Page 116 of Heir

“That’s not the reason,” Quil said, and Sirsha heard that steel in his voice that made her weak in the knees. Skies, but she loved it when he was the hard, cool, disdainful prince. His pale gaze was fixed on R’zwana, and he didn’t bother to hide his dislike. “You know what she’s hunting. You’re hunting the same thing, but can’t manage it on your own.”

“You admit it, then!” R’zwana’s face lit with malicious glee, even as J’yan groaned in frustration. “You hunt as we hunt. J’yan, take her—”

“That is my fiancée you’re threatening.” Quil had a blade at R’zwana’s throat—Sirsha hadn’t even seen him draw it. “Touch a single inch of her skin and see what happens.”

“She has admitted—”

“She could admit to lighting your arse on fire and you couldn’t do anything because she’s my Adah and a Martial citizen,” Quil said. “For someone who claims to understand the law, you’re remarkably forgetful when it comes to one you find inconvenient.”

“Follow me if you want,” Sirsha said, trying to quell her laughter at the image of R’zwana with her arse on fire, “but don’t get in my way, sister. This isn’t a normal hunt.”

“It’s a Karjad, like all the other Karjad—”

“You haven’t seen it, have you?” Sirsha realized it as she was saying the words. No one who had seen that thing would compare it to a Karjad—a blanket Jaduna term for a dangerous magic-user. “You haven’t seen what it can do. You have no bleeding idea.”

“I have J’yan bleating in my ear a dozen times a day that it’s dangerous,” R’zwana scoffed. “I’m well aware that you two are frightened of it.”

“It is worth being frightened of.” Sirsha could hardly lift her voice above a whisper, thinking of how Loli had died. Of how dangerously cavalier R’zwana was. And though part of her wanted her sister to see for herself, come what may, R’z was still blood. Still her sister. No matter what lay between them, Sirsha didn’t want her to get hurt.

“It’s of another world, the spirit world,” Sirsha said. “If you don’t respect it—if you don’trealizehow dangerous it is—you’ll get yourself killed.”

“You’re a coward, sister. Always have been.”

“And you,” Quil said, apparently bored of listening to them spar, “are pathetic. You’re stalking us because you can’t catch this creature yourself. You’ve never even bleeding seen it. When your sister tries to warn you, instead of thanking her, you insult her. For a Jaduna, you are stunningly weak-minded, Raan-Ruku. You shame your people.”

He stood, as the rest of them, even Sirsha, stared dumbfounded at the insult. “My fiancée and I will retire now.” He took Sirsha’s hand, giving it a squeeze. “Take the night to think on whether we could be of aid to each other, or whether you’d rather continue acting like a skulking dog, yipping at the heels of your betters.”

They walked down the hall and into the room Sirsha had claimed. When Quil closed the door, she whirled on him.

He sighed. “I’m sor—”

She cut him off. “I did not need you to defend me.”

“She was so bleeding annoying—”

“I didn’tneedit,” Sirsha said. “But it was glorious.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe you likened a Jaduna Raan-Ruku to a skulking dog.”

“I can’t believe she hasn’t burst in here and turned me into a squirrel.”

“If she had that kind of power, I’d be happily collecting nuts in the Cloud Forest.”

“Hmm. You’d make a good squirrel, I think.” Quil’s grin was rare enough that when his lone dimple flashed, Sirsha’s heart swooped. “You’d charm all the other squirrels.”

“Have my own squirrel army,” Sirsha said. “We’d stockpile acorns and pelt R’zwana with them.”

The image was so ridiculous that she giggled, and Quil snorted, and then they were laughing until tears leaked out the corners of their eyes, the wild guffaws of two people who were dancing with the reaper and knew it. Fear and exhaustion and hilarity mingled, and Sirsha grabbed Quil’s arm to steady herself.

Later, she’d wonder if that was the moment that lit the fire between them. Perhaps it had kindled earlier in the main room when she’d lost herself in his gaze. Or at that inn in Devan, with his hands tight on her waist, his pulse thumping beneath her fingers. Or earlier still, when he’d saved her life on the Effie in Navium.

It didn’t matter. Because now, as if her touch had cut loose anything resembling restraint, he grabbed her by the waist, pulled her to him, and brought his mouth to hers.

Or had she leaned up to kiss him? She didn’t care. All that mattered was his lips hard and demanding against hers, her frantic need to feel his skin, to peel away his clothes. She gasped when he pinned her arms toher sides and pushed her against a wall, pulling back, his kisses featherlight now on her jaw, her neck. At his withdrawal, a sound of protest came unbidden from her throat. She saw his lips quirk in a satisfied smile.

Some part of Sirsha’s mind screamed at her that this was an appalling idea. Her dalliances had always been meaningless. It was better if they didn’t matter.

But Quil, patient Quil, beautiful Quil, angry, enraged, yet always in control Quil, was making it matter. She should shove him away. Tell him this was foolish. Only he was turning her bones to liquid with these slow, languorous kisses.

“Bedroll,” she panted, because it was the closest thing to a horizontal surface, and she wanted him so badly she ached.

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