Page 64 of Marked By the Dark Lord
“Well, isn’tthata convenient way for you to keep me around,” she drawled.
“Yes. How fortunate for me,” I said.
She giggled.
“Now, if you would be so kind,” I implored, pushing her down onto her back, spreading her legs with a knee, kissing my way down her body, over her breasts, the pink nipples hardening on their own as I watched. “I have to finish something before we take care of business.”
“Oh,” she cried softly as my tongue found its mark. “This isn’t business?”
“This is most definitelypleasure,” I growled around her mound.
“Okay,” she hissed, gripping the covers. “But what’s next?”
“Finding out who sent Gunnar after me,” I said, sliding a finger into her damp hole, eliciting a louder moan. “Now shut up and focus on me.”
Chapter Thirty
Mila
When Korr’ok told me we’d be looking for information about who had sent Gunnar, visions of seedy men in dimly lit taverns and secret back-alley meetings filled my mind. Where information would be bartered, threats offered, and danger abounded.
None of that came to be. Instead, after our personal, ahem,businesswas concluded to the mutual satisfaction (several times over) of both parties, we’d showered, dressed, stopped for food, and then gone to the library of all places.
“I’m confused,” I stated, looking around at the various creatures with their noses or other appendages stuffed between the pages of books, magazines, and other forms of physical media. “How will a library give us the information we need?”
“It’s not,” he admitted. “But before I go poking around, asking questions about House Duloke, I need to get caught up on current events. Hence, the library.”
“Currentevents?” I repeated. “But a library isn’t really that current. Unless … Korr’ok,how long have you been gone?”
“Almost two centuries,” he said offhandedly as if it were nothing. A footnote.
“Oh.”
“Yes, now come on, everything to do with Fae is on the fourth floor.”
“Right.” I trailed along in a daze. Korr’ok had made it sound like he’d left only a couple of years ago. Maybe ten at the most. But if the ratio of time at home from time gone held up … “Uh, how old are you?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Two hundred or so Earth years? Something like that. Fae don’t really keep track. Not precisely, at least.”
“Two hundred …” I gaped at him.
“Get used to it,” he said with a grin. “My father ismucholder.”
“Okay.” I felt a little lightheaded as my brain tried to process just how much Korr’ok must have seen in his life. Two hundred years! Insane.
I trailed after him, not really paying attention, as we went up to the library's fourth floor. While he perused books, updating himself on his House, I stared out the window at the Black Tower several blocks away, its shadow an oppressive covering of the buildings to my left, a sullen reminder of the lord who dwelled within.
At some point, Korr’ok came to me, frustrated. “There’s nothing here. No changes.”
“Then we have to look for newer news, don’t we?”
He nodded. “Yes. I have some contacts within the city. Let’s go.”
I grinned. Now we were talking. Shady secrets, hidden hideouts, that was the fun kind of stuff! Not well-lit libraries with perfectly labeled and organized books.
“Why are you grinning?” he asked.
“‘Cause we’re going skulking!” I exclaimed. “I’ve always wanted to do that. Do we go sit at a bar and wait for someone to approach us? Or are you going to go in and use your rep to get an audience and then kick the ass of someone who doesn’t want to help?”
