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“Then do it.”

I jabbed my elbow back sharply, feeling the force of the air leave her as I buried it in her soft stomach. Her hand didn’t falter, the blade pressing down hard. But not hard enough—and she knew it.

I knocked her hand away, my other arm reaching for her wrist.

She let me catch it, anticipating that I would try to throw her bodily over my shoulder to the ground. She threw one leg around my waist to prevent me, landing her heel dangerously close to my balls. I swung her laterally instead. Her bottom ought to have hit the ground, but she miraculously got a foot under her, which she used to shove herself up and me off balance.

I stumbled backward. She managed to untangle herself and get a few feet of space between us, dagger up and ready.

“We can do this all night,” I said, brushing the red dirt off my trousers.

I’d enjoy it, too. Almost as much as I would enjoy fucking her afterward.

The alleyway was lit by a single torch, but we were almost directly beneath it. Enough golden light scattered across the ground that I could see Veyka roll her eyes.

“I have places to be,” she said, shoving her dagger back into the empty scabbard at her waist. She glanced back toward the busy street at the end of the alley.

“When you threaten to stab someone, do it,” I said, drawing her eyes back to me. I was not letting her go.

Her brow furrowed, drawing the shadows to cover whatever light might have been in her eyes. She yanked her hood back up into place.

“I shall remember that next time,” she said before spinning on her heel.

Veyka Pendragon was going to be the death of me.

She was fast, but I was still able to get a hand on her.

I dragged her back into the light, dodging the dagger already back in her hand.

As promised, she did not hesitate this time. I just barely managed to arch away. But her knife caught the front of my shirt, ripping it open in one swipe so that it fell away to reveal my chest.

There hadn’t been time for my woolen tunic. Only the linen undershirt, which I hadn’t bothered to tie at the neck.

In the torchlight, she could see everything.

Her eyes went wide with shock, my stomach tightening protectively in response as she stared.

“I thought it was a myth,” she said softly, eyes fixed on my bare chest.

Her gaze raked slowly over the sprawling tattoo inked on my chest, the tips of the farthest branches right above where my heart beat beneath my skin. Her eyes lingered over my abdomen, following the downward slope of the branches where they joined a detailed trunk then spread again into reaching roots that disappeared beneath the waistline of my pants. For the barest second, I thought I saw a glimmer of desire in those blue eyes.

“We are marked with the Talisman when we come into our full power.” I watched as she stepped closer, fingers outstretched. As if she would touch me not in anger, but in reverence, desire, almost… almost with emotion, caress the black ink that was a part of my very being.

“You were a child when they did this to you?” Her hand jerked back in shock.

“Terrestrials reach majority at age twenty,” I breathed, at once thankful for and hating that space between us, physical and metaphorical.

Veyka and I could not have been more different. We shared the pointed ears and magical powers of the fae race. But our kingdoms, our priorities, our ages… there was not a single similarity beyond the physical.

Veyka’s eyes were on mine, but then flicked down again, as if she could not help herself. A pulse twitched in her throat. “Did it hurt?”

“Yes.” I tracked her stare, waiting for her eyes to settle upon me once again. When they finally did, I met them with my own. “I have endured much worse pains than this.”

Her eyes darkened, any hint of bright blue completely erased. The emotions she might have shown were shuttered completely.

“Honor to the Ancestors,” she said. But her face remained hard. As if she too knew that the Ancestors were to blame for this bargain and the pain that had come before. And all of the pain that would come after.

She turned away once more.