Ice glittered at his fingertips. Manon tracked it. “Will it be you or the queen against Erawan in the end, I wonder.”
“Fire against darkness makes for a better story.”
“Yes, but so would ripping a demon king to shreds without using your hands.”
A half smile. “I can think of better uses for my hands—invisible and flesh.”
An invitation and a question. She held his gaze.
“Then finish what you started,” Manon breathed.
Dorian’s answering smile was soft—edged with that glimmer of cruelty that made her blood heat as if the Fire-Queen herself had breathed flame into it.
She let Dorian back her against the wall. Let him hold her gaze while he tugged the top laces of her white shirt free.
One. By. One.
Let him lean in to brush his mouth against her bare neck, right under her ear.
Manon arched slightly at that caress. At the tongue that flicked against where his lips had been. Then he pulled back. Away.
Even as those phantom hands continued to trail up her hips, over her waist. His mouth parted slightly, body trembling with restraint. Restraint, where most males took and took when she offered it, gorging themselves on her. But Dorian Havilliard said, “The Bloodhound was lying that night. What she said about your Second. I felt her lie—tasted it.”
Some tight part in her chest eased. “I don’t want to talk about that.”
He stepped closer again, and those phantom hands trailed under her breasts. She gritted her teeth. “And what do you want to talk about, Manon?”
She wasn’t sure he’d ever said her name before. And the way he’d said it …
“I don’t want to talk at all,” she countered. “And neither do you,” she added with a pointed glance.
Again, that dark, edged smile appeared. And when he stepped close once more, his hands replaced those phantom ones.
Tracing her hips, her waist, her breasts. Unhurried, indolent circles that she allowed him to make, simply because no one had ever dared. Each brush of his skin against hers left a wake of fire and ice. She found herself transfixed by it—by each coaxing, luxurious stroke. She did not even consider objecting as Dorian slid off her shirt and surveyed her bare, scar-flecked flesh.
His face turned ravenous as he took in her breasts, the plane of her stomach—the scar slicing across it.
That hunger shifted into something icy and vicious: “You once asked me where I stand on the line between killing to protect and killing for pleasure.” His fingers grazed the seam of the scar across her abdomen. “I’ll stand on the other side of the line when I find your grandmother.”
A chill ran down her body, peaking her breasts. He watched them, then circled a finger around one. Dorian bent, his mouth following the path where that finger had been. Then his tongue. She bit her lip against the groan rising up her throat, her hands sliding into the silken locks of his hair.
His mouth was still around the tip of her breast as he again met her eyes, sapphire framed with ebony lashes, and said, “I want to taste every inch of you.”
Manon let go of all pretense of reason as the king lifted his head and claimed her mouth.
And for all his wanting to taste her, as she opened for him, Manon thought the king tasted like the sea, like a winter morning, something so foreign and yet familiar it at last dragged that moan from deep in her.
His fingers slid to her jaw, tipping her face to thoroughly take her mouth, every movement of his tongue a sensuous promise that had her arching into him. Had her meeting him stroke for stroke as he explored and teased until she could hardly think straight.
She had never contemplated what it would be like—to yield control. And not have it be weakness, but a freedom.
Dorian’s hands slid down her thighs, as if savoring the muscle there, then around—cupping her backside, grinding her into every hard inch of him. The small noise in her throat was cut off as he hoisted her from the wall in a smooth movement.
Manon wrapped her legs around his waist while he carried her to the bed, his mouth never leaving hers as he devoured and devoured her. As he spread her beneath him. As he freed her pants button by button, then slid them off.
But Dorian pulled back at last, leaving her panting as he surveyed her, utterly bare before him. He caressed a finger along the inside of her thigh. Higher. “I wanted you from the first moment I saw you in Oakwald,” he said, his voice low and rough.
Manon reached up to peel off his shirt, white fabric sliding away to reveal tan skin and sculpted muscle. “Yes,” was all she told him. She unbuckled his belt, hands shaking. “Yes,” she said again, as Dorian brushed a knuckle over her core. He let out an approving growl at what he found.
His clothes joined hers on the floor. Manon let him raise her arms over her head, his magic gently pinning her wrists to the mattress as he touched her, first with those wicked hands. Then with his wicked mouth. And when Manon had to bite his shoulder to muffle her moaning as he brought her over the edge, Dorian Havilliard buried himself deep inside her.
She did not care who she was, who she had been, and what she had once promised to be as he moved. She dragged her hands through his thick hair, over the muscles of his back as it flexed and rippled with each thrust that drove her toward that shimmering edge again. Here, she was nothing but flesh and fire and iron; here, there was only this selfish need of her body, his body.
More. She wanted more—wanted everything.
She might have whispered it, might have pleaded for it. Because Darkness save her, Dorian gave it to her. To them both.
He remained atop her when he at last stilled, his lips barely a hairsbreadth above hers—hovering after the brutal kiss he’d given her to contain his roar as release found him.
She was trembling with … whatever he’d done to her, her body. He brushed a strand of hair out of her face, his own fingers shaking.
She had not realized how silent the world was—how loud they might have been, especially with so many Fae ears nearby.
