I’m caught in the net of his words and hooked by the suggestive look in eyes. Slowly Riall’s hand caresses up my calf, and it’s not hard to guess what’s on the top of his list of favorite things. His callused palm skims up the inside of my thigh, and it takes everything in me not to spread my legs in encouragement. I know I need to keep a level head, but his hands on my body might be my new favorite thing.
Instead of allowing my baser needs to drive me over a dangerous cliff, I force myself to scoot away from him. Riall’s hand falls away as I do, and he says nothing as I inspect my feet. I unwrap the towels, double-checking the Scorpion’s work, and then I stretch my legs out into the pool of moonlight grazing the far end of the table to help my feet heal.
I lean back again on my hands, getting comfortable, already feeling the telltale healing tingle at the bottoms of my feet. Riall runs his gaze over me quickly before turning and striding over to a closet. He pulls a broom and towels from its depths, and I keep my mouth shut as I watch him soak up my blood with a rag and then start sweeping up the mess on the floor. His back and arm muscles contract and release as he works, and I try not to get mesmerized by the sheer magnificence of him. I suddenly want to see him train and fight naked for the sole purpose of allowing me to study every lethal exquisite inch of him while he does.
Riall’s words wind around me in comforting coils as I observe him. His love affair with death sinks deep beneath my skin to join my own warm sentiments on the subject. I don’t know that I’ve thought much about what I do and don’t like in general, but I have spent more time than I’d ever admit thinking about death. I used to beg for it at one point. Locked in the ludere’s hot house, tortured day and night, the masters always pushing for me to fracture, to give in and agree to enticement training, to hand over every piece of me to Tilleo and submit to his wishes.
Death refused to wrap me up in its arms no matter how many times I tried to crawl into them. And I did, over and over again, until my pleas eventually dried up like a puddle in the desert. I was angry and bitter for a while, but with time, I saw it all as the gift that it was. If I hadn’t been brought so close to the end, only to have it all ripped out of my grasp repeatedly, I might not have understood the beauty and power that could be found in those final moments. I came away from all of that not only stronger, but it made me see things very differently. I’ve never talked about it before, but that fucked-up experience cut me open and left me exposed. Death slithered in, only instead of letting it claim me, I claimed it.
“I like the instant it dawns on someone that they can’t beat me. The look in their eyes when it happens is…glorious,” I confess quietly, my admission joining the tinkling sound of broken porcelain as it’s swept up.
Riall hums a soft sound of approval, but he doesn’t take his eyes off the ground or his task.
“I feel powerful knowing I alone weave someone’s end. On a hunt, I can make a fae’s last moments as barbaric or gentle asIchoose. That fortifies me in a way it probably shouldn’t,” I admit, my gaze moving from Riall to the starlit window above the sinks behind him. “I never got nightmares like the others after our first kills. I felt…”
“Exhilarated?” Riall supplies.
“Sustained,” I counter, shrugging. “I felt fortified, indomitable, like it no longer mattered who owned me, who I had to answer to, because in the end,Iheld life in my hands.Idecided what to do with it, and no one could ever take that away from me. It felt right.”
I drop my gaze to my hands, flipping them over and tracing the lines of my palms with my eyes. They’re simple hands, callused but feminine and fragile-looking on a passing glance. The things I’ve done with them, though. The things I can do, I should be horrified, and yet all I find in my depths is pride and validation.
“As it should,” Riall declares, not unsteadied at all by my ruthless revelations. “You’re a powerful, magnificent force, Auset, and there isn’t a fucking thing wrong with that.”
A small smile hints at my lips with his words, but I smooth it away. I look up at him, not sure how to respond, but thankfully, he pulls his impassioned stare from mine and continues to clean up the kitchen floor.
I want to sneak off while he’s distracted. Grab all the food from the counter and dash away as fast as I can from the cumbersome weight of what’s been shared between us tonight. I feel raw in a risky and hazardous way, but I know there’s no running from this, not really. So instead, I sit there feeling entirely too exposed and vulnerable, while he sweeps the sharp threats sprinkling the floor into a safe pile by the door.
I wait for Riall to say something, make some kind of effort to either entice or soothe. I’m prepared for him to bolster me, to attempt to pull me closer to his side of things so I can look out at the world from his point of view, but he’s silent as he works. Somehow, that’s almost worse. All kinds of thoughts and realizations that I never knew were locked up inside of me have been freed. Things I don’t know what to do with or how to reconcile.
My lips still tingle from our kiss, and I feel both trapped and liberated by that and the dark declarations now dangling between us. I’ve always looked at my skills as a blade slave as a means to an end. Yes, things came naturally to me, but that was because I was a survivor, not because I liked it.
Right?
I sigh, wishing I could fold all of these frustrating revelations back into neat little boxes that I’d promptly chuck far into the ocean where I’d never have to acknowledge them again. Who has time for all these confusingfeelings? I want to fuck Riall and then stab the shit out of him for doing this to me. It was all so much simpler when it was just about survival, about freedom. I had no idea how hard it would be to simplylive.Tochoosea life and figure out what makes you happy. I don’t think I’ve ever said that word, let alone thought it might be within my grasp. It’s all so much more complex than I ever thought it would be.
“Beasty—” Riall starts as he tucks the broom back in the cupboard and moves toward my stash of food on the counter.
“Just…stop,” I interrupt, not wanting to hear whatever it is he wants to tell me about myself or the way the world works.
“Stop what?” Riall contests, turning to study me.
“Stop telling me who I am or what I need to be. Can’t I decide that on my own? Am I not allowed to have more than a day to figure things out?” I demand.
“That’s what we’re trying to help you do.”
“No,” I argue. “You’re trying to steer me in a direction that has me landing on your cocks. That’s certainly in your best interest, but who’s to say it’s in mine?”
Riall smirks at me while he crosses his arms over his bare chest and leans back against the counter. “Trust me, Beasty, it’s definitely in your best interest.”
I release a frustrated growl and shake my head as I thread my fingers through my hair with exasperation. “I’m serious, Riall,” I snap, and his eyes narrow at me.
“As am I,Auset,” he mocks. “Why would accepting a place here be such a bad thing?” he demands. “Yes, we’d fuck you senseless each and every day, but what’s wrong with that? We’d also care for you. Look out for you. Accept you and give you an outlet for your darker needs. You’d never want for anything again. You’d be one of us, Beasty, now and forever. Why is that such a horrid option?”
“Nobody actually meansforever,” I contend.
“I mean fucking forever,” he growls back, pushing away from the counter and closing the distance in two long strides. “My brothers mean it,” he insists, and he leans over me, forcing me to look up at him and the searing intensity in his gaze. “Fuck every fae out there. We’re not them. If you choose us, you’ll have us. That’s it,” he tells me vehemently, slashing a hand through the air in finality.
I study his face, his fervor, the fight gleaming in his gaze as he readies himself for my argument. It all washes over me, anchoring me while somehow also unsettling me at the same time. I don’t understand his conviction, and there’s no doubt, as I stare into his eyes and see the truth blaring back at me, that he means everything he’s saying.
