HE FOUND me half an hour later.

I was sitting in front of a fire outside the war room, drinking the hot cider that Ren had handed to me. His eyes were wild, hair even wilder. He made straight for me but barked out a question to Ren. “Have you got the annoying one?”

“I have,” Ren answered tiredly.

“Uh, I hope you’re not talking about me,” Carrion said, but Fisher didn’t honor him with a response.

He held out his hand to me and said, “Take it, or I carry you.” I gave him my hand.

“We’ll be back in the morning,” he said to Ren. And then he stepped back into the swirling black vortex that appeared behind him and pulled me into the shadow gate.

Onyx growled, teeth bared, when I stepped into Fisher’s bedroom. It was just as it had been during my forced incarceration here after the feeder attack. Moody. Full of shadows and dark corners. In other words, perfectly Fisher. I tensed when I inhaled, my head flooding with the smell of wild mint and pine needles, but it wasn’t the room this time. It was the male himself, standing so close behind me that the heat of his body warmed my back. Fisher’s tattooed hands came around me and worked deftly at the cloak’s tie, unfastening it so that it slid from my shoulders.

“You never wore the dresses I put out for you,” he murmured into my hair.

“I don’t want to talk about dresses,” I whispered.

“Fair enough. Let’s talk about food, then.”

“Food?”

He nodded. “Don’t share food with that prick again, Little Osha.” “What?”

“Swift. Earlier. Back in the war room. You were trading that cake back and forth with him for ages.”

“It wasn’t cake.”

“I don’t care what it was. Just stop sharing food with him.” There was a dangerous edge to his voice. One that dared me to challenge this order.

If he hadn’t learned by now that I wasn’t one to be told what to do, then perhaps he needed reminding. “Why not?”

“Because I fucking said so.”

“Is it some weird Fae custom that I don’t know about?”

“No,” he answered stubbornly. “It doesn’t mean anything. Share all the bowls of stew you like with Lorreth or Ren. Just don’t share food with that prick. It’s bad enough that you insist on sharing air with him. I’d rather you didn’t eat off the same fucking plate, too.”

“What have you got against Carrion?”

“I don’t want to talk about Carrion,” he growled.

I almost laughed. Almost. “All right. Fine.” The back of my neck prickled. Something inside of me was slipping away. I felt it happening in stages, and it was frightening. The wall between us—the barrier that existed to keep me safe— was lowering, coming apart a brick at a time. I could halt the wall’s deconstruction. Bring it back up again if I wanted. But…I couldn’t fucking breathe around him, and I knew what his hands felt like on my body now. For real. I craved more of him, even though he could be selfish and cruel, and even knowing that wanting him would more than likely be my downfall.

“Then I’ll choose what we should talk about. Let’s have a conversation about what just happened…”

“In the tent?” He didn’t cast his voice. There was no need for magic. He was standing so close that his mouth would brush the tip of my ear if I only leaned back one inch.

“On the riverbank.”

“I brought you here so we could forget about the riverbank.”

Forget? How did he imagine that I’d ever forget that? “If those feeders had made it to our side of the river—”

“I would have cut them down and made a pile of their bones.” He was so fucking confident. Not a shadow of doubt in his abilities.

“People would have gotten hurt.”

Fisher’s dry laughter stirred my hair. “We’re at war. That’s what happens in a war. People get hurt. People die. Sometimes they rise again and feed off of the living. It’s a cycle.”

My heartbeat was everywhere. It pulsed in my hands, and at my temples, and in the hollow of my throat. I turned around to face him, needing to look into his eyes. His strong jaw was just inches away, marked with the beginnings of stubble. The gorget flashed at his neck, the wolf at his throat at my eye level. His shirt was filthy, open just a fraction—enough to reveal a swathe of writhing black ink. He was expressionless as he looked down at me, waiting for me to speak. “This isn’t a joke! I—I was—” I knew what I wanted to say. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. There was a point of no return here, and I wasn’t ready to step beyond it.

“You were worried about me,” Fisher said roughly. “No! I…”

“I saw the look on your face. In the map room when Danya wanted to lob my head off. You were afraid. For me.”

“I was afraid that you’d die, and I wouldn’t be able to get back home. You made an oath to send me back when I was done with the rings. The others might not give me that same deal, and…”

Fisher’s wry, unhappy smile left me under no delusions that he believed what I was saying one bit. He didn’t argue, though.

