Chapter 15 Galwell #2
She walked—no, slunk over to him, then plucked the key without hesitation from his fingers.
As she reached past him for the door, she pulled herself chest to chest with him, leaving Galwell certain she could hear the blood pounding in his veins.
With her gaze fixed on him, she tugged the door closed, drawing him inside, even closer to her, then turned the lock decisively with her free hand.
Galwell held his posture rigid. When he’d engaged with his other opponents, they’d never sparred with him quite like this.
He kept his eyes on the very large wardrobe in the corner. Was it crafted of crestoak? Indeed not. It looked more like northern
white nettlewood.
“Stop that,” Mona snapped. “It won’t work.”
Galwell swallowed. “Stop what?” he inquired.
“Focusing on innocuous thoughts to try to bore me into not reading your mind.”
“Why would I presume you were interested in my mind at all?” Galwell asked, fighting for the upper hand.
Mona glared. With her rage lighting up her every sharp feature, her gorgeous hair descending over the sculpted shoulders her
dress exposed, Galwell could fend off his mind no longer. She was fire in a storm. Disaster upon disaster, and stunning in
her destruction.
Her eyes went half-lidded. Like she could feel his concession.
“You shouldn’t have given your coat away,” she chastised him. “Now you need someone to warm you up.” Her hand rose to his
tunic.
Galwell heard himself echoing her. “Stop that. It won’t work.”
The selfless part of him felt guilty when Mona’s expression slipped, just a little. Nevertheless, he continued.
“You want to disarm me with flirtations you don’t mean just to make me uncomfortable around you,” he explained. “Shooting
me didn’t work. Hurting my feelings didn’t work. This won’t, either.”
Mona eyed him, then stormed back to the bed. Recognizing he’d pierced her defenses, Galwell permitted himself a bit of rueful pride. Mona was a dangerous compatriot, he reminded himself. He needed to know how to penetrate—so to speak—her disingenuous facade.
“I put the word out in the underworld that I have a close connection with Galwell the Great, and if anyone was interested
in hiring someone competent to assassinate him following the Deathrose Guild’s failure, I’d be more than happy to provide
such services,” she stated.
Pivoting to business, then. “Thank you.” Galwell met her formality with politeness.
“I’m coming to the match tomorrow. Need to keep an eye on my investment,” she announced.
The thought of watching his favorite sport with this . . . this . . . villain sounded . . . fun? “I look forward to your company,” Galwell said honestly. “I’ll buy you a shankfry.”
“I’d like to get a better sense of your allies, too. I don’t trust that scribe of yours. Her thoughts are guarded. Compartmentalized
in a way I’ve not seen.”
Galwell knew she sought to sow distrust among the heroes. To prove that everyone had a villain inside them. Galwell wouldn’t
fall for it. “She has head magic,” he replied. “Perhaps she’s protected from your intrusions. Or perhaps she’s merely smarter
than everyone else.”
“Perhaps.” Mona shrugged, examining her nails. “Of course, I could always take the job for real.”
Galwell nodded, considering her words. “I wouldn’t,” he returned.
She went silent. Though she did not look up, Galwell sensed she was reading his mind.
He did not interrupt her. Let her see just how much he did not fear her. Indeed, he practically wished more villains possessed this power. He’d probably save himself plenty of needless fights if every henchman or regional operative
knew that he knew that fisticuffs with Galwell the Great would not end well for them.
“You think because you foiled my petty crimes today that I can’t do it?” Mona uttered.
He heard the menace she sought to summon into her voice. He cared not.
“I think you can’t do it because you know I don’t deserve it,” he replied simply.
When Mona scoffed, Galwell credited himself, for he felt he was improving at figuring out when Vestriya’s princess of lies
was representing herself falsely. “You certainly do after making me watch all those good deeds you did today.” She grimaced,
as if witnessing goodness made her feel like a child who’d been served sledgeling egg jelly with dinner. She rounded on him,
confrontational. “Those people didn’t deserve your help, you know.”
“I know. I helped them anyway,” Galwell replied. “What are you going to do about it?”
He stared her down. She wasn’t the sort of villain he was used to, not in the least. But he was still a hero. He knew that much.
Finally, Mona huffed, infuriated.
Galwell smirked. He’d never smirked before. He didn’t know he possessed the skill until just then.
“I need to shower off your . . . goodness,” Mona declared, cringing. She stalked to the corner of the room, where she pressed
a rune marked on the wall. Cream-colored fizzy wine sparkled to life in thin glasses on the minibar. “Better yet, I need a
palate cleanser.”
Galwell nodded to the crystalline glass she sipped from. “That sparklina looks rich enough for the job.”
“It’s a start,” Mona replied. She faced him. “My tongue craves something . . . stiffer.”
When her eyes raked down his form, Galwell recognized the desirous look in them. Yet combined with her words, the sensation left him feeling only confusion. Her . . . tongue? What could her tongue want down there?
Mona straightened, startled. “Why are you confused?” she demanded, now sounding utterly confounded herself.
Galwell felt himself start to sweat. “I’m not—confused,” he protested.
