17

I’ve never had so much fun.

I dance with several attractive men and two lovely women. I sample the delicious foods on the silver trays. I drink lemonade and a kind of water full of tiny bouncing bubbles that burst on my tongue with every sip. My skin is warm, and my body feels lithe, lovely, and more awake than it has ever been. My shoes pinch a little, but I don’t notice it much.

Sometimes I begin to feel anxious, untethered in a crowd of strangers—but then I focus on the face of my partner, whoever it may be, and I remind myself that I’m no longer a waif in a bloodstained nightgown, wearing a cursed bell. I am Lady Laurelai, and in that role there is both safety and power. Besides which, Krael is here… the Fae who named me. Though he glares and growls, I’m convinced he would defend me if I were in danger. And that knowledge sets me free to enjoy myself, far more than I expected to.

Perhaps part of my enjoyment comes from the spirit of the Mayor’s house. When I touched a doorpost on the way into the ballroom, I felt its gaiety even through the lace of my gloves. This is a glittering, glamorous house—a bawdy, boisterous, carefree house. It thrives on lechery and luxury, feeds off the frenzy of greed and lust swirling through its rooms and corridors. And I give myself to it, a willing sacrifice.

When Nikkai Richter finds me, the gentleman I’m dancing with bows out respectfully, and I slip into Nikkai’s arms, melting with him into the music. He’s an excellent dancer, which is a relief for me. I’ve improved under Krael’s tutelage, and I’ve held my own over the last hour or so, but I’m far from an expert. Each time the song changes, it’s an adjustment.

“How are you enjoying the party?” Nikkai asks.

“Very much.” I smile up at him. “You?”

“We’re celebrated wherever we go, so I’m used to parties. But this one has particular charm.” He winks at me.

Warmth floods my cheeks. “I find you charming as well.”

“Is that so?” he murmurs. “Well then… perhaps we should find a quiet place to get to know each other a little better.”

Krael said I lack sexual experience. That’s why he won’t touch me. Perhaps if I gain a little of that experience, he’ll give in to his obvious desire for me. Besides, if Nikkai and I are alone, if we become more intimate, perhaps I can get some useful information about his strategies for hunting and capturing Fae.

So I give him a sly smile, and I nod.

Delighted lust leaps into his eyes. We continue to dance, but he slowly steers us toward an arch, then into a quiet hallway with low lighting and several cushioned benches at discreet intervals. We settle onto one of the benches, and he wastes no time slipping his hand around the back of my neck and drawing me in for a kiss.

His mouth is warm, salty, and delicious. He’s not demanding or forceful. The kiss doesn’t alarm me—instead, I find myself softening all over, leaning into the sensual luxury of it.

Still, I was hoping for something… more. Something dramatic, powerful, passionate. This kiss is merely comfortable and pleasant, like a trickle of spring rain when you crave a sweeping thunderstorm. Not that I’ve seen either of those weather phenomena with my own eyes—but I’ve always liked storms better. I could hear them clearly from inside the cabin, and I could imagine how wild, ferocious, and free they were, compared to the tame pitter-patter of a gentle rain.

I give myself more deeply to the kiss, trying to awaken the passionate tempest I feel when I’m near Krael. But even with my tongue in the Fae-hunter’s mouth, all I can picture is Krael, handsome and magnificent in his new suit, frowning down at me with his arms crossed.

I demanded the truth from him, so I should be honest with myself.

The only person I want to be kissing is Krael. No one else will do.

I lean back, gently ending the kiss.

Nikkai smiles and strokes my cheek. “So enchanting. You have a unique kind of beauty. And when I call you beautiful, you must know that I mean it with all my heart, because I’ve seen the beauty of the Fae, and your loveliness could rival theirs.”

A warning twinges through my mind, and my suspicious nature awakens. He’s taking the flattery a bit too far. How many Fae can he really have encountered, if he didn’t recognize it when one of them shook his hand? Krael is by far the most beautiful being I have ever seen, and I don’t understand how these humans can look at him and not guess his nature instantly. Perhaps it’s part of the glamour he uses when he’s among them. Maybe it does more than alter the shape of his ears.

“Oh yes! The Mayor said you’re a Fae-hunter,” I exclaim, as if I’m just now remembering it. “How did you get into this line of work? Isn’t it dangerous?”

“Of course it’s dangerous.” He sits up straighter, his chest swelling slightly. He’s pleased by my tone of admiration. “But I have a personal stake in seeing that any Fae who visit our world are dealt with quickly. You see, my sister was stolen by the Fae.”

“How dreadful,” I murmur.

“Yes, it was. The day before her disappearance, we were warned about the presence of Fae in the woods. A peddler stopped by our house for refuge. He claimed he saw the monsters with his own eyes—naked Fae with horns, roasting a human child on the fire while they danced. My parents weren’t sure whether to believe him. They thought he’d smoked bad antler-weed. They gave him a bed and some tea, and they tried to calm him down. He left the next morning, and sometime that afternoon my sister was kidnapped by the Fae. She was only six years old.”

Six years old.

A blazing chill seizes my body, and my mind snaps back to the earliest memory I have—the memory of a burly man with a brightly-painted peddler’s cart, smiling at me and coaxing me closer with a stick of caramel candy. I recognized him, trusted him, accompanied him without question when he promised we would go into town, buy some delicious cakes, then return to my house in the evening. Of course, we never did return. Two days later I entered his cabin and became “Little Sister.”

