He laughed, low and wicked, as release had her biting down on his shoulder to keep from screaming loud enough to wake the creatures sleeping on the bottom of the sea.
When Rowan finally drew his mouth away from her neck, his magic healing the small holes he’d left, his hands tightened on her thighs, pinning her to the wall as he moved deeper, harder.
Aelin only dragged her fingers through his hair as she gave him a savage kiss, and tasted her own blood on his tongue.
She whispered onto his mouth, “I’ll always find a way back to you.”
This time, when Aelin went over the edge, Rowan plummeted with her.
Manon Blackbeak awoke.
There had been no sound, no smell, no hint of why she’d awoken, but those predatory instincts had sensed something amiss and sent her tumbling from sleep.
She blinked as she sat up, her wound now a dull ache—and found her head clear of whatever that haze had been.
The room was near-black, save for the moonlight that trickled through the porthole to illuminate her cramped cabin. How long had she been lost to sleep and hideous melancholy?
She listened carefully to the creaking of the ship. A faint grumbling sounded from above—Abraxos. Still alive. Still—sleeping, if she knew that drowsy, wheezing grumble.
She tested the manacles on her wrists, lifting them to peer at the lock. A clever sort of contraption, the chains thick and anchored soundly into the wall. Her ankles were no better.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been in chains. How had Elide endured it for a decade?
Maybe she’d find the girl once she got out of here. She doubted the Havilliard king had any news of the Thirteen anyway. She’d sneak onto Abraxos’s back, fly for the coast, and find Elide before tracking down her coven. And then … she didn’t know what she’d do. But it was better than lying here like a worm in the sun, letting whatever despair had seized control these days or weeks wreak havoc on her.
But as if she’d summoned him, the door opened.
Dorian stood there, a candle in his—
Not a candle. Pure flame wreathed his fingers. It set his sapphire eyes glowing bright as he found her lucid. “Was it you—who sent that ripple of power?”
“No.” Though it didn’t take much guessing to suspect who it’d been, then. “Witches don’t have magic like that.”
He angled his head, his blue-black hair stained gold by his flames. “But you’re long-lived.”
She nodded, and he took that as an invitation to slide into his usual chair. “It’s called the Yielding,” she said, a chill brushing down her spine. “The bit of magic we have. We usually cannot summon or wield, but for one moment in a witch’s life, she can summon great power to unleash upon her enemies. The cost is that she is incinerated in the blast, her body yielded to the Darkness. In the witch wars, witches on both sides made Yieldings during every battle and skirmish.”
“It’s suicide—to blow yourself into smithereens … and take enemies with you.”
“It is, and it’s not pretty. As the Ironteeth witch yields life to the Darkness, its power fills her, and unleashes from her in an ebony wave. A manifestation of what lies in our souls.”
“Have you seen it done?”
“Once. By a scared young witch who knew she wouldn’t win glory any other way. Only, she took out half our Ironteeth force as well as the Crochans.”
Her mind snagged on the word. Crochans. Her people—
Not her people. She was a gods-damned Blackbeak—
“Will the Ironteeth use it on us?”
“If you’re facing lower-level covens, yes. Older covens are too arrogant, too skilled to choose the Yielding instead of fighting their way out. But younger, weaker covens get spooked, or wish to win valor through sacrifice.”
“It’s murder.”
“It’s war. War is sanctioned murder, no matter what side you’re on.” Ire flickered on his face, and she asked, “Have you ever killed a man?”
He opened his mouth to say no, but the light in his hand died.
He had. When he’d been collared, she guessed. The Valg inside him had done it. Multiple times. And not cleanly.
“Remember what they made you do,” Manon said, “when you face them again.”
“I doubt I’ll ever forget it, witchling.” He stood, heading for the door.
Manon said, “These chains are rubbing my skin raw. Surely you’ve some sympathy for chained things.” Dorian paused. She lifted her hands, displaying the chains. “I’ll give my word not to do any harm.”
“It’s not my call. Now that you’re talking again, maybe telling Aelin what she’s been pushing you about will get you on her good side.”
Manon had no idea what the queen had been demanding of her. None. “The longer I stay in here, princeling, the more likely I am to do something stupid when you release me. Let me at least feel the wind on my face.”
“You’ve got a window. Go stand in front of it.”
Part of her sat up straight at the harshness, the maleness in that tone, in the set of those broad shoulders. She purred, “If I had been asleep, would you have lingered to stare at me for a while?”
Icy amusement gleamed there. “Would you have objected?”
And perhaps she was reckless and wild and still a bit stupid from blood loss, but she said, “If you plan to sneak in here in the darkest hours of the night, you should at least have the decency to ensure I get something out of it.”
His lips twitched, though the smile was cold and sensuous in a way that made her wonder what playing with a king blessed with raw magic might be like. If he’d make her beg for the first time in her long life. He looked capable of it—perhaps willing to let a little cruelty into the bedroom. Her blood thrummed. “As tempting as seeing you naked and chained might be …” A soft lover’s laugh. “I don’t think you’d enjoy the loss of control.”
“And you’ve been with so many women to be able to judge a witch’s wants so easily?”
That smile turned lazy. “A gentleman never tells.”
