Page 25 of Mated to the Mad Marquess

The remaining trail of little dark patches of smog followed Malcolm like a line of ducklings chasing their mother to the next pond. He made for the fireplace, then fussed over the flint. Starting a small fire would have been easier without the added baby—shadow,notbaby—hanging off his thumb.

“How long does it take for them to form back together? Clearly they already consider you daddy,” Hrafn teased, kicking her feet up on the table and leaning back in her chair. Battle lust had a profound effect on her. The warrior’s subtle sarcasm was gone, replaced by a blatant playfulness he wished he could enjoy more.

“Master,” he grumped at her. “And they can be fickle when they’re this small. It’ll probably be a week or two at least before they reform.” Were he as practiced with his abilities as he once was, it wouldn’t have taken more than a few days.

Malcolm used the steel poker to stir old coals from a previous fire into a new blaze, setting the embers to smolder. Solis brought in the last of the shadows. Clapa assisted, herding the curious strays that kept rolling away from the group with gentle taps of her claws.

“Careful,” Malcolm warned.

Clapa tapped at one ball of shade too hard. The inky blob opened its mouth so wide it looked like it’d been cut in half. It spat in her face. Chittering, the fairy rubbed her hands down her nose and lips, smearing the blue substance and staining her skin.

She looked down at her palms covered in indigo.

“They startle easily,” Malcolm explained.

Clapa blinked at the mess for a moment. Then her head tipped back. She grabbed her stomach and cackled, the sound not unlike the tinkling of tiny bells.

“Attaway, Puff-Puff,” she said, rolling it more forcefully toward the fire the way a child might ball up a boulder of powder after a heavy snow.

Hrafn sent her demon to scout around the fortress from the air, checking for any remaining people poisoned by the monster. One of Malcolm’s footmen entered the great hall then, looking pale and disheveled. Malcolm reassured him that the worst was over. He was sent to call for the cook and gather the groom and the other stable hands to tend to the dead.

“They’re innocent people,” Malcolm told his servant. “Treat them with great respect.”

Malcolm was so hungry and thirsty an ache was building in his skull. But first he had to attend to the damn shadows. When the coals glowed red, he broke them apart with the poker and pushed them out of the fire. Hungry little shadows gathered around, gobbling up the bits of glowing embers.

“The shadows like the light,” Hrafn mused, craning her neck to watch. “It’s almost poetic.”

“Nothing poetic about what comes out of them when they’re done with it, though,” Malcolm said, grimacing.

Solis took over the work of raking out new coals. Malcolm was starved, his nerves were shot enough for all of them, and he needed wine.

Lots of it.

A footman brought out refreshments on a cart. Malcolm sunk broodily into a chair across from his mate. She seemed unbothered by his poor mood. She’d removed her soiled jerkin and given it to the footman, oblivious of the blood still streaking her cheek. The shirt beneath was made of a thick, fitted cotton. It hugged the lean muscles of her shoulders and cupped her chest.

She wasn’t wearing anything underneath it. Her nipples tented the fabric.

There was a glow about her since the fight, a shimmer of excitement in her brown eyes, a flush in her cheeks. She appeared younger, a warrior high on victory. Gods, he envied her. She didn’t have to spare a single thought for the state of her lands or the people who lived on them. She didn’t have to worry about whom the dead belonged to and what the ramifications of their demise would mean to the people who called his lands home.

She looked like freedom incarnate, hair down in flowing plaits, a quiet confidence in her every movement.

Malcolm poured himself and his mate a tall glass of red. Tea was set out between them by the footman. Malcolm filled a hot cup for Clapa, but the fairy didn’t drink it. She unwound her buttons from her hair, stripped off her clothing made of flower petals, and bathed in the cup instead. Blood and blue shadowy saliva darkened the tea.

Hrafn took an enthusiastic swallow of her wine, a small drop leaking out the side of her mouth. Malcolm watched the trail it made with fascination, then a growing pinch of jealousy as it dipped down the strong column of her throat. Lowering the glass, she swiped at the stray drop. “Lunar wine might as well be water.”

“It’ll still get you drunk,” Malcolm rasped between gulps. When his glass was empty, he sat it down beside hers. “Tell me about your monster.”

“The shadow lord, your father,” she added cautiously, “he called the monster a phantom.”

“Mindless, soulless, hapless creatures not so different from demons,” Malcolm said.

“Don’t let my familiar Ezra hear you saying that. They both originate in the lake of fire below the Hell Mountains, but they’re different,” Hrafn insisted, “and this one is not soulless. It was once a familiar.”

The table was set around them. Malcolm leaned back, allowing a napkin to be tucked in near his belt. Plates were laid, and the flatware came next.

His stomach growled. He took his fork in hand in preparation. “The familiar of who?”

The tops of her wings arched in a shrug. “We never knew. When the old gods roamed these parts, it wasn’t uncommon to stumble upon a familiar who’d been abandoned by their witch. Gods have vast souls. They’d exchange a small, powerful piece of theirs for a service requiring blood magic. When the job was done, their need for the familiar ended.”

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