All my prior memories are a vague blur—impressions rather than recollections. As if my mind mercifully blotted out the remembrance of the life I could never get back .

“Are you quite alright?” Nikkai rubs my shoulder. “It’s a terrible tale, I know. Perhaps too shocking for a young lady such as yourself.”

“Are you sure it was the Fae who took her?” I manage to ask.

He frowns slightly. “Of course it was. The next day my father found outlandish symbols carved into some of the trees at the edge of our property, and there were signs of a bonfire.”

“And the, um… the peddler… Do you remember what he looked like?”

“Oh yes. He came by our house every year after that to bring us fine trinkets. He still visits my parents. And he sold me my first iron dagger. He’s a big fellow, dark hair, with an owl tattoo on his neck, just here.” He taps the front of his throat.

My ribcage feels like it’s tightening around my lungs. Another moment, and I won’t be able to breathe. “He… he visits your family every year?”

“Yes. He was distraught to learn about my sister’s disappearance, and he gave my mother a lovely set of wind chimes which have been a comfort to her ever since.”

“And where did you grow up?” My voice is a weak, cracked thing. I barely recognize it.

“Northern Visseland, outside Beirfeld, a couple days’ journey from the Gutland Fjord. Are you sure you’re alright? You’re looking rather pale. Something you ate, perhaps?”

I have a right to be pale, given that I just kissed my brother .

I can see the similarities between us now. Our hair is exactly the same shade of brown, and our eyes are wide and dark, with the same thick black lashes, the same slight droop to the outer corners of the eyelids, giving us an innocent, mournful look.

My stomach revolts suddenly, bile surging up the back of my throat.

“I’m going to be sick,” I gasp .

“Oh gods,” he exclaims. “Probably the crab puffs. I always say, never eat shellfish if you live too far inland. There’s no way to be sure it was stored and handled safely on its journey from the sea. The privy is right down that hall, on the left.”

I leap up and race away from him, locating the privy and bolting the door.

My knees hit the tile and I vomit into the porcelain toilet. It’s the finest toilet I’ve ever seen—so glossy and white that I hate to soil it—but its purpose is to accept waste, after all.

Even when I’m done spilling all the fine food I ate, I stay on my knees, gripping the rim of the toilet, shaking uncontrollably. A cold sweat moistens my forehead and back.

I’m the girl Nikkai spoke of, the sister who was stolen. I was taken, not by the Fae, but by the deceitful peddler with the owl tattoo. All the pieces fit.

He’s my brother.

This is too strange and cruel to be mere chance. This is a trick of Fate, of the god-stars, of whoever the fuck likes to play with mortals’ lives.

As I kneel there, gripping the toilet, I feel a surge of sinister fascination from the Mayor’s house—a dark and merciless greed focused on me. And that’s when I realize another startling truth—this house doesn’t only thrive on pleasure. It devours pain. Beneath the glitz and glamour, there’s a creeping corruption, a sadistic hunger infused into the very walls, floors, and beams. I’m not sure if the mansion has absorbed that personality from the people who frequent it, or if its malevolent nature influences those who enter to perform the most reckless, ruinous deeds of their lives; but one thing is sure—this mansion is a devourer of misery and chaos. It likes having me here, on my knees, crushed by what I’ve discovered. I can almost picture its eagerness, its slavering jaws widening to swallow my misery.

I rise hastily from the floor. The change of position doesn’t eliminate my sense of the mansion’s aura, but the effect is less strong when I’m upright, not in such close contact with it. With the mansion’s influence lessened, I can think more clearly.

Should I tell Nikkai I’m his sister? No… I can’t, because then he would have questions about how I escaped my captor, where the bastard is now, and why I lied about my origins. Answering those questions could endanger Krael.

Besides, if Nikkai knows I’m his sister, he might want me to come home with him. Which I can’t possibly do, because I have a life with Krael and the monsters. I have a connection to the house. I have a job as a maid for Krampus.

On the other hand, it might be nice to live a normal life as a human. Back at the house I don’t even have my own room. I spend most of my time cleaning out decades’ worth of clutter and grime, doing laundry—

At the thought of laundry, I frantically check the bodice of my gown. Thank the gods I leaned over far enough when I threw up—the lovely dress doesn’t seem to be soiled.

My lacy gloves are another story. They’re flecked with drops of vomit, so I strip them off and drop them in the waste basket next to the toilet.

Once I leave this bathroom, I must find a way to occupy Nikkai while keeping him at arms’ length for the rest of the night. When I think of the kiss we shared, I feel queasy again. I’m glad it didn’t escalate further between us. Not that I could have pursued anything more, with the image of Krael’s handsome, disapproving face in my head.

Someone raps on the door, and I call out, “One moment!” Quickly I rinse out my mouth, take a mint from the dish by the sink, and crush it to powder between my teeth.

Clutching the rim of the sink, I fight another surge of tears. My breath comes in such violent gasps that I begin to see stars winking here and there across my field of vision.

Pull yourself together, I scream inwardly. Play the role. Wear your mask, Feather. Stop this, right now .

