Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
I dream of a dragon trailing his claws through my hair, and kissing his way down my throat.
“Mine,” he hisses, and then he thrusts inside me, sinking his teeth into my throat hard enough to bruise.
Then a gentle hand soothes my hair. “Sleep,” someone says. “Sleep and it will all be over. You’re safe.”
Safe. “I don’t think I even know what that word means,” I mumble.
The hand stills. Someone growls under their breath. “But you will, Zemira. You will. I will always protect you.”
I snuggle into warmth. I can’t fight it anymore. I don’t want to keep fighting.
“I don’t want to be alone….” I whisper.
Maybe I’m imagining it, but there’s a soft sigh and warm hands lock around me. “Never,” he promises.
* * *
Waking up feels like being hit square between the eyes by a hammer.
Light gleams through the curtains, my mouth tastes like something shit in it, and I feel like I wrestled a bear last night.
Maybe I did. I vaguely recall Keir having to pin me to the bed, and not in an amorous manner.
The sheer indignity makes me furious. It’s not enough that rapture steals all your wits and leaves you with nothing more than furious desire, but now I get the post-rapture headache.
And humiliation.
“Thirsty?” There’s a Keir-shaped blur sitting on the edge of the bed—well out of touching distance by the look of it.
A vague memory of me begging him for his cock chooses that moment to replay itself. I groan and roll onto my face, dragging the pillow over my head. “Go away.”
He laughs under his breath. “Ah. Safe to come closer then. Here. I have water. It will make you feel better.”
As much as I want to crawl under the blankets and hide, my tongue is cleaving to the roof of my mouth. I could drink the Burning River dry right now.
Coming out from under my pillow, I reach for the glass and gulp it down, without looking at him.
“None of what happened last night is your fault.” Keir’s voice roughens. “I want you to know that.”
And there it is….
“I should never have confronted Rhea the first time.” I grind my thumbs up under the hollow sockets of my eyes. “I knew she’d return the favor. I just didn’t know how.” Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. “I failed the Third Rule of Thieves Code: Don’t ever get involved.”
There’s a long moment of silence.
“You rescued a servant from a fate over which she had no control,” he says quietly. “I don’t consider that a failure, Mira. I consider it an act of courage.”
I drag my hands lower. He knows about that? “How did you—?”
Keir’s lashes shield his eyes. “I heard talk of it. The ladies of the court think you jealous. But in the serving halls, they whisper of your bravery.” He looks up.
“I like the fact you fought for someone who didn’t have the means to fight her own battles.
You can call yourself an honorless thief, Mira, but I see your heart. ”
Grabbing the pillow, I try and smother my face with it. “That’s not a compliment. Someone like me cannot afford to have a heart.”
Keir tugs the pillow down. “If you don’t care about others, then what’s the point of living?”
It makes me grit my teeth. He has no idea what it’s like to be powerless and forced to obey the whims of others. “How kind of you to say so…. You, who stands at the top of the rule of order. You, who could crush this entire court into pieces if you will it….”
“You think it’s any easier to wield such power and keep yourself in check?
” A hot flush of anger brightens his cheekbones.
“You’re right. I could destroy this court and every fae in it.
I could obliterate this entire kingdom with a mere thought.
Don’t think it hasn’t crossed my mind at times.
But I’m the one who has to look myself in the mirror every morning.
I’m the one looks at Malechus and sees what I could become if I were to lose the very core of what makes me honorable.
The choice to care—to have a heart—is the only thing that restrains me. ”
I’m too tired to argue with him.
And maybe the arguments I’m voicing are only echoes of my father’s voice.
There is no kindness in the Court of the Forbidden.
But nobody’s managed to quite beat it out of me yet.
“Fine. You win.” I toss the blankets back. “I need to… wash my face.”
He lets me stagger toward the wash chambers. “I had to take your dress off. It was soaked. But that’s all, Mira. I promise.”
Cheeks burning, I duck inside the wash chamber. I’m still wearing my undergarments from last night. It’s a little bit of a relief, despite the fact it’s all seen better days.
Until I see my reflection in the mirror.
“Well, if that’s not going to chase him away….”
I take care of the necessities, then wash my entire body of its cold sweat.
The last to go is the remnants of last night’s powder from my face, including the thick kohl that seems to have migrated down to my cheeks.
I can’t get it all off. My face looks like some sort of weird frog that has eyes painted in the middle of its back to warn off predators. It will have to do.
