She grumbles under her breath and drags a hand down her face before taking a step towards me. She’s taller than I am, and I have to tilt my head up to hold her onyx gaze. There is nothing in their depths but purehatred. “Trust me, I want for that to be true. But until we make an even exchange, my conscience will not let me rest. I refuse to let it consist of thoughts aboutsomethingas abhorrent as you. So, I will ask you again, what do you want as payment for saving my life?”
I swallow as I drop my gaze again, staring at the tops of my feet. At the permanent reminder of my failure that is now carved into one.
“Can I ask you for anything?” I look up as her eyes narrow on me, her jaw clenching.
“Within reason and of equal value, yes.”
This is stupid—stupid.She could kill me at any moment. I don’t even know how this would work, but I can’t stop thinking about how different things might be if I could move through this life with the same kind of physical confidence this fae possesses. I would never be forced to be obedient again. I could escape and know that I could fight back if I was found.
“I want you to teach me how to fight,” I confess, my hand gesturing in the air between us.
She is silent for a long while, her head twisted to the side as if replaying what I’ve said until it makes sense. Then she burstsout into laughter. My cheeks heat as she continues laughing at my expense, her head tilted back with the column of her throat elongated. “Why would you want me to do that?” she finally asks when she calms down.
“It’s personal.”
Looking back out over the ocean, she shakes her head in annoyance. “No. Pick something else.”
“That is all I want,” I say back, cringing when her eyes snap to mine.
“Then tell me why you want it. Consider it a show ofgoodwill.” She faces me fully, crossing her arms over her chest as her lips fall into a flat line. Her gaze is harsh upon my skin, but her eyes don’t stray anywhere lower than my face.
“You wouldn’t understand,” I reply with a shaky whisper.
“Six lessons,” she finally says, the words forced out of her mouth like she’d rather saw her tongue off instead.
My brows draw together as my hands interlace in front of me. “Six lessons? Is your life worth no more than that? I thought the fae lived for like a thousand years.” Her face is shaded briefly as a cloud moves in front of the sun, but the anger simmering in her eyes remains. “Can’t we leave the amount open-ended? Since it might take me a while—”
“No. The oath requires the details to be laid out specifically. Ten lessons.”
“Twenty.” I shrink in on myself when she takes a menacing step towards me. “Fifteen, then,” I rush out quickly. A gust of warm air pushes at my back so strongly that it knocks me off balance. I fall to my knees, the pain in my foot making me whimper as my palms scrape against the sand.
“Pathetic,” she hisses, but it’s drown out by the shifting of the wind and the sound of…Oh gods.
“Twelve, Little Siren. You get twelve lessons with me, or I’ll order this dragon to incinerate you.”
Looking over my shoulder, I watch as a midnight-blue dragon, its scales reflecting iridescent in the sunlight, slams into the ground, sending clumps of damp sand and water everywhere and rattling my bones with the impact. Heat blasts my back as I cower over my knees, my hands covering my head.
“Better accept quickly,” she drawls, walking until she’s at my side.
“Okay, twelve lessons.” And then, because I’m not a total idiot, I add, “Twice a week and two hours each.”
The fae looks down at me from the corner of her eye, the hot breath of the dragon scalding my skin and clashing with the icy cold of her stare. “One hour and once a week. I don’t have an abundance of free time.”
I nod and slowly stand, the deep rumbling behind me making my shoulders shoot up to my ears. A male voice chuckles, and my gaze flies to the dragon, wondering if I’m going mad. But a fae male is sitting in the space between spikes on the dragon’s back, as if it was born with a spot for a rider.
“Hello, beautiful,” he purrs, leaning forward. His hair is black, like the female’s, though it’s much longer. It drapes past his shoulders and brushes against the dragon’s rough-looking skin. The female moves so that she is standing between the flying beast and myself, blocking its giant yellow eye from the side of its face that I can see. I swallow, noting how justoneof the dragon’s claws is nearly half the length of my body.
She extends her hand out to me, the other resting above a second dagger strapped to her other thigh. Like she really expects me to somehow attack her while shaking her hand. “We’ll meet here in a week’s time.”
“This meeting place is too far from our capital. Is there somewhere else on the shore we can meet that’s closer to the Mage Kingdom’s border?” Even that would take a few hours to get to.
She grinds her teeth together and exhales a sharp breath. “Fine. There is a spearhead-shaped peak about ten miles away from where the mage border meets our own. Will that work?” I nod, grasping her hand. “I have to know your name for the oath.”
“It’s Aria. And yours?”
She lowers down until she is at eye level with me, drawing so close that my vision is entirely consumed by her hauntingly beautiful dark eyes. “You will not utter my name to a single soul. You will not speak of this deal to any of the rest of yourdisgustingkind. Do you understand?” Her grip is so tight that my bones shift in my hand, and I have to fight back the urge to send my talons out.
“I don’t want anyone to know about this either.” She smirks but keeps her gaze intently on me. It consumes me from the inside out, both luring me closer and spiking enough fear that I want to pull away.