I give myself to the count of five, during which time I manage to regulate my breathing and scrape together some semblance of composure. Then I emerge from the privy with a curtsy and a smile to the woman waiting outside. She lifts her eyebrows at the sight of my gloveless hands, but she doesn’t comment.

I’ve only taken a few steps down the hallway when someone grabs my elbow and an annoyed male voice growls, “My lady.”

My stomach thrills at Krael’s voice, then thrills again as his tall, broad-shouldered form moves in beside me.

I want to tell him everything. I want to fling myself against his broad chest and sob into his beautiful shirt while he holds me safe. I want to confess that the Fae-hunter hired to kill him is my long-lost brother, my own flesh and blood, part of my past and my family. But I can’t make myself say any of it—not here. If I try to speak of it, I will shatter entirely.

“What are you doing out here?” Krampus says under his breath. “I thought you were dancing with Lord Asslicker in the ballroom.”

“I was,” I reply. “I felt sick, so I went to the privy.”

“And how are you feeling now?” He glares ferociously, as if that will conceal the concern in his tone. It doesn’t, and I love him for not being able to hide that note of tenderness.

I… love him…

Gods, I’m fucked.

I release a long, slow breath. “I’m fine.”

“Good. I’ve checked Nikkai’s room, but I almost got caught. I need you to come with me to the room of the other hunter, Abil.”

“Why?”

“Because if I do get caught in one of the bedrooms, I need a good excuse for being there. ”

I blink at him. My mind has just undergone a cataclysmic shift, and I don’t understand what he means. I simply don’t have the extra space in my brain to figure it out.

Krael sighs, exasperated, and escorts me farther along the hallway, explaining under his breath. “At these parties, it’s normal for couples to slip away to find some privacy so they can kiss, grope, and fuck at their leisure. I’ll take you upstairs, and if anyone asks why we’re in Abil’s room, we’ll pretend we were involved in salacious activities. Do you understand?”

“I think so.”

“Salacious means sexual.”

“I’ve got it, thanks.”

“Good. This way.” He steers me toward a staircase. A group of four guests round the corner, laughing over some joke. Krael props me against the wall, presses his lips to my temple, and strokes my bare shoulders while they pass.

At his warm touch, I nearly fracture into helpless pieces. I’m a half-second from exploding into a sobbing mess in his arms. But I manage to stay rigidly still, desperately holding myself together.

Once the other guests have gone, Krael frowns thunderously. “Are you still angry with me?”

“Yes,” I say, hoping that will serve as sufficient explanation for any strangeness in my behavior tonight.

He doesn’t apologize, but he looks slightly repentant. “Fair enough. But try to act as if you like me a little. We’re supposedly sneaking away to fuck, after all.”

“I’ll try,” I grit out between clenched teeth. “It’s difficult.”

“You met the fine Nikkai Richter and you hate me now, is that it?” His tone is dry, but there’s an undercurrent of hurt in it. And that angers me, because I’m suffering, yet he expects me to pacify his vanity. To be fair, he doesn’t know I’m suffering—but my sore heart latches onto him as a handy target for my roiling emotions .

“Yes,” I hear myself saying bitterly. “I hate you.”

“Perfect,” he snaps. “That will make everything easier.”

We climb the stairs together, and when we pass another group of guests I give Krael a feigned look of adoration. He escorts me through the upstairs hallways to a varnished oaken door, at which he listens for a moment before opening it and hustling me into the room.

There’s a lamp burning low, and he turns it up slightly while I hesitate by the door.

“You have to stand beside me while I search,” he whispers sharply. “If someone comes in and finds you standing all the way across the room while I have my hands in a drawer, we won’t have a convincing excuse to offer. Come here .”

Annoyed by his tone, I approach sulkily. I still feel sick to my stomach. Now that we’re alone, I have a chance to tell him about Nikkai. But I can’t make up my mind to do it. I don’t know how he’ll react. He might say, “Wonderful! No need to live with me any longer. Off you go to your real family.”

The thought of living with a family I’ve never met terrifies me. I don’t know what sort of people they are. If they abhor magic and the Fae as much as my brother does, we might not get along at all.

How would they react if they knew that I can connect with actual buildings? Would they fear and despise me?

Is family really that vital to happiness, anyway? Isn’t it simply a collection of people playing the roles Fate dealt them—rather like my companions in the cabin?

“Feather.” Krampus peers into my face. “What’s wrong?”

“Thinking,” I reply.

“Think later. Be ready to make a convincing show in case anyone pops in.” He clears his throat. “We should mess up each other’s hair a little and pull our clothes to the side a bit… and you should sit on top of the dresser while I search it. ”

“Alright, but I’m not sure I can climb up there with this gown—oh!” I gasp as his hands close around my waist and he lifts me onto the dresser.

“Now…” He licks his lips, careful not to let too much of his tongue slither out. “May I touch you? I mean… may I adjust your clothing for the purposes of this ruse?”

But all I hear is, May I touch you?

The question is like a healing tonic offered to a diseased soul. Right now I feel dirty—befouled by the kiss with my brother, violated by the house’s desire for my pain. I need a cleansing touch. I want the grime cleared from my soul. I want to be held, calmed, tethered to something powerful and steady. I need Krael’s strong hands, his muscled arms, his solid body, or else I might drift away and be lost forever in a void of pain and uncertainty.

