8. Stage of Grief （Seductive） Bargaining
Stage of Grief: (Seductive) Bargaining
PRESENT DAY
“Cease this, and go to sleep . . . now, vassal,” Tarantula said coldly, his voice menacing in our dark bedroom. He’d moved in weeks ago, but nothing had changed between us.
Well, mostly nothing.
I snorted. “Nice try.”
It took all my concentration to sound articulate and not high out of my mind. Axel had given me a pack of Southern cigarettes to cope with my “stress management problems.”
Ironic, because he didn’t know half of my struggles. He just knew that I kept falling asleep during dinner. The Marshal was growing frustrated with my magical progress—or lack thereof. She harassed me daily over my inability to control more than one drop of water at a time.
I spun the cigarette between my fingers.
Long and thin, the burning white paper held a cooling spice that tasted like mint and forgotten dreams. They were popular in the Middlelands.
Axel had told me earlier to “enjoy the buzz, and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.
” Confusing instructions because he seemed incapable of shame.
I’d also unpacked my cherished chess set—the one Mom had pushed into my hands when I left home. Smoking, I resumed playing against myself but grew bored and dropped the queen with a sigh.
I turned to the other occupant in the room.
Tarantula leaned against the wall beside his bed, with his legs hanging over his mattress, staring at me. He wasn’t blinking. The silvery haze around his body mixed with moonlight. Pretty.
I blew out a cloud of smoke, and it lingered in the air like frost. Here lies Zora, homesick and high. Highly homesick and . . . sick of his highness. Chuckling at my devastating wit, I inhaled more deeply, tongue tingling with the minty coolness.
Tarantula glared at my mouth like it personally offended him. His ears were flushed bright red.
This is fun.
“Cease doing . . . that,” Tarantula ordered loudly in his bossy, delusional tone.
“Stop doing . . . what?” Sticking my tongue out with the cigarette pressed against my top teeth, I tried to see how many seconds I could keep the long paper balanced on it.
Slowly I slid across the sheets, propped my legs up on the wall beside my bed, and hung my head over the edge of the mattress. I stared back at him, tongue out, cigarette still dangling where it was pressed precariously against my teeth.
“Ravenal . . . I swear to the storm spirits, if thou don’t put your tongue back behind your tempting lips . . .”
“Has anyone told you that you look better upside down?”
“No.”
“Wow, really?”
“Yes.”
“Are you being serious right now?”
“Yes.”
“No one . . . has ever told you? Not once?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“No one told you . . . twice?”
“No.”
“In a row?”
“Ravenal, thou art such a lightweight. Put the cursed cigarette back in your mouth and go to sleep. Thou art courting my madness and tempting me with . . . Never in all the worlds has a woman sent a man closer to peril . . .”
“You’re a weird guy,” I said with honesty as I delicately held the long, smoking cigarette between two fingers.
Lazily I trailed it down my body and held it above my crotch. Phantom phallic gestures. Ella and I had painted our nails together yesterday, and I admired how pretty the onyx contrasted with the paper in the moon rays.
Tarantula swore viciously under his breath.
I tilted my head so I could see him better from upside down. “Wait—do you want to . . . taste it?” I wiggled my eyebrows, holding the cigarette above my hips. Even buzzed, I couldn’t forget how weeks ago he pinned me into the sand and pressed himself wickedly against me.
Memories devour.
His face turned bright red, the flush crawling up his ears. “I’m not . . . answering thee.” He yanked his blanket up so it covered his lap.
“Do it,” I whispered as I rolled my hips, needing to rectify our power imbalance. “I’ll let you have a smoke. The mint really . . . tingles the tongue.”
He draped a forearm across his closed eyes, chains glinting. “Such impropriety,” he grumbled. A dark, strangled sound escaped from his chest.
“Suck on it,” I said louder. “You know you want to.”
His shoulders stiffened, and I laughed because a person had never looked more uncomfortable on soft bedding.
“Pathetic, that’s what you are,” I whispered gravely, cigarette still smoking above my lap. “You’re all bark, no bite. All you do is threaten and—”
The chain between his cuffs stretched across my torso, pinning me to the mattress. Tarantula had moved with impossible speed. He kneeled beside my bed, leaning forward, with his crotch directly in front of my upside-down face; magic glowed as it steamed off his thighs.
He pressed his hands firmly into the comforter beside my hips, pinning me with the chain between his wrists.
Ever so slowly, he leaned his face forward .
. . closer . . . closer. I lifted my head to get a better view.
His lips hovered above my lap. He tilted his face to the side.
His jawline was sharp enough to slice your finger on.
