Page 102 of Prince of Night and Storm
Dripdrip.
“No response, Lady? I have at last captured your tongue. What shall I do to my prize now that it’s in my keeping?”
To. Do to.
“You aren’t eating, Nyawira, though wedid. . .anticipate dinner earlier. Is there aught at the table you again wish to sample? Perhaps a hearty skewer you have not yet tasted.”
Drip drip drip.
Again, I attempt to pull away. The corner of his mouth quirks. He angles his head slightly away from Baba and blue-black hair shields his real expression—the blue gems twinkling at me with the delight of a cat who enjoys toying with its squealing, squirming mouse.
“I’m not hungry, Prince.”
His thumb caresses my skin. “Nor have I yet had my fill. I am ravenous for succulent meat dripping in juice, coated in rich cream. Meat to savour. . .to devour.”
I’m rigid. “Then maybe you should eat and not talk.” Not the way I meant to say that but I’m having trouble thinking. I’m having trouble existing.
“Ah. I will very soon take my meal in my bed.”
Driiip. Screech. Crash.
Another creature shoves me outside my body and snatches a paring knife. A panicked eighth of a second to wrest back enough control not to go for my hidden iron blade or his throat before I slam the weapon down through the hand ravaging mine.
Red blood from my palm blooms, mingling with his, dark under the evening sky, and I stare, caught.
Pain, bright and sharp.
The blade’s tip is embedded in the table, our hands bound together in a macabre union of flesh, silver, and blood, Old and young.
The creature that momentarily inhabited my body jumps ship. My chaotic temper collapses into bleached bones, leaving me to deal with the fallout.
I've made my point. And in making it, begin to unravel.
As our blood mingles, static rips up my arm again. This time it crawls inside, infiltrating my bloodstream. My power rises, avatar purring, feeding off the crackle of energy.
Dazed, I lift my gaze to his.
His expression sharpens, the veil hiding the leviathan in his ancient eyes gone, his air of lethal sensuality unfurling as if the scent of our mingled blood excites him.
I brace myself—then the feeling eases. I've been one second from death before. Disaster.
Something worse.
That, halfling, was foolish.
I almost hear his words in my mind, try to force myself to believe I’m imagining them—maybe I am. Maybe I’m reading them in his eyes. Big eyes. Sapphire eyes that grow and grow until they are big enough I can slip into their slitted pupils, drown in the blackness.
You have no conception of what you offer me.
What. What did I offer.
Much more than your life.
I didn’t mean to.
Intent counts for nothing. I will not refuse the gift. I have never been an ascetic god.
Saliva floods my mouth, mingling with blood as I reflexively bite the inside of my cheek.