“Yes, you may touch me,” I whisper.

“Very well.” He moves closer, and I automatically part my legs so he fits between them, his hips nested in the voluminous skirts of my gown.

Krael speaks casually, as if we’re discussing food choices at the market. “If I had just kissed you, I probably would have held your head like this, and loosened the pins a little.” His fingers slide into my hair just behind my ear, gliding around to cup the back of my head. His nails graze my scalp lightly as he pulls me toward him.

Our mouths hover a breath apart, and it’s agonizing. I hope the nearness of our lips is as great a torture for him as it is for me. And if we’re playing this game, I refuse to let him make all the moves. So I sink my fingers into his braided hair, pulling some tendrils loose. “And I might have done this .”

“Of course. And if we were kissing, your lip stain would be smeared.” He cups my chin and drags his thumb slowly across my mouth. My lips part, letting the tip of his thumb slip between them .

I don’t miss the way his pupils dilate, or the slight quickening of his breath.

“Some of the stain should be on you as well.” I swipe my fingertip over my mouth and rub the rosy tint onto his soft, smooth lips.

His tone is still an attempt at nonchalance, but it’s quieter, gentler… deeper. “If I were truly groping you, I would place my hand just here.”

He cups my breast, warm palm and strong fingers… and I lose every thought that ever existed in my head. I can’t remember any trauma or terror; all I know is the heat of his hand as he feels the shape of my breast.

A thrill passes through my body. “Yes,” I manage. “That makes sense.”

“And having touched you there,” he continues, a faint tremor in his voice, “I would not be able to resist tugging down this tempting neckline, just a little.”

“That’s only logical,” I breathe.

His fingertips nudge beneath the neckline of the bodice, grasping one cup of the corset as well. He tugs my clothing lower, slowly, until one of my nipples pops out.

“This would be more sharply peaked and a bit reddened,” he says hoarsely. “For the purposes of the scene we’re portraying.”

“It has to look real,” I agree, my heart racing. Is he going to—fuck, I think I might unravel completely into a million anguished threads—

He bends. Takes my nipple in his mouth and sucks gently for a moment, while heat swells between my legs.

It’s all I can do not to cry out. Touch me, hold me, I need more of you, please…

With a final lick to the rosy circle around my nipple, he straightens. “Perfect. And now to explore the contents of this dresser. ”

I sit motionless, abandoned, with my breast bared and arousal pooling between my thighs, while he opens one drawer after another. If he moves any items, he replaces them exactly as they were.

My entire soul is begging for him to hold me, screaming so loudly I feel as though he must be able to hear it. My need for contact, for comfort, has never been so excruciating as now, but I can’t make myself ask him to help me, to care . So I remain motionless and silent.

But Krael becomes more flushed with every drawer he inspects, until at last he growls, “Can’t you control yourself at all?”

“I’m sitting perfectly still.”

“Your scent ,” he snarls. “The luscious fucking scent of that wetness between your legs.”

My face grows hotter. “I can’t help it.”

He glances up, his green eyes luminous and daring. “You want me that badly?”

After the emotional torment of this night, I may not have much pride left, but the little I have won’t let me admit how violently I crave him.

“Anyone would be aroused if a handsome Fae sucked their nipple,” I counter. “And you should control yourself —your eyes are beginning to glow.”

“Fuck.” He closes them briefly, then opens them again and continues his search.

When he finishes with the dresser, he snatches another glance at my exposed breast before meeting my eyes. “I need to check under the bed. Stand by the bedpost.”

I’m about to obey, but as he moves to the opposite side of the bed and bends to look under the mattress, muffled footsteps thump in the hallway just outside the door .

I seize Krael and pull him down to the floor behind the bed, where we’re both concealed from anyone who might enter. He lies face-up beneath me while I’m draped along his body.

In this position, with my crotch positioned directly over his, I can feel the immense, rock-hard length in his pants. We’re nose to nose, and I meet his gaze with a triumphant glare. How dare he comment on my arousal when his is just as obvious?

He won’t hold my gaze. He averts his eyes, swallowing hard.

The door opens, and leather-heeled shoes clack on the hardwood briefly. There’s a thump, possibly from the books on the desk, and then the footsteps retreat and the door closes.

I start to move, expecting Krael to order me off him immediately. But his hands close on my upper arms with a convulsive grip, holding me in place.

Startled, I look down at his striking face, into his green eyes. He’s gazing at me with a visceral, compelling hunger that makes my heart race.

He looks as if he might kiss me. It’s what I want, and it’s also the thing that frightens me the most.

So I say something terribly stupid. “I kissed Nikkai. Or… he kissed me, and then I kissed him back.”

His features harden into exquisite stone, but his eyes fracture. “Do you want him?”

“You said I need experience…”

“So you thought you’d jump on the dick of the first man who wanted to bed you?”

His scornful tone angers me. I roll my hips, grinding against his cock, and he sucks in a sharp breath and exhales a soft, agonized, “Fuck.”

“He’s not the only one who wants to bed me,” I hiss.

“Anyone would be aroused if a beautiful woman sat astride their hips.” He’s lashing out, mimicking my earlier words and tone. “It means nothing. You mean nothing. ”

His face changes the second he speaks those last words, as if he realizes he has made a grave mistake. As if he betrayed himself.

