“And you?”
“The best.”
“Obviously,” she said sarcastically. The princess hadn’t looked at them once.
He laughed, pulling her hair back to tilt her face up. He placed a kiss on her lips.
“I’m not the best, actually,” he admitted as the acidic feeling grew. The bites dug deeper, going from a mild pain to a dull ache. “I’m not bad—I can entertain a court just fine—but two of my sisters and one of my brothers are much better. They were the first called on to perform. Always.”
“Do you miss them?”
He was quiet for a long time. Her skin started to burn. The chant changed from “it” to “her.”
Kill her-kill her-killer?—
The way the words ran together, it almost sounded like “killer” instead of “kill her.” Like a warning to the rest of the court.
“I do. Even the brother who betrayed me. I miss so much of that life, but it feels like a distant memory. I’ve changed a lot, I think. Grown cruel. Despicable. I doubt they would even know me.” He paused. “Or maybe I’ve become what they feared all along.”
“Or maybe you’re giving yourself a hard time for the guy you had to become to survive.”
He slipped his hand under her hair and stroked his thumb down the back of her neck. “It feels wrong to let myself off the hook so easily.”
“It shouldn’t.”
The shadow sliced across her ankle. She jerked, stopping herself from looking down to see if it had drawn blood. Was she supposed to pretend it didn’t hurt? Was that part of ignoring it?
“What…” Tarian stopped stroking, looking down at her in confusion.
Another slice, this one then drilling in. She sucked in a pained breath, unable to help it. Nor could she help looking down. Blood poured out of the fresh wound and seeped from the other. A black claw ran across her other calf, and the feeling of bugs across her chest dug in like flesh-eating beetles.
“Fuck—” She slapped at her chest, but there was nothing there. The pain intensified, magic spearing into her. Through her. It felt like white-hot spikes—realspikes.
Tarian quickly did up his pants before bending forward, reaching down to her leg. His fingers came away with a smear of blood. Rage and worry blazed in his eyes. This couldn’t have been the magical allure; she was being attacked. He didn’t know by whom.
She cried out with another sharp jab. Power pulsed in her middle—the diamond chalice calling to her. Another slice, this one across her ACL. She bent over, and her breath dried up. She couldn’t breathe!
She tried to enact her nulling magic, but it wouldn’t work on the shadows at her feet. She needed a fae to target. She needed a body or her magic was no good.
“Gods, Daisy—” Black so deep it was solid flowed over her body. Gold shimmered across her skin. The spikes of magic were dragged out one by one, only the last allowing her to breathe again. The tingles suggested that Tarian was using the magic she had stored. It wouldn’t be enough. The attacking magic aimed for her stomach now while redoubling its efforts on her legs.
“Fuck!” Tarian scooped her up into his arms, turning frantically. “Faelynn!” he shouted.
A dozen court members snickered, more hiding grins or smiles. She’d remember each and every one of those fuckers.
Daisy grabbed for the closest fae’s magic, someone too strong to steal from this quickly, but black spots danced behind her eyes. Her head felt light as blood soaked her dress around her stomach. She sucked that magic to her and heard a feral cry.
“Use this magic,” she said, and coughed. Blood frothed at her lips.
Tarian swore again as a male with his teeth bared and his eyes screwed up in rage came at them. He launched himself, not sure who was doing this to him and beyond logic to care. Tarian dropped Daisy without ceremony, no time to put her down gently.
Take all that you can,he told her.
She hit the ground and groaned, curling up with pain. She siphoned magic from the fae male as fast as she possibly could, without subtlety. It flowed into her, and Tarian took it out just as quickly, combating the magical attack on her.
He drew his knife from a jacket pocket. It increased in size as Tarian spun. He yanked the fae past him in a beautifully graceful move and stuck his knife into the center of the fae’s back directly after.
Daisy continued to suck at that power. The fae roared wildly, turning for Tarian with hands curved into claws. He reached for Tarian’s face, his thumbs aimed at Tarian’s eyes.
