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“There is a line,” the Ard Rí grinned.

“What is this line to you?” I asked. “You laughed when I said I was going to fuck her to death. You smile even now.”

I plucked one of the chocolate donuts off the table and lowered it down out of sight. I quickly cast a small poison detection spell, drawing the simple form in the air. It settled on the donut, not reacting. Once I was sure it was safe, I held it in front of her face. Instead of taking it from me, she leaned forward and took a bite out of it, her lips brushing against the edges of my fingers. Another shiver of desire rippled through me.

I had planned to toy with her further at the table, enhancing my image of a cruel sadist who wouldn't think twice about fighting on the side of Order, but I couldn’t do that. She was impacting me too strongly. If I continued like this, the Ard Rí might see through my game. If he thought I genuinely desired her, he would try to stop me from taking her with me.

“They are made to be used as chattel,” the Ard Rí scoffed. “Wasting them is a nuisance. I won't allow you to waste her. If you are going to take that one, you will take her as a breeder.”

There it was. Technically, I didn’t need his permission to do what I wanted with a mundane, but if he decided to stop me, it would make honoring the boon much more difficult.

“I doubt she would catch my seed,” I said, and then held back a grimace as my cock twitched at the thought of bending thefarm girl over and plowing her fields. “It would be amusing to see if she survived the attempts.”

“You can heal her afterwards if you're fast enough. Mundanes are exceptionally fertile,” the Ard Rí smiled as he reached for a slice of pizza, inspecting it and giving it a sniff. “There have been several that have survived lycans on the Blood Moons.”

“You let the lycans near mundane women during the Blood Moons?” I hissed, forgetting the character I was trying to portray for a moment. I quickly smoothed my expression as the Ard Rí glanced over at me, giving him a tight smile. “What an interesting choice. I imagine your retention rates are low.”

“Like I said, chattel,” the Ard Rí said. “There are plenty more in the mundane, and they are useful in their own ways. Now, enough pleasantries. Let us return to the idea of winged support. It intrigues me.”

I reached down and ran my fingers through the farm girl’s hair. I couldn’t give her a warning this time, but I made the motion brief, dragging her up to her feet as the wince on her face echoed in my heart.

“Go wait in my room,” I told the farm girl. “Prepare yourself as best you can to be mounted. Stretch yourself out if you can. Your survival will depend upon it.”

She got out and fled the room.

“We can station my units on the top of the wall,” I said, my thoughts following after the farm girl. Soon, I’d be able to leave with her and abandon this pretense. As long as the Ard Rí thought I might beget an heir on her, he wouldn’t interfere with me taking her. A young heir would mean he could try to kill me and leave my people with nothing but a babe to follow. "That way, they can be ready the moment the Chaos God shows his face."

She would be safe.

The relief that trickled through me was a strange counterpoint to the hard throbbing in the stiff member between my legs. I shouldn't be so concerned about some mundane woman, yet, here I was, worried about her, on the eve where my years of lying were about to put my army into an ideal position for the final battle.

Yet even as I focused on my adversary, my thoughts followed after her.

Chapter

Three

NORA

“Shit,” I cussed as the door shut behind me. “Mother loving donkey balls. I've avoided death by dick so far I didn't think I would ever get there by asking for it!”

He was lying,Zeph insisted, swirling in the air next to me.He won’t do that to you.

“How do you know that?” I hissed at my familiar. “You grew up in the mundane just as I did! You don’t know any more about the Aetheriani than I do! They could be like all the rest of the fae freaks!”

Everyone knows that his brother is a good man,Zeph said.He is a talented healer.

“That birdbrain let his brother attend this school for years,” I argued. “No one would do that to someone they actually cared about.”

Zeph fell silent as I leaned my head back against the door, taking in the room.

Warm air puffed at my face, beeswax, lavender, a hint of old iron, soft enough to make me wonder what they were masking.Torch-runes spat behind crystal shields; false flame hissed and popped.

The bed owned the chamber, occupying the center of it like a gilded wart in the middle of a face. I walked towards it, inspecting it. Four ash pillars, wrist-thick, rose into a canopy webbed with runes carved into them, but no magic to charge them. I only recognized a few of the runes. Despite being here for years, the few mundane classes I was able to take only covered the very basics of spell casting and rune writing. I knew spells for cleaning, watering, and a few basic healing spells, not much more. Mundanes at this school were expected to learn how to be batteries, to power their familiars' abilities or charge the spells that other people create, or to feed the needs of the monsters that roamed the campus.

Here I thought throwing myself at the feet of a visiting dignitary was my chance to get away from the monsters.

I wasn’t about to charge an unknown spell on some bedposts, so instead I circled left. The wardrobe loomed, black walnut, iron banding. A basalt hearth crouched opposite the bed, runes glowing ember-red as heat rolled off in waves. I could see the glowing rune carved into the hearth.