“I am bloody winning this,” I growl.
Lanlin’s eyes flash a deeper red. “If you believe that, then you have no idea how competitive a Shadow Vampire is when it comes to love.” He spins around, and I hear the clink of wood and metal. He sounds like he is sorting through the shields and weapons at the side of the training ground. “I had these made for you, when I scented…when I smelled your nectar sweet blood on the letter and realized that a fae would be part of the peace deal. Most fight with two bronze daggers, hmm?”
I automatically take the two daggers that have been thrust at me, turning them over and wondering how it’s possible that they feel like they have always fitted in my hands.
They are bronze with feathered hilts.
My throat feels choked with sudden tears.
Don’t think of my own daggers lost on the floor of Rune Forest…
The ash. Fallen Kingdom. Death.
Don’t think of…
“Thanks,” I rasp. “They’re bloody beautiful.”
“You said no severed heads for courting gifts,” Lanlin replies like he’s still disappointed by that, “or knots of your enemies. But daggers are a good way to thank a fellow warrior for gifting me his blood and service, right?”
I nod.
He has no idea how much.
I test the weight of the daggers in my hands, twirling them around.
Then I grin.
Lanlin is standing, relaxed.
He has no idea that he has just armed his enemy.
Aurelius didn’t trust me with more than a butter knife, and I still tried to assassinate him with it, or at least, pretended to.
“Where’s my weapon?” Freya demands.
“You would wish for one?” Lanlin sounds confused. “Are you a fighter as well?”
I chuckle. “Watch out, or you’re about to be kneed me in the balls, bat. Freya was a cadet in the Shadow Military Academy. If you want her to be safe, then she should also be trained. I mean, I love macho posturing as much as the next idiot, but she has a right to be able to protect herself.”
“And have that right faesplained,” Freya mutters.
Whoops, there gomyballs.
“What would you like as a courting gift?” Lanlin asks, earnestly. “Anything, and it is yours.”
Dangerous.
“Something stabby,” Freya says like she’s surprised that he agreed.
I’m not.
Lanlin nods. “On my heart, you shall have every wish you desire. Simply ask me, and I will tear apart my world to provide it for you. I cherish you in a way that I don’t think you understand. But you will. Now, back away to the wall. Watch us fight to win the honor of a kiss. Watchmewin.”
I hear Freya move away, then shiver at the press of her lips to the snowflake.
It’s her good luck tome.
I straighten my shoulders. “How are you going to win when you don’t even have a weapon?”
