“Have you lost sensitivity in your nipple?”
“Arienna!”
A low, strained noise comes from behind me; it doesn’t sound like Jace.
“You said you’d answer my questions!”
She grits her teeth. Her eyes dart over my shoulder as she shakes her head slightly.
“Have you checked?”
If looks could kill, I don’t think we’d need a single other guard to protect the castle – for surely, there is more than enough venom in her to take on thirty assassins.
“I don’t need to check –”
“Yes, you do! You need to make sure they’ve healed you right. Remember when King Morningstar got his dick cut off in your book –”
“That’s fiction, Arienna!”
“–The King With the Unsatisfied Dick,and when they reattached it, he didn’t check if they did it right, and it started fucking everything within reach –”
“Arienna!” She grabs my arms, but I’m shaking too hard to keep the words in.
“– including Prince Ni–”
“ARIENNA!” She yanks me into her arms and smothers my face against her chest. I cling to her as I shudder.
“Next time, just let Nicholas get hit.”
“Wow, talk about monster-in-laws,” Jace mutters.
“It’s my job –” she starts.
“No, it’s not! You’re my guard, not his, and you can’t defy an order. So I’m ordering you to… to jump behind him if –”
“No.”
“But –”
“No.”
“I can’t lose you,” I rasp.
“You won’t,” she murmurs as she hugs me tighter.
“You don’t know that! People die so fast here.” My heart trips, then falls flat on its face – so clumsy these days, just like me. “And I won’t even be able to hug you afterwards now because they don’t do funerals here.”
“For the last time, you’renottaxidermying me, Arienna.”
“But I’ll miss all your hugs!”
“I barely hug you now.”
“Which has been okay because I knew I’d get them all in eventually.”
“Arienna...”
I turn my head to the side, wiping my tears across her tunic. As she tries to comfort me, I open my mouth, then latch my teeth onto her boob.
