It would be so easy to lean in and kiss him at this angle. As easy and natural as biting.
And as wrong as it,part of me retorted, but it lacked the usual snarl.
“Thank you,” was what I settled on instead. It seemed like an inadequate pair of words for sucking someone’s blood, but it was the best I had in the common tongue.
Raphael’s hold finally released around me. “Any time.”
He left the room, shutting the door behind him, while I stayed perched on the counter and watched him go.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Amalthea
“So there I am,with her hips above my head and the three pricks around…” Amalthea drawled, enjoying the wide-eyed stares from her audience.
The frost garden was lovely. Flowers, bushes, trees, all carved from ice, encircled the seating area. It made for an intimate setting.
She understood the appeal of a space without men underfoot, but in her personal opinion, a full kingdom was taking it a bit too far. Still, it wasn’t her place to judge since she had no plans to live there. And it made it easy to spot who was a native to the northern land—they held on to every word aboutprickseven after decades, because they were such a novelty.
“And then?” a young vampiress pressed. She’d introduced herself as Lady Kayara.
“Andthen”—Thea sighed theatrically—“I got a massive cramp in my thigh and screamed so loud she jumped off me. And while I was there massaging my poor leg, the other four kept carrying on. I had to sleep on my own couch!”
Gasps all around, followed by laughter, and Thea laughed with them. It was a comfortable role; not quite a jester, but enough debauched humor to disarm. It gave a sense of intimacy, confiding a story in which she was so utterly mortal. Taken down by a cramp.
There was an art to it, naturally. She had met a couple ladies in her audience on prior visits, meaning she hadn’t been crude enough to say this in front of a crowd of strangers. It made it seem like she was confiding in distant friends, and the others were lucky enough to overhear—and by proximity, they might be her friends in time too. The most promising ones—not the young one who was so eager to hear more—she would follow up with in time. A more subdued cup of tea, trading passages of poetry, an astute comment on politics they couldn’t help but turn over and want to reply to.
Thea played many roles, and she was very, very good at them.
Mercifully, a humble witch wasn’t one of them.
“How cruel,” the young vampiress murmured, horrified between her laughs.
Thea patted her hand. “It was hardly cruelty since I was cheering them on.”
One of the vampiresses leaned closer. “Have you ever been with a vampire?”
Thea winked. “And vampiresses.” Even if she couldn’t have the one vampire she truly wanted.
“Fae?” someone asked.
The fair folk seldom came to this part of the continent. “Surprisingly uncreative lovers,” she whispered conspiratorially.
“Voids?”
Amalthea flicked her nails out. “Of course.”
“Shifters?” the eager one asked again.
“Once—well, maybe it counts as twice.” Nowtherewas a bastion of creativity.
“Another witch?”
Thea’s spine stiffened, but she kept an easy smile. Here she was, just a girlish diplomat eager to brag about her exploits as if that were the only way she could seem worldly. “Not yet.”Not ever.She forced her lip to curl up as if that was the next conquest.
As if she didn’t hate them all.
“It’s so hard to meet any witches these days,” one of the younger vampiresses complained.
