Part
One
“He was a strong, beautiful man. Always a weakness for me, yeah? Strong, beautiful men. Nice face, nicer cock. Gave me a good ride, hands digging into my thighs while I bounced on his lap. Imagine his surprise when I leaned down for a kiss and dragged my dagger across his throat. The stupid shock in his eyes when blood poured down his neck like a waterfall. You would have loved it. The squelching, gurgling sounds as he came. The best and worst moments of his sorry life.”
I sit back in my chair with an easy scoff. As if murdering a man while fucking him is a casual, everyday thing.
When my hand reaches out for the goblet on the table in front of me, the chains of my wrist shackles clank. I raise my chalice to the woman sitting across from me before upending the crystal glass and feeling the burn of the warm wine trickle down my throat.
I’m well aware the woman across the table has moved her gaze from my face to my throat, watching it bob as I gulp.
Briefly, I wonder what goes on in the hearts of the heartless. This pale woman, for instance: Beneath the edge of the table, do her thighs quiver when she focuses on my supple neck, bared to her like a vulnerable doe in a forest full of wolves? Do her fangs grow long and hard, her dark blood rushing as she tries to tamp down her arousal and need?
Or is she more controlled than that? Maybe she can mitigate her eternal bloodlust with a few encouraging words to herself in her mind:“You are not an uncontrollable monster who dines on the weak. You do not need to drink from this lunatic woman. She is beneath you. She will curse you.”
By the Truehearts and Faithless, I’ll fucking try to curse her.
When I rest my goblet on the table, I glance at my shackled wrist before I rest my hand on my lap beneath the table’s edge where she can’t see.
Alas, it’ll be hard to curseanyonewhen I’m bound to the damned floor. Much less a powerful Buver like her.
The woman is a porcelain mannequin. Sheer-perfect skin over high, tight cheekbones. Ageless, like she was caught with rubbing oils on her face before greeting her forever night. Nary a blemish on that perfect mug. Hair like wisps of honeyed wheatgrass—bright, sunny, waxen. In fact, everything about her can be described aswaxen: her face, her elegant blue gown hiding her rotten bones beneath it, her straight-backed posture as she sits with her quill poised over a piece of parchment.
The bloodsucker’s thin left brow lifts, the right side staying level. Her voice is syrup. “Quite a vivid depiction, mistress.”
I want to snap at her, “I’m no one’s mistress.” But the story I just told would suggest otherwise, so I save my breath.
She spins her quill and flaps the feathers against her parchment where she’s stopped writing. “Shall I jot down every salacious detail? All the bouncing, all the cocks?”
“We’ll be here all night, I fear.” The corner of my lip curls. “If it’s cocks you’re looking for, Madame Kleora, there will be plenty more where that came from. Write what you will.”
Her thin lavender lips slash in a dark smile. Kleora rests her quill on the parchment and sits back, crossing her arms under her pert chest. “You seem to get a sick sense of perversion telling that story.”
“He deserved it.”
“Are you proud of this particular kill? Of racking up an impressive body count, in more ways than one? It makes you sound like one ofus.” Her red, soulless eyes flare when she finishes.
My smile falters. I clench my jaw, trying to keep the rush of anger from showing. When I sit back to match her noble posture, the dignity of the movement is ruined by the clinking and clanking of my wrist and ankle shackles.
I can’t forget this bitch is the predator and I’m her prey. Can’t get arrogant thinking I’m in any position to barter, argue, or act a nuisance.
Yet these humorless fuckers make it soeasyto rankle.
If Madame Kleora wanted me dead, I would be. She’s keeping me alive in this cell, tethered to my chair, because she wants something from me.
The chamber I’m in is more noteworthy than the dank, cold prison cells I’ve been accustomed to all my life. For one, it’s ten stories tall—part of a heavens-reaching prison compound that overlooks the most ancient sections of the city of Olhav. And we’re at the top level.
Massive buildings and structures exist just beyond the circular window to my left, which lets in a swath of warm moonlight into the room. A moth smacks against the glass on the other side of the window. Tapestries and crimson draperies hang from smooth, angular walls. The chairs we use are crafted from experts, with engravings of wolves and ravens in the armrests. We’re drinkingwine, for fuck’s sake.
Well, at least I am. The dark liquid in her chalice is decidedly not fermented grapes.
Madame Kleora is coaxing my lips loose with the finest vintages in her stores. She’s keeping me chained but pliable. If I tried hard enough, I could possibly reach across this table and throttle her skinny neck.
She knows I’m no threat, however. Not in my current state, not in the position I’m in. This compound belongs to her and her ilk. I’m a wandering rabbit at the mercy of a fox here, locked behind a barbed fence.
I drum my fingers on the edge of the table, picking at a cracked nail, grimacing. “Have any more wine? I liked that last label. Cordoi, was it?”
“If it’s wine you’re looking for, there will be plenty more where that came from. All you must do is continue talking.”
