“Someone you shouldn’t”—I eye the row of graduated diamond studs glazing his broad ears—“have pissed off.” I jump and lock my legs around his waist to destabilize him, then grip the bejeweled points of flesh and yank so hard I manage to rip out a few gaudy stones.
He staggers backward.
“Regretting you didn’t listen when I asked you nicely to let me go,Fay?”
Bloodied nostrils flaring, he crushes my larynx, lifting me so high, my feet unlock and I lose my purchase on his torso.
“Tell me who you are before I truly hurt you.”
“Cute threat—asshole.” My vision dances with dots. I blink them away, then swing my knee into his chest.
Though it makes contact, it neither shortens his breath nor slackens his grip. Merely makes him hold me higher and farther away.
A smile crooking my lips, I streak a line of blood down his forearm. Before I can top my line with an arrow tip, he drops me. My lungs rattle as I streak toward the door, only to be bounced backward.
My calves bite into something hard, which makes my knees buckle. As I slam down onto a bench, my towel springs open. I begin to sketch the invisibility sigil on my thigh when a burst of air swings my hand away and pins it to the perspiring wall.
“Who are you?” His recurrent question is a low hiss that coils toward me on wisps of steam.
“Your newest worst enemy.”
“I highly doubt it. Your name?”
“You shouldn’t doubt itorme.”
“I repeat. Your name.”
“Like I’d give it to you.”
“I won’t release you until you do.”
I snort. “You may have cornered me, but you haven’t trap—” A burst of air slots itself between the tiles and my fingers, interrupting my sigil-drawing. And yes, I’m aware my Shabbin spell may not have adhered to the damp wall, since my blood isn’t viscous like the black ichor that runs through Serpent veins, but drawn quickly enough, it might’ve led me somewhere.
“You were saying,Yegma?” Is that a smile lilting his voice?
“Annos dòfain,” I mutter under my breath.
“Hmm. A Shabbin who speaks Crow…and without an accent at that.”
I lurch to my feet but achieve a mere inch of air between my ass and the white mosaic before I’m slammed back down by magic. “I know you favor inbreeding in Glace, but in the south, we like to mix it up.”
A snort echoes through the steam bath.Ah…the sound of a pure-blooded High Fae who believes himself superior to others. How terribly predictable.
I try to press my fingers back against the wall, but the jerk keeps all ten of them gloved in air. “Look, I came in here to relax. And obviously, not a second of this has been relaxing. I’m not sure why you’re so intent on prolonging the moment, but I’m donesteaming, so can you quit using your little air-magic to corral me in here?”
A shadow blisters the billows of white, one that grows in clarity as the Faerie draws nearer. The light coiling through the steam is too weak to make out much more than his snow-white pallor and foil-bright eyes.
“You thought you’d relax inmyquarters?”
Someone feels mighty at home inside their borrowed suite…“Entitled much?”
“Speak your name, and I let you leave.”
Am I tempted to tell him who I am, or rather, who I’m related to? Absolutely. Do I? No. I prefer to keep the mystery alive a while longer. It isn’t as though he’ll make it out of this situation unscathed once Dádhi gets wind of my detention.
I fold my legs, wishing I could do the same with my arms, but they remain buffeted by the Faerie’s magic. “Behati.”
“Your hair was black before your spell. Besides, Behati is”—his gaze moves over my bared torso—“slighter. Not to mention she and I are well-acquainted.”