He was still atop her, in her. Those sapphire eyes flicked to her mouth, still panting slightly. “This was supposed to take the edge off.”
She kept her words low as his clothes slid over, hauled by phantom hands. “And did it?”
He traced her lower lip with his thumb and shuddered as she sucked it into her mouth, flicked it with her tongue. “No. Not even close.”
But that was the gray light of dawn creeping into the room, staining the walls silver. He seemed to notice it at the same moment she did. Groaning softly, he pulled himself off her. She tugged on her clothes with trained efficiency, and only when she was lacing up her shirt did Dorian say, “We’re not done, you and I.”
And it was the purely male promise that made her bare her teeth. “Unless you would like to learn precisely what parts of me are made of iron the next time you touch me, I decide those things.”
Dorian gave another purely male smile, brows flicking up, and sauntered out the door as silently as he’d arrived. He only seemed to pause on the threshold—as if some word had snagged his interest. But he continued out, the door closing with barely a click. Unruffled, utterly calm.
Manon gaped after him, cursing her blood for heating again, for … what she’d allowed him to do.
She wondered what Dorian would say if she told him she had never allowed a male atop her like that. Not once. Wondered what he’d say if she told him she’d wanted to sink her teeth into his neck and find out what he tasted like. Put her mouth on other parts and see what he tasted like there.
Manon dragged her hands through her hair and slumped onto the pillow.
Darkness embrace her.
She sent a silent prayer for Abraxos to return soon. Too much time—she had spent too much damn time among these humans and Fae males. She needed to leave. Elide was safe here—the Queen of Terrasen might be many things, but Manon knew she’d protect Elide.
But, with the Thirteen scattered and likel
y dead, regardless of what Dorian had claimed, Manon wasn’t entirely sure where to go once she left. The world had never seemed quite so vast before.
And so empty.
Even utterly exhausted, Elide barely slept during the long night she and Lorcan swayed in hammocks with the other sailors. The smells, the sounds, the rocking of the sea … All of it nagged, none of it left her settled. A finger seemed to keep prodding her awake, as if telling her to be alert, but … there was nothing.
Lorcan tossed and turned for hours. As if the same force begged him to wake.
As if he was waiting for something.
His strength had been flagging by the time they’d reached the ship, though he had showed no signs of strain beyond a slight tightening in his mouth. But Elide knew he was near what he’d described as a burnout. Knew, because for hours afterward, the small brace of magic around her ankle kept flickering in and out of place.
After Manon had informed her of the uncertain fates of the Thirteen, Elide had kept mostly out of her companions’ way, letting them talk with that red-haired young woman who found them on the beach. So had Lorcan. He’d listened to them debate and plan, his face taut, as if something coiled in him wound itself tighter with every passing moment.
Watching him sleep mere feet away, that harsh face smoothed to softness by slumber, a small part of Elide wondered if she’d somehow brought another danger to the queen. She wondered if the others had noted how often Lorcan’s gaze had been fixed on Aelin’s back. Aimed at her back.
As if sensing her attention, Lorcan opened his eyes. Met her stare without so much as blinking. For a heartbeat, she took in that depthless gaze mere feet away, made ethereal by the silver light before dawn.
He had been willing to offer up his life for her own.
Something softened in that harsh face as his eyes dipped to where her arm dangled out of her hammock, the skin still a bit sore, but … miraculously healed. She’d thanked Gavriel twice now, but he’d brushed it aside with a gentle nod and shrug.
A faint smile bloomed on Lorcan’s harsh mouth as he reached across the space between them and ran his calloused fingers down her arm. “You choose this?” he murmured so that it was little more than the groaning of the hammock ropes. He brushed a thumb down her palm.
Elide swallowed but let herself take in every line of that face. North—they were going home today. “I thought that was obvious,” she said with equal quiet, her cheeks heating.
His fingers laced through hers, some emotion she couldn’t place flickering like starlight in those black eyes. “We need to talk,” he rasped.
It was the shout of the watch that jolted them. The one of pure terror.
Elide nearly flipped out of her hammock, the sailors rushing past. By the time she shoved her hair from her eyes, Lorcan was already gone.
The various decks were packed, and she had to limp onto the stairs to view what had roused them. The other ships were awake and frenzied. With good reason.
Sailing over the western horizon, another armada headed for them.
And Elide knew in her bones it was not one that Aelin had schemed and planned for.
Not as Fenrys breathed, suddenly beside her on the steps. “Maeve.”
61
They had no choice but to meet them. Maeve’s armada had the wind and the current, and they would not even reach the shore before they were caught. And outrunning Fae soldiers … Not an option.
Rowan and Aedion laid out every course for Aelin. All paths arrived at one destination: confrontation. And she was still so drained, so exhausted, that … She knew how this would go.
Maeve had a third more ships. And immortal warriors. With magic.
It took far too little time for those black sails to fill the sky, for them to glean that their enemy’s boats were better-made, their soldiers longer-trained. Rowan and the cadre had overseen much of that training—and the details they provided were not heartening.
Maeve sent one ornately carved rowboat to them, bearing a message.