I climb off him immediately and walk to the window. The curtains are drawn, so I can’t see outside, but I stand there staring at them anyway. Pretending there’s a view, like I used to do back at the cabin.

I hear him rise from the floor. “Feather… that’s not what I meant to say.”

It mollifies me a little that he regrets the words so suddenly and completely, but they still stung, and I’m not ready to forgive him just yet. I spent years forgiving easily, being so dependent on someone that I’d overlook their most terrible flaws as long as I could be safe. I refuse to do that anymore.

“Maybe I’ll go where I’m wanted,” I say.

“What does that mean?” He sounds exasperated. “You have nowhere else to go.”

“Actually I do. My family home.”

“You remembered something about them?”

“No, but Nikkai told me a strange story tonight.” I repeat the conversation, along with his description of the peddler, which elicits a low “shit” from Krael.

“You can’t kill him now,” I say, turning around. “He could be my only family.”

Krael’s expression is serious, but he arches an eyebrow. “And you kissed him.”

“ Before I knew we might be related,” I retort. “And I had to throw up afterward. But I could confess the truth to him now… or part of the truth. I could say that my captor finally died and that I escaped. I could leave you out of it.”

Krael shakes his head. “You can’t live with Nikkai. He’s a wretched snake who hates my kind. Most Fae-hunters are charlatans anyway. When business is slow, they invent ‘signs’ of Fae activity and then profit off the backs of peasants by making the local lords pay exorbitant sums for protection.”

“Nikkai takes legitimate jobs. Like this one,” I retort. “And why aren’t you congratulating me? I thought you’d be happy that I found my true family.”

“Not if your family includes Fae-hunters!” he exclaims in a half-whisper. “They’re dangerous, especially for a human with magical affinities, like your connection to the house.”

He’s repeating the same reservations I had, but somehow his protest only makes me angrier, especially when he draws himself up to his full height and declares, “I forbid you to live with Nikkai. You’re my maid.”

Part of me wants to submit meekly, as I used to. But I’ve gained confidence over the past several weeks.

“You can’t tell me what to do,” I snap.

“I can when you’re being a little fool.”

“If you try to control my life, you’re just like him .”

We both know who I mean. The man in the cabin. My captor.

Krael bares his teeth. They look human at the moment—no Faerie fangs. Yet somehow he radiates a ferocious savagery that almost makes me step back. I have to fight my instinct to flee.

“I am nothing like that bastard.” He advances, tall and violently beautiful, a commanding presence that snatches the breath right out of my lungs. “My goal isn’t self-serving. I only intend to protect you.”

“He said that too,” I reply. “He used to say that the outside world was terrible, and that the cabin was the only safe place for me.”

Krael looms over me, his fists clenched as if he’s trying to restrain himself, trying not to frighten me. His voice is quiet, yet so intense it shakes me to my very bones. “The world is wretched, yes. But it’s also wonderful. Meeting you reminded me of that. I was beginning to feel like a machine, a thing of gears and clockwork moving dully from one task to the next. Even when I sought pleasure between kills, I found little satisfaction. It all felt like a hollow ritual, endless and inescapable. But now…” His eyes shine intensely bright, vividly green. “Now I suffer from one all-consuming need.”

His nearness, his heat, the primal dominance of his body—it’s more than I can bear. My survival instinct kicks me in the gut and sends me darting away from him, into the corner of the room by the wardrobe.

He springs after me so fast that I utter a faint shriek right before his hand clamps over my mouth.

“Don’t run from me,” he whispers. “I will chase you if you do. I can’t help it. It’s part of my nature.”

His lean, powerful frame overwhelms my slender one. His nose drifts against my hair and he inhales slowly, while I stay perfectly still. My nerves are thrumming with panic, but it’s not the stone-cold fear I felt in the cabin. This is a heady, dazzling, wild feeling that wavers between wanting to run and wanting to be captured, mauled, devoured. I’m a mad doe willingly standing in the snare of the hunter, trembling for the deadly touch of his hand.

My very skin screams to be soothed and swept by his palms, molded by his fingers. I want him with a madness I barely comprehend. If he doesn’t touch me I think I might crack open my own ribcage, climb out of my body, and fly away shrieking into the night, a soul who perished from sheer unrequited yearning.

So I do the only thing that I know will make him touch me. I attack him, my small fists flailing against his chest.

He chuckles lightly as his warm hands close around my wrists. “You think you can hurt me with these little fingers?”

I buck against the hold, my body arching against his, and he instinctively moves closer, pushing me to the wall .

I can’t restrain a tiny smile of satisfaction at the success of my plan. He sees my expression and presses in tighter.

The firmness of him all along my body soothes me so deeply that I release a sob of frenzied relief. But I crave more—his bare hands on my naked skin. His lips on mine. The force of his lust tearing me out of myself, embracing my soul, swallowing it up in the storm of his strength.

I rise on my toes, seeking his mouth, but he rears back, just out of reach. Embarrassed, frustrated, on the verge of tears, I turn my face aside. I don’t understand why he keeps rejecting me. It hurts.

A tear slips from my lashes. Rolls down my cheek.

“Feather.” He murmurs the name he gave me. “The Fae never say they’re sorry. Never , do you understand?”

I nod, more tears flowing down my cheeks.

