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No! That must be the plague rabidity, invading her thoughts and impulses.

More laughter sounded from his room, reminding her what a rogue he was. It’d taken him less than an hour to locate an orgy. She met his eyes. “Right now, I’d rather bargain with Dorada.” Mina turned and headed away, sensing his gaze locked on her back until she’d passed from his sight.

Jealousy scalded her as she imagined him heading back into his room to find pleasure with others.My first experience with jealousy.Even when she’d pondered Kristoff and Furie’s matehood, Mina had never felt it.

Her illogical emotions made her both wary and furious. She had an urge to go retrieve the sorcerer by his ear! But she reminded herself of what she truly wanted.

Love. Given and received.

An impossibility with Silt, and so she would waste no more thought on him. She descended the stairs, averting her eyes from a foursome kissing on the steps. On the main floor, she passed a den of wild-eyed demons playing dice. She wasn’t versed in gambling beyond the theoretical, but they all seemed to be winning with every roll. In the next salon over, more demons drank from mugs and sang songs in rough Demonish.

She suspected most of the guests possessed wings; they could just fly over the lava and wendigos to land here.

“Wait, Kosmina!”

Mina turned to see Silt striding after her. Masking her surprise, she paused to let him catch up. He must’ve left those females directly and raced to join her. She curbed a thrill at the idea and took in his appearance.

He’d donned a pair of leather pants to encase his muscled legs. His tailored tunic, cut from a golden fabric, highlighted the expanse of his chest, his broad shoulders, and the color of his eyes. His air was commanding, a sorcerer king ready for whatever fate had in store.

Any woman would be proud to call such a male her own. Well, any woman who didn’t know him. “What do you want?”

His lips parted and closed, as if he struggled to voice his thoughts.No idea what that feels like!

Though filling the silence wasn’t her forte, she said, “You left your partyprematurely. I understand that’s common among some men.”

“Heh. I sent those females on their way. Untouched, if you must know.”

Thrill. Damn him.“Why?”

He lowered his voice. “Maybe because I need you.” They stared into each other’s eyes, the air between them charged.

She could pretend his words were romantic, but he onlyneededher to trap her brother. Silt had told her she had no idea how important revenge was to him; she was beginning to understand. Vengeance took precedence even over sex. “I won’t let you use me—in any way. That’s what you do, isn’t it?”

“You’d never regret it.” Somewhere in the castle, a female screamed her way to ecstasy. Then came another, literally. “That could be you, sweet.”

She might have been tempted to kiss him again—if he hadn’t made that vow to the Lore. “Considering everything you know about me now, would you make your same vow?” What if he said no? What if he said he’d been out of his mind with withdrawal symptoms and was sorry for it? It wouldn’t change anything.

He ran a hand over his mouth. “It’s complicated. You know how I feel about revenge, but you don’t know why. And I have been wronged—though I’d never met your brother before, he put me in Nightside and stuck a target on my back, for what sounds like a joke to him.”

“No target could be bigger than the one you put on yourself. Instead of working on revenge—you should be working on your powers. Make your foes too afraid to challenge you.”

“It’s not that simple.”

Voices sounded from what must be the dining hall, reminding Mina of what lay before her. Bottom line: this male was oathbound. Why was she even talking to him? She started forward without another word, and he followed.

She would be polite to Enti to a point, following the sorceress’s lead, but ultimately Mina would get the information she wanted. Considering she couldn’t extract it at swordpoint, that might prove a delicate dance.

Shyness squeaked,But you’ve got two left feet, especially around crowds.

Mina straightened her shoulders.So?

She remembered when her uncle Trehan had decided to depart the kingdom for good to court his otherlander sorceress. At the time, that had meant he would be forbidden ever to return. Grieving, secretly longing for just such an exile scenario for herself, Mina had told him, “Do you want to hear something sad? Your leaving is the most exciting thing that’s ever happened in my life.”

No longer. Mina had survived wendigos, a basilisk, revenants, and a sorcerer’s sinful kiss.

This dinner would be as nothing.

Twenty-Five