“They’ll stay on the beach while their bones are healing. Then they’ll likely go to Mazra to get a shack from her for less than a cave. She would also make them pay for every minute spent on her beach, starting from the moment their bodies hit the sand.” He sounded calm, detached, like he’d seen it all and worse and simply stopped caring.
The sounds of bodies hitting the ground, the fighting, and the screams of the evicted were moving away as the evictors worked their way along the Wall. I could still hear them. And even when they had stopped completely, I knew I’d continue hearing their echoes in my mind for the rest of my life.
“It doesn’t affect us,” Timur said, trying to comfort me.
But his words brought no comfort. We lived in a place where cruelty reigned. And there was only one way to escape it.
“We need to get out of here,” I whispered into his neck.
Pressed to his chest, I breathed his familiar scent, rich with heat and sweetness. It had become the scent of safety and comfort for me. Yet Timur wasn’t safe in Ashgate either. No one was safe.
“I still have a few payments left to make to Ray,” he said. “Then, we’ll start saving. In a few months, we’ll have enough money for you to live safely and comfortably for the rest of your life.”
I lifted my head, finding his eyes in the shadows of his hood.
“That’s too long. Let’s leave as soon as you pay him off.”
Leaving Ashgate with our debt to the criminal still hanging over our heads would be unwise. Ray might have enough resources to hunt us down even as far as Teneris. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder and dreading his collectors showing up at my door. But I also didn’t want to stay here even a minute longer than was absolutely necessary.
Holding me with his left arm, Timur ran the talons of his right hand down my bare arm. In the heat of the day, I had taken my sweater off. The soft touch of the hard pointed tips sent a shiver through my body, and it wasn’t from fear this time.
“How will we live?” he asked.
“Well…we’ll keep doing what we’re doing here. There are fae in need of joy all over the Alveari Kingdom, aren’t there? We’ll trade my joy for their gold.”
“Your joy belongs to the crown,” he said softly. “I’ve been trading it illegally, my sweet. What we’re doing can only be done here, in Ashgate, and only because the queen’s guards can’t find us here. Once we go to any other lawful city of Alveari, I’ll be arrested and executed. And you…” he drew in a long breath. “You, my darling, will go back to the royalsarai. They won’t make you do anything you don’t enjoy, and they will keep you fed and safe. You won’t live free, but you willlive. Is that what you want?”
His question sounded earnest, like if I replied “yes” he would take me to asarairight now. But I had already tasted the freedom, as limited as it might be in Ashgate. I now had a say in what happened to me. I was selling my joy, but it was because I wished to sell it.
In Alveari, my positive emotions were a commodity. Everyone in this world would try to dip their tendrils into my pleasure. But with Timur, I had a choice of how to sell it and to whom. I had a goal and a way to reach it. I had some control, despite having been sold and purchased.
Besides, any outcome with Timur being arrested and executed was unacceptable. We were partners in our common venture of survival. We were in it together, to whatever end.
The light glide of his claws over my skin grew more tantalizing than soothing. The gesture made my skin tingle. The sensation spread through my body, relaxing my muscles andsparking something deep inside me that was more than relief, more than the feeling of being safe with him.
I sighed softly, melting against his large, hard body.
“Do you want to try the joy I’m feeling right now?” I offered quietly.
Living in Alveari had taught me to view even the smallest of pleasures as a treasure too valuable to waste. Timur knew the value of it too. Yet he had never even tried to connect to me.
“Do you want to know how you’re making me feel, Timur?” I asked against his skin, with my face still buried in the side of his neck.
Slipping a hand under his cloak, I traced my fingers down his upper arm in search of the spots where shadow fae had their tendrils. A wide stripe of large, hard scales replaced his skin on his right arm from his shoulder to his elbow. Was it possible for him to release his tendrils through the scales and bone?
His claws paused on my skin.
I lifted my head, looking into his mismatched eyes. “Do you want to feel it?”
“No,” he said simply.
I waited for more, but he didn’t explain his answer. I shifted uneasily, trying to understand the unpleasant feeling that descended over me, dowsing the spark of pleasure. Embarrassment? Dejection?
I felt rejected. Ashamed. Like I’d propositioned him, and he’d turned me down. The situation wasn’t exactly the same, but it was similar. Offering him to share my emotions was an intimate act, maybe even more intimate than sex in some ways.
And he refused.
I made a move to get off his lap, but he tightened his hold on me, not letting me get away.
