Page 139 of Brimstone

“It’s commendable that you’re trying to protect my modesty, Saeris, but Carrion’s right. I have none. I really don’t care if he’s checking out my ass. Unfortunately for you, Swift, my sexuality doesn’t lean in your direction.”

“That’s okay. The thing about leaning is that it’sveryunstable. The ground could shift, and you find yourself leaning in a completely different direction at any moment. I, myself, have experienced allkindsof leanings.”

Tal smiled a little dubiously at him. “You’ll be the first to know if the ground shifts beneath my feet.”

Carrion sighed, walking past my maker. “It’s all right. It would have happened by now if it was going to. That kind of thing usually occurson sightwhere I’m concerned.” Clearly, now that the possibility of sex was off the table, he’d lost interest in my maker. He pointed at the open doorway in front of us. “What the hell’s going on in there, then?”

“Some friends and I were enjoying a glass of wine,” Tal said in a vague, noncommittal kind of way.

Seven naked Fae females sprawled out on an unbelievably big bed in the room beyond. They were in various stages of undress; I’d spent enough time at Kala’s to be very accustomed to seeing women wandering around in their bare skin, but this was different.

The women at Kala’s used sex to their benefit. It paid their bills and kept them safe, and there was nothing wrong with that. But there was a hunger in the room up ahead that I’d never witnessed at Kala’s. The Fae females on that bed were watching Taladaius like they had been starving all their lives, and he was their first chance at a real meal. Their desire clouded the air until the room was thick with it. It felt as though the whole place would combust if someone mistakenly lit a match.

One of the females in the center of the bed started kissing the female next to her, touching herself between her legs as she did so, and Carrion dragged his bottom lip through his teeth. “What does a person have to do to secure an invitation to one of your wine soirees, Taladaius?”

Tal’s silver hair fell into his face as he bent to collect a shirt from the floor. When he straightened again, slipping his arms in the shirt, he was smirking wickedly. “Oh, you’re welcome anytime, Carrion Swift. You can join us for a glass now, if you like. But these females have beenfriendsof mine for a while now. They’re used to a certain level of . . .conversation. D’you think you can . . .” His eyebrows hiked halfway up his forehead, his eyes drifting down to Carrion’s crotch. “Keep up?”

I’d seen Carrion charm the most beautiful women in the Third out of their clothes. He’d managed to talkmeinto his bed, and I had put up a valiant fight, too. I’d never seen him back down from a challenge, but Tal’s implication—that the women on that bed were used to a certain level of pleasure that apparently Tal was more than capable of proving to all seven of them, all by himself? Yeah, that made the smuggler blink.

“Hm. I’m pretty good at conversation, but . . . maybe not so versed in talking tothatmany females at once.”

Tal tried not to let his smirk get away from him, I could tell. He clapped Carrion on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, Daianthus. Practice makes perfect.” He kicked his way into a pair of pants that looked like they had been discarded on the floor in a hurry, biting the tip of his tongue as he carefully fastened himself into them.

Gods almighty, this was terrible. “Maybe we should come back later,” I said. The females on the bed had all started touching and caressing each other, their soft moans urging Tal to return to them. He held up a finger as he walked backward toward the open doorway. “Just one minute.” He closed the doorbehind himself, and the room erupted into giggles and even louder moaning.

Carrion and I looked at each other awkwardly.

“Did you hear that?” he asked.

“I’m trying not to hearanythingright now.”

“He called me Daianthus.”

“Oh. Right. Yeah, well, I mean . . . youarea Daianthus.” Poor Carrion. Ever since we’d discovered who he really was, we’d kept calling him Swift. No one had thought to ask him if he wanted to be referred to as his proper name: Carrion Daianthus. It was a Fae custom, I’d learned not too long ago, that parents didn’t name their newborns for a full year after their birth. It had started as a practical matter—a long time ago, a high percentage of Faelings didn’t survive their first year of life, and naming them felt like an invitation for ill luck to visit them. If Death didn’t know the name of a child, then how could he possibly find it and carry it away? Many thousands of years had passed since then. Faelings almost never died during infancy now, but the practice of the nameless child remained out of long-standing tradition.

Rurik and Amelia Daianthus never got the chance to name their firstborn son. He had been called Carrion by the woman who had saved him from the quicksilver pool back in Zilvaren. Carrion, because she hadn’t known what that word had meant, and some guards had called him that as she’d snuck him out of the palace. And Swift, becauseshewas a Swift, and the moment she had laid eyes on him, squalling and naked, he had become hers.

“Do you want to be called Daianthus now? I can tell the others. Itisyour right. And it’s not as though we’re keeping your identity a secret or anything. You did announce it to everyone back in the maze. That cat isdefinitelyout of the bag.”

Carrion rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “No, it’s fine. Swift’s only one syllable. Daianthus is three. It’d be a mouthful for you guys to spit out when you’re yelling at me. I wouldn’t want to inconvenience anyone.”

“Carrion.”

“Swift’s fine, Saeris. That’s as much my name as any other. I’m happy being who I’ve always been.”

“I get that. I understand. Listen, Carrion. I haven’t had a chance to talk to you properly since you got back, but, well, Fisher told me about Gracia, and, well . . .” Gods alive, I was bad at this. The second I said Gracia’s name, Carrion shut down. I saw it happen.

“It’s fine. You don’t need to say anything, Saeris. She was an old lady. Agrumpyone. She was bound to die eventually. I’m used to it. I’vehadto be. We don’t need to—”

The door to Tal’s bedroom flew open, and the pale-haired male strode through it with purpose. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, discreetly cleaning away a thin trail of blood from his chin. “All right, then. I presume you need to discuss something with me? I doubt you would have been lurking outside my chambers otherwise. What is it?”

What with the tricky conversation I’d just utterly botched and the sight of all those naked females in Tal’s room, I’d temporarily misplaced our reason for coming here. “Faefemales, Tal?”

The vampire met my eye, unabashed. “Absolutely. I prefer my bedmates warm,” he said. “They’re here willingly. They’d never go home and I wouldn’t know a moment’s peace if I didn’t force them to leave. I assure you, the exchange is voluntary and mutually beneficial. But I think you know all aboutthat.”

The blood trade.

The females got high from Tal’s venom and had the most intense orgasms imaginable, and Tal got to feed. Just a littlesip from each of them was probably enough to sate his hunger, and they had the time of their lives. I supposed thatdidsound mutually beneficial.