“It’s a little funny.” I gestured to the rocky ledge beneath the falls. “Come on. Before you either drown us or boil us.”
Rava glared, but swam past me and hauled herself onto the outcropping. Silvery moonlight filtered through the curtain of water, catching on the droplets clinging to her skin. Short black hair plastered to her neck, drawing attention to the elegant line of her throat. Those tiny horns gleamed like polished obsidian.
I pulled myself up beside her, not bothering to hide my appreciation as I drank in every dip and swell of her water-logged frame. Even drenched and wounded, she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. And the most infuriating.
“Talk,” I said, forcing my eyes away from the way her chest rose and fell with each breath. “All of it. No more half-truths or convenient omissions.”
She held my gaze for a long moment, defiance written in every line of her body. Then something in her seemed to deflate. Her shoulders slumped, and she looked away.
“My name is Rava Kadhan,” she began, her voice barely audible over the water. “I’m the youngest daughter of the Kadhan clan, second only to Fitsum royalty.”
I blinked. “You’re a princess?”
Well, shit. That explained the tilt of her chin when she was pissed, the way she carried herself like the world should bend to her will. And the way it—I—sometimes did.
“Don’t.” She held up a hand. “It’s not what you think. Infighting split the lines and stripped my family’s claim generations ago. We’re mercenaries. The best in the business.” She glanced down at her injured shoulder. “Ortheyare, anyway. I’m still proving myself.”
The cut wasn’t deep, but it had torn through her shirt and still bled steadily. My jaw clenched at the sight. She’d taken that injury for me. Whatever else she said, whatever her motives, she came back for me.
It had to count for something.
“Here, let me see.”
She hesitated, then turned slightly to give me access to the wound. I tore a strip from the bottom of my shirt and soaked it in the clear pool water. “Hold still.”
She hissed as I dabbed at her shoulder, her tail whipping behind her. “Your bedside manner needs work.”
“Good thing I’m not a healer then. Though I’ve patched up enough training injuries to know what I’m doing to put you atmy mercy.” She stiffened and I grinned, gentling my touch. “So how does an ifrit merc princess find herself stealing trinkets?”
She uncurled her fingers, revealing a pendant on a heavy gold chain. An opal the size of a walnut glowed with inner fire, set in intricate metalwork that seemed to shift and writhe in the dim light.
“This ‘trinket’ is a hellfire opal,” she said. “Set in infernal-forged gold. One of the relics created by the ancient demon overlords to control ifrit before we were locked on this side of the mortal plane.”
I reached for it, but she pulled back, closing her fingers around it again.
“It’s dangerous,” she warned. “In the wrong hands, it can bend any ifrit to the wielder’s will. Make them nothing more than a puppet dancing on strings.”
I studied her face in the silvery light. “And you stole it because...?”
Her tail curled defensively around her leg. “Because Prince Javed Fitsum wants it. And I’d rather die than give him that kind of power over me.”
The name meant nothing to me, but the tight line of her mouth and the flicker in her eyes spoke volumes. I’d seen that look before in the way Galan used to flinch when his father entered a room, and the careful scanning for exits before relaxing by some clan members at gatherings.
“Who is he to you?”
She looked away, her profile sharp against the silvery curtain of falling water. “My betrothed.”
Every territorial instinct I possessed flared to life, a primal claim staking itself through my blood and bones. My hands clenched as if they could crush the very word she’d spoken. “Your what?”
“Not by choice.” She turned back to me, defiance blazing in her amber eyes. “My great-grandfather promised the first female born to his line to the Fitsum royal clan. A way to reunite the royal and mercenary branches of the ifrit.”
“And you said no?”
“I said hell no,” she snapped. “Javed is a monster. Rumors have it that he enjoys breaking his toys and none in the Fitsum court will let their wives and daughters alone in a room with him. Rumors, of course. Just rumors. But my wants and worries don’t trump some dead man’s signature.” Her lip curled. “Politics wrapped in tradition, tied with a bow of bullshit duty. Lucky me.”
Sharp pain dug into my palms. Fingers. My fingers. Clenched into fists I wanted to pound into this faceless fucker already. “That’s why you needed it. You said whoever returns it gets anything they ask for.”
“My brother Kaz...” She trailed off, then squared her shoulders. “Kaz should be on the throne. He has honor. I thought if I brought him Lydia’s crimes wrapped in a bow, he’d see I could do the work just as well as any of them. I’d be more valuable on the team than married off as some political pawn. I never expected to find one of our lost relics.”
