Page 201 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

“No wonder Caryan grew tired of your mouth. It’s quite big and a bit filthy,” Riven counters coolly, crossing his arms.

She hisses at him, the two silver canines catching what little light is down here, vying with her deadly claws.

Riven looks right back at her, flashing a grin that shows his fangs.

“What do you want, Riven? Free me and have some fun. Lonely up there, isn’t it? Have you ever fucked a witch?”

“No thanks.”

She stands up and steps closer, her fingers closing around the iron bars. Her full lips purr, “I saw the way you used to look at me.”

He picks an invisible flick of dust from his shirt. “Yeah? With aversion and slight nausea?”

“You’re an arrogant asshole,” she snarls.

He ignores her. “Why didn’t you kill the girl?”

“Why don’t you bring me some decent food to start with?”

“You can have water.”

“Fuck you.”

“Now I see why you seem to like the human world so much. A penchant for their language” he says. “And other…amenities.”

“Something we have in common, don’t we, princeling? A certain…weaknessfor them, am I right?” she shoots back.

“How do you know?” he asks dryly.

She makes a show of looking up at the ceiling. “Melody’s scent clings to you—of her… you know.” She waves a hand. “And it’s not just the worry about your darling king Caryan that brought you down here to me, I take it.”

“Well, I just wonder—do the other witches know how much you enjoyed yourself in the human world, Blair Alaric?” Riven counters.

Her gaze shoots back to him, her eyes narrowed. “How doyouknow what I did and didn’t do in the human world?”

Riven’s heard about Blair kicking up quite some dust there. He answers smoothly, “I’m Caryan’s right hand. It’s my job to know a lot of things.”

She looks away from him, offering her beautiful profile. Her jaw is a hard line, working.

He expects another sharp retort, but instead, she just shrugs tiredly. “It no longer matters, any of it, does it? So there’s no reason to pretend I’m not terribly thirsty and hungry.”

“Like you’d ever drop that hard façade, Blair, and reveal a feeling creature beneath.”

“Humans call it badass—and yes, I’m tired of games, believe it or not. Although not ofallgames…” Her amber eyes are deep with hunger. A hunger Riven doesn’t want to contemplate too closely—her appetite has little to do with eroticism. Rather, it’s as if she wants to break open his bones for marrow and contemplates the fastest way to do it.

“Why didn’t you kill her?” he asks again, a bottle of water appearing in his hand.

He hands it to her through the bars, and lets her drink. Shegulps the water down as if she can barely do it fast enough. Hells, that bastard Kyrith probably left her without water for days.

“More?” he asks, handing her another full bottle he’s conjured up. She downs this, too, then he throws her an apple.

She frowns at it.

“It’s not poisoned.”

“Huh, funny one, aren’t you? Definitely too much time at the court in Palisandre,” she says, taking a hearty bite, letting him, once again, see her silver, enlarged fae canines and what she’d gladly do to his throat and other parts.

Riven looks down to his fingernails, bored by her games.

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