Page 106 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

Caryan glanced at Riven before he met her gaze again. When he spoke this time, his voice had fallen so low that even with her fae hearing she could barely make out the words. “I mean it, Blair. I’ll meet you later.”

She left. The effect of the cooling night air and the wind in her heart gone. Vanished.

All that stayed was anger.

And loneliness.

She was just so alone.

***

He did come later. He must have bathed, because neither Riven’s nor her aunt’s scent clung to him, thank the gods. It was only his own scent, elusive, entrancing. Addictive.

Blair sat up on her bed and slid a little back from him, her teeth bared.

He just said, “You wanted to talk.”

“Yeah, well, you know, I think I’m still too sober for this shit.”

He frowned at the two empty bottles of wine next to her bed. He turned his head away, offering her his elegant profile, but she could see him bare his teeth; annoyed. It was the first sight of a feeling she’d seen on him in a long time.

“You shouldn’t be drinking. You need sleep,” he said.

She just threw her head back and laughed before she sucked the last remnants from the bottle. “If I can’t be happy, at least I can be drunk.”

His gaze shot back to her. “Do not act like a youngling, for once, Blair.”

“Like a youngling? You fuck my aunt. You fuck Riven. Want to fuck my mothers too?”

“This is utterly ridiculous.” More of his fangs showed as his upper lip pulled back.

“Is it? Riven’s a looker. Maybe I should fuck him, too.”

He growled. “You’re acting like a prepubescent human.”

She flung a dagger at him.

Caryan caught it midair with his bare hand, its tip stopping mere inches away from his left eye.

She flung another one. It crumbled to dust halfway to him, his shadows eating it up. Damn, he didn’t even have to move his hands to wield his power.Bastard.

All he said was, “Get a hold of yourself.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I will. I just have to be dramatic first,” she snarled, sending another dagger made of her magic at him.

He thwarted it with a wall of black, swirling magic. She shot to her feet, flinging more and more at him as she came for him.

He blocked every single one without so much as blinking.Asshole.Abyss, how immaculate he looked. And how much she wished to change that.

“You wanna play? Because I play better,” she hissed. She lashed out with her claws when she reached him.

He didn’t fight her. A dark part of her wondered if he would have if her aunt’s magical shackles didn’t make that impossible.

He merely took a step back as his dark magic formed misty, black shackles around her wrists, pulling tight and her body up until she dangled from the middle of the tent, suspended in the air.

Only then did he come closer. She growled and hissed at him, trying to make her own magic cut through the manacles. In vain. As if they were made of something else. Something her magic was powerless against. What in the sweet hells? Or maybe she was just too drunk.

“Fuck you! Fuck you, you fucking bastard. I almost got killed. Kyrith found a way to smother my magic and almost killed me, and you… you screw around behind my back!”

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