“They’re going to tear you to shreds when you go back in the morning,” I whispered.

“I’ll be fine,” he countered.

“Aren’t you even a little concerned that—that your so-called friends are going to think you’ve been helping that—that Malcolm guy— and—”

Fisher drew his bottom lip into his mouth, eyes the softest I’d ever seen them. Gently, he gathered the flyaway hair that had escaped my braid and carefully swept it behind my ear. “Breathe, Little Osha.”

“You can’t just tell me to breathe when they nearly made it across the fucking river, okay?”

“They didn’t nearly make it across the river. They made it halfway. That’s as far as they ever make it. Malcolm sends his army out from time to

time, just to remind us that he’s there. We break the ice. He loses a wave of foot soldiers. Everything goes back to normal for a while.”

“You just drowned hundreds of vampires!”

“You can’t drown something that’s already dead.”

Why wasn’t he even faintly concerned about any of this? It seemed to me that he was in some serious shit and was doing very little to get himself out of it. “Danya—”

“Danya will get over it. Everyone will. This will blow over and be long forgotten about by morning. The Fae live long lives. We learned a long time ago that holding a grudge was a great way to ruin a decade or two. We hash it out quickly and then call it a day.”

He was delusional. “I was in that map room. You didn’t resolve anything with those captains, Fisher.”

“Why don’t you worry less about my friends and more about—”

“I want answers!” I cried. “Why was Malcolm different? He was nothing like the feeders. He seemed…”

“Normal?”

“Yes!”

“Malcolm’s a high Fae vampire. The very first. We were cursed thousands of years ago, and the Fae turned into something very like Malcolm. When a cure was found, my great-grandfather and most of the other Yvelian Fae took it. They were horrified by the monsters they’d become and wanted to return to their old lives. But there were those who liked the dark magic the curse afforded them. They liked the power and the promise of immortality.”

“Aren’t the Fae already immortal?”

Fisher chuckled. “No, Little Osha. We’re not. Our lifespans are the subject of much research and conjecture. We outlive your kind by a long, long time. But we age. Eventually, we die. There were those like Malcolm who didn’t want to age. They weren’t content to make the most of the thousands of years they had already been granted. So they took what was supposed to be a punishment and embraced it with open arms. Malcolm is the strongest of them. Their king. Of all the Fae who chose to remain vampires, he alone is strong enough to fully turn someone and ensure they remain themselves. What makes them who they are. Their personality and their character traits. When his princes bite and turn someone, their victims

die and return without their souls, nothing more than mindless, hungry shells. They obey their masters, and they feed.”

There was a bottomless well of horror within Fisher’s words. I couldn’t even begin to imagine the terror of being fully drained by one of Malcolm’s princes and knowing that I was doomed to come back as one of those things. “Does that happen to humans, too?” I asked, already afraid of the answer.

“Where do you think most of your kind went? The vast majority of Malcolm’s horde were once human. The Fae who chose to cure themselves of their curse tried to protect the lesser Fae and the humans who resided in this realm, but they were easier to target. More vulnerable. They had no magic to protect themselves, so…”

“So…” I was going to throw up. I’d wanted to know, but I couldn’t bear to dwell on it now that I did. “You were with him, weren’t you? For all those years you were missing.”

A tightness formed on Fisher’s face. “I can’t tell you that,” he said.

I can’t tell you that.

Witnessing the strain around his eyes worsen, some part of me recognized it and knew what it felt like. As if he were trying to resist or push through something. As if he wasn’t in control…

And there it was.

He wasn’t in control. “You’re bound, aren’t you?” I said, dismayed. “You literally can’t tell me—”

“Stop,” he commanded. I’d anticipated relief from him. At least some kind of recognition that finally someone understood why he wouldn’t share where he’d been or what he’d been doing. But Fisher’s reaction was one of worry. Annoyance, even. “Have you considered that I might not want to tell you because it’s none of your business?” he asked sharply.

“It is my business.” I adopted a firm stance, planting my feet into his rug.

“No, it isn’t.”

“Whatever happens to you affects me. And I’m not stupid. You’ve been less of a prick these past fifteen minutes than you have been since you scraped me off the floor in the Hall of Mirrors and saved me. You only started snapping again when you wanted to push me away. The cold barbs and the awful shit that comes out of your mouth are a way for you to keep people at arm’s length, aren’t they?”