“How many?” He was only twenty—though he was a prince, now a king. Women had likely been falling over themselves for him since his voice had deepened.
“How many men have you been with?” he countered.
She smirked. “Enough to know how to handle the needs of mortal princelings. To know what will make you beg.” Never mind that she was contemplating the opposite.
He drifted across the room, past the range of her chains, right into her own breathing space. He leaned over her, nearly nose-to-nose, nothing at all amused in his face, in the cut of his cruel, beautiful mouth, as he said, “I don’t think you can handle the sort of things I need, witchling. And I am never begging for anything again in my life.”
And then he left. Manon stared after him, a hiss of rage slipping from her own lips. At the opportunity she hadn’t taken to grab him, hold him hostage, and demand her freedom; at the arrogance in his assumption; at the heat that had gathered in her core and now throbbed insistently enough that she clamped her legs together.
She had never been denied. Men had fallen to pieces, sometimes literally, to crawl into her bed. And she … She didn’t know what she would have done if he had taken up her offer, if she would have decided to learn what the king could do, exactly, with that beautiful mouth and toned body. A distraction—and an excuse to loathe herself even more, she supposed.
She was still seething at the door when it opened again.
Dorian leaned against the aged wood, his eyes still glazed in a way she couldn’t tell was lust or hatred or both. He slid the lock shut without looking at it.
Her heartbeat picked up, her entire immortal focus narrowed to his steady, unhurried breathing, the unreadable face.
His voice was rough as he said, “I won’t waste my breath telling you how stupid it would be to try to take me hostage.”
“I won’t waste mine telling you to take only what I offer you and nothing more.”
Her ears strained to listen, but even his damned heart was a solid beat. Not a whiff of fear. He said, “I need to hear you say yes.” His eyes flicked to the chains.
It took her a moment to comprehend, but she let out a low laugh. “So considerate, princeling. But yes. I do this of my own free will. It can be our little secret.”
She was nothing and no one now anyway. Sharing a bed with her enemy was nothing compared to the Crochan blood that flowed in her veins.
She began to unbutton the white shirt she’d been wearing for gods knew how long, but he growled, “I’ll do it myself.”
Like hell he would. She touched the second button.
Invisible hands wrapped around her wrists, tightly enough that she dropped the shirt.
Dorian prowled to her. “I said that I’d do it.” Manon took in each inch of him as he towered over her, and a shiver of pleasure rippled through her. “I suggest you listen.”
The pure male arrogance in that statement alone—
“You’re courting death if you—”
Dorian lowered his mouth to hers.
It was a featherlight graze, barely a whisper of touch. Intent, calculated, and so unexpected she arched into it a bit.
He kissed the corner of her mouth with the same silken gentleness. Then the other corner. She didn’t move, didn’t even breathe—like every part of her body was waiting to see what he’d do next.
But Dorian pulled back, studying her eyes with a cool detachment. Whatever he beheld there made him step away.
The invisible fingers on her wrists vanished. The door unlatched. And that cocky grin returned as Dorian shrugged with one shoulder and said, “Maybe another night, witchling.”
Manon almost bellowed as he slipped out the door—and didn’t return.
45
The witch was lucid but pissed off.
Aedion had the pleasure of serving her breakfast and tried not to note the lingering scent of female arousal in the cabin, or that Dorian’s scent was entwined among it.
The king was entitled to move on, Aedion reminded himself hours later as he scanned the late afternoon horizon from the ship’s helm. In the quiet hours of his watches, he’d often mulled over the thorough scolding Lysandra had given him regarding his anger and cruelty toward the king. And maybe—just maybe—Lysandra was right. And maybe the fact that Dorian could even look at a female with interest after seeing Sorscha beheaded was a miracle. But … the witch? That was what he wanted to tangle with?
He asked Lysandra as much when she joined him thirty minutes later, still soaked from patrolling the waters ahead. All clear.
Lysandra finger-combed her inky sheet of hair, frowning. “I had clients who lost their wives or lovers, and wanted something to distract them. Wanted the opposite of who their beloved had been, perhaps to make the act feel wholly separate. What he went through would change anyone. He might very well find himself now attracted to dangerous things.”
“He already had a penchant for them,” Aedion murmured, glancing to where Aelin and Rowan sparred on the main deck, sweat gleaming golden as the afternoon light shifted toward evening. Dorian perched on the nearby steps up to the quarterdeck, Damaris braced over his knees, half awake in the heat. Part of Aedion smiled, knowing Rowan would no doubt kick his ass for it.
“Aelin was dangerous, but still human,” Lysandra observed. “Manon is … not. He probably likes it that way. And I’d stay out of it if I were you.”
“I’m not getting in the middle of that disaster, don’t worry. Though I wouldn’t let those iron teeth near my favorite part if I were him.” Aedion grinned as Lysandra tipped her head back and laughed. He added, “Besides, watching Aelin and the witch go head-to-head this morning about Elide was enough to remind me to stay the hell back and enjoy the spectacle.”
Little Elide Lochan—alive and out there, searching for them. Gods above. The look on Aelin’s face when Manon had revealed detail after detail, what Vernon had tried to do to the girl …