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“Never,” he crooned, moving his mouth to my jaw and neck as I pivoted to see who was behind us.

It was Drak.

“Uh … Kenvin and Shoy would like you to meet them in the training room,” the vampire said, his shoulders back and straight, and his gaze pinned on mine.

All I did was nod in acknowledgment. Then he spun around on his heel like an army cadet and left.

With another growl, Maxar scooped me up around my waist and had me on the bed on my back. I laughed and swatted at his chest. “We need to get going.”

He was already peeling away my towel. “Just a little taste … please? I’m dying here.” Sinking to his knees on the floor, he shouldered my legs apart.

“We need to get going …” But there was little conviction in my words. I meant it … but also, I loved what he did with his tongue and where he put it.

My legs flopped open and, as promised, Maxar went in for just a taste, sweeping his tongue from my clit and all the way to my asshole, which he then treated to a thorough, brain-short-circuiting tongue swirl. I was shuddering on the bed when he sprang back up, offering me his hand. “I’m a man of my word. Just a taste for now.”

I stood back up, dazed and aroused.

His harsh slap to my naked butt woke me up again. “Come on, baby girl. Get a move on. What’s keeping you?” His jovial laugh as I tried to swat at him only turned me on more. Then he was skipping out the door, my sexy psychotic mage.

I finished packing, got dressed, and set my backpack down in the courtyard before I made my way to the training room. Zandren, Maxar, Drak, Shoy, and Kenvin were already all there. A wide array of weapons were laid out on a red velour blanket on the floor. They were all on their knees. So I figured I was probably supposed to be on my knees as well.

“Omaera Playfair, Queen of the Realm,” Kenvin said, all serious, “it has been an honor and a privilege to be your instructor.” His pale-blue eyes softened, and the hint of a smile played at his mouth. “Your father would be proud.”

Ah, shit.

My throat grew tight, and those infernal tears stung the backs of my eyes.

He glanced down at the blanket of weapons. Some were pretty straight forward: throwing stars, daggers, blades, swords, a machete even. But others were as foreign to me as the demon language, though I could tell if wielded correctly, would pack one heck of a wallop.

Kenvin picked up one of the weird looking weapons and held it in his palm by the wooden handle. “This is alullabei.”

“A lullaby?” I asked, dumbfounded.

His smile was once again small. “Alu-la-bay,” he enunciated it better. “Spelled L-U-L-L-A-B-E-I.”

“But it puts people to sleep forever though, right?” Maxar asked with a big cheesy smile.

Kenvin didn’t seem amused by my mage’s joke.

“It’s demon for ‘instant death.’”

“So I was right!” Maxar piped up, even more pleased with himself.

Kenvin growled. “Perhaps.” He exhaled loudly, clearly reaching his saturation point with my mage. “This was passed down to me from my father, and from his father. His father served in the court of your great, great grandfather, Sorten Byrche. King Sorten gave my grandfather this—among many other things, such as land and riches—as a thank you gift for helping him win one of the many wars between the species of the Realm.” His lips pressed into a thin line and sadness filled his gaze. “I have no children of my own. No mate anymore. And while I haven’t known you very long, Omaera Playfair, if I did have a daughter, I hope she would have been as determined and kind as you.” He held out the lullabei. “I’m passing it down to … someone I care about.”

As hard as I tried, I couldn’t keep the tears from breaking the dam. With a sob stuck at the back of my throat, I reached out and took the small mechanism from him. It didn’t look like much. It was metal with a small wooden handle and a thin cylinder on one end of the handle with a bolt or something in the middle of the cylinder.

I swallowed. “Th-thank you. I … I don’t know what to say.”

“How about, ‘How does this thing work?’” Maxar said.

Kenvin glared at him. “I was getting to that.”

I handed the weapon back to Kenvin and from where he was, kneeling on the ground, he pivoted to face the white dummy torso next to the far wall. We used it for target practice, mostly.

With a seemingly flimsy flick of his wrist, the weapon zipped through the air, and as it flew, the cylinder part opened up to reveal six sharp, glinting blades that whirred around like a ceiling fan. It made contact with the dummy’s neck, thenembedded into the wall behind it with a dullthunk. A moment later, the dummy’s head fell to the floor.

My eyes were close to popping out of their sockets.