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“You know. That’s a good question. I don’t know why that shocks me. Of course they’re real. Of course. Stupid Cricket.” I paused in my unhinged tirade. “Wait . . . dragons are real. Does that mean I could ride a dragon?”

“I wouldn’t recommend it. Not only are they notoriously picky about their lovers but are also notoriously well hung. I imagine that you’d need a lot more practice if you can’t even please an unremarkable lover like His Majesty.” Amusement sparkled in her eyes as she sipped her water and teased me.

“No, I didn’t mean like that. I mean maybe I did. I mean, no! Dammit, Bandrui!”

“Look at you, Cricket, all flushed and stammering at the idea of riding a dragon. I would be as well. I haven’t had the pleasure myself, but one of the drui in the temple has, and when she speaks of it, it’s like she falls into an ecstatic trance. You know, I could introduce you to her. Perhaps she will introduce you to her once-lover. Perhaps he will let you take a ride.”

“Listen here, devil woman. If you don’t shut up about shoving dragon dick in me, I’m going to scream.”

“I imagine you’d be doing quite a lot of screaming.”

Her tone remained soft, placating, pleasant, and like she was discussing the temperature of tea instead of being railed by a dragon.

“You suck.” I deflated under her teasing.

“Indeed, I do, better than you.” She winked and dusted her hands clean of the conversation. “Anyway, yes, I will introduce you to the gods, Cricket. As best I can. And if you connect with one, I will give you leave to carry one of their tokens with you back to the warrens. Though I would caution you that some of the other humans may not appreciate your worship. Finish your meal, and when the others have gone to their beds, I will come get you and introduce you to them.”

I smirked at her.

It was comforting to be able to settle into playful banter with someone who did not set me ablaze with anger and yet could play me just as well as I played others.

She rose gracefully from the small, improvised table, smiled dotingly at me, and then took her leave. Leaving me with my thoughts, which wandered far too often to what a dragon’s dick would look like or what a dragon’s pussy would taste like.

Chapter 17

The braziers and candles had all found their cozy, warm beds burning in comfortable ashen red coals by the time the Bandrui returned to me. Gone was the day-to-day finery of her station. A simple white-on-white embroidered chemise hung like a curtain on her lithe form, her dark-red hair pulled back into a forearm thick braid and secured with a leather strip.

The door opened a crack, and she poked her head in ahead of a small ornate lantern. “Psst, Cricket. Come. Leave him here.”

I squeaked, jumping with the shattering of the silence I had been slowly stretching in. “Who? Leave who? There’s no one here but me!” I hissed back in a whisper.

Her deep-red eyes rolled up, and she pointed toward the rafters. “I swear by the gods, Cricket. When they crafted your ears, they crafted a long hallway of nothingness between it. Look up. He’s always here.”

I followed the path of her finger and peered into the night-cloaked rafters. A shadow, darker than those around it, moved slightly. If my legs weren’t already exhausted from squats, I’d have leapt out of my skin. “What . . . is . . . that?”

“Your pet. He is always here. Has been since The Raven brought you. Come. Bid him stay.”

“Uh . . . Stay?” A small rumbling, purr-like, clicking chortle answered me from the darkness, and shivers ran up my spine as I hustled my way toward the door. “Nope, don’t like that. Not even a little. What the hell is that thing?”

“They have many names. The Darrigs called them kin’tha, and that name caught on as they evolved. Their original name was failinis. War dogs. Tamed and altered to suit the uses of some of the Fae. They were prized companions for a very long time, but they fell out of fashion when many of them started emulating cats.” She led me through night smothered stone hallways, whispering to the small flame that danced within the lantern, casting haunted shapes across the stonework. “I thought, at first, it was a stray when I kept seeing it in the rafters. The temple attracts them, as one of the few places where magic is still stable. But when I had to hold it back from attacking His Majesty, I knew it was no stray. You have a loyal pet, Cricket. Tell me, how does a human come to have a failinis as her loyal pet? One that can blend into shadow, can alter its form to suit its desires, and one that will not leave its vigil even to hunt for near upon a full season?”

With this last question, she stopped dead and rounded on me, her eyes narrowing on me in suspicion.

Huddled in the small slivers of warm yellow light. I felt small, trapped, and in more mortal peril than I had while the King hunted me in the cage of his quarters.

“I . . . I don’t know? It was the cage that Rictus kept me in when he kidnapped me. He sold me with it to The Raven. I thought it was just a device used by the Fae to control me,” I whispered hastily, pleading my innocence.

“It is.” She leaned forward, examining me, as if it were the first time she had ever seen me. “And yet for you, it is not. Why?”

“Fuck if I know, Bandrui!”

Her gaze felt like a hot brand on my skin, scouring down to the bone, looking for a deception. And as quickly as she had turned on me, she was turning away, seemingly satisfied by whatever it was that she had found.

“I see now.”

We carried on in silence, moving with hushed speed through the tunnel of a corridor until it opened to a cross of four hallways, and she paused again. “When we enter the temple proper, do not touch anything. You will be tempted. You will be drawn to them like a magnet. Do not touch them. Even if you think they are begging you to do so. They are . . . mischievous at this time of night. Especially Feidlimid.”

“What happens if I touch one?”