Chapter 41
PROCESSING
SAERIS
“SHE DIDN’T EVEN try to find Ren.”
Sunlight dappled the grass, spearing through the canopy of the trees.
Through the small window created by the branches overhead, a bird circled, little more than a black speck against the cerulean sky.
The thick, warm air hummed with the drone of some winged insect.
Fisher stalked barefoot through the grass, viciously stripping the leaves from a stick he’d found on the ground and spitting out a litany of curse words in Old Fae that I could tell were highly offensive, even though I had no idea what he was saying.
I hugged my knees to my chest, relishing the feel of the sun on my bare arms. We had both been so tired when we’d passed out earlier that I’d assumed neither of us would dream, but here we were in Ballard.
Fisher had explained that this was one of his favorite places to come when he was little.
The clearing was small, skirted by forest on three sides and bounded by a rushing stream on the other.
Silver fish glimmered like knives in the water, battling against the current.
I wound the blade of grass I’d been fiddling with around my index finger, trying to find some order in my thoughts.
It was difficult to concentrate in the dreams sometimes.
It was as though I was missing information, and I knew I was missing it, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t figure out what I didn’t know.
Most people’s hair lightened a little in the sunlight, throwing a little red or chocolate, but not Kingfisher’s.
His hair looked blacker than ever as the light beat down on him.
His shoulder-length waves flicked up around his ears, making way for their pointed tips.
What a strange thing he was. He was a winter creature.
He’d said so himself. All pale skin, wintergreen eyes, and shadows.
He seemed the most himself when there were snowflakes dusting his shoulders and his cheeks were flushed from the cold.
But he was a different version of himself here, too.
He belonged here just as much as at Cahlish or on the banks of the Darn.
Ballard suited him. There was something about seeing him with bare feet and his shirt open to his stomach, displaying his roving ink . . .
His eyes glowed with rage as he turned and pointed his stick at me.
“It would have taken her five minutes. Five minutes!” He stabbed the stick in the air, using it to punctuate his words.
“And yet look at where we are. Ammontraíeth is a fucking graveyard, Tal is half dead, I have a witch and Zovena locked in separate bedrooms at the estate, and we still don’t know where Renfis is! ”
“You’re cutting a new trail in the grass over there,” I told him.
“And! And!” He spun and hurled the stick into the river. “You have another rune, and we have no idea what this one is!”
The third rune had shown up when I’d touched Tal’s chest. I hadn’t meant to walk into that burning bedroom.
Hadn’t meant to touch the male’s marked chest. Something had pulled me forward, unbidden, with a sense of urgency I had been powerless to ignore.
My body hadn’t been my own. That had been a terrifying experience, and I certainly didn’t want it repeated, but I had helped Tal as a result of it.
More than helped him. According to the others, I’d saved him and prevented a portal to hell from consuming Cahlish.
I couldn’t be mad about that, even if none of us understood how it had happened.
I held out my hand to Fisher, wriggling my fingers. “Can you come here, please?”
He clenched his jaw, eyeing me suspiciously. “If I come over there, I can’t pace,” he said.
“Really?” I pretended to look shocked. “Oh, no.”
“If I come over there, I’ll stop being mad at Iseabail.”
I waggled my fingers even harder. “Will being mad at her get you anywhere right now?” He gave me a deadpan look that would have made me laugh had the past day not been one of the shittiest I’d ever lived through. “Can you please just come here and hold me?”
That did it. His hands fell limp to his sides, his eyes burning into me for a second before he finally padded toward me across the grass.
A second later, he was sitting cross-legged in front of me, reaching for me; he pulled me into his lap so that I was facing him, guiding my legs so that they were wrapped around his waist. His hands rested against the underside of my thighs, his thumbs working out the knots below my hips as he looked up at me.
“You just asked me to hold you,” he said softly.
“I did.”
“Have you ever asked anyone else to do that?”
I shook my head, throwing my arms over his shoulders, then burying my face in the crook of his neck. “No. And if you tell anyone I asked you to, I will vehemently deny it.”
He laughed, deep and low. “Out of the two of us, only one of us can’t lie, Osha. I think people will know who to believe.”
“Godscursed Firinn Stone.”
His laughter reverberated through his chest and into me.
Such a comforting feeling. He stroked his hand over my hair, smoothing it down my back.
