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I drew nearer, pressing a clawed finger to the vision, anger gnashing my teeth.

“Fragile man,” I growled. “I will break you.”

The image went dark, and my reflection peered back at me, fierce and feral. The mirror laughed.

“Your lust is making you reckless.”

“It is not reckless to make a mortal swallow his cock for hurting a woman,” I said, and a slow grin spread across my face as I imagined the horror and pain that would contort the man’s face. “It is…satisfying.”

“You cannot curse anyone while you are cursed,” said the mirror.

As if I had forgotten.

“I can be patient,” I said.

I would take great pleasure in wounding the man who had wounded her—if she helped me end this cruel curse.

“You will be the death of her,” the mirror said again.

“You are not a mirror of prophecy.”

“I am a mirror of truth,” he said.

I turned and crossed to my bed, and as I rested on the coverlet and took my aching length in hand, I thought of the creature and her rose-smelling hair and recalled how she fit against me. I pumped my hand faster, a little harder, until my head teemed with fantasies about how I would fuck her when she finally gave in.

“She will live. Long enough to speak my name,” I said between clenched teeth just before I came.

I waited for sleep to take hold, but instead of my limbs growing heavy and my eyes sliding shut, my muscles grew tight, and my body filled with blood as if I had not found release at all.

“No.” I sat up.

Vicious creature.

Vicious brothers.

They had sent me a siren.

Chapter Five

The Selkie

When I woke up the next morning, my head ached and my mouth was dry. Blindly, I reached for the water I usually kept at my bedside, but instead of finding the handle of my mug, I touched something cold and slimy.

A scream tore from my throat, and I sat up to a chorus of snickers. My hand was covered in mucus, the table beside my bed crawling with slugs.

I was not home but in the palace of an elven prince, and there was a troupe of tiny pixies in my room. They hovered, wings vibrating. Some were naked while others wore tattered and dirty clothing.

I threw a pillow at them as I scrambled out of my bed, relieved my ankle bore little pain as I put pressure on my foot.

“If I get my hands on any of you, I will pluck your wings from your bodies and wear them as a crown!”

They laughed merrily, zipping close to my face as they scattered, flying out a crack in the window I had not noticed the night before. I glared after them and the door clicked open. My gaze shifted to the beast who filled the doorway.

For a moment, I was shocked that he was able to enter. I had pushed a chest in front of the doors last night, except now I found that it had been moved.

I gritted my teeth.

Those pixies would pay if I caught them in my room again.