Page 53 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

It was deep into the night, and Blair was still trying to clean her wounds while she waited for them to close fully. It took too long, thanks to the iron slowing her healing to the rate of a lesser fae. Every form of metal was bad. After Nefarian steel, which was utterly deadly, silver and iron inflicted the worst damage.

Blair closed her eyes and gritted her teeth against the pain as her fingers pulled another ribbon of shredded fabric out of a wound. Her aunt hadn’t allowed her to take off her flying leathers and silken shirt before Riven whipped her.

She still saw the pale elf’s pained face in her mind. The remorse on his remarkable features the moment he went up to the platform with her and his elegant fingers unfurled the whip. His teeth, bared against the command. But he had no choice. He couldn’t resist Gatilla’s order, even if he wanted to.

None of her slaves could.

Blair blinked a few times, trying to shake the image off. Hells, she wasn’t too fond of the elf. All the less because Caryan had taken some liking to him. He had been the one to enslave the elf in the first place and bring him here. Why, Blair hadn’t yet found out.

Blair had taken the lashing without a sound. Without a plea or scream. Without any reaction at all, just as any witch would havedone. After that, she’d returned down to the council chamber and sat bleeding through the whole meeting.

War. They’d be flying to war against Palisandre.

It was deep into the night when wing beats filled the air and Caryan appeared through her window. He leaned against the wall, his powerful arms crossed in front of his body, no trace of the mighty, black wings from a moment before. He’d dismissed them the moment he set foot in here as he always did. Blair once asked whether she could touch them, but he denied her. She never dared to ask again. Afraid of another rejection.

She found his dark eyes resting on her naked, still bleeding back. She got up from the chair and slowly walked toward him, dropping the towel already stained red with her blood as she went.

He just kept looking at her in that stoic way of his. His eyes, still and dark and ancient, and his irises faded to a gloomy red. A horizon announcing doom.

“Addressing me as Caryan, Blair? You’re getting reckless,” was all he said when she paused in front of him.

She resisted the urge to crane her neck. She already felt small but having him looking at her like that made her feel tiny. Young, but in a bad way. He had that effect on her. Always. She always tried to look alluring around him, to say something witty and sharp.

In the beginning, she even tried to make him laugh or smile. But Caryan never smiled, let alone laughed, which only made her feel more stupid for even trying.

Being reprimanded didn’t make it any better.

She covered it as she always did—with teasing. “My commander. Seriously?”

His remarkable eyes shifted into a prickling amber that promised a challenge, not unlike her own as he took her in.

So fucking beautiful.

“I mean it,” he retorted, unmoved. “Leash your temper.”

“Oh, I mean it too, believe me,” she crooned right back.

“That you bow to no one?”

She grinned at his tone. Hells, he was still pissed. She could see the dark tendrils of magic coming off him.

She stretched out a hand to touch him, but he caught her wrist in midair.

“It’s been three fucking weeks,” she whispered when his face stayed stern, no trace of softness. No, he was ancient and cold. If she was fire, he was eternal stone under a glacier. And still, she burned and burned and burned. Three fucking weeks without seeing him. Touching him. Tasting him. It almost drove her mad. It was that way since they started sleeping with each other and the fire hadn’t ceased. Quite the contrary. All she could think about was him.

Whenever her aunt sent her away, it made her restless, nervous, and aching.

He kept her locked in place when she tried to yank her hand back. With an effortlessness that made a completely different form of heat pool between her legs. Fuck, she needed him everywhere.

He just tilted his head slightly when she attempted to wriggle free a second time. “Sometimes I wonder what will get you killed faster—your stubbornness or your temper.”

She cocked an eyebrow. “My temper? I thought you liked that about me.”

“I can’t deny a certain attraction.”

“I need to touch you,” she said then, no longer caring that her voice had fallen to a whispered plea. Unashamed of how plaintive she sounded. It was true. She needed him more than she needed blood, food or even water. And the thought that her aunt would be sending her away earlier than planned… that she won’t even have two more nights with him, made her want to cry.

“Please, Caryan…” she whispered again when he kept holding her. Before him, she’d never begged for a thing in her life. Certainly never for a man. Hells, she’d never let herself be under a man before, but now that was what she lived and died for.

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