Page 25 of Given to the Black King

I should leave.

Instead I tell her.

“You like being ordered to stop.”

Her lips part.

“You liked watching me put Osk on the floor.”

The pulse in her throat jumps.

“You are wondering what my claws would feel like against your skin.”

She takes one slow breath.

“Would they cut me?”

“If I lost control.”

“Would you?”

“Yes.”

The truth frightens her.

It excites her more.

I can smell both.

I step close enough to make her tilt her head back.

“Go inside, Envoy.”

The title comes out lower than I intend. Her whole body stills.

I walk past her before I say anything else.

At the doors, I look back. She is still standing where I left her, maps forgotten, watching me.

Three hours later, we meet for the second formal session in the smaller treaty room. After Osk’s interruption, I moved routine negotiations out of the audience hall. She stays in her chair as ordered. I stay at my end of the table.

The split in my gum opens on the first answer. I taste blood. Iona sees it and loses her place in the fort schedule for half a breath.

Every time she bends over a map, her scent reaches me. Every time I answer too sharply, her pulse quickens. We settle the two disputed river forts: Serath keeps them, caps both garrisons, and grants my inspectors access twice a year. Neither side may expand a pier or wall without written notice. Nothing else moves.

A red drop lands beside Wrenford Fort. I fold the map before she can offer me a cloth.

IONA

On the fourth morning, Sera puts a basket of wet linen in my arms.

“If you’re going to stand in my doorway, you can work.”

She is broad through the shoulders, red-faced from the steam, and old enough not to care that I am an envoy.

I take the basket.

“Where?”