Page 50 of A Court of Sugar and Spice
However irritating he may be, I have to admit that his force of will is incredible. I’m not sure any other unattached, femme-attracted male would be able to resist the juicy pussy I just showed off to him.
Feeling triumphant, I return to my room. A different set of nightgowns are laid out—I’m not sure if they were conjured by Finias or pulled from a storage trunk somewhere. I pull on the pink one decorated with embroidered white snowbloom, and I crawl into bed.
It’s odd how very safe I feel in this house, with these two Fae males, especially considering my suspicions when we first agreed to help the Nutcracker. I can still hear the echo of Drosselmeyer’s warning:
Don’t go with him. He’s not what he seems. You don’t know who they are, what they do—stop, you idiot girls! You’ll ruin everything!
A faint unrest stirs in my heart.
But I ignore it, and go to sleep.
I’m awakened by a loudbangfrom somewhere in the house.
At first my bleary mind thinks it’s Clara and Fin, having loud sex somewhere upstairs. But thebangis followed by a horrendous crunching sound, ear-splittingly loud, and a violent quaking of the house as if it’s being slowly, inexorably ripped apart by a giant.
Screaming, I scramble out of bed, snatch my dagger and belt, and flee into the hallway.
Half the hallway doesn’t exist anymore. It has been chomped and ripped away by the jaws of an immense rat the size of a building, with chitinous armor-plating on its sides and back. Strapped around its neck is a kind of saddle, on which are perched two rat-soldiers. More rat-soldiers are skirting around its paws, climbing into the wreckage of the house. A pair of them shout at the sight of me.
I scream again, not because of them, but because the bedroom where Fin and Clara slept last night is gone—crushed, demolished, eaten. Pieces of it are sticking out between the titanic rat’s yellow teeth.
“No!” I shriek. “No, you fucking bastards!” Stricken, I draw my dagger and charge toward the oncoming rat-soldiers.
A strong arm wraps around my waist and carries me off, in the opposite direction from the soldiers, toward the second-floor stairs. It’s the Prince, uniformed as usual, his rapier in his other hand.
“Stop!” I yell at him. “Put me down! They killed Fin and my sister—they have to pay!”
I beat at his neck and face with my free hand, but he doesn’t put me down, only jogs toward the staircase.
Finias comes running down the steps, stark naked, with my sister behind him—also naked. The next second they’re both engulfed in a rainbow whirl of Finias’s magic, which solidifies into conjured clothes and shoes. I barely have time to process my relief, because a pair of sturdy boots forms around my own bare feet, and a cloak swirls around my shoulders, pinning itself in place.
“Back door!” shouts Finias. “Take the girls, Lir. I’ll hold them off and meet you later.”
“No!” screams Clara, but the Prince seizes her wrist in a vise-grip and drags her along with us.
I look back and see Finias striding toward the oncoming invaders, his wings flared, his tall figure uplit by the glow of his broken house and the torch-bearing soldiers. He looks easy, careless, perfectly relaxed.
A volley of tiny rainbow orbs flies from his hands, zipping and diving through the air, slicing straight through the chests of a dozen rat-soldiers. He follows it up with a rain of striped darts—I could swear they’re sharpened peppermint sticks—and more rats fall, speared through the eyes or throats. Over it all, Fin’s laughter rings out, maniacal and delighted as he takes to the sky, wings whirring, dodging crossbow bolts, balls of fiery magic, and thrown spears.
I don’t get the chance to see how he’ll attack them next, because Lir is dragging Clara and me out the back door of the house. It looks like a seamless wall until we’re charging through it, and when I glance back afterward, I can’t see a door at all, or any windows on the back side of the building. Since the rear exit is invisible, no rat-soldiers are posted back here to keep us from fleeing. They’re all at the front of the house.
“They’ll kill Finias,” gasps Clara.
“They won’t,” says Lir firmly. “He’s incredibly powerful. He doesn’t let many people see it, but he’s a superb warrior. He can hold them off. Why do you think we came to him for help? Why do you think we only hired five others to accompany us to the pool? He’s a small army, all by himself.”
“Oh.” My sister’s panic eases, admiration bleeding through the anxiety on her face.
“We have to run now,” says Lir. “As fast as we can.”
“Are you all right to run?” I ask him.
“I’ll do my best. This way.”
We jog through the forest. It’s freezing cold, but fortunately it isn’t pitch-black. Tiny red and green lights wink on and off among the trees, providing just enough visibility for Clara and I to keep track of Lir’s tall form as he forges ahead, guiding us.
“Someone betrayed you,” I say.
He glances back, a reluctant surprise in his eyes. He has given me the same look a couple of times—when I threw the bombs that saved us in the forest, and when I suggested fighting back-to-back afterward.