“You don’t have a clue who I am,” he rumbled.

And maybe he was right about that. But I was beginning to. Beginning to figure him out. And how many times had Ren said it? I know him. This isn’t who he is. He’s not himself right now. This was all a front. Like a veil slowly being drawn back, I was starting to see right through it. “You don’t hate me as much as you pretend to,” I said.

He stepped toward me, leonine, predatory, dangerous. “Don’t I?” “No, you don’t.”

“That’s an interesting theory.”

“I don’t think you hate me at all.”

He laughed but took another step forward. “You think very highly of yourself then, don’t you?”

“I know that you want me.” I didn’t step back, even though my body was screaming at me that I should.

“I can want to fuck you and still hate you, Little Osha.”

I shook my head, trying to ignore the heat in his eyes. “No. That’s not

it.”

One more step, and he’d be standing chest-to-chest with me again.

“What is it, then?”

“There’s something…between us. You know there is.”

“Sure you’re not imagining things? Plenty of women fall prey to their own desperate fantasies where I’m concerned.”

“Just…stop, all right. Enough! The moment you fuck me, things are going to change between us.”

“Sure. I’ll have scratched a perverse little itch. I’ll be able to move on with my life.” His lips parted, and the sight of his sharp canines sent a rush of warmth directly between my legs.

“You want to bite me,” I whispered.

“Hah!” He threw his head back and let out a bark of laughter. “Oh, you have no idea what kind of tightrope you’re balancing on right now, do you?”

“You nearly did it. Back in your tent. You scratched me with your teeth.

You drew fucking blood!!”

The small amount of space between us disappeared in an instant. Fisher’s hand closed around my throat, fury carved into the lines of his handsome face. “Careful,” he growled. “It’s dangerous to speak so flippantly about things you do not understand.”

“Then explain it to me. Show me,” I panted. His anger faltered. “What?”

“Show me. Make me understand. Prove to me that I’m wrong.” “Stupid, idiotic human…”

I had no business saying anything more. It was perilous, provoking a male like Fisher. This could go awry all too easily. But this was all going to end in tears no matter what, and after what I’d seen tonight, waiting for us all on the other side of the river, I didn’t plan on dying without at least testing this theory. “I’m telling you to fuck me, Fisher. I’m asking you to—”

His lips crashed down on mine. He stole my words, claiming my mouth with a ragged snarl. The kiss was incendiary. The moment I tasted him and felt his tongue sweep past my teeth, I whimpered, grabbing the bottom of his shirt.

No more sniping at each other. No more thinly veiled innuendo. No more threats.

This was happening because I wanted it to happen.

I tore Fisher’s shirt up and had to raise my arms over my head to even get the damned thing half-way off him. He broke the kiss for a split second, ripping the smokey material over his head. The second it left his hand, he fell on me again, his mouth claiming mine so thoroughly that I didn’t know which way was up. His movements weren’t fumbling like mine were. His hands were sure and steady as he grabbed the collar of my shirt and ripped it from my body. Without the corsets and stays of the dresses Everlayne had made me wear in the Winter Palace, I’d taken to binding my breasts with fabric as I’d done at home. Fisher made a disgruntled noise when he saw the material wrapped around my ribcage. I lifted my arms, expecting him to unwind it as quickly as he could, but no. He trailed his index finger down the front of the material, between my breast, and the fabric split apart, disintegrating under his touch.

My breasts sprang free, my nipples peaking, and Fisher groaned, taking the weight of them in his palms. He kneaded the flesh, cursing, his eyes feasting on my chest. Had he thought about me like this? Naked and at his mercy? Had he imagined what it would be like to touch me, and taste me, and have me willing to do his bidding?

I was guilty of letting my imagination run away with me. I’d pretended it wasn’t his hands I wanted on my body when I touched myself. I’d tricked

myself into believing it wasn’t his knowing smirk that haunted my dreams. But it was. And now he was standing in front of me, shirtless, the packed muscle of his chest glistening with sweat, ink everywhere, spiraling around his torso, and I couldn’t believe we’d finally arrived here.

The cards had been on the table for a while now. We were either going to kill each other or fuck each other, and I was glad we were both opting for the latter option.