Slipping into my dressing gown, I tie it around my waist and venture back out.
“Here.” Keir moves away from the bed on cat-silent feet, crossing toward a small cart I hadn’t noticed. “Breakfast. Or lunch. I assume you’re ravenous.”
Oddly enough, I’m not. Me. Who’s spent every gathering so far at this court perusing the banquet table. I know he’s noticed my love affair with honeyed breads and lemon cakes—every time I’ve licked the icing from my fingers, I’ve looked up to see him watching.
But food is a privilege.
You never know when you’re going to get another mouthful. And if there’s one thing I enjoy about these missions my father sends me on, it’s that I get to eat and drink whatever I can steal.
Zemira Ashburn. The White Wraith. The Greatest Thief in the Blessed lands.
And the best heist I’ve ever pulled off was one that saw me forced to hide in a chocolatier’s shop.
I can still taste the caramels.
He sets a tray on the bed as I climb back into it, lifting the silver cloche as he sinks onto the mattress.
I try not to think about the muscles shifting in those powerful thighs. He’s wearing his riding leathers again—evidently there’s another hunt on the cards for today—and while I’m sure they’re exquisitely useful in avoiding saddle chafe, they stir remnants of the rapture within me.
Too large. Too close. Too… male.
I try to breathe through it.
“I’m…. Is that pie?” I inhale the scent, and my mouth waters. Distraction. Please. “Venison pie?”
Keir’s smile is wicked as he wafts the steam toward me with the lid. “Venison and onion with a red wine gravy.”
“Are you trying to seduce me with your pie?” I challenge.
“My very delicious pie.”
I swear I’m drooling. “Sir, I shall have you know I am a lady of very refined tastes.” I reach for the fork. “I shall eat your pie—your uncouth pie—but never let it be said that I was tempted.”
“You can eat as much of my pie as you want.”
I arch a brow at him. Are we still talking about the pie?
He tries to steal my plate at the last second, and I threaten to stab him with the fork.
Keir laughs, and then pushes the plate back toward me with one finger. “All yours.”
“I swear I’m not going to fit in any of your lovely dresses if you keep feeding me.” I tear off a piece of pastry and stuff it in my mouth. Oh my… gods. I think this sauce is the best thing I’ve ever eaten. I was wrong. I’m ravenous.
“You’ll have to go naked then, and that would be such a shame.”
I peel off another piece of pastry. “Excellent response.”
“The only response.”
My eyes narrow. I suppose, when you’ve lived three thousand or so years, you become adept at avoiding certain traps. Holding out the pastry, I offer it to him as a reward.
Keir’s eyes heat as he leans forward to take it. He calls my bluff, and what began as an incongruous move ends in a lengthy stalemate as he carefully closes his teeth over the golden pastry without touching me.
Curse it.
“Is it my imagination, or are you always trying to feed me?” I murmur, withdrawing my fingers before his lips can graze them.
Keir licks the crumbs from his mouth, and I force myself to focus on the pie again, but the sound of his low voice is doing dangerous things to me. “Shadow Walkers tend to burn a lot of energy when they use their magic.”
I pause, a scalding piece of meat in my mouth. “They roo?”
He pours me a glass of water and offers it to me. “All the transfiguration magics do. Shapeshifting is a demanding process. You’re shifting levels of your body on a minute level. In your case, you’re not just shifting your body, you’re changing states of matter. A state of being.”
I have never, ever realized that what I can do has anything to do with shapeshifting.
“There were also some that said that Shadow Walkers could manipulate light too,” he says. “And not just the absence of it.”
I swallow down my lump of meat and take a sip of water.
Long ago, one of my father’s ancestors could walk the shadows.
I’ve always thought my gifts a throwback to him, but there’s only been two other wraiths in the last two hundred years who could Sift—and neither of them survived long enough to master the gift.
I know virtually nothing about my talents.
“Manipulate light?” I ask, popping another pie of pie in my mouth. Light burns when I’m Sifting. Stay to the shadows and you’ll be safe, but if there’s one weakness I own….
“It’s not advisable,” Keir points out. “Light is a Shadow Walker’s weakness, except for the very rare few who learned to bend it, and they were true masters. Kings and queens of their courts. They transcended their gifts.”
“How do you know all of this?”
He smiles. “I may have known a Shadow Walker or two in my time.”
“Hmm.” I eye him. “Just how long does a dragon live?”