He continues speaking, low and urgent, a repressed passion suffusing each word. “I’m telling you this so you will understand what it costs me to say it—I am beyond sorry. I lied when I said you mean nothing to me. It’s the opposite, in fact. I can’t seem to think about anything else, or want anyone else. I’m cruel and selfish to tell you this, to even open this door between us, because there is no happiness in it for you, no future that a human girl like you could want or need. But I cannot bear for you to believe that I meant those words, when you have taken a heart as cold and wicked as mine, and brought it back to life.”

He leans in and licks my tears, his tongue sweeping from my jawline up to my lower lashes. Then he licks again, tenderly, right at the corner of my mouth.

My lips part as I turn back toward him, and his tongue slithers into my mouth.

He kisses me with a fervent hum of glorious relief, and I greet him with a sharp, aching whimper. He releases my wrists, wraps both arms around my body, and lifts me against the wall. I cinch my legs and arms around him instantly, tightly, determined not to let him change his mind.

My bones are crying for him, my lungs are yearning for his breath, my skin is scorched with the need for his touch. Touch me everywhere, everywhere…

As if he understands, he drags his hands over my breasts, down my sides. He cups my rear, then runs a hand along one of my legs where it’s arched, locked around his waist. He shoves the skirts of my gown up, hunting beneath them until he finds the edge of my stockings and panties.

“I can’t do this with you here,” he breathes heavily against my mouth, his forehead rocking against mine.

“No.” I shake my head. “But yes .”

He chuckles hoarsely. “You want me to fuck you? When someone could enter this room at any moment?”

I hesitate, thinking of the other women he has bedded. The ones who meant nothing to him but a good time.

I clasp his face between my hands. “If we have sex, will you be done with me afterwards?”

A wicked tenderness threads through his laugh. “Fuck no. I won’t be done with you for ages.”

Goosebumps flood my skin at that pronouncement. I can’t be sure that he means it, but he seems to believe it.

“Fuck me, then,” I tell him. “But first, would you… lick me… there?”

His smile turns wicked. “Where?”

A hectic flush scorches my cheeks, and I glance away. He takes my chin in his hand, pulls me back to face him. “Where, Feather?”

“Between my legs,” I whisper.

“Never be afraid to tell me what you need.” And with that, he sets me down and drops to his knees. He lifts up the skirts of my gown and disappears beneath them .

I feel him peeling down my stockings, then dragging my panties down my legs. He shifts me into a wider stance, and then…

His long, long tongue ripples against my pussy, starting at the front and slithering all the way between my legs, until the very tip of it flicks near my asshole. He withdraws the tongue in a fluid glide that rubs every piercing he possesses along the lips of my pussy and over my clit. I cry out, my thighs trembling uncontrollably at the sensation.

I hear him chuckle beneath the muffling layers of skirts, and then his tongue squirms over my pussy again… only this time, its rippling length nudges between the lips of my sex and penetrates my slit, probing deep inside me.

I’m so wet that the beautiful thickness of that pierced tongue glides in easily, and I feel every inch as it coils and quivers within me. There’s a brief moment of tension, a flicker of pain as he presses through a momentary resistance deep in my body, but I’m distracted from that tiny discomfort by the hot, soft press of his lips. His mouth is wide open against my pussy while his tongue flexes inside me.

I’ve never experienced anything like it. I’m galvanized to the wall, my skirts draped over the head and torso of the Fae male whose tongue is surging and swirling inside my belly. Every pulse of that tongue elicits a new wave of hot, quivering pleasure.

Why do I feel like I need something to hold, something to pull, something to anchor me? I’m straining, striving for a goal I don’t know how to reach, and yet he’s dragging me toward it in spite of myself. His tongue withdraws halfway, part of it still flexing inside while the thickest part undulates against my clit.

“I don’t know what to do,” I gasp. “I can’t, I can’t… I need—”

As if he understands, his hand appears from beneath my skirts, and I grip it with all my strength .

He withdraws his tongue entirely for a moment and I moan at the unfulfilled emptiness between my legs. But he only pauses to look up, his face alight and his lips wet, and he says, “Don’t fight it, Feather. Let yourself come. Give in to me.”

“I can’t.” I shake my head. “I don’t know how.”

“You can ,” he insists. “Grip my hand, trust me, and let me take you over the edge.”

I nod, whimpering, and he disappears from my view once more. I grasp his fingers and brace my other hand against the wardrobe beside me. When his tongue rushes into my center again, I almost scream, but I swallow the sound, because the last thing I want is for someone to burst into the room and interrupt this .

His tongue thrusts into me, rolls against my sex, drives the stimulation to shrieking heights, to an unbearable crest. White-hot flashes of need sear through my body—and then, with a violent squeeze of his hand and a slam of my palm against the wardrobe, the coiling blaze bursts , culminates in a stunning, shattering, blinding explosion of the keenest ecstasy I have ever felt.

I can’t make a sound. I can only strain, and spasm, and sink my nails into his hand, while jagged blades of pure pleasure raze my whole body.

His tongue strokes me down, settles me until I can breathe again. When he emerges from beneath my gown, I nearly collapse, but he catches me, props me against the wall, and holds me there with his heat, his presence. He kisses my cheek and murmurs words I don’t understand, either because my brain is too addled with bliss, or because they’re in some language of Faerie.

