Page 62

The warning Azrael gave me when we were processing my Sybil precognition was to treat Prince de Babineaux as if he is a threat, even if I only remember the last frame of the vision, in a sense.

Being influenced by those of Devilry, or just a run-of-the-mill horny male with an impressive polymorph potion that can't take no for an answer, he is a threat that will be dealt with accordingly and with extreme prejudice...

Viggo would take offense if I didn't deal with this grave injustice to his higher opinion of himself and his sense of style and rearing.

"We've both waited for so, so long," I agreed.

Sadly, this exact type of situation wasn't unfamiliar to me.

I had firsthand experience from my second year, and it was an experience that I had to utilize at the moment to learn the truth and to survive while not getting raped or killed.

"Why don't you come closer and let me taste you," I said, before curling my tongue. "Because I've always wanted to taste you, Puppet de Babineaux," I taunted.

When the Puppet lowered his head down to mine, I slammed my forehead into his face, making contact with his nose, causing it to break, and he lost his hold on me.

I pulled my knee up, right between his legs as hard as I could, causing him to flip up and over me, and I used the continued momentum to flip over him so I was straddling him, pinning his hands down at his sides to the mattress.

Normally I wouldn't have been able to do that. After I fell from the redwood, I had very little strength in my hips and lower back, and any time I tried to do something like that it would cause severe pain and cause the left hip joint to pop out of place, but there was no pain this time.

Majandra I owed more to than I could put into words.

"Ooh, that's exactly where I wanted you," I taunted, straddling him.

"Get off of me, Bitch!" he choked and gasped, trying to buck me off of him, but I squeezed my knees together against his hips, holding me firmly in place.

"What's wrong? Don't you want me on top?" I asked as innocently as possible, and he instantly stopped fighting me and started to get aroused.

That is disgusting, but it confirms with absolute certainty that this isn't my Viggo because Puppet Viggo was rocking a micro-penis.

But I have a role to play.

"That's a good little puppet," I cooed before slapping him in the face and he hissed.

I lowered my face down to his and sniffed him before leaning back when he tried to lean up for a kiss.

I tisked in a scolding manner. "Now be a good little puppet and wait until Mistress Ari gives you permission," I said as seductively as possible, which was amusingly bad.

"Oh yeah, just like that," he said.

That was nasty and only reiterated that I wouldn't be having a summer internship at Majandra's Blood Brothel any time soon.

"Red as a beet," I teasingly said, caressing the backs of my fingers down the side of his face. "Dry as a bone, blind as a bat, mad as a hatter, hot as a hare, and full as a flask," I taunted.

"What?"

"That is the mnemonic to identify classical anticholinergic syndrome," I said as if it were obvious because Viggo would have known that.

"And that means what?" he demanded.

"It is a way to identify what is wrong with a person when they present with usual, but very specific, symptoms. And in your case, Little Puppet without a Crown, it is from the ingestion of nightshade that was used in whatever tonic or potion you consumed in order to be here today," I informed him, twirling a lock of his long hair around my finger.

He looked at me suspiciously, trying to figure out if I was lying or not.

Viggo would know that I wasn't.

"However, to my knowledge, the concoction you consumed for the purpose which you did, does not call for nightshade due to its lethal side effects."

"Huh?" he asked.

"Now, what to do about you," I teasingly sang, twirling the lock of his coarse hair around my fingers. "How to tangle the puppet's strings to face the one tugging them?"

Technically, what this person was doing was treason.

To imitate a crowned royal of any of the first Five Houses was treason, but to polymorph into the likeness of one, was a death sentence.

The irony was, that this is the exact type of automatic response that a Sentinel or Guardian acted on without conscious effort or thought, and here I had given Riven grief about that same automatic response that I apparently was incapable of possessing.

Maybe I wasn't ready for this yet.

I looked at the puppet under me on the bed.

The eyes were muted green with flecks of hazel that shouldn't have been there. Longer hair was pulled back into a dated low ponytail, and the black wasn't glossy and instead was coarse and slightly frizzy with split ends.

What was bothering me most about this, about all of it, was that the one detail I retained from my Sibyl precognition was the one thing that was missing.

It was warmer outside for this time of year, not bitterly cold today, the sky was blue and clear, and it wasn't going to snow until next week maybe, and yet I saw piles of snow all over my suite in the vision!

When he reached up to touch my face, I slapped his hand away and ripped the curl I was twirling out, causing him to hiss.

"Not until Mistress Ari tells you to touch are you allowed to touch," I reminded him. "If you disobey me again, I will violate you in ways that are reserved for the very naughtiest of boys, and I assure you, Little Puppet without a Crown, you will not be walking when I am done with you."

He moaned. "Punish me."

I slapped him across the face again, so hard that blood from his newly split lip and his already broken nose painted the wall and windows with blood.

"Do you need another reminder?" I asked, cocking an eyebrow.

He smiled.

"Good boy," I purred, smacking his cheek, paternally.

The room was right.

The walls, bedding, furniture, even what he was wearing was right...

Which is how I know it was wrong!

He wore a short-sleeved shirt without something over it, and because of that, it showed what wasn't there.

I chuckled.

I can't believe it took me this long to miss it! Hormones come with blinders, and that is something I will have to work on.

Their lips were coated with cherry lip balm to help guise the tart, vegetation scent that I could smell with each breath he exhaled.

So many little details...

That they missed, and I missed!

"That tickling in your throat that won't go away," I said, releasing his other hand before grabbing his shirt and ripped it open then looked at his smooth, pale chest.

It was without a single tattoo.

"Oh yes," he moaned, grinding his hips, trying to get closer to me. "Yes, Mistress."

I rocked back on my heels to get away from his intrusive micro-penis.

"That tickling and how it feels as if something is coating the inside of your throat but it isn't solid. Instead, it feels like tiny, thin, crystalline-coated wiry threads that are tearing into your flesh every time you swallow?" I cooed, fingering the guru bead on the mala around my wrist.

He slid his hands up my thighs but I slapped them away and he glared at me.

"Mistress didn't give you permission," I scolded before smooching my lips and he smiled. "That feeling in your throat is from the imperata cylindrica, otherwise known as cogon grass. It is what roots the binding spell to the wielder so it cannot be dispelled. I'm sure the tart, tangy grassy taste is rather repulsive after a while. It is, after all, the one smell I could not pinpoint the origin of until now."

"You bitch!" he snarled, then reached for my throat.