“I do.” He nips at my jawline.
“Tell me why you’re here, foolish girl.” Clotty pulls me back to her. “What is really going on?”
“To rescue you.” I turn and hug her again, my exuberance bubbling over.
“Rescue? Where did you come from? After you left, I had no idea what happened. But Granthos swore he’d search all of Arin to get you back.”
“Granthos is dead!” Still hugging her, I jump up and down.
“Dead?” She jumps too, the both of us cackling together.
“Gareth killed him.”
She stops jumping. “But what about the others?”
“Safe, I hope. I sent them to the winter realm. I’m friends with the king there.”
“Oh, are you now?” She smirks and backs away to give me a half-ass curtsy.
“Gareth is his second-in-command.” I hook my arm through his.
“Well, well, well. My silly changeling did well for herself.” Mirth lights her face, but I don’t miss the tears welling in her eyes. “Came to rescue me and everything. Like a little fool.”
I shrug. “What can I say. I take after you.”
“Oh, girl.” She clasps my hand. “How happy I am to see you.”
“Me too.” I can’t say more, not without falling to pieces.
Gareth gives her a once over, his gaze lingering on her leg. “Are you all right? You had a limp earlier—”
“All a trick.” She sniffs and straightens her back. “You fell for it so easy, my lord. Might want to work on that next time you—”
“Gareth, we have to get back to Cranthum.” Chastain paces back and forth between us and what’s left of Kizriel.
Kizriel! I almost forgot my conquest.
I hurry over to Kizriel’s head and put my foot atop it, then pose for Gareth, my hands on my hips. “Look.”
He smiles, his fangs lengthening. “Your bloodlust is sexy, my beloved.”
My nipples tighten, and I move toward him. Parnon stomps up behind me and kicks the head so hard it flies over the nearest villa, and I can’t even hear when it lands.
Gareth cups the back of my neck and pulls me to him. “I wanted to kill that creature myself.”
“Are you pouting?” I smirk. “Just because Parnon and I took care of it instead of you?”
“Not pouting,” he says,poutingly.
“What’s going on here, anyway?” I look back at Clotty. “How are you not tits-deep in the mines right now? Where are the masters?”
Once Gareth gets me up to speed, I can see why Chastain is pacing and turning the gold in his palm into different figures every half a second. It’s a bird, a fish, a fae, a cat, a cactus, a house, another bird, a wolf, a sphinx, a tree, a cockatrice, a mermaid, and on and on.
I watch as the slaves throw fine furniture into a pile in the center of the courtyard, then set it alight. Others raid the larders and amass a feast as Gareth, Clotty, Chastain, and I huddle around a gem-inlayed gaming table on one of the verandas as the sun sets in hues of vermillion.
I wrack my brain for some way to get to Cranthum before Cenet. “Siren Sound—there’s absolutely no way to avoid, you know, painful deaths?”
“No.” Gareth laces his fingers through mine. “Their song can’t be ignored or blocked out.”
