As you wish, pet, but do not say you didn’t ask for this.
Aloud, Bastian said, "She agrees."
Az stiffened by her feet, a growl ripping through him. "Fuck, no!"
"She does," Bastian asserted. "Trust me. Vale and Tharen, however…"
Smoke filtered from the King’s mouth, but he did not speak. For that, she was grateful.
Tharen’s movements grew jerky as he packed away the last of his healing instruments, tension lining his broad shoulders.
Graves’s raspy voice cut through the quiet tension. "They have dug their graves; let them lie in the dirt."
Luella was too exhausted to feel more than a small burn of embarrassment on her cheeks. Grateful for Bastian speaking for her, curious of themorethey spoke of, and dread from the revelations she had shoved down.
Numbness swept through her body, tiny pinpricks of buzzing that made her feel as though she was floating on a cloud. Weightless, airy, drifting. Dissipating.
She wanted to be a cloud, drift across the sky as she stared down at the water, hold rain within her, and when it got to be too much, let it burst free in a swirling storm of rage.
Their voices turned to a low drone the longer she stared at nothing, feeling the diamonds of the charms cut into her palm. Anxiety was a swirling storm within her, clawing up her throat and choking her.
"Dragons are particular about their hoard." Bastian’s voice broke her from her stupor, and her cheek brushed against the furs as she looked up at him, feeling nothing but a twinge in her numb back from the action. Whatever Tharen had done to her was working. Even among the others’ discussion, he singled her out, speaking just to her. "We are on thin ice being here, pet. Best to relinquish your hold on Vale’s jewels, or you may find yourself facing his dragon."
Tharen had shifted, sitting on the stone floor beside the furs, Az still at her feet, leaving plenty of room for the vampire to kneel by her side, hands reaching for the bracelet held within her palm.
Her fingers curled around it as she tugged her hand toward her, tucking it under her chin, afraid to give up the bracelet. She didn’t know why, but she wanted it—wanted to possess something that belonged to Vale.
Bastian’s lush lips were parted, his exhales rustling tendrils of his black hair that fell around his temples. Strained, he murmured, "You do not want to give it up?"
Luella shook her head. She was afraid of what might spill from her lips if she opened them.
Bastian’s red-tinted eyes devoured her as she lay amongst Vale’s furs, his fingers shifting from reaching for the bracelet, to dancing softly across her elbow, stroking her flesh as if he were trying to remind himself she was safe. Looking at her, he said to Vale, "Does it not bother you, Vale, that she holds a piece ofyour treasure in her hands? Do not tell me you have not seen it. I know you have." A secret smile played upon his lips.
Vale paused, their voices tapering off harshly, leaving her to wonder if perhaps she should have been paying better attention to what they spoke of.
"I do not mind." A hiss laced the dragon shifter’s words, then he resumed the low discussions with the others.
Her sluggish mind struggled to make sense of much, only catching glimpses and words.
Ship… sea… storm.
She licked her dry lips, a plea for water lingering upon her open mouth, but before she could voice it, a soft trill stole her attention.
Something was tickling her foot, where it poked out of the furs. She glanced at Az, seeing the demon staring at something with a rare, amused smile.
"What… is it?" she said weakly.
"Tharen," Az called, careful to keep his voice low as if he knew how much her head was pounding, "want to tell Lu about what you picked up for her?"
Tharen, who kept looking at her, even as he spoke to the King and Graves, followed Az’s stare. "It wasn’t for her," he scoffed. "I don’t do gifts."
The dream amulet still hanging around her neck said otherwise, but she remained quiet, watching him, this male who had given her pleasure, stolen it, talked her into it, then held her through it.
The tickling against her feet stopped, the furs shifted as something moved across them, and from her other side, where her head was turned away, she felt the lightest brush against her nape.
With effort, she turned her head away from the mage, toward the thing at her other side that had stolen their attention.
Luella came face-to-face with golden eyes, a small ball of black fur. A tiny kitten, with black whiskers and eyes too large for her little face, pawed innocently at the furs tangled up by Luella’s shoulder.