Nervousness mounted in him when he confronted the inevitable. This was a sex thing, wasn’t it? While he wished to interrogate the possibilities further, even this would reveal to Mona truths he did not
wish revealed. It was just—he thought tongues went in mouths. That was the only source of his confusion. Quite reasonable.
Perhaps she wanted to press delicate kisses to his legs? That sounded pleasant. He could understand why people wished to engage
in that during lovemaking—
“Oh, Ghosts, please don’t call it that. And no, I don’t want to kiss your thighs, you gryphon,” Mona said.
“I assure you, they are clean and muscular,” Galwell managed.
Offering no reply, Mona examined him. On the upside, the fury seemed to have fled Mona’s striking features. Only her inquisitiveness
remained.
However, Galwell concluded ruefully, the inquisitiveness might be worse.
Fervently, he sought distraction in his own mind. The wooden furniture in the room! Yes, certainly. Now, was it northern white
nettlewood or western? Northern, he was certain—difficult to work with because of how firm and rigid the wood is, just like
his own—
Fuck. He corrected himself. Despite Mona’s doubtfulness, Galwell knew exactly what to do with his wood. He’d done . . . woodworking many times on his own terms, to great success.
Unfortunately, this made Mona gasp.
“No,” she stated.
Galwell sweated. He knew he was in perilous danger. He wished he were facing her with his crossbow instead of this.
“Galwell,” Mona asked calmly, “are you a virgin?”
He said nothing.
The hero of Mythria refused to be embarrassed. There was no shame to be found in this simple reality. He was a questing hero
in his youth. Then he was dead for ten years. Everyone in his position—or rather lack thereof—had valid reasons that should not be interrogated. Especially
by the likes of wily, unfairly hot ladies of crime.
Mona started to laugh. In the sound, Galwell heard incredulity, yes, but curiously enough, not judgment. Or perhaps he was
only deluding himself. Imputing too much good to her, like she insisted he did with the commonfolk he helped without question.
“Of course. Of course. Too busy being good to have any real fun,” she commented. “No wonder you’re strung so tight.”
Galwell cleared his throat. “I don’t know what that means, but I’m sure I’m strung an adequate amount.”
Impossibly, Mona only softened. “Baby, you can’t take your eyes off me. Your thoughts—they’re persistent but indistinct, which
now I’m realizing is because you want me, but you don’t know what you want to do with me.”
Even Galwell’s magical strength could not withstand much more of this. The cooing. The unhurried exploration into his sexual
history. The sound of Mona—his best friend’s sister, for Ghosts’ sake—saying you want me.
He held on to his heroism. “Mock me all you want, Mona. It was a sword that killed me once, not embarrassment,” he returned.
Mona came closer to him. She walked slowly, like a predator. Why, then, do I so wish to be prey?
With her voice low, coming from deep within her throat, she spoke softly to him.
“I don’t want to mock you.”
She moved her hand slowly down his chest. Lower. Lower—Galwell hardly perceived her passing the waistband of his trousers—until,
with the most devastating combination of confidence and care, she grasped his firmness in her hand. He exhaled hard, fighting
to keep his eyes open.
“Would you,” Mona asked, “like to do something a little bad?”
Ghosts, yes, Galwell heard himself think. Oh, fuck it if she heard him. What she held in her hand spoke the same message without word
or thought.
He needed to say something, though. He fought through the haze of her intoxicating touch. “I won’t pretend I don’t desperately
want whatever it is you’re proposing,” he conceded. “You can hear my thoughts. You know I do.”
Then, with more strength than Galwell the Great had perhaps ever needed to command, he opened his eyes fully and found Mona’s,
his stare piercing.
“But let’s not pretend this is a palate cleanser, Mona,” he ordered. “I think watching me do all those good deeds hasn’t made
you need to be bad. It’s made you want me. You liked it.” He gazed down, victorious in defeat. “You’re—strung as tight as I am.”
Mona’s touch released just slightly. For the second time this evening, surprise flooded her face.
Surprise that changed, like deep night into pale lavender Vestriyan morn, into approval. She liked that he’d knocked her off-kilter. He’d expected she might.
Slowly, with that smug, impressed satisfaction on her features, she sank to her knees in front of him.
Her hand never left where it rested. “What—” Galwell struggled. “What do I do?”
Mona smiled. “Fight those heroic urges, Galwell,” she ordered him softly, “and surrender. Surrender to me completely.”
He swallowed hard, nodding.
She undid the lacing of his pants fully, exposing his very stiff wood. Then, with smoldering eyes upturned to his, she drew
him into her mouth.
Galwell’s knees went weak. He stumbled backward into the closed door, earning a chuckle from Mona, who did not cease in her
efforts.
It was . . . it was no kiss on the thighs, that was for certain. Mona was experienced, obviously, and she did everything with complete, commanding commitment. Over and over, deeper and deeper, she pulled him into her throat, tortured him with
her tongue, and ripped every shred of strength from him with each consuming stroke.
For he didn’t know how long, he surrendered.