“You don’t think it’s safe?” She sat up, gaze darting to the door.
“No, I—” He paused, cocking a brow, and then held up the linens as if in invitation.
She scrambled beneath them and right up against him, and he covered them both. “Did you fasten the lock?”
“I don’t remember,” he sighed, wrapping arms around her.
He didn’t remember? He may have been a blood mage, but that was far too lax for Amma. “Damien, if you don’t think it’s safe—”
His light chuckling cut her off as he settled in, eyes closed. “Don’t worry: there’s nothing to be concerned about.”
“But you just said—”
“I lied.” He pressed his lips to the top of her head as his fingers threaded themselves into her hair. “That’s what villains do—we lie to get what we want.”
The next morning, Amma tried to think of a lie herself that would keep Damien in bed with her. No longer achy-muscled and without her bruises, she woke feeling better than she had in quite a while, and finding Damien’s arms around her had certainly helped, but then he grumbled about the time and pulled himself from beneath the linens to begin dressing.
She had very little to do in that department. While beneath the blankets, she stuffed her breasts back into what constituted her top and then only needed to straighten the panels hanging from her hips. It didn’t take long, but it was frustrating, no amount of shifting really mattered—the middle was the middle and it just wasn’t wide enough for her liking.
She had a good distraction, though, in Damien’s nonstop chatter. He was striding back and forth across the chamber, placing things down and immediately forgetting where he’d left them, pulling his tunic on backward, and just in general having a very tough time. Coupled with his roundabout explanation for how he was meant to act at Yvlcon, it was actually a fair bit entertaining to see him so flustered.
But her mind pulled back to the keep in Brineberth and when she’d been dragged into that room with a stranger who turnedout to be Damien. When the spell fell away to reveal his face and she learned he had come for her, she could do nothing but kiss him. He had returned that kiss so tenderly and began to saysomething. There was no good way to ask him to finish that thought, but probably no bad way either—he’d likely forgotten after almost being devoured by a pit of evil—though it did leave things very confusing.
“Again, so you understand, and I am perfectly clear: I have a certain reputation to keep up here.”
Amma tipped her head to the side, watching him pull on a boot more aggressively than he needed to and wincing. “Yes, Damien, I understand.”
“You must not allow the things I say or do to vex you because you can’t go around making that scrunched-up, indignant face nor can you defy me here, or we’ll both be in trouble, all right?”
She crossed her arms and grinned. “All right, Damien.”
“It will only be a few days of relatively light suffering,” he said, strapping on his dagger and striding up to her. “But I must play along for now.”
“I really do understand, and I—” Amma pursed her lips. “What do you meanplay along?”
He squinted upward, fastening the last buckle on his bracer. “Oh, you know, act a bit cruel and thoughtless, nod along with the others when they speak of committing atrocities,”—his eyes roved down to her—“treat you like my property.”
“So, what you’re saying is, you’ll bepretendingto be a villain.” She pushed up onto her toes and leaned against his shoulder. “But you’re notreally.”
He looked down his long nose, brows furrowing. “No, that is not what I am saying. The rest of these villains are just uncouth, and I prefer nuance to my cruelty.”
She twisted up her lips with a wry smile. “I don’t really think—”
“That’s right, you don’t think, you only follow my commands, or I’ll show you exactly what I mean.” He leaned past her and opened the door, his hand coming to her hip and nudging her to go out ahead of him.
She stuck her tongue out and darted into the hall, but was caught in the same instance by his hand once again clamping onto the back of her neck. His fingers slipped under the collar and tightened, and she gasped. Damien’s touch wasn’t cruel though, despite what he said.
As she was guided back down the stairs and into the main chamber of Yvlcon, she held her breath, the trepidation of being brought there by Fryn the day before after hours locked up in a cell returning. When she had laid eyes on Damien, sitting in a chair all slouched down and scowling, she had blocked out the others in the grand space, and then he had whisked her right away. But now she had the opportunity to take in the others. Most were clad in black, tall and spindly or broody and menacing, sporting pointed teeth or glowing eyes and openly wearing sigils of dark gods. Amma sidled even closer to Damien.
“No one will touch you,” he assured her, a rumble to his voice she recognized from the Chthonic he used to slice through things with his magic. She didn’t know how he would make sure of that after he’d explained that no one at Yvlcon had more or less power than anyone else due to the suppressive circlets they wore on their wrists, but she trusted him. She had to.
But all that trepidation ended up amounting to nothing.
Amma’s most important job was carrying Damien’s wine goblet. He didn’t really bother drinking from it, but it gave her hands something to do as she trailed behind him while he politely greeted snake-tailed lamia, blue-skinned beings with additional limbs, and someone who was almost definitely dead but come back if their smell was any indication. Once she relaxed, she found it difficult to contain her laughter.
As they procured a meal, a sickly thin woman was droning on to Damien about arcane weaponry from across the buffet. “You know, the others complain about cursed swords not getting picked up and just sitting around, rusting in some skeleton’s lap for a hundred years, but that’s barely a problem compared to what happened to mine.”
“Do tell,” said Damien in a thoroughly unconvincing tone as he stabbed a hunk of meat and then slid it off onto the plate Amma held at his side.
