Page 142

“Yes, of course I remember.”

Fear spiked through me. Did he know? He must know. Why was he bringing this up? We had been over it numerous times. The subject of my servitude kept us apart in his eyes. I felt my stomach drop to my toes and my heart begin its slow, heavy beating in the cavity where my it had once resided.

“I think I might have found a way to free you, little bug.” He flicked his eyes up from my braid to level on me as if this proclamation might have meant anything at all to me.

And it should have. It would have had I not already secured my own exit. Had I not made that deal with The Oaken Rose, this single sentence would have changed the entire course of my life. It would have meant everything to me.

And here I was, balanced on his lap and unable to obfuscate the way my heart didn’t leap at the single most important sentence to a daora. He knew. He must know. He was baiting me. He must have been. There was no way that he could have magically come up with a way to free me in such a short amount of time.

“Wh—H-How?” I turned my trepidation and fear into a mix of stupefied, stunned confusion to try to mask it from him.

He was clever, though, and my heart kicked up speed as we played a dangerous game. If he knew and knew what I planned to do in the gardens with his betrothed, then I was fucked, and he was toying with me.

“The Ard Rí may not have returned from his convalescence in the infirmary, but that has not kept him from ruling. He is unable to walk just yet, as the knife nicked his spine and the chirugeons are still trying to decide how to properly knit that back together to ensure full function. In his ire, he has both blamed you and not blamed you. He has both ranted that you are not attending to him and cursed you for ever being born. Each time he does, each mood swing he flexes between he calls to him the drui and bids them bind you to his side by your true name. And he has tried. Many times. But you have never once been called to his side. I know this to be true, as Silver has not once mentioned you struggling or thrashing against the magic that a true name binding would cause. I set him to watching you specifically because his court excels at noticing the small things, hidden things. They are the best at reconnaissance, and I would compare notes with him at the end of the day. Not a single time they attempted to bind you to the Ard Rí’s side did you even twitch.”

“What does all that mean?” I was nearly breathless with the terror that he was so close to finding out the truth, all the truth that I had hidden from him.

“You told me the other night when we discussed this,” He slid his gloved hand under my skirt, trailing up my spread thighs to find the freshly etched 21 at the top of my thigh. I hissed as he touched it. I had carved it in especially deep today of all days. “That, in the human realm, you grew up without a family. Do you know anything of your birth?”

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. He knows. He fucking knows. How the fuck does he know?

“Only what the files told me.” His cool touch spread out on my thigh and rested a hair’s breadth from my bare pussy who ached and clenched for the teasing that he had put me through. “There’s not much to it. There are these places called fire stations—”

“You have stations to keep fire?”

“No. It’s where special officials live. They are employed professionally to respond to emergencies and to put out fires when they start. Anyway, at the fire stations, there’s something called a safe surrender site. It’s a special box built into a wall. It opens up, and you can put a baby in it. And then close it and walk away.”

“That’s barbaric.” He hissed, gripping my thigh. I couldn’t help the wince that turned into a soft moan of pleasure. It had been so long since I had enjoyed the delight of his ire, and I wished I had time to enjoy it again.

“It’s so women who aren’t prepared or capable of being mothers can safely give their babies over to the state. It might sound barbaric, but not everyone lives in a palace, and in the human realm, there are so many women who barely get by, let alone being able to properly raise and feed a child. So, they give them up without judgment and without consequence, and the children are taken care of by the government. They enter the foster system until they can be adopted.” He was nodding as his fingers worked their way closer and closer to my burning center. I needed to focus, but it was so hard when the simple brush of his leather glove, so near to where I wished they would bury themselves deep and hard, kept drawing my attention away. “All I know is that I was abandoned at a safe surrender site with my umbilical cord still attached.”

“How did you get the name Sóna Mac Raith?” he mumbled, looking up at me.

His eyes were glassy and blown wide with lust as mine must have been. It had been a mistake to agree to come here.

I was burning up to feel him, to come for him. His fingers found the slick center of me, and I took a deep breath to try to resist falling headlong into my need.

“I never saw it, but the file said it was sewn into the edge of the baby blanket I was wrapped in. There were no papers with me, no documentation of my birth or indication of who my parents were. There rarely is.” I purred as the glossy black leather of his glove found my clenching entrance and teased it by sliding in an inch and crooking his fingers up as he drew slowly out of me.

“Watching you melt for me is my favorite sight.” He groaned as I clenched hungrily down on his two fingers, silently begging for more.

I couldn’t help but like this game, like the cat and mouse of it all now that my fear had twisted into passion. It reminded me of that first time he broke and shattered me in the Maw.

“I think I have a plan, little bug,” he whispered against my throat as he leaned forward and nipped tiny bites into the delicate flesh.

I shifted my hips to give his teasing fingers more leverage, and his idle hand found the mound of my breast, drawing it out of my dress so that he could roll the hardened tip between his fingers.

“What plan?” I asked, leaning back and bracing myself on his knee as he played me like a cello.

“You wished me to change you. To take away this face and body that Rictus gave you. I could do that for you, little bug. I can remake you into any face or body that you wish of me. It would take time and effort, and it would be painful, but you love it when I hurt you.”

To punctuate his point in tandem, he took my nipple between his teeth and bit down while his thumb worked my clit. Stars burst behind my eyes like the crescendo of a metal song. I panted as he rolled the throbbing bud between his teeth and kept me on the edge of madness.

“The sounds you make, Feidlimid be blessed, a Fae could grow addicted to them.” He purred across the sensitive bud of my nipple.

“You said you wouldn’t do it, though,” I grated out, trying to keep my head above the crashing waves of pleasure.

“I wasn’t going to. Whether you believe it or not, you are stunningly beautiful. But if my plan works, I would need to.”