Page 68 of Fortune's Blade

“And I care about that because?”

“The Great Hall eats after the queen. So, she and her guests musta already got theirs.”

“That means they’ll be talking soon,” the handsome vamp added helpfully.

He was tall, with a haircut that would have done a K-pop star proud, and either perfect golden skin or an expensive glamourie to make it appear so. He was also dressed better than his counterpart, who had opted for a troll-like outfit of worn leather and old furs. This one preferred turquoise silk for his shirt, suede in a slightly darker but complimentary shade for his trousers, a scarlet sash around his waist, and shiny, thigh high boots.

He looked more like a pirate than Ray had ever done.

“Although probably not until after dessert,” he added, “as they don’t seem to like discussing business at table. But that might not take long. They all eat like they’re afraid somebody’ll take it away from them.”

Ray shot him a stink eye. I couldn’t see it, but felt it radiating all over his face. “Maybe somebody did in the past.”

“Yeah, but the point is that they’ll be having that talk you wanted to hear soon.”

The stink eye increased. “Thank you, Bonhwa. I would have never gotten the point without you.”

“You’re welcome.” Bonhwa seemed pleased that he had managed to help his master. Dan sighed and shook his head, and didn’t even flinch when Ray exploded.

“Get back in there! I’ll be in soon enough, and you two better be ready!” They ran off like frightened chickens and one of Ray’s knees buckled. And despite what I’d just seen, I made the mistake of trying to help him back up. “No, no, no, goddamn it! That’s not helping. I need you distracted!”

I went back to watching sand.

I had an excellent view, because our hosts had made the receptable containing us transparent. That was likely for security reasons, to allow their warriors to look for signs of trouble from all directions. But it also provided a view of the wildly whipping storm from any balcony or window, giving the palace a strange, otherworldly feel.

Of course, it was in another world, but you really felt it here: a frisson over the skin, a tingle down the spine, a lifting of the little hairs on the back of my borrowed neck. Or perhaps I was imagining it, as I was not accustomed to what Ray and I were attempting. It felt somewhat similar to what I did on Earth, detaching my soul from Dory’s and throwing it out into the world to mingle with others.

Except that I hadn’t this time.

My body and soul were right where they should be, namely back in bed sleeping off my feast, but part of my consciousness was here, in some sort of mental symbiosis with Ray. My powers seemed to manifest differently in this world—very differently, I thought, thinking back to the arena—and it took some getting used to. I decided to work on that.

It was surprisingly difficult. Ray was larger and more solid than me, with a rugged hardness to him that I did not know whether to attribute to his vampire-ness or his maleness, but which kept throwing me off. He felt like trying to wear a coat that was too long and had rocks in the pockets, with his frame being more substantial than I was used to.

It kept tripping me up when I tried to walk, because his legs were longer than I expected and threw off my stride. I kept missing when reaching for door pulls, because his hands were farther away from my shoulders than they were supposed to be. His center of gravity was also strange, being considerably higher than mine, which was why I’d had trouble staying balanced when he gave me control.

Well, that and the fact that his mind kept trying to take it back. But now that I wasn’t distracted by all that, I could appreciate things I hadn’t noticed before. Like how well put together he was.

He was shorter than usual for a man in the modern era, but not by as much as you’d expect. The Dutch were some of the tallest people on the planet, and he must have gotten a boost from his terrible father in that way, at least. He also had a wiry, compact strength that had probably made him more formidable than he appeared even before his transition.

I could see him scrambling up the rigging on his old master’s pirate ship, scanning the horizon with vampire vision, looking for threats. Or for one of the heavily laden merchant ships that were his old family’s favorite prey. He had always been a good climber, scaling the palm trees of his homeland as a boy for food or to escape the near-constant bullying, and he hadn’t forgotten how.

And for a moment, I could actually see it, perhaps because I was currently in his mind: Ray, shirtless and sweating, with straining muscles glistening under a full moon, his once long, black hair whipping around his face courtesy of the high winds off the ocean, and his loose fitting, wide legged trousers blowing back against a surprisingly impressive—

“Auggghhhh!” he yelled suddenly, and for a moment, I didn’t know if that had been memory-Ray or the current one.

The current one, I decided, snapping back to myself to find his whole body vibrating. For a moment, there was a great deal more cursing going on. And then he found a mirror on the wall and used it to glare at me.

“I am trying to concentrate!”

“Sorry,” I said meekly, and he snarled out something incoherent in reply.

That was fair, as he was doing me a favor, but I kept making it more challenging. I tried focusing on the storm again, but found that challenging, too. I kept wanting to touch him, to learn this new body by feel, but he didn’t seem to like that.

I ran a hand down his chest, enjoying the sensation of hard muscle under soft suede, and got growled at in reply. So, I pretended that I had just been admiring his clothes, which were very nice, although they weren’t the ones we’d bought in the marketplace. The new shirt felt like raw silk, with a nubby, homespun nap, and both it and the buttery suede vest and trousers he had paired it with were a burnt sienna that went well with his coloring.

The only problem was that they were too small in places.

The pixies weren’t built the same as humans, so just sizing up their usual attire to replace the stuff that the arena had ruined hadn’t completely worked. The fabric stretched taught over his thighs and biceps, and the breadth of his shoulders made the shirt pull a bit. His muscles in general were well proportioned from years of hard work before his change, and while he was no bodybuilder, they were larger than any I’d ever had.

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