Fisher’s eyes flared as he grabbed the front of my pants by the waistband and pulled me roughly to him. “You asked for this. When you’re sore from coming so hard and you can’t recall your own name, remember that, Little Osha.”

He held my gaze as he yanked open my pants and shoved them down my thighs. His gaze was as heavy as a sword’s edge, resting against my throat, sharp enough to cut. He shoved his right hand between my legs and grabbed me by the throat with the other, startling the shit out of me.

I would have gasped when he tore my underwear to one side and plunged his fingers into the molten wet heat of my core, but his hand closed around my windpipe, stealing my ability to breathe. Like some dark-haired, foreboding fallen angel, Kingfisher purred as he plunged his fingers up inside me.

“My, my. So worked up already? You’re slick as hell. What do you taste like, mm? Are you going to scream for me like a good girl when I have you ride my face?”

“Y—Ye—” It was no good. I couldn’t speak. My head was spinning, both from lack of blood and from the powerful need that rocked me to my core. I wanted him. But I wanted to understand this feeling inside of me as well. At every turn, Fisher had proven himself to be an unbearable asshole. I could count on one hand how many civil words the bastard had said to me. But there was something else tying me to him. Pulling me in like I was trapped. A part of me knew that Fisher himself was the trap, and I was well and truly snared…

The world went dark until there was only me and him. Me and those flashing green and silver eyes. Fisher bowed his head, leaning into me, his mouth so close to mine. “When you take all of me, remember to breathe.” He let go of my throat, and my head swam as I dragged down a lungful of air.

There was no time to brace myself. It would have been smart to get rid of my boots and then take off my pants, but that wasn’t possible when you were dealing with the most impatient male in all of Yvelia. At first, the smoke seemed to come from Fisher’s hands. Then it seemed to be coming from behind him. Who knew where the fuck it was coming from. All I knew was that it was coming from him—the same smoke that had shoved a horde of vampires below a sea of ice—and now it was swirling over my body, like…

It evaporated just as I was starting to tense. And with it, every stitch of my clothing disappeared, too. Fisher stood back a second, inspecting his handiwork, his lust-filled eyes blazing a trail up and down my body three times, as if once was nowhere near enough.

“I can’t wait to hear what kind of sounds you make when I thrust into you for the first time,” he purred. “I’m going to make you pant for me, Little Osha. And when we’re done, I’ll close my eyes and replay the sound of you moaning in my head every time I stroke myself to completion.”

Gods. Just the thought of him touching himself…

The sinful image that was starting to take shape in my mind scattered when Fisher moved. He grabbed me, hands finding the backs of my bare thighs, and just like that, my feet were off the ground. A weightless, falling sensation flipped my stomach over as I sailed back through the air. The soft mattress caught me a second later, cool silk sheets slick against my skin. A ball of panic rose to the base of my throat when my eyes found Fisher again. I saw a dark-haired Fae warrior covered in ash and soot standing at the end of the bed, slowly unfastening his pants with a hungry, carnal look on his face, and my self-preservation instincts told me to flee for my life.

Don’t move. Do not move, Saeris. For the love of all the Gods…

Back in Zilvaren, predators didn’t have the dark to hide in. They used camouflage and stealth to sneak up on their prey, which in turn taught us all to react fast when we came face to face with the thing that was hunting us. Every part of me wanted to scramble from the bed and bolt for the door, but I knew that would be folly. Just like a hell cat, Fisher would give chase. I gripped the sheets, forcing myself to be still, watching every single move that he made.

“Put the soles of your feet on the bed.” Not a command issued via the oath. Just a simple command. It might as well have been compulsion, though, considering that I was helpless in the face of his order. I bent my

knees, placing my feet down onto the bed…and raw power seemed to distort the air around Fisher’s powerful shoulders. With measured, teasing movements, he lowered his battle-muddied pants, and…

Graceless gods and holy martyrs. He wasn’t wearing underwear. That didn’t surprise me. But the sheer size of his erect cock as it sprang free from his pants made my eyes round out of my head.

Were all Fae males this well-endowed? Was it an Yvelian thing? Or was this a Fisher thing? With his clothes now gone, Fisher stood still, letting me take him in, an entertained little smile begging to be set free at both corners of his mouth. He was absolutely fucking incredible, all hard lines and taut muscle and shifting ink. His cock was perfect—rigid iron wrapped in silk and velvet. A thick vein ran down the underside of his length, standing proud from the shaft. My palms tingled just thinking about touching him.

