Page 33 of A Court of Sugar and Spice
“Perhaps it isn’t safe for you to bathe alone in this state,” he says softly. His upper lip hitches, showing a few of his pointed teeth.
My bare skin prickles with warmth. How can he still affect me like this, bone-weary as I am? My one foray into the world of sex with men wasn’t nearly this exciting, and he hasn’t even touched me anywhere salacious.
“Your nails are so sharp,” I whisper.
“Do the claws frighten you, sweetling?” He lifts his hand, and a ripple of iridescent magic passes over his fingers. The claws disappear, leaving his nails smoothly rounded. “I can eliminate the danger if I need to, for certain—activities.”
I swallow hard, willing the pulsing heat between my legs to dissipate. “I think you should go.”
“Very well.” He backs away. “I won’t enter unannounced again, but I may call to you, and if you don’t answer I will come in to make sure you haven’t fallen asleep and drowned yourself.”
“That seems wise.” I give him a small smile, and his eyes light up. His answering toothy grin is terrifying, so alien to my weary mind that I stifle the urge to scream.
He doesn’t seem to notice. After pointing out the soap, he saunters out of the bathing room and closes the door behind him, until there’s just a thin crack.
He’s Fae—an exiled, rogue Fae—and there is no guarantee he won’t watch me bathe through that crack. But in truth, I find the idea titillating. I shouldn’t, but there it is.
The water eases my discomfort in the most wonderful way. I use the soap, and then I pick up the straight razor by the soap dish and tend to my legs and underarms. I’m in the middle of carefully shaving the stubble beneath my left arm when the door of the bathing room bumps open and three skinny white shapes snake in the room, scuttling across the tiled floor.
I yelp and startle, and the blade of the razor slices into my breast. Gasping with the pain, I let the blade fall into the water and cup my breast, scrambling to my feet and staring wildly around the room. I can hear tiny feet, tiny nails, scrabbling across the tiles.
Then I catch a glimpse of something crouched under the washstand. The second I lay eyes on it, it moves, streaking across the floor to vanish behind a stack of multicolored towels.
The door opens wider and the Sugarplum Fae dashes in, his gauzy wings stirring with alarm. “What is it? I heard you scream.”
His eyebrows fly up when he sees me standing in the tub, blood running from my breast through my fingers, down my side.
“There arethingsin here,” I pant, staring wildly around. “Creatures, like little white rats, but longer.”
“Not rats,” he says. “Those are my pets. I have three weasel-cats who deign to visit me from time to time, and they like the bathroom when there’s hot water and steam. I’ll shoo them out. Lie down in the bath, sugar. The water will heal you.”
“Why didn’t I think of that?” I mutter, sinking back into the water.
“Because you’re exhausted,” he says brightly. He crouches, clicking his tongue, and three white furry shadows slink toward him. He scoops one up—it’s smaller than a cat, fluffier than a weasel, with a plumed white tail.
“See?” He comes to the edge of the tub and holds the little thing closer to me. It has enormous eyes and the cutest tiny face, complete with long white whiskers. Its two miniscule front paws are cupped over the top of his hand. Though its pink nose is quivering wildly and nervously at my scent, it doesn’t struggle to escape. It trusts him.
“This is Ferra,” he says. “And the others are Shae and Kriss. Come on now, loves. Out you go.” He herds them gently to the bathroom door. They scurry into the hallway, and he closes the door behind them once their tails are clear.
“I didn’t know Fae had pets,” I say.
“Why shouldn’t we? Because we’re monstrously wicked?” He strides back to the tub and kneels beside it. “Maybe I only keep them because I’m planning to sacrifice them for some fell ritual.”
“Then why did you name them?”
“Ah, you’ve got me there.” He flashes me a smile. “Now let’s see what you’ve done to yourself, darling.”
I’m mostly submerged in the water, which is colored deep blue but still transparent. He can see me—all of me.
Slowly I rise a little higher, until my breasts are above the surface. The cut is still bleeding.
“When your pets startled me, I accidentally cut myself with the razor,” I explain.
“Why were you using a razor?”
“Back home it was the fashion to remove body hair. Papa didn’t like us doing it, but Louisa and I prefer it.”
“I never use one,” he says. “Most Fae don’t have body hair to remove. I only have this one because my last overnight guest brought it with her and left it behind. She’s a fenodyree, a very hairy species of Fae. Not that I minded, but she liked to keep certain areas trimmed. You’re lucky it was here. Or unlucky, depending on how you look at it.”
