Chapter 1 #2
The rapplecon was larger than a raven and wickedly fast in flight.
Shrouded in swirling shadows as much as feathers, with blade-sharp beak and claws, they were Junot’s preferred messengers.
Unlike a s?nglure, they used sonar frequencies and their bat-like ears to sense their way through bad conditions like fog.
Baz just managed to roll down his sleeve and stick out his arm when the rapplecon hurtled from the mist like a cannonball.
The creature unswervingly latched on to his arm and stuck its landing by sinking its hook-like claws into his forearm.
He hissed as they sliced deep, clamping onto bone.
Blood welled around the punctures, rapidly spotting his shirt.
“Take it easy there, Poriel,” Baz snarled around gritted teeth.
Poriel, whom Baz recognized for his uncommonly fluffy wine-colored crest on the crown of his black head, was one of Junot’s favorites.
Poriel, the titfucker, only squeezed his talons harder.
Around a silent hiss, Baz snapped, “You’ve landed. Now get the scorch off me. You can deliver your message from the railing.”
Did Alobaz secretly hope that Mauldrene would bite him? Yes, yes he most certainly fucking did.
Poriel, however, didn’t relent until blood ran in rivulets down Baz’s arm. The rapplecon extended a long, slender tongue toward one talon, withdrew it, and dipped his tongue into the hole through Baz’s shirt and skin—and sucked through his hollow tongue as if it were a straw.
“You’re supposed to secure my consent before drinking from me. I had other payment to give you.”
Along with his emergency rubies and a favorite sword or two of his, Baz was never without a treat for the rapplecons … to avoid precisely this.
“You think I like carrying around arbosaurus acorns wherever I go, just in case that’s the moment you decide to show up?”
He liked collecting them even less. Arbosauruses looked mostly like trees, but had the temperament—and the teeth-filled maws—of an ogre. Their acorns were hard as stone, but the rapplecons’ beaks could pierce them, and within was a nectar they devoured nearly—but not quite—as eagerly as blood.
Poriel merely slurped and dug his tongue deeper into Baz’s flesh.
Baz tsked. “One final sip and that’s it. That’s all you get this time.”
From experience, Baz knew no rapplecon ever willingly took just one more drink. Like their emperor, they were never sated.
Baz uncorked the wompa wood vial tied to a collar around Poriel’s neck and retrieved a small scroll. Before reading it, he replaced the cork. Junot rarely required a reply. He preferred to give orders and expected Baz never to question them.
“Now…” Baz barked in the command voice he used on his troops when expediency was urgent. Poriel’s ears perked and he withdrew his tongue, jerking his head up. “…get the fuck off my arm.”
Poriel squawked in affront—the cheeky, scorching bastard—flapped his wings—intentionally dragging one along Baz’s face—and pushed off.
He dug his talons into Baz’s arm one last time—what a blazing asshole!—upon takeoff.
Baz’s nostrils flared. He smelled the unique scent of his own blood.
He smelled Velle, his wicked sorceress, too. He’d taken to showering only before he was to see her again—to take her again—so as not to prematurely wash her scent off his skin.
Off his dick.
He enjoyed that reminder best.
Knowing she opened herself to him. Allowed him to claim her. Took his cock to the hilt. Went crazy for it. And begged him for more.
His dick twitched. His jaw hardened. His eyes glinted like gemstones.
More sorcery. It wasn’t reasonable that he should crave her scent on his body.
He frowned at the thought, at the blood dripping from his arm, and unfurled the note.
In the empress’ neat, slanted cursive, to whom Junot had no doubt dictated, the missive read:
Prepare Our Dominance’s quarters for his immediate arrival.
Baz turned over the parchment. That was it. Terencia hadn’t even bothered to sign it.
Baz found himself breathing hard and gripping the railing again. He pulled his hands back before Mauldrene decided he needed to better learn his lesson.
Junot’s “immediate arrival” might mean minutes, could mean days.
“Fuck.” The Bazrians weren’t going to like this. Lev was definitely going to whine like a little bitch.
Baz ran a hand over one of the small plaits woven from his temple before realizing he was coating it in blood. He dropped the braid—and stilled.
His heart thudded.
Velle.
If the Bazrians—or that annoying parvnit, Cosette, who wouldn’t shut up about being his father’s investigatory soldier—mentioned to the emperor that Baz had his very first prisoner since arriving at the castle … or worse, if Cosette revealed her identity…
Junot will kill her.
No, he’d order Baz to make an example of the D’Arco princess. He’d have to kill her in front of him. He’d want her blood splattered all over the dungeon, her body in pieces.
Baz slid the note into his pocket, patted the shortsword at his side out of habit, and bolted for the stairs. He had to wash off her scent, warn his friends, and threaten Cosette to keep quiet.
Baz was sprinting down the stairs to his quarters when he heard his sh?dread, Drion, whinny loudly. Moments later, the rest of the Bazrian Seven’s steeds followed with their own warnings.
Apparently, “immediate” meant right the fuck now.
Of course it did. Junot only ever made his life worse.
Baz leaned over the open side of the stairwell and leapt to the landing below. He kept leaning, kept leaping, until he reached his floor. Then he called on every bit of his s?nglure speed.
A speed his sire possessed too … only a sire’s power was always supposed to be stronger than his children’s.
It was a good thing Junot loved his pomp and would take his time making a grand entrance, even at a shrew of a castle like Mauldrene.