Fisher took hold of himself as if he knew what I’d just been thinking, slowly shuttling his hand up and down his cock. “Let your knees fall open,” he demanded.

“I—”

“No arguments, Osha. I’ve driven myself half-crazy wondering what you look like. I need to fucking see. Put me out of my misery.”

I’d never been timid in a bedroom before. I was in way, way over my head this time, though. I fought a wave of nerves as I let my knees fall open, and Fisher unleashed a strained growl. “Perfect. You’re absolutely fucking perfect. If Danya does rip my head off tomorrow, at least now I’ll die happy.”

The dazed look on his face was dangerous. A girl could easily find herself addicted to the expression Fisher was wearing, and what then? I’d be lost forever. Fucking doomed. I let myself bask in his attention, aware that I was treading dangerous ground. But if Fisher was right about this, then so what? It would be one night. One time, and then he’d be done with me. I wasn’t going to experience this again, so I might as well enjoy it…

“Such a pretty flower, blooming just for me,” he rumbled, climbing up onto the end of the bed. His hands closed around my ankles, and I stopped breathing. He was going to…

I screamed as he yanked me down the bed toward him. Another small yelp escaped me as he fell between my legs. His mouth found the crease of my inner thigh first. I shivered, nearly leaving my body altogether when I looked down and met his eyes. He ran the tip of his nose up, up, up,

inhaling deeply as he went. When he raised his head a little to speak, his canines weren’t just on display. They were longer than I’d ever seen them. Sharper. His left canine had punctured his lower lip and had drawn blood.

“You smell so, so fucking good,” he said thickly. “Back in the forge at the palace, I caught a hint of this. I knew then I had to taste you. This smell has been haunting my fucking dreams. I haven’t been able to think straight for remembering the scent of your need.”

“I could probably use a sho—”

“Do not fucking dare finish that sentence,” he snarled. “I don’t want a mouthful of soap and perfume. I want to taste you.” With that, he placed his mouth right onto the very center of me, as if he were biting into a piece of ripe, delicious fruit, and my whole world ignited.

His tongue. Oh, holy fuck, his tongue was incredible. The way he licked and laved and sucked at my clit sent me into spasms, the heat of his mouth combining with my own heat in a way that promised to drive me insane.

“Fisher! Oh, fffff—fuck! Fisher! Gods!” I thought I felt him laughing against my flesh, but I couldn’t be certain. My ears were ringing. My whole…body…was reacting so…strangely. The roof of my mouth tingled like crazy. I couldn’t feel my feet. “This—oh my gods—fuck—I—I—”

“Not yet,” he murmured against me. “You don’t get to come until I say so.”

“Please! I—oh my god, I’m so close!”

He definitely laughed this time. I reached down for him, desperate for the release that lay at the tip of his tongue. Winding my fingers into his hair, I drove his head down to meet me, urging him for more, more, more. I felt his growl vibrating through me, but he didn’t pull away. He quickened the alternating laving, circular motion of his tongue, applying more pressure, and then he dipped his fingers inside of me, teasing my entrance with just the tips of his index and middle finger, and my back bowed away from the bed.

More.

I wanted more.

Not just his fingers. I wanted him inside me more than my pride would allow me to admit. “Fisher, please,” I panted. “I want…I want…”

“Don’t worry. I know what you need.” He thrust his fingers deep, and I spiraled out of reality. When I opened my eyes, all I saw was a glittering black wind. The candles in Fisher’s room were gone, all light extinguished,

but the staggering power that poured from Fisher seemed to carry its own internal illumination. It was hard to understand—we were definitely still in Fisher’s room. I could feel his bed beneath us. But we were also twisting in a sea of black, floating on a void of nothingness. Sinking, falling, rising, and drowning all at once.

Wisps of iridescent smoke trailed up my arms, circling my wrists, stroking over my skin, so soft and seductive that I trembled under the contact. It was him. An extension of him, and it was everywhere. His mouth worked over me, his fingers coaxing me toward a steep drop that would claim me body and soul.

He wasn’t going to stop me this time. He drew me to my climax with determination, a gratified growl of victory ripping from his throat when he pushed me over the edge.

