“Thank you, Eacon. You and Rink helped me see things from a different perspective,” I confess as I sneak into the washroom.
Shit, is there any part of his quarters we didn’t destroy?
“Do either of you need healing?” she hedges.
I look down to see all of the blood-covered bites are already mending on their own. I turn to the mirror and inspect my body. My skin is smooth and tan like it always is—even the blood smears aren’t unusual. I lift my chin and notice the two columns of four dots running up the front of my throat. The marks look old, like they’ve been there forever.
Tilleo was always very clear about how blade slaves couldn’t have any identifying scars or marks. We were healed and sent back to suffer, time and time again. If there was an injury that blemished a blade slave in any way, they were washed from the ludere.
I run my finger down the perfect lines of healed punctures. They’re sensitive, and goose bumps speckle my arms at the contact. I know somehow that they’re special, that they represent the bond between me and Riall and our beastly natures.
“No healing needed,” I call out, smiling when Riall sidles up behind me and wraps me in his arms.
“Very well then. I’ll leave you to it. Congrats again,” she calls to us, and then we both listen carefully as she moves away, her footsteps growing quieter until they disappear altogether.
“Locks,” I announce as I start to clean up the mess in the washroom so that we can attend to the mess that’s painted across our bodies and dripping from places. “First order of business is locks on every door in this castle. Second,” I correct when I remember we have a ghost in the dungeons. “The locks are actually the second order of business. The first is finally getting some answers about why the iron-dagger-wielding fucks look like me.”
“You’re a regular tactician,” Riall teases. “Locks and answers, it is.”
“Answers and locks,” I chide, smiling at his taunting smirk.
He wraps me up in a tight hug and brings his lips to my ear. “How about pussy and cock one more time before answers and locks?”
I laugh and sigh like he’s just too much, but my smile brightens as his hazel gaze darkens with desire.
“Pussy and cock really should be the first order of business at all times,” I agree.
“It’s the natural order of things. Who are we to fight that?” he whispers conspiratorially to me.
I laugh and he hauls me up his body until I’m wrapped around his torso like the greedy beast that I am.
“There’s no fighting nature,” I add as our lips meet in a slow and sensual kiss.
I wouldn’t now even if I could, because this is fucking perfect.
ChapterFifty-Two
TAREK
Verus glares at me, hate and wrath flooding his gaze as he fights not to swallow the whinnip root tincture I just poured into his mouth. He jerks and struggles against his restraints and my hold, but my grip on his jaw and nose is firm. We both know it’s only a matter of time before he swallows it, just like every other time I’ve forced him to.
His commitment to fighting the inevitable would be impressive if it weren’t so fucking vexing. It’s been four days already. Two more than I would have wagered he’d last, but we’re making progress. Yesterday, we finally got his name, a feat that almost seemed to fracture the fae before he once again hardened his resolve. He’ll shatter completely. He’s almost there.
Judging by the abhorrence currently glowing in his silver eyes, today looks like thefight with everything you haveday. The true warriors, the seasoned hunters, always rally. They always brawl the hardest before they break. What Verus doesn’t know is that Irelishthis last battle even more than the day they finally crack. The moment when everything we want finally pours right out of someone is a thrilling experience, but there’s something about going head-to-head with someone and coming out on top that feeds my fucking soul.
Verus’s throat bobs and he closes his eyes in defeat before once again opening them and leveling me with a scathing glare. I let his jaw and nose go, and he sucks in deep desperate breaths. A few coughs wrack his efforts, and I scowl down at the doomed warrior as I pull the levers on the contraption he’s bound to that transforms it from the flat bed it currently is into a chair.
“If you purge it, I’ll scoop it back into your mouth until it goes down again, just like last time,” I warn. “I’m happy to do it as many times as you need to keep it down.”
Verus’s lip curls with disdain. He doesn’t respond, but he also doesn’t retch up the solution that makes it harder for him to keep his lips closed and his secrets to himself.
“Now where were we?” I ask absently, my eyes flicking over to Curio in question as I take a seat in front of the special chair he designed just for this room. It’s bolted to the stone floor and can be maneuvered into a myriad of different positions and angles, all with the pull of the levers at the back. It makes it infinitely easier to slip from one session into another without having to unbind a captive and inadvertently give them an opportunity to attack or fight while securing them again.
Verus is currently seated in the armchair option as though we’re all civilized fae meeting for a chat and maybe a spot of tea.
“His hair,” Curio supplies, and I nod, picking at the thread of questions we were last discussing with our captive.
We spent the first two days diving into the matter of Lord Daeral’s murder. It went about as well as I expected. We gleaned very little other than what happened was some kind of lesson. Whether Lord Daeral learned that lesson or it was intended for someone else, we still don’t know, but it set the tone for what Verusthinkswe want from him.