He’d never said so, but he liked stroking my hair.
I didn’t know why. I’d never felt like asking him, either.
It was a reassuring touch. It calmed me more than anything else could.
“So,” he whispered. “Do you want to talk about the fact that there’s a cure for the blood curse again? ”
And just like that, my calm went up in smoke.
“Not really, no,” I mumbled into his chest.
He had to lean back and duck down before he could find my eyes. “Why not? Why are you hiding from me?”
“I’m not hiding. I’m processing.” I groaned, pushing away from his chest and flopping back into the grass, throwing my hands up over my head. I was still technically sitting in Fisher’s lap. Kind of. My legs were definitely still wrapped around his waist.
Fisher raised both eyebrows, looking down at me, amusement playing over his features.
My shirt had ridden up. His gaze trailed over my lower stomach, over the patch of bare skin I was now showing, a tiny smile lifting the corners of his mouth.
He moved casually, resting his hands there, right where he was looking, his calloused palms rough against my skin, and I couldn’t resist.
“What’s that look on your face, Kingfisher?”
His eyebrows inched higher. “Look? There’s a look?”
I nodded, the grass rustling around my ears. “There’s a look.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” He shrugged, looking off toward the river. “My mate’s ass is rubbing up against my cock, and she’s stretched out in front of me, her hip bones showing—”
“You like my hip bones?”
He trailed his fingers over them without looking, then moved quickly, wrapping his hands around my waist and digging his fingers firmly into my skin.
“I love your hip bones,” he corrected. “I love the way your breasts look right now, straining against your shirt like that. If there’s a look, it’s because I’m horribly distracted by you, and I’m trying to talk about very serious things. ”
Horribly distracted? I liked the sound of that. Slowly, I wriggled my ass, shimmying so that my shirt rode up a little higher. “I don’t want to talk about very serious things.” I emphasized the words.
His eyes snagged on my stomach again, moving as slow as a glacier as they traveled higher, toward my chest. “I would have thought you’d be excited about the possibility of becoming Fae,” he said.
“I would be. I am. But . . .” I hooked my thumbs into my pockets and pulled, tugging my pants down a little lower over my hips. They were scandalously low now, bordering on inappropriate.
Fisher gave me an open-mouthed smile, canines on full display, as he slowly shook his head. “You think I don’t know what you’re doing?”
“I’m not doing anything,” I lied.
He scoffed at that. “Do you think . . .” He ran his fingers lightly up my side.
“That this is the first time . . .” He caught his bottom lip between his teeth and bit down when I shivered.
“A beautiful female . . .” His hand slipped up, inside my shirt and trailed it up my rib cage.
“Has tried to seduce me?” He pinched my nipple, rolling it savagely as he leaned into the word seduce.
I hissed through my teeth, bucking against him at the bright stab of pain that fired down my body and settled between my legs.
Fisher’s eyes flared, the tattoos at his throat swirling as they came to life beneath his skin. “Are you trying to lead me astray?” he asked.
“Only a little.”
“Only a little?”
“Mm.” I arched my hips again, angling my ass down, rolling my hips a little, and Fisher’s eyelids shuttered.
“Okay. Only a little. I’ll let you lead me astray only a little if you answer the question properly.”
“There was a question?” I teased.
“Tell me,” he rumbled. “Why isn’t this good news? Regardless of how much I disapprove of Iseabail’s methods, there are no high bloods in Ammontraíeth anymore. You don’t have to be a high blood anymore.”
Gods alive. I wasn’t going to get my way if I didn’t give him what he wanted first, was I?
But this topic felt fragile, too delicate to navigate just yet.
I breathed deep and gave him the truth, even though it felt like bad luck to do so.
“Because what if it doesn’t work on me? I’m not a full vampire, am I? What if it kills me?”
“It isn’t going to kill you,” Fisher said, squeezing my breast. His other hand worked to unfasten my pants.
I closed my eyes, processing what he was about to do. “What if . . .”
“What if?” he whispered.
“What if I don’t die? What if it makes me human again? Whatever is in those vials made Tal and the high bloods revert to their original state. What’s to say it wouldn’t revert me back to mine?”
Fisher’s expression remained steady, as if what I’d said wasn’t terrifying at all. “Then you go back to being human,” he said.
“And what would happen when I get old and die?”