Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 121339 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 607(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121339 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 607(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
Sansy must’ve been his first love, whom he’d trapped with affection and they’d tortured to death in front of him.
“Well, as long as my anger is refreshing… We’re not going to die until after we burn this motherfucker to the ground. How’s that? We will restore balance and all that, but we’re claiming vengeance on this bitch. I’ll fuck you on the floor in the middle of the court if that rubs salt into the wound. I don’t give two shits. Fuck that bitch. She’ll pay for what she’s done. They all will. I’ll make sure of it. You’re not family, but you’re all I’ve got. No one fucks with all I’ve got and gets away with it.”
“You’d be trapped, Daisy.”
She laughed. “I’m in Faerie. I’m already trapped. I’m absolutely fucked, actually, and since I’m sentenced to die, I might as well get a little pleasure out of it, huh? Want to knock this out right now? I’m game. I could use some pounding to work off some steam.”
A smile peeked through his solemn demeanor. Gold warred with midnight around his pupil. She could turn him on with only words when this court couldn’t do that with magic, hands, or mouths.
“Not words…just you,” he said softly, his eyes open and honest.
She leaned toward him and gently ran her thumb under his eye. “Why do some fae have that ring around their irises and some don’t?” she asked, remembering Eldric and the princess. “Your memory said royalty, but Eldric didn’t seem royal.”
He trailed his fingertips along her arm. “It denotes an elevated station in Faerie,” he replied. “Royalty in the various kingdoms have it, the color matching their throne. Here, it is obsidian. The Diamond Throne’s is gold.”
“Not…diamond?” She dropped her hand and he caught it, stopping it on his heart and keeping it braced there. She could feel the slow, rhythmic pulse under his smooth, warm skin.
“No. I asked Eldric once why that is. He never answered me.” He shrugged. “He chooses which of my questions to answer and which not to. So he says. I think he simply doesn’t know and never thought to look it up. For me, after I was…stationed here, obsidian replaced the gold in my eyes until…you. I have no idea why.”
Until the crystal chalice situation. Though that didn’t explain the very first time they’d met.
“And Eldric?” she asked. “Is he royalty, then?”
Tarian shook his head. “He’s in the order of scribes. It’s a subsection of fae who devote their lives to knowledge. If they rise high enough in the order, magic burns their irises.” He paused. “Daisy, listen, there’s something about…our next steps that you should know.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “How many secrets do you have?”
“A great many.”
In fairness, she was sitting on a big one as well.
“You go first,” he whispered.
She wanted to move closer. Hell, she wanted to cuddle up next to him, her skin flush with his. But this needed to be hashed out. They needed to make plans.
She pulled her hand back and threaded her fingers together to focus. The sheet was still at his waist, his defined and tattooed torso on full display, distracting her.
He moved a pillow behind his head, sitting up to rest against the headboard. Getting comfortable for their talk. She watched the play of muscle as he did so before swallowing, her mouth suddenly dry. It was almost painful how much she wanted him. To taste him. To take him deeply into her body until neither of them could focus on anything but the other.
She inhaled and tried to get her head in the game. “Eldric had a side conversation with me in the hallway while he was talking to you.” She told him essentially what had been said, and ended with her potential for a choice. Her potential for a power that was useful to her, not just to someone else.
“I heard that conversation, yes. I also heard your thoughts about it,” he said when she’d finished.
Her eyes widened. “He said it would be safe in my head. That his kind know all, but don’t share all.”
“Yes, that is usually the way of it. ‘As the gods will it,’ he always says. Well, it seems the gods are giving him the same fucked-up treatment they are willing on us. Usually, mindgazer magic won’t work on his kind—”
“And a scribe is actually different from a fae?” They looked the same.
Images, emotions, and, most of all, information flashed through her head. Eldric the Timeworn, he was called. All of Faerie produced such beings, no matter the kingdom or station in life—someone with more capacity for mental information storage, a better grasp on difficult concepts, a master of many dialects, cultures, and languages, and someone who could endure a mental transformation that turned them into a different kind of fae. No one knew what that transformation entailed unless they’d been through it, because to fail was to die.