Page 13

I wasn’t going to. With his digit in range, my incisors have other ideas. They ache for retaliation—to break skin and watch him bleed. How would he taste? Metallic? Sweet to the point of sickly?

Puck’s irises flare with dangerous amusement. “And don’t do that, either,” he warns. “Never bite unless you’re willing to moan.”

It could be the clammy air, my parched mouth, or the nearness of his finger to my lips. It could be his threat, so easily tossed into this cubicle. It could be the drip of fear that plonks into my stomach. It could be his clothes on the brink of scratching mine.

Whatever the reason, I tremble. “You don’t frighten me.”

“The night’s young,” he intones.

It’s undignified to lose my nerve, which is what he’s after. The wry slant of his features also states the obvious, and my wild pulse confirms the lie, the beat strong against my neck. I’m sure his tapered ears detect the rhythm. Damn him for calling my bluff.

“What a high-strung thing you are, with so much happening beneath the surface,” Puck croons. “Do I detect a note of fear thrumming—” he pretends to play an instrument, his arm sliding and fingers vibrating over invisible strings, “—through your insides?”

“I have no use for fear.”

“Even with your sisters at the mountain and river’s disposal?”

“Leave them out of this,” I snap. “What would you Solitaries even know about having a family?”

Faeries rarely conceive children, so it’s hardly a stretch that Puck has no experience with the subject. Yet the comment takes a bite out of his facade, which narrows as he grits out, “And just what the fuck would you know about Solitaries beyond the secondhand shit you’ve read? Hmm? Do you know what it’s like to be a wee Fae caught in a deathtrap?”

A reprehensible prickle crawls up my back. I know what massacre he’s referring to. I know that singular, harrowing event like it was yesterday—the day mortals rebelled against Faeries.

Puck tucks his hands behind his back and strolls around me, leaves crushing under his hooves. “You’re a stripling, trapped in a snare for days, with iron blistering your flesh until you can’t feel your limbs. You hear the pained howls of your fauna kin as they suffer without you, calling for your help. You listen to the wails of other Faeries your age, screaming because they’re alone and hurting and petrified out of their minds.”

His voice strokes me from the right, raising goosebumps beneath my garments. Rounding on my nape, he says, “And when you can’t take those sounds anymore, when your sanity tips over the edge—oh no, magic won’t save you from that—you learn to take the blisters instead, because enduring those teeth is the only way to stay alive.”

He halts insufferably close behind my left side. “To survive, you let yourself burn. And when you’re free, you hunt your enemies back. And when you catch them, you burn them the fuck back.”

I gulp. “And if you do that, what have you learned?”

“Such virtue. I’d suggest you bite your righteous tongue, luv.”

“It must be a considerable weapon if it needs to be bridled. Either that, or you’re more fragile than you seem, taken down by only a few words.”

He leans in, a line of hot breath pumping into the shell of my ear. “Who’s words? Yours? Or the ones you quote from?”

If we start that debate again, we’ll go in circles.

“I’d wager you haven’t known the amenities of a real trap until now,” Puck continues. “Though, we’ve barely begun with you and your sisters.Thatis why you have every use for fear.”

My breath shakes, rage trembling at the margins. If I cower or show he’s gotten to me, it will give him another button to push. “You’re wrong. My will is stronger than my fear.”

“Are you sure about that? And what about your heart?” the satyr whispers, angling his head toward my cheek. “Shall we test both? See how much your will can take? See how fast your heart can beat? See how much they can withstand?”

“Using glamour would hardly make it a test.”

“And here, I thought you prided yourself on facts instead of assumptions. I never mentioned glamour. I leave that tacky business to my kin.”

“Then how do you explain what happened to me earlier?”

“Yes, well. That was then, and this is now.” He hasn’t so much as touched a hair on my head, yet his frame radiates heat against my cold, ruler-stiff spine. “Trust me when I say I have natural methods of getting into your head. I’ll steal into that cramped, narrow nook inside you, dabble with what I find, shift things around, and then, when the time is right, lay everything I find on the table.” His husky breath glides under my jawline. “Now I’ll ask again, should we try each other on for size?”

The buttery leather of his breeches grazes my skirt, our bodies aligning in such an indiscreet way that protests desert me. Any additional movement will drive my backside into his pelvis, the faint contours of which prove him very much male.

Under the blouse, ink mars my lower back.Do not let him see your tattoo.

Cove had reminded me of that before I ventured into this realm, though I’d already been cognizant of the danger. I shift my hips inconspicuously, double-checking my skirt’s waistband and making sure the blouse is still tucked in—tight, secure.