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I wanted to tell her to simply trust me, but that would only result in a new wave of arguing. I couldn’t believe I’d ever thought she was unintelligent. She was uninformed, certainly, but far from mindless. Our verbal sparring matches always stoked the unfulfilled tension between us and left me painfully and inexplicably hard, almost as aroused by fighting her as I would be fucking her.
No, This cannot keep fucking happening.I should not be thinking about her like that. Lonnie belonged to Bael, regardless of if he’d ever be able to claim her. All she was meant to be for me was a means to an end. An instrument. Just another tool to be used in my lifelong pursuit of protecting the kingdom.
Unwilling to engage in yet another roundabout verbal battle that would only test the limits of my splintering self-control, I reached for her again.
“What the fuck are you doing?” she yelled.
Ignoring the question, which would soon be self-explanatory, I swung her up into my arms and over my shoulder. I might have used ropes again, but she’d destroyed that image for me. Now, I would never be able to do it without picturing her bound and gagged, naked in my bed. “Every conversation cannot be a fight, rebel.”
It was a plea as much as a statement, but I doubted she heard it as such as she kicked wildly, attempting to free herself from my hold. “You cannot keep doing this!”
Oh, but I could. More importantly, Iwould, now that I’d realized it was far more efficient than trying to persuade her. She already despised me anyway, so it hardly mattered what I did.
I shifted her slightly on my shoulder and clamped one arm down over her flailing legs as I marched determinedly after Cross.
The thieves’ den was long and rectangular, like an underground warehouse repurposed as a meeting space. The ceiling was covered in gleaming copper metal, while the walls were stone and set with wisp lamps every foot or so. The light reflected off the ceiling, giving the whole room a warm glow.
There was a bar set on one end of a wide, rectangular room, nearly identical to the one upstairs, if not slightly better kept. To the left of the bar, crates and barrels were stacked against the wall beside the door where we’d entered. To the right of us, a few small tables and chairs were set up, mostly empty but for a couple of men and one woman playing cards. The sound of fighting echoed off the walls, stemming from the opposite end of the room from the bar, where two people were rolling around in the middle of a roped-off square set up beside a row of weapons racks.
I reached Cross, standing beside the bar, and to his credit, the male said nothing of the screaming woman in my arms, only grinned as he glanced over his shoulder at me. “So what do you think of the new operation?”
“Fine,” I replied grimly. “Nothing will compare to the old barracks, though.”
Cross laughed. “You’ll grow to like this just as much, I promise. Want a drink?”
Lonnie had found a gap in my armor and was now stabbing sharp fingernails into the back of my right arm, but I did my best to ignore her. “This isn’t a social call. I have something important I need to discuss with you.”
That, and I’d just had several drinks already, spurred on by my irrational irritation.
“You never come for a social call. Have the ale, Sci, pretend to be a friend, for once. We just brought in a crate of fawn-made ale from Nevermore. It’s good shit, I tell ya.”
“Don’t tell me that,” I complained. “We tax Nevermore, so you’re really stealing from me.”
“No, I’m stealing from her.” Cross nodded toward Lonnie—what little he could see of her with her ass in the air, legs still trying to kick me in the face. “Anyway, if you ask me, taxes are the real theft.”
“I—fuck!” I exclaimed, surprised as pain shot through my arm. “You bit me.”
“Put me down, you ass,” Lonnie snarled.
“Alright, never mind,” I grumbled to Cross. “Give me the fucking drink.”
“That’s a good man.” Cross chuckled, directing me toward a bar that was nearly identical to that of the one upstairs, if slightly better kept. I deposited Lonnie in the chair nearest the end and sat down to her left, the wall to my back. I leaned back on my stool and rubbed the back of my arm, amazed she’d been able to sink her teeth in so far from that angle.
“What is wrong with you?” Lonnie hissed, practically spitting with anger.
So much.“At the moment? You.”
I could have sworn that feeding her my blood was supposed to make her more amenable, not less. Perhaps I needn’t have concerned myself over it since she seemed completely healthy and angrier than ever.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a woman so unhappy to be here,” Cross said jovially.
He walked around the bar and pulled three bottles out from underneath, sliding one to me and the other to Lonnie. She ignored the bottle, and I only just caught it before it crashed to the floor.
Lonnie scowled. “I met you. I know I did.”
“Stubborn, are we? Perhaps you did, but I am not who you seem to think I am. I have no more time for wars.”
“Too busy?” she sneered.
