“Done.”
~ 15 ~
Jadren, for once living up to his word, did indeed savor the view as Seliah glided over to the table where he’d laid out their weapons. She possessed a natural grace, made more evident by the lack of restrictive and unfamiliar clothing. Though the black lingerie she wore was far from natural, Seliah looked more in her element wearing so little. More animal, less fettered. Her hair hung long and tangled down her back, coming to a point that formed an arrow above her tiny, perfect ass.
Like he needed his attention called to it. Especially when she—dark arts take him—bent over the table, showing the golden moon undersides of her tidy bottom. He really shouldn’t be ogling her this way, but the brandy he’d consumed to get through the interrogation with his mother on top of the salient side-effects of the self-healing, then seeing Seliah dressed like one of his adolescent wet dreams, well… It would take a stronger man than he to look away.
Besides the fact that you couldn’t control your reaction to her before she shot you, his mocking inner voice pointed out. He had no retort for that. The sight of her poised to shoot him, all tall, slender menace in black sex gear had done more to immobilize him than all her threats.
Able to reach the blades again, Seliah selected several and came back toward him. Her breasts were fuller than he’d imagined, golden and rounded, rising above the lacy contraption with mouthwatering smoothness. Her dark nipples thrust tautly through the lace. He was a lost man. “Grab that brandy for me, too, would you?”
She frowned, glancing at the bottle. “Do you really need to drink more?”
He pretended to consider. “Yes.”
He thought she’d refuse, but she went back for the bottle and a glass, even pouring him a couple of fingers and handing it to him. Drinking it down, he savored the liquid fire that burned at the edges of the pain, along with the exceptionally smooth finish. So much better than the rotgut at House Phel. Not that any amount of good brandy made him prefer the waking nightmare that was his birth-house. He’d drink bad liquor all day in exchange for being in the land of idealistic fools who at least didn’t breakfast on infants.
“If you can’t die, why’d you bother warding the blades from me before?” she asked, sitting on the edge of the bed. Her scent, all spring water and full moon magic, laced with the floral fragrance the servants had used to wash the blood off of her, enveloped him like a net of silken threads. He focused on the pain of the wound, of all things, to distract him from her.
And how very much he wanted to touch her, to place his lips just there, in that sweet hollow between her perfect breasts.
“Jadren?”
Right. She’d asked a question. “Getting wounded still hurts—case in point—and blood loss is no picnic. Besides, if you’d cut my throat, there’d have been blood everywhere and while a few smears and spatters can be explained away as rough sex, not the equivalent of a stuck pig.”
That worked, making her blush and focus on the arrow shaft, which was what he needed her focusing on. His mother had gone through a run of experiments testing whether he’d heal around objects of different compositions—including her cherished goal of permanently implanting various enchanted artifacts intended to “enhance” him—and the results hadn’t been pretty. They’d also been agonizing. His body simply continued to attempt to heal around the intrusions, which meant never fully healing. The upside had been that his predilection had foiled his criminally insane mother’s grand plans to turn him into a living version of one of her automatons.
“I told you, I’m not a virgin,” Seliah muttered.
He had to pull his scattered thoughts together. No luck. “What?”
“Blood,” she said, meeting his gaze boldly, “from sex. Isn’t that what you mean?”
Oh, my lovely innocent. He couldn’t help grinning at her, utterly charmed by her artlessness, which said something, that she could be a ray of pure light in this morass of depraved corruption. So much so that he decided against correcting her misapprehension. “Right, that’s what I meant. I forgot we discussed it.”
She wasn’t fooled. She was also close enough to kiss, which couldn’t happen. “No, you didn’t. What did you mean then?”
“Arrow.” He raised his brows significantly. “Embedded in my shoulder. Really hurts.”
“You don’t act like it hurts.”
“You have no idea.”
“Ah, there’s the Jadren I know.” She said it drily, then continued in a more serious vein. “This serrated blade should work best, but if I try to saw through the shaft from the front, it’s going to pull on you, which will hurt even more.”
“It has to come out. I can handle the pain.” He swallowed more brandy and let his head fall back, mostly so he wouldn’t be overcome by her nearness.
“Well, I’m thinking that if I pull you forward on it some now, it will loosen the wound and create a gap behind you. Then I can hold the front, saw through the piece between your shoulder and the headboard, then yank the rest out.”
“Fine.” He doubted it would go that smoothly, but whatever would convince her to get it done already.
“All right.” She plucked the glass from his hand and set it on the bedside table.
“My brandy…”
“Hush. Be a good boy and you can have it after.”
“Tyrant.”