Yes, it must be a Fae language, because after a few seconds, my brain registers a glow seeping from between the doors of the wardrobe.

“Krael,” I gasp, nodding toward the light. “Krael, look. ”

He twists around. “By the god-stars, there we have it. They possess some device that reacts to trollish words, of all things.” He kisses me hard on the mouth—a ferocious, glorious, soul-sucking kind of kiss—then pulls my panties and stockings back up before arranging my skirts in their proper place. “Forgive me for not fucking you properly just yet,” he whispers hoarsely, making me shiver with delicious anticipation. “I promise I will fuck you brainless once we’re home. But you must allow me a little time.”

Weakly, I nod.

Krael opens the wardrobe, moves aside a stack of clothes, and takes out a box. Vivid blue light streams through its keyhole. After fiddling in the lock with two of my hairpins and muttering something that sounds like a spell, he finally gets it open.

Inside the box are trays and compartments full of strange-looking objects, as well as a rack of tiny, jewel-colored glass bottles. The blue glow comes from an oddly shaped crystal.

“Shit,” he whispers. “These are no charlatans or pretenders. See that compass? Those markings? It’s designed either to track Fae or to indicate the presence of powerful spells. It could find the house.”

“Can you break it?”

He touches its surface tentatively, but his hand springs back as if the object burned him. “This isn’t just made of iron—it’s been charmed against my kind. I can’t touch it. And I doubt it will be easy to destroy.”

I reach past him and pick up the small compass. It doesn’t react to me at all. “At least we can take it away from them.” I tuck it into the bodice of my dress. “Anything else that looks particularly dangerous?”

He points out a couple more artifacts, including the crystal, whose blue glow has almost faded. While I find places to hide the objects in my clothing, he empties the bottles into the fire, one by one, then closes the box and puts it back where it was, under the stack of clothes.

“We can’t be caught here now,” says Krael under his breath. “Come on. We’ll go out to the garden. There’s something we need to discuss before we leave.”

He leads me from the room, then out of the house by a back stairway. The cold hits me like a bracing slap to the face, waking me out of the sensual stupor I’ve been in since he kissed me. And with the waking comes the crushing weight of remembrance—my brother, my family, my captor.

It makes me sick that my kidnapper visited my family over and over. I can imagine them welcoming him like any other traveling peddler, accepting his gifts, buying his wares, sharing meals with him while I scrubbed the blood of murdered women from the floors of his cabin.

For a moment, I think I’m going to be sick again, but I manage to quell the nausea with a few lungfuls of fresh, cold air.

Krael leads me deeper into the garden, between evergreen hedges dotted with bright red berries, beneath stone arches laden with snow. In a small courtyard, by the side of a frozen fountain, he halts and looks up at the black, star-sprinkled arch of the night sky.

“I wish they would tell me what to do,” he says, and I know he means the god-stars.

“Why are we out here, Krael?” I ask him, rubbing my chilled arms. “We can’t stay here long. I don’t have my cloak.”

“I know.” He turns to me. “There is something we must discuss without the risk of being overheard. And I want to give you a choice, since you’ve had precious few of those in your lifetime. The Fae-hunters are a threat, Feather. Maybe not an immediate one, since we’ve destroyed some of their potions and stolen their supplies… but at most that will be a setback, not a deterrent.”

“So let’s move the house. ”

“It’s more complicated than that. You’re not an eldritch creature, and you’re not Fae—you’re human. You can’t be in the house while it’s being moved—you wouldn’t survive the process. Which means to move the house, I would have to leave you behind.”

Dread curls icy fingers around my spine. “You could always come back and fetch me after you’ve moved to a new spot.”

But he shakes his head. “I’ll have to move it to another part of this world. And my geistfyre has a limited range. You’d be too far away.”

My heart plummets into depths as vast as the Void. “What else can we do?”

“I could kill both of the Fae-hunters. Tonight.”

“But one is my brother.”

“But one is your brother.” He nods gravely. “And no doubt they are well-armed, even beneath those fine clothes. They might end up getting the best of me.”

“Don’t risk it, then.” I can’t bear to think of them killing him. He came too close to death once already.

His eyes soften, shining a luminous green in his pale, handsome face. Those eyes, and his height, and his beauty are the only signs that he isn’t human.

“There may be other spells for illusion or concealment that I can try, to keep them from locating the house,” he says. “None of them are guaranteed to work. If they find it, they can disable my geistfyre, poison the house’s energy, burn it with fire—any number of destructive things. And they won’t stop until they’re sure I’m dead.”

“So… we’re fucked,” I whisper.

“Seems so.” He pulls off his tailcoat and wraps it around me. I welcome the heat, but my shivers are more than physical cold. They stem from a bone-deep fear that I’m going to lose the strange new family I just found.

“You can’t leave me behind,” I tell him. “You can’t. ”

“You think I want to?” His fists curl tight and his voice is strained, with an underlying vehemence that startles and pleases me. “You have become my fucking reason for existence. You think I could bear to be parted from you? I’d sooner cut out my own heart.”

I love the passionate violence of those words. I knew he was holding back his emotions, but I didn’t realize how much.

“We have time,” I say. “A little time to think about it. Don’t we?”

“Time.” He draws in a long, shuddering breath. “Yes, we can take some time.”