His tongue licked wantonly up the length of my cigarette, all the way to the burning tip.
Oh . . . myoldgod.
I never thought he’d actually do it. He was always blushing and muttering about decorum.
Trailing his tongue back down the lit cigarette to my hand, he wrapped his mouth sideways around the base, where I gripped it with two fingers. His hot breath wafted over my hand. Chills exploded as his tongue tasted my skin.
With hooded, evil eyes, he expertly plucked the cigarette from my fingers with his teeth, tilting it with his tongue so it hung properly from his lips.
Chain digging into my torso, he inhaled deeply.
He clenched his fingers, comforter bunching, and blew a cloud of minty smoke out of his nose, directly between my thighs.
I jolted, gasping.
He made a sound of pure masculine satisfaction.
Staring hungrily at my face, he leaned down with the cigarette between his teeth and slowly dragged the burning edge up across the delicate material of my sleep shirt.
He paused with it over the hollow of my throat, then pulled it away, dragging his hands upward in its wake. Gently he draped the icy chain over my neck like jewelry.
I froze.
Pleasure pebbled—everywhere. He cupped my jaw with long fingers, holding me tenderly in the deadly position.
What is happening right now?
I sucked in harshly as his thumb stroked over the column of my jugular, which, for the first time in my life, somehow felt more erogenous than my breasts. He lowered so his face hovered above mine.
Over the side of the bed, I tipped my chin back farther, boneless.
Tarantula held my upside-down face, cigarette between his lips, his chain chilly across my neck.
“Ravenal,” he said huskily, breathing smoke directly into my mouth as he spoke, the minty coolness corrupted with the scent of dark cherry.
His calloused thumb dragged over my throat, down to my collarbone. My cigarette bobbed between his straight white teeth as he pulled the chain tighter across my jugular. “Thou art incorrect . . . I only desire to bite, not bark. My teeth yearn to mar your arresting flesh.”
Oh.
Oh.
Not good.
Not good at all.
It took my sluggish, foggy brain a long second to process his reference to my earlier statement. “I think there’s a translation issue happening here.” My voice came out unnaturally high-pitched.
“No, there is not. I know exactly what thou meant,” he said as he leaned closer to pull the cigarette from his mouth while keeping the metal chain pressed against my flesh.
He brought the cigarette to my mouth, dragging the unlit end back and forth across my lower lip.
“Uh, no. I don’t think you do . . .” I cleared my throat. “Understand. Me.”
He gently pressed the paper inside my parted lips, stopping when it rested on my tongue.
“ ’Tis thou who does not get it.”
Cool metal disappeared, my neck uncomfortably bare as he rose gracefully to his feet and stepped away. With nowhere to go in the cramped room, he turned harshly, giving me his back.
Silence stretched between us.
“I think . . . you should stay away from me, spider,” I said to his unbecoming butt. Very hideous. Not at all firm, juicy, and captivating. I should bite it.
Still facing the wall, he laughed, but the sound held no humor. “Go to sleep, Ravenal.”
“No, I won’t.”
“Thou will obey me, vassal,” Tarantula said harshly. “Retire, now.”
“No.”
He inhaled loudly through gritted teeth. Then his voice dropped an octave. “Who did thou say your sire was again?”
“Sazha sounds like a girl’s name,” I blurted. The realization had been killing me since I’d first heard it.
The sharp scent of his magic intensified. “Do thou yearn for my punishment?”
“Shhh, Sazha Washa.” I held a finger up to my smoking lips. “He can hear you.”
“Who?”
I made the spooky ghost sound Mom always made when telling stories about wraiths. “The Emperor. He’s in this very room.”
“Ravenal,” he said darkly. “If thou don’t find sleep in the next five minutes, so help me . . . I shall put thee to sleep. Permanently.”
“No, you won’t do anything.” I waved the dial in the air and then realized it was just my cigarette. Wait, where did I put it?
“There is nothing in the world that can protect thee from me.”
“I don’t need protection from any man. I can take care of myself.”
“Ah.” He paused pointedly, still not turning to look at me. “Thou art plighted with delusions.”
“You’re afraid,” I said quietly. “I can taste it in the air. I can sense it. I can smell it on you.”
“Thou lie.”
“You reek of death and the urge to destroy the world—”
“Retire in sleep now, vassal,” he ordered. “Obey. This is a direct order from your royal.”
I scoffed. “I don’t obey any man. But you’ll obey me, by the end . . . of this.” My stupid, scandalous quest.
He laughed, but his shoulders didn’t shake as he stood ramrod straight in the night. “By what cause would I? ’Tis a ludicrous proposition that I would take orders from a brat such as—”