This wasn’t just an orgasm. It was an awakening. Cradled in Fisher’s power, I felt his hands tighten on my thighs as I bucked and writhed, but I felt his shadows bind tight to me, too. They slid over me, pooling in the hollow of my throat and pouring over my stomach, whispering over my heavy breasts—a level of ecstasy I’d never experienced before. It was as though I was breathing him in, taking a part of him inside me—

“FUCK!” My eyes snapped open. Fisher was on his knees between my legs, the head of his cock butting against my entrance. His right hand found my hip. When his left hand found my throat again, a veil of shadows flowed down his arm and up my neck in a warm, heady caress.

My eyes started to roll back into my head. But then…

“Oh, no, Little Osha. You’re gonna be looking right at me for this,” Fisher said. “Look.” He waited until I’d made eye contact with him again, then his hand moved up to my jaw. He held me almost tenderly as he said, “You still want it?” His chest, his arms, his defined abs; the deep grove that dipped over his hips, leading down between his legs: his entire body was a work of art. He took my breath away. The ink that covered his skin fluctuated as he waited for the answer he already knew I would give to him.

“Yes. I want it. I want you.”

His smile was pure, powerful male satisfaction. “Hold on tight then. I hope you’re not afraid of the dark.” He thrust forward, slamming himself inside me, and I screamed. Not from the pain. There wasn’t any. Only a stretching, and a fullness, and an awesome wave of energy that fired up my

spine in a series of bursts that felt like small explosions. It was so much, all at once, that I had to scream.

As if he were experiencing something very similar, Fisher threw his head back, the muscles in his neck straining, his jaw clenched tight, roaring through his teeth. ‘Fuuuuck!”

Just one stroke. He’d entered me once, and I was done for.

I was a ball of sensation, humming with energy. In the darkness, Fisher slowly lowered his head, his lips parted, hair mussed, and the dazed look of surprise on his face sent a rush of adrenalin powering through me.

Gods and Martyrs. I would never forget seeing him like this. If I did manage to make my way back home, the image of him like this, seated inside me, skin slick with sweat, chest hitching, would sustain me until the day I died.

Fisher. Kingfisher. Lord of Cahlish.

I hated him, I did. But you couldn’t hate something without caring about it just a little, too.

“Witch,” he accused. “You do have magic.” He was so fucking big; his hard length twitched inside me, and my body answered in kind, tightening around him. His fingers gouged into my skin, digging deeper into my hips. With a mantle of black smoke swirling around him like a dark wind, he moved. Slowly, at first. The tendons in his neck stood proud as he pulled back and eased out of me just an inch. The smallest of movements drew him home. Again, he shifted, rolling his hips, working his cock a little deeper each time he thrust back into me. The pace he set was torturous. I had well and truly stretched to accommodate him now, and the delicious friction building between us was quickly turning into a desperate ache.

“Please…” I reached for him like it was my right. His chest was warm and solid and perfect. Beneath my palms, the wolf tattoo emblazoned across his pecs came to life. The ink flowed beneath his skin, crossing from him to…to…sinners, it flowed along my fingertips, spreading over my skin, flowing just like his smoke over the backs of my hands. A delicate little bird took shape on the inside of my right forearm. It stretched its wings and took flight, its tiny body flitting over my stomach as its wings beat a thousand times a minute.

“Shit,” Fisher breathed. I pulled my hands away, afraid of more ink making its way over me, but Fisher just shook his head, grabbing one of my hands and putting it back on his flesh. He didn’t say anything else. Didn’t warn me if any more of his ink would come venturing over onto my body. He just drove himself deeper, slamming himself into me faster, relinquishing more of his control with each thrust.

“Magnificent,” Fisher rasped. He moaned as he palmed my breasts. His pupils had blown so wide that the black had swallowed the green and the silver. I was transfixed, unable to look away, as his hands explored my body.

When I’d first laid eyes on him, I’d called him Death. The likeness was even more pronounced now. This male possessed the power to end entire civilizations if he wanted to. I could feel it—a still, deep well inside him, its surface rippling as he grew harder and harder inside me. I would drown in that well. Sink down into the dark depths of it, never to break the surface again. And I would be glad.

