Enemies…
His senses sprang to alertness. The most determined of his enemies was here at the castle. His prisoner, the princess of the D’Arcos … she’d already tried to kill him once.
His abrupt arrival in the dungeon via the trapdoor flashed through his memory, then scenes of all that had followed rushed in. By the Ethers, how they’d gone at each other! They’d fed, they’d fucked—they’d been absolutely ferocious.
Now it was cold, terribly cold. There was never a respite from Mauldrene’s frigidness, never a single fucking kindness. His bare skin was pebbled, his balls taut. It was always dim inside the castle, and the dungeon was darker still. Even his sharp sänglure vision revealed nothing from the pitch-blackness. The usual strings plucked a morose, aching dirge, and a heart that wasn’t his drummed a slow, steady, menacing rhythm.
The beating heart was his prisoner—and she was much too near. He felt her stare as it scraped along his body like the edge of a sharp blade, even though she shouldn’t be able to see him any easier than he could see her. He swallowed and pushed onto his elbows, wiping the back of his hand along his mouth. It came back wet.
Blood, and not his—Velle’s. At once, it filled his nostrils, coated his tongue, made him swallow convulsively. His cock, which had been resting as deeply as he had, stirred awake.
The scent of blood—both hers and his—clung to the air like humidity. Mixed with it was the musk of their arousal, their joining, their ethercrests. It stank of sex. He’d never scorching loved a scent more.
Slowly, he slid along what he knew to be the sole mattress in her cell.
“Don’t bother pretending you’re still asleep,” she said. “I know you’re awake.”
“I wasn’t pretending to be anything. I only just woke up,” he said, then immediately wondered why he’d bothered to defend himself.
“I know. I’ve been waiting for you to wake up for ages. By scorches, you sleep like the dead.”
Thinking of how it would be more accurate to say he slept with the dead, he said nothing.
“Must be nice to be so at ease with your actions that you sleep like a gobloony.”
He scoffed. “A gobloony? That’s a baby goblin.”
“Exactly. Glad to know you’re so unbothered with murdering my brother that you’ll snore like a dragon.”
He scowled at the direction of her voice. “You have no idea whether or not a dragon snores.”
“Neither do you.”
“I told you I didn’t kill your brother.”
“And I told you that you’re a rotten, stinking liar.”
Had she? “Why do you think that?”
She harrumphed. “Is that a serious question?”
He felt her slide closer, rocking the mattress ever so slightly. She’d been sitting on the edge of the bed, as far from him as her chain would allow. If he were to move at all, he should have risen and put distance between them. Instead, he leaned toward her.
Seemed he couldn’t help himself with her—sorceress!—which meant there never had been anyone more dangerous to him in all the Opalese.
“Yeah, it’s a serious question. I’m not lying to you.”
Not about her brother, he wasn’t.
She barked a laugh as dark as the room. “Yeah, sure. Of course you’re being honest. Why would I expect anything different of the Opalese’s Razer? Or do you prefer Ghalubu?”
“I prefer neither,” he said tightly.
“Then, please, allow me to address you according to your preference, since you’re so deserving of my respect and adulation.”
“I never said anything about adulation.”
“But I’m supposed to respect you? To believe you?”
