“I mean, I’m a knight playing at being a maid. What quality of work were you expecting?” If this was turning into a formal work review, it felt a bit awkward to have my hands restrained.
Merulo shook his head, starting to pace. “Time and again, you’ve resisted being put in your place.”
“Which is why you’ve had to resort to such drastic measures.” I wiggled plaintively. Could he not channel his anger into something more . . . productive?
Merulo smiled then, deliciously smug and mean. In the torch’s flicker, his thin form loomed threateningly. “I should leave you here.”
Thrusting my chest out self-consciously, I said, “Oh but, my lord, isn’t there another way I could make up for my deficiencies?”
“Yes. By staying silent and out of sight.” He was still smiling, looking more and more self-satisfied.
We should have established a safe word. “My lord, I will clean better,” I said, feeling the pull of the chains on my arms a bit more seriously now. “And stop fucking with your plates. One hundred percent, it will be done.”
“You don’t actually mean that.” He smirked. “No. I think I’ll leave you here to marinate.”
“Truth spell! Truth spell!” I squawked, sounding almost like my vulture self. I’d yanked forward without meaning to, and now my wrists ached.
With exaggerated impatience, Merulo went through the motions, withdrawing the small geode from the shadow of his robes, whispering a blue spill of magic over its surface, and drawing closer to apply it to my chest. His composure broke, and he paused, gaunt hand hovering, before unlacing my front and pulling down a corner of the dress, exposing my shoulder. His fingers were cool against my skin, and the geode even colder.
Clearing his throat, Merulo withdrew. It took a couple of tries for him to shove the geode back into the depths of his robes. “Have you been doing your best work?” The sorcerer’s voice only cracked a little.
“Nope,” I answered. “That stickiness you mentioned? It’s from skipping the final wash of water. But in my defense, I did not . . . think you’d notice.”
The sorcerer seemed too distracted to get properly angry. He cleared his throat again. “Will you do better, and cease this flailing for attention?”
I played with my chains. How did people ever reproduce, if seduction was this difficult? “Yes to the first . . . no to the second.”
He turned to leave.
“Wait, please don’t go,” I cried, jangling in place. “You’re right, boredom is exactly the thing I cannot stand. Merulo!” The room’s air tasted dry and stale, like a tomb.
Frustration entered his voice. “You did ask for me to ‘stop being nice.’” A tendril of black hair fell into his famished face, over his stone eye. “What did you want exactly, for me to hurt you?”
“Maybe,” I squeaked. “But like, in a hot way.”
“I could make your bones feel like molten lead. Would that be hot enough?”
Again, picking up steam in the wrong direction. “Too hot! Way too hot!”
“So then you want pretend consequences for real infractions. It’s fascinating that you thought that would happen.” Merulo brushed the stray hairs back, returning them to the inky mass that fell on his shoulders. “Cameron, from the moment we first met, you have been an unbelievable nuisance. Who can say how far you’ve delayed my research? Yes.” He straightened, his natural eye matching the intensity of its stone twin. “This necessitates an apology.”
I tried to gargle out the words, but they stayed stuck. That damned truth seal. “Look, I’d love to give a nice apology. But this is the most fun I’ve had in years.” I stared at the torch-shadowed floor, hopefully in a contrite manner. “I can’t be sorry for any of it.”
“Fun?Being hunted by your former comrades? Being turned into a vulture and used as a—a pin cushion? Eating rats? Are you utterly deranged?” Not looking at him had been the right call; his voice sounded strange.
“I did actually like the vulture part,” I admitted. “And rats are just meat. Tubes of meat. You get so squeamish, honestly.”
“They’re diseased vermin, Cameron.”
“Why don’t I cook you up a nice rat, and you ca—” The sound cut off, though my throat still vibrated with the passage of words. Confused, I tried again, my mouth emitting perfect silence. I chanced a glance up.
Merulo looked the happiest I’d ever seen him. He closed the distance in a single stride and stared down at me with agreat deal of self-satisfaction. “Why didn’t this occur to me sooner? It’s perfect!”
I tried to reply, and felt foolish when nothing came out. Clicking his tongue, the mad sorcerer gripped my chin, angling my face upward. “Now that you’ve shut up, I can admit that this body is an improvement on the vulture.” He leaned in all the way, lips brushing against mine, his other hand closing firmly around my waist. As I hung, giddy from the press of his body, the sorcerer whispered in my ear, “Shake your head if you want me to stop.”
I did not want him to stop.
CHAPTER 15
