Page 1 of Caged By Dance and Desire

Chapter

One

ANDREIEN

Ipaused in the mortal's bathroom, using the meat of my palm to turn the faucet with a grimace, and not only because of the cloying, overly sweet scent permeating the apartment. Not that I was particularly fastidious, but even the lowest ranked warriors must maintain standards.

The male was obviously too lazy to clean his domain, and too stupid to hire or bargain for the labor if he wasn't inclined to it himself. My Anah's dwelling was immaculate, though her meager lodgings dissatisfied me.

I'd address that soon, however. There was a townhome in the city, conveniently close to the Sahakian Arts building, where I could house her. Palace quarters were out of the question. She'd live in vicinity of the Court, giving them daily access to her, over my dead body.

. . .Anah was right. I was going to have to allocate my dead body. The Dark in my bloodline wasn’t strong enough for more than one.

I smiled faintly, washed the blood off my hands and exited the bathroom where Constin awaited me, having already wrapped the head in a sheet he'd ripped off the bed. It stank of human. Dead human. Nothing like Hasannah's enticing scent. I marveled again because there was almost something Fae about her, made all the more obvious the longer I stood steeped in the stench of unwashed human male.

Constin flicked his gaze at me, then up in the direction of Hasannah's apartment. It wouldn't be her dwelling much longer, but I required a few hours to make arrangements.

“Are you going to tell her about this?” my luudthen asked. “She won't like it.”

We left the apartment, heading out of the building. “She won't care.”

He shook his head. “Is that what you think?”

I understood her well, despite so short an acquaintance. “As long as it doesn't interfere with her ambition, she'll ignore the death.” Though I doubted she'd encountered death of this kind in her short life. I had to remind myself of how very young she was, a baby in Fae terms. “I don'tthinkshe's squeamish.”

And even if she was, he'd threatened her. He'd threatened her after I had made an obvious claim. If I'd been inclined to let the petty offense go, I couldn't. There had been witnesses to his disrespect.

And even had I been inclined to let the petty offense go, attempting to sell my bonded out to the Lord of Coal District sealed his fate. What would it say about me if I couldn't protect my consort from a measly human? It would sayplentyof the wrong things, and have me embroiled in opportunisticchallenges all season when I should be seducing my human's thighs open.

Constin made a noise in the back of his throat, half skepticism, half approval. “Then she is almost Fae.”

“Well, she'll need to be. Casakraine is not a human toddler's playground.”

Which was one of the reasons why we had strict rules regarding the presence of humans in our city, and kept them confined to Coal District unless they were bound to a House.

“He was hopped up,” Constin said in a low voice. “That new shit.”

I’d seen it too. Blown out pupils, overweening courage when I’d appeared on his threshold. He hadn’t feared me, at all. Not because he was courageous. Unfortunately, his death hadn’t been nearly as painful as I would have liked.

“Lord Ashlyun will answer for that as well,” I said. “He’s losing control of his District.”

“You're going to leave her in that hovel now that her identity may have been compromised?”

I pursed my lips as we jumped into the coach, Constin giving orders to take us to the home of the District Lord.

Each warrior left to guard her would give their lives before they allowed her to come to harm. Even if they weren’t already personally loyal to me, they well knew the consequences of failure. Death defending Hasannah would be gentler than what I would do to them if she came to harm under their watch. It would hurt me to kill them, but I would.

“The human only sent the message in the last hour,” I said. “If Ashlyun read it instead of setting it aside for a servant to handle, he’d still need more time to respond adequately.”

Lord Ashlyun was not known for hasty action. He ruled this District of humans haphazardly because he simply didn’t care about their welfare other than to maintain some semblance of duty for when he was called to Court. The District's underworld was where he truly spent his time. My mother turned her head. Delegation, she'd informed me when I was younger and had protested the seeming permission her silence gave the male to conduct his unlawful activities.

“No one likes spiders in their house, my son, but they control the other pests. Lord Ashlyun is my spider, and as long as his little empire serves our interests, and he maintains his fealty, we will overlook his activities no matter how distasteful.”

“No matter how distasteful?”my sister had asked.

“He knows the limits. He will not cross them.”Mother gave us a thin smile, blue-gray eyes coldly amused.“And if he does, he will not do so in a way where I will be forced to respond. This is why we never let stupid people hold power. They only create more work. Ashlyun is not stupid. And even better—he is cautious in his ambition. We watch.”

“He could be behind the synthesis and distribution of Ixnie,” Constin said. “And that show the other week was for your mother.”

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