“He’ll still want you,” Marina said, her voice pitched low so the occasional passersby on the street wouldn’t hear.“It wouldn’t matter if he had a thousand tarts panting after him.You’re not like anyone else, Sora.Not even when you’re dressed up like a common whore.”
I sighed.
“You’re not convinced?”
“I don’t know his particular tastes.Men can be strange, want odd things, kinks.All Rafaela really said was that he likes pretty women.A lot.And his needs are already being met.”
As much as Rafaela had harped on the magnitude of Alobaz Hawxley’s legendary sexual appetite, I’d never imagined he’d surround himself with a scorchingharem.
A harem.What an egotistical asshole.No one woman—or two or three—could satisfy the likes of him.The prick needed dozens, apparently.
Marina’s hand settled on mine.“I’ve never met a more striking woman.”
I wrapped my fingers around hers, knowing I’d make myself let go soon.
“Once he sees you, he won’t be able to take his eyes off you.I’m more worried he’ll become obsessed.Remember Landry?”
I shuddered.“How could I forget?”He’d stalked me—every time I left the palace, or via a spyglass when I was on palace grounds—for an entire year, before vanishing without explanation.
I glanced down at her.“Did you kill him?”
She shook her head, the sunlight glinting across her hair, its greens as rich as a forest’s.“Maybe Rafaela?Or Teo?”
I faced forward again, eyes on Slake, though now that Alobaz hadtwenty-fucking-fiveprostitutes with him—according to a chatty human outside the general store—there was no reason for him to return, much less to a place now closed.But I had no better place to surveil.I wouldn’t attempt to approach the Abysmal Fortress until nighttime, when I would be able to conceal myself in the darkness.
“It wasn’t Teo,” I said.“He would’ve told me.”
“Rafaela, then.Maybe Alonso.Though Rafaela’s the one who took out Emeríl.”
I frowned.“I forgot about him.”
“Really?You never forget anything or anyone.”
Which meant I’d never, ever recover from losing Teo.It wouldn’t matter how long I lived, I would always be missing my other half.
“I’ve made a point of forgetting Emeríl,” I said.I would have done the same with Teo, but blocking him and all we shared would dishonor his memory.And I would never dishonor my brother.
“Well, good thing, then.Get back to forgetting him.Emeríl was nasty,” Marina said.
I’d refused his persistent advances.Also a sänglure, he drugged my feeder with olvidian, heavily dulling my senses, then he’d tried to rape me.He drugged Teo’s feeder as well, so Teo wouldn’t be capable of intervening.
Like an apparition of my unwilling intoxication, Rafaela had appeared from nowhere with a sword in her hand.When my senses returned, she was gone, and Emeríl was spread across the room in so many pieces that the goblins needed shovels to clean up his remains.
When his count father came asking about him, Alonso had handed over a box dripping blood, filled with some of Emeríl’s pieces.I’d never seen Alonso look so murderous.The count must have agreed; he never showed his face at the palace again.
I watched men, women, children, and creatures amble up and down the dirt road in front of Slake.For a humble village, the streets were uncommonly clean.Its residents walked with purpose, though they would stop to exchange pleasantries—or the latest on Alobaz.Most were fae.Very few were human, their scents woodier, earthier than their fae counterparts.
“I only need to capture his full attention for a short while,” I said, both to Marina and to encourage myself.By all accounts, Alobaz was a fierce, skilled warrior.By some, he was unbeatable—fast, astute, and inescapably lethal.
But, as men always did when ignorant of my reputation, Alobaz would underestimate me.It had been nearly three weeks since I emerged from my underwater tomb, enough to heal and strengthen my body, to refresh my skills with my blades, and for my dampened fae power to renew.
For everyone else, I’d been gone centuries.For me, no great time had passed.
I was sharp enough to take down a man ruled by his dick.
He was commander of all the emperor’s armed forces, sure.But he was also at the castle on furlough, focused, quite obviously, on indulging his pleasure.
He wouldn’t expect a threat.He especially wouldn’t expect me.