Surrender—or be sent to the bottom of the ocean. Aelin had until dawn tomorrow to decide.
An entire day. So that the fear would fester and spread among their men.
Aelin met with Rowan and Aedion again. The cadre was not summoned by their queen, though Lorcan paced like a caged beast, Elide watching with a face that impressively revealed nothing.
She had no solution. Dorian remained quiet, though he often glanced between her and Manon. As if some puzzle were laid before him. He never said what.
Aedion pushed for attacking—quietly rallying the boats and attacking. But Maeve would see that maneuver coming. And they could strike faster with magic than it’d take for them to fire arrows and harpoons.
Time. That was all she had to play with.
They debated and theorized and planned. Rowan made a decent attempt at trying to suggest she run. She let him talk, only to let him realize in doing so what a stupid idea it was. After last night, he should be well aware she was not leaving him. Not willingly.
So the sun set. And Maeve’s armada waited, poised and watching. A lounging panther, ready to strike at first light.
Time. Her only tool—and her downfall. And she had run out of it.
Aelin counted those black sails again and again as night blanketed them.
And had no idea what to do.
It was unacceptable, Rowan had decided, during the long hours they’d debated.
Unacceptable that they had done so much, only to be halted not by Erawan, but Maeve.
She hadn’t deigned to make an appearance. But that wasn’t her style.
She’d do it at dawn. Accept Aelin’s surrender in person, with all eyes watching. And then … Rowan didn’t know what she’d do then. What Maeve wanted, other than the keys.
Aelin had been so calm. Shock, he’d realized. Aelin had gone into shock. Rowan had seen her rage and kill and laugh and weep, but he had never seen her … lost. And he hated himself for it, but he couldn’t find a way out. Couldn’t find a way for her to get out of this.
Aelin was sleeping soundly as Rowan stared at the ceiling above their bed, then slid his gaze over her. He took in the lines of her face, the golden waves of her hair, every moon-white scar and dark swirl of ink. Leaning in, silent as snow in a wood, he kissed her brow.
He would not let it end here, not let this be what broke them.
He knew the house flags that flew beneath Maeve’s own crest. Had counted and cataloged them all day, sorting through the catacombs of his memory.
Rowan slid into his clothes and waited until he’d crept into the hall before buckling his sword belt. Still gripping the doorknob, he allowed himself one last look at her.
For a moment, the past snared him—for a moment, he saw her as he’d first spied her on the rooftops of Varese, drunk and battered. He’d been in hawk form, assessing his new charge, and she’d noticed him—broken and reeling, she had still spotted him there. And stuck out her tongue at him.
If someone had told him that the drunken, brawling, bitter woman would become the one thing he could not live without … Rowan shut the door.
This was all he could offer her.
Rowan reached the main deck and shifted, little more than a gleam of moonlight as he shielded himself and flapped through the briny night—into the heart of Maeve’s fleet.
Rowan’s cousin had enough good sense not to try to kill him on sight.
They were close enough in age that Rowan had grown up with him, raised in his uncle’s house beside him after his parents had faded. If his uncle ever faded, it would be Enda who took up the mantle as head of their house—a prince of considerable title, property, and arms.
Enda, to his credit, sensed his arrival before Rowan slipped through the flimsy shield on the windows. And Enda remained sitting on the bed, albeit dressed for battle, a hand on his sword.
His cousin looked him over head to toe as Rowan shifted. “Assassin or messenger, Prince?”
&
nbsp; “Neither,” Rowan said, inclining his head slightly.
Like him, Enda was silver-haired, though his green eyes were speckled with brown that could sometimes swallow the color whole when he was in a rage.
If Rowan had been bred and built for battlefields, Enda was sculpted for intrigue and court machinations. His cousin, while tall and muscled enough, lacked Rowan’s breadth of shoulders and solid bulk—though that could also be from the different sorts of training they’d received. Enda knew enough about fighting to warrant being here to lead his father’s forces, but their own educations had crossed little after those first decades of youth, when they had run wild together at his family’s main estate.
Enda kept his hand on the hilt of his fine sword, utterly calm. “You look … different,” his cousin said, brows twitching toward each other. “Better.”
There had been a time when Enda had been his friend—before Lyria. Before … everything. And Rowan might have been inclined to explain who and what was responsible for this change, but he didn’t have time. No, time was not his ally this night.
But Rowan said, “You look different as well, Prince.”
Enda gave a half smile. “You can thank my mate for that.”
Once, it might have sent a pang of agony through him. That Enda spoke of it reminded him that his cousin might not be a battle-honed warrior, but the courtier was as good as any at marking important details—noting Aelin’s scent, now forever entwined with his own. So Rowan nodded, smiling a bit himself. “It was Lord Kerrigan’s son, wasn’t it?”
Indeed, there was another’s scent woven through Enda’s, the claiming deep and true. “It was.” Enda again smiled—now at a ring on his finger. “We were mated and married earlier this summer.”
“You mean to tell me you waited a hundred years for him?”
Enda shrugged, his grip on his sword lightening. “When it comes to the right person, Prince, waiting a hundred years is worth it.”
He knew. He understood him so damn well that it made his chest crack to think of it.