Empire of Storms

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 …

There would be a reckoning in Perranth for that. Aedion himself would hang the lord by his intestines. While Vernon was still breathing. And then he’d get started on paying Vernon back for the ten years of horror Elide had endured. For the maimed foot and the chains. For the tower.

Locked in a tower—in a city he’d visited so many times in the past ten years he had no count. She might have even watched the Bane from that spire as they came and left the city. Possibly thinking he’d forgotten or didn’t care about her, either.

And now she was out there. Alone.

With a permanently mangled foot, no training, and no weapons. If she was lucky, perhaps she’d run into the Bane first. His commanders would recognize her name, protect her. That is, if she dared to reveal herself at all.

It had taken all his self-control not to strangle Manon for abandoning the girl in the middle of Oakwald, for not flying her right to Terrasen.

Aelin, however, hadn’t bothered with restraint.

Two strikes, both so fast even the Wing Leader didn’t see them.

A backhanded blow to Manon’s face. For leaving Elide.

And then a ring of fire around Manon’s throat, slamming her into the wood, as Aelin made her swear the information was correct.

Rowan had drily reminded Aelin that Manon was responsible for Elide’s escape and rescue, too. Aelin had merely said if Manon hadn’t been, the fire would already be down her throat.

And that was that.

Aelin, from the fervor with which she sparred with Rowan across the deck, was still pissed.

The witch, from the snarling and scent in her cabin, was still pissed.

Aedion was more than ready to get to the Stone Marshes—even if what awaited them there might not be so pleasant.