Merciless?That was quite the word. “Merciless toward whom?”
He let out a faint huff of a laugh instead of answering. “My faults are different in the Fae Court, where I lie and manipulate for the sake of a cause, and where, if I fail, I’ll be remembered as a monster.”
His voice was calm, matter-of-fact. But I wondered if he had stayed awake as heavy-hearted as I had over my own faults.
“It sounds as if you have three different faces,” I told him, and then winced. “I told you one of my faults was that I never say the right thing.”
But he grinned. “At least all three of my faces are handsome.”
“You think rather highly of yourself, don’t you?” My voice was teasing, but I worried I’d struck the wrong note.
He scoffed. “I’m neither blind nor given to false humility. Are you?”
Lidi had helpfully pointed out that morning I had an expansive new outbreak of acne, as if the wyrm spit had been bad for my skin.
“False humility? I think you forget that I’m mortal.” I didn’t want him to pretend that he found me attractive. I could believe that he found me novel, brave—little mortal—and I would make do. “Give me the knife and tell me where to chisel. Then I can help you set the rest of the traps.”
He turned the blade to himself as he handed it over, but he was still gripping the hilt, so my fingers overlapped his. The sparks felt as if they were on my skin now, instead of in the still-smoking, still magical golden glow of the rune.
I should have pulled back. Instead, I lingered. Then I came back to life, embarrassed—not because I wanted to touch him, because who would not? But for the first time in my life, I felt an impulse formorethan touch, for more than one night. I really did want to linger.
He leaned in to guide my hand across the stone.
“Like this,” he murmured, the words grazing the edge of my mouth.
I turned—just slightly—and the space between us vanished.
His lips caught mine, firm and heated, as if he’d been waiting too long to resist.
The world narrowed to the press of his mouth and the way his hand slid from the knife to the nape of my neck, holding me close. Fire flared low in my belly, fierce and unexpected. The rip hummed, the rune glowed, but all I could feel was his urgent mouth against mine.
His mouth coaxed mine open, and I yielded to him, pressing into him with hunger that surprised me. His tongue stroked into my mouth, and my fingers tangled in his collar, my hips pressing his.
Somehow, despite how much greater his height was than mine, he formed himself to me, edging his leg between my thighs, lowering his head as he kissed me mad, until it felt as if there was no part on my body that wasn’t dominated by him.
I tore myself away from him with a sudden, wild surge of effort. It was as difficult as forcing myself below water while my lungs burned. All I wanted for myself in that moment was Fieran’s mouth against mine, his hands on my skin.
Fieran’s eyes burned, fixed on me as though he’d just uncovered a secret he meant to keep. I had just as many secrets to keep, and no reason to trust—let alone kiss—this dragon shifter.
“Now what?” I asked, my voice embarrassingly breathless. “With the runes?”
“Once we’ve placed the last rune to make the shape of the trap, we have to say the words to ignite it.” He repeated a few words to me, and my tongue tripped, trying to repeat them. His lips tugged in a faint smile.
“I don’t know that language,” I said, as if that weren’t obvious.
“It’s the dragons’ language. They might be gone, unless they can access this plane by sharing the body of a shifter, but there are still traces of their magic.”
“I’ve never learned anything about that,” I said.
“Why should you?” His hand slipped from mine, and I felt as if I’dstumbled. I was coming too close to revealing secrets to him that no one could ever know.
But he was merely turning away to another rock. He lifted it easily, holding it between us, as if to keep himself from kissing me again. To him, it seemed to weigh nothing, but I knew if I’d wrestled that stone out of our fields, I’d have needed a long soak in the tub and at least two nights without Lidi kicking me in the back to recover.
“Draw the rune for me,” he said.
I glanced at the other rock to review the shape, then took a step forward. It felt intimately close to him as he held the stone against his equally rock-solid torso. He might as well have been one of the statues of the gods in the temple.
“Foryou?” I teased as I dug the blade into the rock. “I’m doing this for my village.”
