Chapter 24
Twenty-Four
Mina had heard pealing laughter in the sorcerer’s room and thought, He’s wasted no time.
She’d frowned at her bitter disappointment. Enti had said Silt desired Mina alone, but she’d learned at the nymphs’ that a male could lust after a female and feel nothing in his heart.
No loyalty. No love.
No thanks.
Now he seemed to take up most of the doorway—a towering male clad in only a damp towel. He’d put on even more muscle, his physique brimming with virility. Droplets of water trailed over him. His smooth skin emanated warmth and his seductive natural scent.
“Your attire for the night?” she managed to ask without a quaver, though she was talking to a half-dressed man.
“Not quite. I thought you might do something stupid, like try to leave this place.”
“Not without information. Unlike you and Enti, I still believe escape is possible.”
“Because you have to.” He leaned one broad shoulder against the doorway. Corded muscles and tattoos flexed from the movement, distracting her.
She murmured, “What do those tattoos mean?”
“They’re a secret that will die with me.”
Nothing could make her more curious.
“You look spellbinding, by the way,” he said. “Fancy, like a princess . I’ll miss that T-shirt though.”
She let him change the subject. Aside from the signs of her illness, she was pleased with her appearance. Having bathed, she’d found an array of clothing laid out atop the sumptuous bed.
Though she’d always dressed demurely in Dacia, she’d decided on fitted pants and a royal-blue tunic with a collar that dipped to the swells of her breasts. She’d left her hair loose to flow over her shoulders.
Since he’d complimented her, she supposed she should return the favor. “You appear . . . hale.”
“I assume that means I look less dissolute ?”
“Looks can be deceiving.”
His eyes grew lively. “Still trying to match me to the descriptions of Sorceri you found in some library tome?”
By all the gods, the bruiser was sexy. “You prove unmatchable.”
He clearly liked that.
“Are you going to tell me why you rushed out in a towel?”
“I also feared for my bait in our new surroundings. Just because you’re a predator doesn’t mean you can’t be prey.”
“I told you I’ve never drunk anyone.”
“Wasn’t talking about that. Attempts on my life—what are we up to now?”
She smiled coolly. “Still one too few.”
His gaze fell to her lips, and his own curved. “You keep trying, but your heart’s not in it.” Flirtatious sorcerer. With his devastating grin.
He . . . might be right. Something had to have fouled her aim in the cave.
“Were you spying outside my door?” he asked.
“Yes. But I wouldn’t begrudge a lecher his lechering. You may get back to it,” she said with a queenly wave. “Enjoy what you can, while despairing of what you can’t. Me .”
“I like a challenge, maneater. You want my ‘magical’ blood, and I want your luscious body. I still think we could have something meaningful.” When he stepped closer, a larger drop of water caught her attention as it coursed down his chest, dipping between tattoos along his rigid torso.
When her focus wandered lower, taking in the places she’d kill to bite, he shifted on his feet. Before her eyes, the sizable bulge beneath his towel swelled.
She’d seen an outline of his member in his leather breeches, but the clinging towel revealed the edge of the crown and even—she swallowed thickly—a prominent vein. As she stared, her tongue flicked her parted lips, her fangs sharpening. . . .
“Kosmina?” His rumbling voice only fueled her stimulation. “Let’s make another bargain: my blood for your kiss.”
I want it from the tap. Want to punish that taunting vein. Fang it like prey.
No! That must be the plague rabidity, invading her thoughts and impulses.
More laughter sounded from his room, reminding her what a rogue he was. It’d taken him less than an hour to locate an orgy. She met his eyes. “Right now, I’d rather bargain with Dorada.” Mina turned and headed away, sensing his gaze locked on her back until she’d passed from his sight.
Jealousy scalded her as she imagined him heading back into his room to find pleasure with others. My first experience with jealousy. Even when she’d pondered Kristoff and Furie’s matehood, Mina had never felt it.
Her illogical emotions made her both wary and furious. She had an urge to go retrieve the sorcerer by his ear! But she reminded herself of what she truly wanted.
Love. Given and received.
An impossibility with Silt, and so she would waste no more thought on him. She descended the stairs, averting her eyes from a foursome kissing on the steps. On the main floor, she passed a den of wild-eyed demons playing dice. She wasn’t versed in gambling beyond the theoretical, but they all seemed to be winning with every roll. In the next salon over, more demons drank from mugs and sang songs in rough Demonish.
She suspected most of the guests possessed wings; they could just fly over the lava and wendigos to land here.
“Wait, Kosmina!”
Mina turned to see Silt striding after her. Masking her surprise, she paused to let him catch up. He must’ve left those females directly and raced to join her. She curbed a thrill at the idea and took in his appearance.
He’d donned a pair of leather pants to encase his muscled legs. His tailored tunic, cut from a golden fabric, highlighted the expanse of his chest, his broad shoulders, and the color of his eyes. His air was commanding, a sorcerer king ready for whatever fate had in store.
Any woman would be proud to call such a male her own. Well, any woman who didn’t know him. “What do you want?”
His lips parted and closed, as if he struggled to voice his thoughts. No idea what that feels like!
Though filling the silence wasn’t her forte, she said, “You left your party prematurely . I understand that’s common among some men.”
“Heh. I sent those females on their way. Untouched, if you must know.”
Thrill. Damn him. “Why?”
He lowered his voice. “Maybe because I need you.” They stared into each other’s eyes, the air between them charged.
She could pretend his words were romantic, but he only needed her to trap her brother. Silt had told her she had no idea how important revenge was to him; she was beginning to understand. Vengeance took precedence even over sex. “I won’t let you use me—in any way. That’s what you do, isn’t it?”
“You’d never regret it.” Somewhere in the castle, a female screamed her way to ecstasy. Then came another, literally. “That could be you, sweet.”
She might have been tempted to kiss him again—if he hadn’t made that vow to the Lore. “Considering everything you know about me now, would you make your same vow?” What if he said no? What if he said he’d been out of his mind with withdrawal symptoms and was sorry for it? It wouldn’t change anything.
He ran a hand over his mouth. “It’s complicated. You know how I feel about revenge, but you don’t know why. And I have been wronged—though I’d never met your brother before, he put me in Nightside and stuck a target on my back, for what sounds like a joke to him.”
“No target could be bigger than the one you put on yourself. Instead of working on revenge—you should be working on your powers. Make your foes too afraid to challenge you.”
“It’s not that simple.”
Voices sounded from what must be the dining hall, reminding Mina of what lay before her. Bottom line: this male was oathbound. Why was she even talking to him? She started forward without another word, and he followed.
She would be polite to Enti to a point, following the sorceress’s lead, but ultimately Mina would get the information she wanted. Considering she couldn’t extract it at swordpoint, that might prove a delicate dance.
Shyness squeaked, But you’ve got two left feet, especially around crowds.
Mina straightened her shoulders. So?
She remembered when her uncle Trehan had decided to depart the kingdom for good to court his otherlander sorceress. At the time, that had meant he would be forbidden ever to return. Grieving, secretly longing for just such an exile scenario for herself, Mina had told him, “Do you want to hear something sad? Your leaving is the most exciting thing that’s ever happened in my life.”
No longer. Mina had survived wendigos, a basilisk, revenants, and a sorcerer’s sinful kiss.
This dinner would be as nothing.