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His eyes sparkled. “Oh? And what would that something else be?”
“I’m not unwise to the guiles of males like you. You seduce gullible women to your bed and do as you please.”
With a cough, he laughed, and punched his chest. “Darling,I wasn’t the one straddling someone and tying their hands over their head last night. You seem to have your kinks in order. If I wanted to kiss you, I would have.”
Why was he prodding me? He may have been three hundred years old, but I was not a child. I was a woman. A powerful one with his future in my palm.
With a flick of my wrist, my magic wrapped around his arms.
“What are you doing?” The playful expression faded from his face.
My chest heaved with fury and something else. Turning my hands, I yanked him across the ground until he was right in front of me. “I am not a game, or someone you should take lightly.”
Without flinching, he leaned over, close enough that his face was an inch from mine.“Who in their right mind would want to mingle in your waters when they are infested with man eating sharks? You think I want to be intimate with a psycho who can’t even take a compliment the right way? What do you know of intimacy that makes you think you could spot the difference between it and guile?”
“Intimacy?”
The question jarred me, but he didn’t stop. “You speak like one with experiences, yet I don’t believe you’ve had any. I’d bet my freedom you’ve never even been kissed.”
Heat flared in my cheeks.
“Hmm, well, my little sparrow, let me explain about where we’re going.” He tilted his head, keeping his gaze firmly on my mouth. “Your special abilities are common, not only are the denizens of the outer regions monstrous and deadly, but the city and its civilians are just as dangerous. Your council must see you as expendable because you’re not long for this world. The only chance we have is me. The dark fae use guile and sly words to get what they want. If you want to survive our political battlefield of deception, you need to think like one of us.”
“One of you?”
Bringing his bound hands up to my face, he grasped the bottom of my chin. “We are intimate creatures full of passion and rage. You have much to learn to be one of us.”
“Why? Our deal is already sealed.”
He licked his lips, smirking. “My queen is fickle and intelligent. She bargained something in return for something, and that price was not me.”
“Yes, it was. Our deal—”
“Is irrelevant once we breach her city. If you fail to please Queen Merelda, you’ll never see the surface again.That is if she doesn’t let her pets pull you limb from limb for the sheer entertainment of watching something beautiful die just like you flayed that rabbit.”
Callum could be lying, but I had done my due diligence in researching Queen Merelda and her infamous Starlit City. She was not known for kindness, and humans were forbidden from entering the dark fae kingdom. “What do you get out of this?”
He dropped his hands and held up his palms. “You are in charge of my freedom. You succeed, I get to disappear. No questions asked.”
“The magi expect us to both return with the child. Only after, will you be released.”
He sighed and held up his still tied hands. “We both need to complete this mission, and I don’t see the downside to a little schooling on the dark fae social skills.”
I folded my arms. “I still don’t see the point of this.”
“I do,” his voice softened. “You’ve been sheltered for too long, and my kind will eat you alive. If we’re going to survive this mission, we need to trust one another. You’ll need to blend in because if you can’t you’ll wake up with a dagger in your back.”
Passion, rage, intimacy? These were all emotions I buried, and some I had never experienced. I didn’t quite understand what he meant by intimacy unless he talked about certain relations which I was not going to do.
“What is it?” He sighed. “You look like you’re contemplating something.”
George bleated outside, bringing me back to the present. We’d already wasted too much time. With a snap of my fingers the bonds broke off Callum’s arms. He rubbed his hands together.
“Thank you.” He stood. “Shall we be on our way? The road ahead is quite long.”
I pushed away from him as a wild panic beat against my chest. “I’ll wait outside. Get dressed.”
“I follow your lead.” Callum gave a wave of his hand, letting me by, and I didn’t miss the smirk of his lips.
