“Wolves. Right. Do you mean literal wolves? See, I have no idea who the enemies really are. Wolves? Raven gryphons? Dark fae? Ghouls? All this talk of war, yet all you do is dress up in your flashy weapons and finery and walk around your castle brooding.”
“That is hardly—”
“Right, my bad! You’re also fond of drinking alone in your library and waxing poetic over your old diaries. Oh! And let’s not forget torturing prisoners and parading your own wounded soldiers through the streets until they drop dead or get trampled or murdered by their comrades.” She folded her arms across her chest and narrowed her eyes. “Quite a list of accomplishments, Keradoc. I’m surprised they haven’t erected a statue of you in the town square!”
“And I suppose you think you deserve a statue as well?” I shouted, no longer caring whether the guards heard us, whether we awoke the sleeping vampire-fae, whether the whole of Amaranth City gathered around the castle to hear this battle. “Oh, yes. Haley Barnes, ladies and gentlemen. Ever the diligent little witch, playing in the dirt like a child with her charms and potions, no closer to crafting my ritual than she was the night she flounced through my ballroom dressed like a delicate rose freshly plucked from the vine. Why is that? Ah, yes. Because she’s been too busy cavorting with criminals and entrancing them into her bed to pleasure her for—”
The crack echoed across the night sky, the sound of it so shockingly unexpected it took me a moment to feel the ensuing sting on my face. To even realize what had happened.
Haley stood before me, her cheeks dark with rage, her hand still outstretched between us, her lips parted in the same shock coursing throughme.
She’d slapped me. The witch had slapped me.
I was too stunned to do anything but gape at her, the blood simmering in my veins, my heart galloping with the need to grab her, bend her over this wall, and teach her a much-needed lesson about insubordination…
“First of all,” she snapped, refusing to back down even in the face of my mounting anger. “I didnotflounce. I was undercover on a mission for the Dark Goddess, having no idea that she had already betrayed me—obviously. And furthermore, I just summoned the fire spirits—the first step in figuring out how to summon ancestors—and you have the gall to accuse me of playing in the dirt?”
The fire in her tone snapped me out of my momentary stupor.
“Haley, you have been in this castle for weeks, and you’re no closer to—”
“I’m not finished. You criticize my methods without knowing jackshitabout witchcraft, when all I’ve been doing—all Ikeepdoing—is working my ass off for you, never mind the fact that you’ve got me leashed and neutered like a dog.” She curled her fingers into a fist and shoved it in my face, not to assault me this time, but to remind me of the dampener cuff I’d locked around her wrist.
Moons and stars, her every word, her every feisty action set my cock ablaze with a deep, clawing need I was ashamed to admit even to myself, the pulse of reckless desire thrumming through me, making me crazy, making me burn, making me utterlydesperateto put her on her knees, slide my cock between those plump lips, and fuck her mouth until she wasbeggingme for more…
“And why am I doing it, Keradoc?” she continued. “Why? Because you demanded it, yes. But there’s more to it now. More to all of this. Because some stupid, hopeless, ridiculous part of me actuallywantsto help you. How crazy is that? And now you stand here and judge my choices inmen?”
“I merely pointed out—”
“You say you’re disappointed in us? In me? Fine,” she barreled on as if my protests meant nothing. “I’m disappointed in you, too. I’m your so-called secret weapon, yet you’ve kept me in the dark the entire time. You think taking me shopping for ingredients foryourdamn ritual and giving me a pastry makes us square? No way. You haven’t had my back once. Not once.”
“If you’ll just let me—”
“You avoid me for days, then you show up here—once again dressed in your silks and leathers and blades—just to berate me and my men because we’re not meeting your ridiculously impossible standards. Well you know what, warlord? Fuck off.” She shoved me with both hands, hard enough to make me stumble a step backward. “Yeah, that’s right, I’m telling you to fuck yourself right off the balcony, because youcompletelysuck. And if I didn’t think we’d all be executed for it, I’d give you a good shove—”
I crashed into her with a savagery so intense, it nearly knocked us both over the wall.
I couldn’t hold back another moment. Not when she was so warm and alive, so bright, so damned infuriating, so…everything.
One hand gripping her jaw, I sealed my mouth against hers, taking, taking,takingthe kiss I’d been fantasizing about since our very first kiss in the throne room, ignoring the pummeling of her fists against my chest.
Like so much about my little thief, her resistance was nothing more than a temporary show. The moment I shoved my tongue between her lips, she relaxed into my hold, parting wider for me, her soft moan vibrating into my mouth. I fisted her hair and backed her up against the low stone wall, my cock as hard as my sword as it dug relentlessly into her abdomen.
And oh, how sheburnedfor me, grinding her lithe body against me, her tongue fighting mine for dominance, fingers clawing at my buttons and buckles as if to tear them loose and release the monster behind them…
But just as quickly as it had consumed me—consumed us both—the inferno died. Our kiss suddenly broke, and Haley shoved against my chest until I finally relented and set her free.
Panting and disheveled, we glared at each other in the moonlight, dark magick crackling between us, the electric hum of it buzzing in my ears. She felt it too—I was certain. It was written in her eyes, her gaze as furious as it was intrigued.
“Are you quite finished?” I asked, the fresh-berry taste of her lingering, making me dizzy. Drugged.
“Areyou?” she shot back. “What the hell wasthat?”
“Thatwas a mistake.” I dragged the back of my hand across my mouth, disgusted with myself for allowing her to so thoroughly distract me. To bewitch me. “One that willnothappen again.”
“You’re damn right it won’t, asshole. Touch me again without my consent, and I’ll steal one of your sparkly, fancy-ass daggers and use it to carve out your fucking tongue.” She grinned without warmth, a mouth full of ice and venom once more, then turned to stalk away.
The little thief thought she could escape me, but I wasn’t finished with her yet. Not by a long shot.
