Chapter 27 #2
“Better to have Zi for that. Unless it’s really just blats. Check on the nobles first, but very fast, then go start on Terencia’s … mess.”
“And where will you go?” Ed asked.
“To speak with the phantom.”
My eyebrows arched.
“There may be another way to get answers.”
I nodded eagerly. Apparently, too eagerly.
“I don’t like this, Baz,” Ed said. “Why don’t we all go together?”
Félix placed a hand on her crossed arm, and Ed uncrossed them.
“Okay,” she said. “We’ll meet you back at our common area.”
Baz didn’t wait around for more. He clasped my hand and stalked in the opposite direction.
Several rooms closer to his quarters, where we should be able to find the ghost, Marina emerged from the shadows without a sound—and pressed a blade to Baz’s groin.
That was a good height for the goblin, who was only as tall as my thighs.
Not such a good height for a man packing as much bulk as Baz, making for a very easy target.
He froze, released my hand, and put both of his in the air. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Take it easy there.”
“You let Soravelle go and then I’ll take it easy,” Marina snarled.
My eyes dampened with pride.
“Release her from the Rillis rope,” Marina said, pressing the tip of her blade into his pants, slicing leather.
He hissed. “I can’t release her.”
“You can.”
“Okay, okay, fine. I can. But I won’t.”
Marina flicked her wrist. Her fingers might be gnarled, but her hands were plenty steady. She sliced along the edge of his dick, its outline marked, and a three-inch slash in the leather gaped open.
Baz hissed another time. “Now that’s not a place any man wants to be feeling a sudden breeze when there’s a blade in play.”
I leaned forward to look, of course I did. Sure enough, the underside of his cock was visible through the gap, as was the ball sack it rested against. He hadn’t been wearing underwear any of the times he’d had sex with me either.
“Do not cut me,” he said in a tone I could easily believe commanded legions. “I mean Soravelle no harm, I promise you.”
“Oh, I see. Then I shall just … let you go, shan’t I?” Her words dripped snark, and I had to blink back the sting of tears. She had grown a lot in the centuries we’d been forced apart.
Baz flashed angry eyes at me. “Aren’t you going to do something?”
“Something like … watch and enjoy the show?”
“No, not that. Not fucking that.” His nostrils flared. “I won’t hurt you and you know it.”
I studied him. Marina studied me studying him.
“You’ll help me get answers about why the phantom looks like my mother?”
“Of course I will.”
“Why? Why are you doing anything to help me? Why go to lengths to hide who I am from everyone?”
Marina’s big, dark eyes darted from my face to his, her knife never wavering.
Baz pursed his lips. Eventually, he bit out, “I don’t know, okay? I don’t know.”
“That’s not good enough.”
Marina dragged the blade across his bulge, over the leather of his pants, but didn’t slice. “No, it’s not.”
His inhale was sharp. “Do not hurt my dick, do you understand me?”
“I don’t take orders from you. I’m a Zaragan.”
I was enjoying Marina’s performance so incredibly much, but it was a really nice dick, and the man really knew how to use it, and apparently I’d become the kind of woman who prioritized good dick over killing my family’s longtime enemy.
I couldn’t decide whether to be disgusted with myself or not.
Rafaela would be disgusted with me, surely, and possibly even Alonso too—though could Terencia’s implications have had any merit to them, and could my father have had an affair with the empress of our conqueror?
I gave my fierce goblin friend a final admiring look, then said, “Put down the knife.”
“Are you certain, Princesa? He has hurt you and held you captive and starved you and caged your power.”
By the Ethers and all the Fuerin, she was right! He had. I was still collared and bound to him, for fuck’s sake. When had I gone so soft? I would almost throw my stupid self in a cage for being so blind.
“Take off my collar and Marina will lower her weapon. If you don’t, she’ll cut you, and believe me when I say she knows her way around a carcass.”
“There’s no need for any of that,” Baz said in a rush. “I’ll remove the collar, just not the rope.”
“Why not the rope?”
“I have my reasons.”
“And I’d better find out what they are or Marina keeps going.”
“Yeah,” she said, “I’ve been dreaming of punishing you for hurting my Sora. Dreaming.”
“Just hold that knife still,” Baz said.
Marina’s hand wobbled, nicking his pants. “I’m old now, not so steady anymore.”
I would have snorted at her act, but it was too brilliant to disrupt.
“I don’t want to remove the rope because there’s a chance you’ll be able to use its faithum to see what I see with the phantom.”
“Don’t want to remove,” I said. “Which means you can.”
“Of course I can. I set the bond. But I want to show you first.”
“No. I’m getting the collar and rope off, and then Marina and I are leaving this joint.” But even as I said it, I understood I was bluffing. I wasn’t ready to leave. I needed answers. I needed people punished. I needed to find every clue that would lead me to my brother.
“I’m asking you to trust me,” Baz said. “Leave it on.”
Marina grunted and made a show of how shaky her hands were.
“Why would I ever trust you?” I asked. But didn’t I already know? I’d tried to kill him—nearly had—and he’d first protected me from his friends’ punishment, and later from further discovery.
His eyes, perhaps not fully pleading but definitely asking, met mine.
I heaved a sigh. “I can’t believe I’m doing this—”
“Then don’t,” Marina said. “I’ll cut the bastard. For our Teo.”
“He didn’t kill Teo.”
Marina’s head jerked up toward mine. “What?”
“He didn’t.”
“You’re sure?”
Was I? “I am.”
So fast I didn’t realize he was going to do it, Baz knocked the blade from Marina’s hand and wrapped her in a headlock.
With how tiny her body was compared to his, he had her lifted off her feet, her body pressed to his broad chest. All too easily, he could snap her neck, and a goblin wasn’t like a s?nglure. Marina wouldn’t survive it.
“Don’t you dare hurt her,” I said, while I swiftly calculated the best ways to defend her.
Before I decided on the best approach, he lowered her to the floor and released her, shoving her away from himself, then snatched up her blade.
With a ferocious scowl, he beckoned me closer. “Come.”
“No.”
“Do you want your collar off or not?”
When I hesitated, he snapped, “You either trust me or you don’t.”
I don’t, teased at the tip of my tongue.
But apparently I did trust him, because I went willingly into his open arms.
Also, I’d lost my fucking mind. Enemy, Sora! He’s your enemy, my thoughts frantically yelled at me.
My body, however, sank against his, as if we belonged together—when we damn well didn’t. We never would, never could.
This was all wrong.