The northern god moves opposite me, the pair of us creating a circled path in the cemetery’s sand and scrub. A zephyr blows around the mausoleum, gentling lifting the long, silken strands of his pearlescent, snow-white hair.
Neri’s eyes are the color of molten honey, with an odd ring of brightest gold at the edges. I’ve never felt so captured by a stare, yet right now, he might as well be the sun, trapping me in his orbit.
“Is this a dance?” he asks.
His voice chills the air even further, making my skin prickle.
“Not for me, it isn’t, you son of a bitch.”
He tsks and wags a claw-tipped finger. “Come now, Nephele. There’s no need to disrespect Loria.”
I point my dagger at Joran as we keep moving. “Did you hurt him?”
“Do you care?” he shoots back. “His cock was the only thing about him you found even remotely interesting before I came along.”
I glare at him, trying to figure out when that was, wishing I could run him through with a sword. “Did you hurt him? Answer the question.”
“Of course not. I might need him later—if you agree to play nice.”
I scoff. “Fuck you, Neri.”
He smiles, his fangs showing. “Please?”
Stupidity comes over me. I throw my dagger at his wolfish face.
He catches the hilt midair, and I gasp. I can’t understand how he’s corporeal at all. He handled Colden in Frostwater Wood, and I haven’t even considered that until now.
But Neri is dead. A god spirit. One who is ensuring that snow still falls hard as rain in the distance, extinguishing the fire. But he is still Neri. A soul. This shouldn’t be happening.
“Why?” I say. “Why inhabit him? You want something, clearly.”
“I do,” he says, tossing my weapon behind him. “I want many things. First and foremost, my life back.”
I shake my head, wondering how I’m going to get my dagger. “No one is going to give you your life back. You can count on that much.”
He smiles again, though there’s a smugness to it this time. An air of confidence that makes me very uncomfortable.
“Un Drallag agreed to a favor at Starworth Tor,” he says. “Same as a deal. And you agreed to a deal too, under the pier last night. So either way, I’m going to get what I want, or there will be consequences.”
A flash of anger burns through me. I ball my fists, thinking about magick, about what I can do to this piece of shit, irksome, asshole. “You tricked me!” I stab my finger at him. “And Alexus! Because you’re a liar. A bastard liar.”
He arches a white, frost-kissed brow, enjoying my fury. “You see it as trickery. I see it as cleverness.”
My nostrils flare, watching him step over Joran like he’s nothing “That’s why you wouldn’t kiss me,” I say. “To get me twisted up in a deal.”
“Oh no, I wanted to kiss you regardless. I still do, and I mean to make it happen, know that. But I’ll go back to the Nether Reaches before I feel you through the lips of a pathetic, useless man. I couldn’t even consider fucking you with his cock.”
New rage blooms inside me like a poisonous flower. It’s so bright and hot my skin flushes with enough heat I no longer feel his cold. “As though you would’ve had the chance.”
“I would’ve had it,” he replies, still circling and grinning. “I think I already did. And I managed it wearing the face of a man you loathe who didn’t even fuck you well. Imagine when I’m whole again. When it’s my eyes you gaze into. My voice that makes your breath still. My hands on your perfect little body. You have not known pleasure, Nephele Bloodgood, until you’ve had me.”
I want to scream like a shrieking wraith, right in his face. But instead, I build a construct, weaving the song and threads in my mind, drawing forth the golden sand of the Summerlands and mingling it with the incandescent heat of my bitterness, creating a perfect, gilded cage to hold him.
He stops. Stands still. Watches as my construct quickly rises around him, trapping him. He said he holds no fear of cages. We shall see.
One side of his mouth curls, revealing a glinting fang as he shakes his head. “I’m going to make you the same deal I made your sister. I will not watch Thamaos live again while I’m hunted by his wraiths and sent back to the Shadow World. If you help bring me back before the Prince of the East succeeds in digging up Thamaos’s wretched bones, I’ll help you with whatever you ask of me. You want a god on your side when the prince comes calling to Mount Ulra with his portal witch, determined to unearth Thamaos’s bones? I’ll be there to stop him. I’ll even fight in your war when it comes, and I’ll bring beasts of land and air that this Prince with No Name has never seen or even dreamed. But I cannot do any of this if a naughty little witch locks me up in her pretty little cage.”
Now it’s my turn to laugh.
