“What?” I said.
“Thrice she has fed from you, starborn Knight,” Mab purred. “Tasted of Winter’s power thrice.”
My stomach twisted. “Meaning what?”
She stared at me for a moment. “What is magic?”
“Energy left over from the creation of the universe,” I said automatically. “Life that hasn’t yet found physical expression.”
“Yes,” she said, drawing out the word. “Life. Raw. Primal. Creation.” She shivered and arched the fingers of one hand, drawing her long, opaline nails through the hairs on my chest. I fought not to jump again. “The Hungers are meant to consume the energy inherent in all of creation. That is their purpose. They yearn for it. Lust after it. But because of how they were bound by the ancient sorcerer-king, they can only nibble at tiny, unsatisfying portions that never fill them.”
“You’re telling me,” I said slowly, “that when Lara feeds, her Hunger’s been getting unflavored oatmeal.”
“And you gave it a taste of ambrosia, starborn,” Mab murmured. “As vanishingly few others could. It will want more. Very badly. Regularly. That need will make Ms. Raith…pliable.”
My eyes widened.
“And that is only the most overt effect it will have on her. One becomes what one consumes, after all. You have fed her Hunger more and better than it has ever known. She has tasted of you, and of Winter. Eaten the food of the Fae. She will become more like both. More and more inaccord with you.” Mab shivered with an undeniably sensual movement of her body. “You have her. With her comes her Court. And I have you. You have served me very well, my Knight. Name your reward.”
I stared at her in horror.
“This whole time,” I said low, “you were using me. To enslave someone.”
“If all goes well, more than one,” Mab murmured. “Lara and her negotiators assumed the language in the bargain about the exercise of control being permissible addressedherpropensity to controlyou,” Mab said serenely. “They even protected its wording, so that it would be certain she would be held free of any retribution should your allies in Winter be upset at her actions.” Mab arched a pale brow and looked down at me. “She would have been content to enslave you, my Knight. It is entirely fitting that the tables be turned upon her.”
“You used me,” I said again, fury making my voice quiet, “to enslave someone.”
The Queen of Air and Darkness tilted her head slightly, frowning down at me. “You would never have been able to deceive her if you’d known. Such subtlety is not among your gifts.”
“You’re right,” I growled.
And I punched Mab in her slender throat.
The angle wasn’t good and I had no base of leverage from my back, so it didn’t crush her windpipe. But her eyes flew wide open and she exhaled in a little choking sound. I seized her by the hair and threw her off the bed to the floor.
“You used me,” I snarled, “to do that.”
Catlike green eyes flickered to my hands and then up to my face, and her mouth spread into an inhumanly wide smile as she nodded.
I snarled, seized her by the thigh and the front of her gown, picked her up over my head as if she weighed nothing, and flung her across the room into the stone wall. She hit it like a bundle of wet sticks and tumbled down to the top of my dresser, bounced off it, and hit the floor.
“You used me!” I screamed. I stalked across the floor as Mab began to push herself up and brought my heel down on her spine, slammingher back to the floor. She turned her head a little too far around to be natural to stare up at me, green eyes gleaming, her sharp, inhuman smile growing even wider. Blood trickled from a corner of her mouth.
I let out an incoherent cry and raised a clenched fist.
Mab let out a croaking cackle and said, “Yes. Yes. It feels good, does it not?”
…
…
It did.
Hell’s bells.
I froze there, fist raised, ready to drive it down at her smiling face. My body was flooded with adrenaline, limbs singing with the pleasure of tensed muscle about to be used, heart beating steady and hard. I felt afire with rage. I felt certain. I felt so freaking strong.
I felt good. Intensely good.
