‘Maybe don’t use quite so much sarcasm,’ I told Rage.
‘Do you think he noticed?’
‘Let’s hope not. I wasn’t kidding about liking my head where it is.’
Not even a breath later, the slapping of rubber against rock drew my attention toward the entrance.Was that flip-flops?
I turned and, sure enough, a male mage wearing Bermuda shorts, flip-flops, and a Hawaiian shirt with none of its buttons fastened, waltzed into the room. His body was thin but lithe, and all eight of his abdominal muscles popped like little squares between the two sides of his shirt. I knew better than to judge a mage by his appearance, but this dude lookedyoung. He pushed his bleach-blond hair out of his eyes and grinned at the selkie king, showcasing his mage mark, a thin triangle with a single dot inside.
“Hey, Ozzie, whassup?” he drawled. “Mel said you needed a binding or somethin’?”
Did he…? I frowned, certain I’d heard that wrong.
“It’sKingOzark,” the king growled. “Not Ozzie.”
The mage shook his head. “Uhh … trust me, Ozzie is cooler—” He held up his hands when the king snarled. “But suit yourself. What can I do for ya?”
‘He’s got a teenage magewho might be high or drunk.’ Could mages get high? My attention went from the sixteen- or seventeen-year-old young man to Rage. ‘And you’re going to let that kid do a binding on you?’
‘Do you have a better suggestion?’Rage responded.
King Ozark finished telling the mage what he wanted, and the young man grimaced.
“What?” Ozark snapped. “Can’t you do a simple binding?”
“Simple?” the young mage asked. “Sure. But what you’re proposing ain’t no simple binding. There are terms and limitations, like timing and what if—”
“You’re supposed to be a prodigy. Why do I keep you around? Can you do it or not?” Ozark bellowed.
The young man’s gaze darted back and forth between the king and Rage while tapping his chin as if weighing whether or not the binding was possible. “What’s your affinity, Alpha Heir?”
‘Damn. Not info I wanted the selkie king knowing.’
Rage took a deep breath and said, “Fire.”
The mage dude’s attention jumped to me, and his eyes widened slightly. I glanced down only to see the mark on my chest was peeking out over the stretched-out neckline of my damp shirt.
“Yeah,” the young man said. “I can do it.”
‘I don’t trust him,’ I said to Rage. ‘Something is off. He only said yes after he saw the tip of my high mage fire mark.’
‘Are you sure that was it, or was he checking out your breasts?’ Rage asked, his voice laced with possessiveness.
I didn’t know. Not . ‘Killing him might upset this tenuous trust thing you’ve got going on with the king. Maybe hold that thought for a bit.”
The mage listed off items, everything from a wooden bowl to an iron needle, a glass of fresh water, and strips of muslin. Steele wrote the list onto a small notepad he had produced from his pocket, and seconds later, I heard shouts from outside the great hall echoing the list.
Way to put the hive mind to use.
The longer the mage spent listing off items, the more it felt wrong.
There was too much; it felt showy. Surlama hadn’t required a million things to work her magical binding. In fact, I didn’t recall anything more than the tools she used to get my blood. Then again, her minion had appeared with the elixir, so who knew what kind of ritual she went through even though the ingredients were two: blood and mage wine. The Keeper of Souls didn’t use any fancy props either for our agreement.
Melody, aka Mariah II, returned with two additional women wheeling carts of materials. Of course, a nice long knife sat atop the folds of fabric, which could only mean…
Blood magic.
‘Time to use those diplomacy skills, Rage. Chat up King Ozzie, and I’ll see what I can find out from the mage dude. I don’t trust him.’
