanely ordered her to believe it was a dream, but at least he had chiseled the way she looked laying there beneath him on the inside of his skull to keep permanently.
Amma had kissed him.Kissedhim. Damien had experienced plenty of tongues down his throat, but when Amma had pressed her mouth to his, it felt like he had never had someone else’s lips on his own before. Though she’d been fervent and tipsy on arcana, it had still beenher. And as much as he insisted she were too intoxicated to follow through with what she was asking—begging—for, it was undeniable some earnest part of her was climbing onto his lap to whisper delectably indecent things in his ear because she had also been sofuckingsweet. When she’d taken his face in her hands, touched his scar like she adored it, and told him, even when she should have been terrified, that he was kind, that was her. She had been so bloody convincing and ardent that he had felt almost…good.
No, not almost. That wasn’t what he said. He told her, outright. He was good, and she had made him that way.
But she had asked him to makeloveto her, and he wasn’t even sure hecoulddo that.
Thank the basest beasts he could act as though none of it had actually happened.
Damien bathed in a rush and dressed quickly, hurrying out to the den’s massive receiving parlor. With Amma still asleep, this would be his only opportunity to speak with Lycoris alone before they left the karsts. The vampire dame was commenting loudly about the decor, pointing out what she approved of and even more boisterously what she wanted replaced, but sent away the vampires scribbling her demands onto long scrolls when he approached.
“Headed to The Innomina Wildwood?” she asked as if it were expected, voice echoing into the large chamber as she picked up a copper mug, steam wisping off its top.
“Perhaps.” Damien hesitated, looking about for others, hands clasped behind his back, but they were alone. “I do have an additional request to make before we leave.”
“Really pushing it, eh?” She took a sip and snickered. “Lemme guess, you worship that god of luck, what’s his name? Ryck?”
“Definitely not,” he exhaled, going to stand before her. The god of luck resided in Empyrea and wouldn’t have listened to Damien regardless of if he thought the gods listened at all. Plus, he was fairly certain he was called Turlecki—the name Ryck wasn’t nearly ridiculous enough. “This is only a request for information, if you’d be willing to give it. About an…ally of Zagadoth’s.”
“Oh, gossip? Honey, I always got time for that!” She flapped her free hand, taking a seat on the closest sofa and urging him to sit beside her. “So, what do you wanna know?”
“Well, it’s, uh…you said that I…” He looked her over, how she sat eagerly with her legs crossed, leaning in, eyes wide. He wished he were as eager to ask what he wanted to know, but the sun was rising beyond the caves, and he just had to say it. “Am I correct in assuming you knew my mother?”
“Oh, my blood, yeah!” Her mouth opened wider, fangs glinting red in the candlelight. “Real nice lady, just the sweetest thing, you have the exact same eyes and all those beautiful, black locks—just todiefor.” She reached out and fluffed his hair. He didn’t pull away, no one around to be embarrassed by, and really, it wasn’t terrible, the way Lycoris doted all over everyone. But then she froze, face changing. “Wait, wait, I’m remembering something…”
Damien tried to hold his features still, not letting whatever oddness was riling in his gut show on his face. “That she left?”
Lycoris pulled her hands back and sucked in a breath through her teeth. “Oh, honey, yeah, that’s it. Sometimes the very last bits come back slowly when I wake up, and I did have to go back into hibernation right after your pops was locked away. Immortality ain’t what it used to be. That musta been tough too, your dad stuck in that big rock, huh?”
Damien squinted—had no one told her Zagadoth was still trapped in Archibald’s crystal? Perhaps now wasn’t the best time she find out, with a favor promised to her from him. “It wasn’t ideal.”
“Ya know, that whole thing was real strange.” Lycoris shook her head, all of her hair moving along with it. “I was at their wedding, and your ma and pops were happier than a salamander in a volcano. And then you came along, and they were over both the moons!”
There was a flutter in Damien’s chest, a spark that had no business being as bright as it was, but it persisted even as his mind told him what Lycoris was saying made absolutely no sense. “Did you say wedding?”
“Uh huh. Tiny thing, only the worst of the worst were invited, but it was so sweet.”