I disintegrated into a million pieces, deconstructed and mindless as I came again. The only thing anchoring me to the warm cocoon Fisher had created around us were his strong hands at my waist, and the rough edge of his strained voice.

“Gods and fucking martyrs. Holy fucking shit. That’s right. Come.

Show me how pretty you are when you fall apart.”

I screwed my eyes shut, crying out wordlessly. Right as I crested the wave of my second orgasm, the stars painted across Fisher’s bedroom ceiling ignited, flaring so brightly that their light burned my eyes even through my eyelids.

Fisher came hard, slamming into me. He roared out his release, and together the two of us shattered.

A rushing filled my ears.

My blood hammered right below the surface of my skin. Dum, dum, dum, dum, dum.

Fisher sank down onto my chest, his weight oddly comforting even though he was crushing me a little. He remained inside me, still hard as tempered steel, his fingers trailing over my skin in small circles, and the reality of what had just happened slowly began to rear its ugly head.

I’d just had sex with Fisher.

I’d just let him fuck the hell out of me, and now we were naked, tangled up in each other’s bodies. Eventually, the swathe of shadows around us faded, and the candlelight returned, along with the rest of the room. One by one, the stars painted on the ceiling slowly went out.

Moving slowly, as if he had all the time in the world, Fisher propped himself up and withdrew from me. His ink had stilled, and his pupils were now pinpoints. He dressed in silence.

I pulled a sheet over myself, suddenly very aware of my nakedness, but I kept my eyes on him, refusing to look away. Not after what had just happened.

Once fully dressed, Fisher fastened his boots and finally met my gaze. “I want you to stay here tonight.” No explanation. No mention of what had just occurred.

“Why?”

“Because the camp will still be in chaos. I have a lot to handle, and I need to know exactly where you are.”

“Do I get a say in this?” I asked.

He looked down at his boots. When his eyes met mine again, they were distant. “Not really. I’ll come for you in the morning. You’ll spend the day working on the relics in the camp forge. In the meantime, Archer will be around if you need anything.” A loud crack echoed through the room as a swirling shadow gate burst into existence behind Fisher. “Try to get some sleep,” he muttered before stepping backward into the darkness and vanishing.

Sleep? How was I supposed to sleep? My mind was racing. I slumped back into the pillows, frustration and confusion battling inside me. But then I realized something.

He didn’t.

He wouldn’t have.

I jumped up, clutching the bedsheet, and ran to the door. It opened easily, and as I stepped into the hallway…

My bare feet touched cold stone without resistance. No invisible barrier was keeping me trapped in Fisher’s room. Thank the gods.

“Good evening, Miss.”

I grabbed the door frame for support. “Gods, Archer, you scared the life out of me!”

The little fire sprite stood alone in the dim hallway, except for Onyx, who lay on his back, feet in the air. It seemed Archer had been in the middle of giving belly rubs when I burst out of the room, wrapped in a sheet like a madwoman.

“Apologies, my lady. I heard a disturbance in Master Fisher’s rooms. When I arrived, I found Onyx whining at the door and decided to wait…well, until you were finished, to see if you needed anything. Intimate relations can be quite strenuous.”

“Oh gods, Archer, no, it’s okay, we weren’t…” I blushed deeply. The situation could only have been more embarrassing if it had been Elroy who caught me post-coitus. And how on earth had Onyx ended up outside the room?

“Oh?” Archer looked confused. “In that case, do you need to see a healer? Are you hurt? It sounded like—”

“No, no, I’m fine. Honestly, I’m fine. I—we—” I glanced back over my shoulder into the bedroom, then pulled the door half-closed behind me. “We were just moving some furniture around, that’s all. But then Fisher decided he preferred it the way it was, so…so we moved it all back again.” I scratched my head, cringing when I felt the huge snarl of hair that had gotten tangled while we’d been ‘moving the furniture.’

Archer didn’t look convinced. He was gracious enough not to call me out on my lies, though. “I see. Well, in any case, I brought you up a pitcher of apple juice and some cake so you could replenish your energy levels. Here…” He turned and picked up a small silver tray, offering it to me.

I took it with one hand, smiling tightly. “Thank you, Archer. That was very thoughtful of you. Good night.”

Onyx bolted inside the bedroom as soon as I nudged the door open again. The little fire sprite bowed deeply. He was still bowing when I dipped back inside the room and closed the door again.