“As you said, we’ve set them back by destroying and stealing their supplies. You could always kill them later, if you have to.”

“Yes,” he murmurs. “After all, you and I have unfinished business. There are still secrets you must confess to me, and I did promise to punish you, if you desire it.”

The way he says punish doesn’t terrify me, because it’s accompanied by a lascivious lash of his tongue and a brighter glow in his eyes. My clit flutters with anticipation, even though I’m not sure what kind of punishment he’s planning… or whether he’ll still want me after I’ve told him my darkest secret.

“Let’s go, then,” I urge him. “The sooner we leave, the sooner we get these objects away from the hunters.”

“We’ll have to leave the way we came. Using geistfyre this close to a pair of Fae-hunters would be infinitely foolish. Give me a moment to collect myself, and then we’ll bid farewell to our host and call for our carriage.”

He walks a few steps away from me and bends over, hands on his thighs, breathing deeply. When he straightens again, his eyes are no longer glowing.

On the way back through the house, we almost encounter Nikkai, but Krael spots him in time and we steer clear. The Mayor is in the smoking room of the house, sprawled on a huge sofa, entangled with two plump, silk-clad women and a slim, shirtless young man. Krael compliments the Mayor on the party and makes some excuse about me feeling sick.

“She does look wretched,” comments the Mayor, at which I bristle slightly. “Take good care of her, eh, Brandt?” He winks.

“Always, sir.” Krael bows deeply.

We hurry to claim our cloaks, then stand on the mansion’s steps waiting for our carriage. I start sweating despite the cold, because one of the charmed objects I tucked into my underwear feels like it’s going to slip out and fall to the ground at any second. But perhaps the god-stars are smiling on us, because I manage to climb into the carriage without any mishap.

Once the door is closed, Krael pounds on the front wall of the vehicle and it rattles away from the Mayor’s house.

“Shut the curtains,” I say. “I need to readjust some things.”

He obliges, but once the curtains are drawn, the interior of the carriage is pitch black. I drop the blue stone, but since it’s no longer glowing, I can’t find it on the floor.

“Shit,” I exclaim. “Where did it go?”

A moment later, yellow light bathes the carriage interior. Krael is holding his hand palm up, and above it floats a small, glowing orb.

“What is that?” I gasp.

“The Fae can conjure these for light,” he says. “I don’t usually need to, since the house takes care of its own lighting. But occasionally the ability is useful.”

I can’t stop staring at the tiny golden orb of light. “Magic,” I breathe reverently.

He chuckles. “You’ve seen me do magic. Geistfyre, glamours…”

“But not like this . This is… beautiful.”

“This is commonplace,” he says, low. “ You are beautiful.”

“I’m not,” I whisper. “I’m too pale, too small, too strange… ”

“Stop.” He lets the orb float to the carriage ceiling while he leans forward, glaring at me intensely. “You have fucking bewitched me, woman. Every flaw of yours turns to glory in my eyes and makes you dearer to me than any other being in the universe.”

We’re sitting opposite each other on the carriage benches, our knees nearly touching, yet suddenly the space between my body and his seems ridiculous and extreme. I want to lunge toward him, but I hesitate, still half-afraid of rejection.

He must notice my hesitation, because his expression shifts, haunted with pain. “You’ve come to your senses, perhaps, and realized why you shouldn’t want me. Very wise of you. I tried to be wise, too… I promised myself I wouldn’t touch you, and yet I was foolishly weak tonight. I took advantage of your sadness and confusion to indulge my own lust. I confessed my feelings without pausing to see if you returned them. It was unforgivable of me, and it won’t happen again. You can have my room tonight. I’ll sleep elsewhere.”

I squeeze my hands into fists. It takes every bit of willpower I possess to keep from flinging myself at him and kissing away his doubts; but if I touch him, I’ll lose the ability to form rational thoughts. And before that happens, there’s something I need to say. Something that will reassure him.

“You were never wanted.” I spill the naked truth into the air between us. “Your mother didn’t want you, and neither did the trolls. I suspect you never quite fit in with the Seelie, and then you became this . Even the humans who want you only crave your beauty. They don’t understand everything you are, and if they did, their craving would turn to revulsion.”

His lips tighten, and his eyes spark red for a moment.

“I was always wanted,” I continue. “Or at least, that’s how it looks on the surface, I suppose. But my birth family gave up on me too easily. They were so blind to the truth that they befriended the man who stole me. He wanted me, but only as long as I behaved precisely as he wished. Had I made even one mistake, I would be dead. That isn’t the right kind of wanting . That isn’t the way I want you.”

He’s tense all over, his eyes fixed on my face and burning—burning green.

“I want you in spite of all the mistakes you have made, or will make,” I say quietly. “I want you in this form, or the other. I like you . Gruff, glaring, adorable you . Charming, graceful, tormented you. You in any mood, in any shape, covered in blood or scars or tears. I will have you, just as you are, and as you will be.”

He’s breaking, right in front of me. Stunned, tears glistening in his eyes, the hard edges of his body softening.

I shift forward and put my hand on his knee, keeping my tone sober. “But you must learn to clean up after yourself.”

He laughs, and it’s partly a sob, wrenched from his chest. He drags me into his lap, and when our mouths meet, I taste his tears.