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“It isn’t up to you,” I reminded him in a low growl.

“Why? Are you afraid you can’t keep up, spectre? Are you so enamoured with death that you can’t even remember how to live anymore?” he taunted.

The woman’s eyes were on me from beneath her veil and I ground my jaw against the words I wished to spit at my ever-infuriating companion.

“It isn’t me who will have trouble keeping up,” I said silkily, painting on a seductive smile as I offered our host my hand. “Two thousand karmas for a single night?” I confirmed and I could just make out the shadow of her smile from within the folds of fabric which shielded her face from view.

“Assuming you make it through to morning,” she agreed, placing her hand in mine and gripping tightly. Her desire struck me harder at the contact with her skin, her desperate want to please the Fae she had just bargained for buzzing against my palm while her magic trickled into me.

This place was so full of Fae giving in to their desires that I was already well on my way to replenishing my magic and we’d barely been here for ten minutes.

“Make it four thousand and you have a deal. There are two of us after all,” I said finally.

She was definitely smiling now and the predatory gleam in her eyes told me she thought we were in over our heads, but she really didn’t know who she was dealing with.

“Done,” she agreed too easily and if that didn’t set me on edge then nothing would. “Take the silver stair to the top and refresh yourselves. Master Zayad will be with you shortly,” she said before sweeping away into the crowd of intoxicated bodies and disappearing among them without another word.

“Well wasn’t she the sweetest viper to ever lure you to her nest?” I asked Bastian as I turned not for the stairs she’d indicated but for the bar.

“If the viper’s the one doing the luring then what manner of beast might she be working for?” he replied, knocking some big asshole aside to make room for us at the bar.

I smirked at him in thanks. “Perhaps having a lumbering male along for the ride isn’t always such a burden,” I said sweetly, before leaning over the bar and claiming a bottle of liquor from beneath it.

The bartender saw me but found himself in desperate need of a piss before he could voice any objections and he raced away with a squeal of panic.

“So what’s your play here, spectre? Are you really planning on fucking your way to one of those pretty little baubles?” Bastian asked, snatching the bottle from my grasp before I could press my lips to it and pouring the amber liquid down his own neck instead.

I watched his throat bob three times then sucker punched him in the gut and snatched the bottle back when he doubled over with a curse, spitting liquor over the man behind me while I ducked out of the way.

I slipped back into the crowd, swigging from the bottle I’d reclaimed and cringing at the burn which followed my swallow. Flamebringers always had been fond of their shit booze.

“Do you know how long it’s been since I had a real drink?” Bastian growled as he stalked into the crowd at my back.

“You’ll be waiting a while yet for that,” I replied disinterestedly.

“Besides, we have work to do and I don’t need you getting shitfaced.

If it’s been that long then you probably have no tolerance for it at all and the last thing I need is to be dragging your scaley ass up those stairs while you’re blacked out and puking like a day one rookie during recruitment phasing. ”

“Oh spectre, what a life you’ve led, I can see now how you earned your reputation; partying harder than all the big boys and using those gifts of yours to make sure everyone in the room was looking at you at all times because stars forbid you ever went unnoticed.

The travesty which would incur if you weren’t the centre of your own drama-fuelled attention spree at every given mo-”

I cut him off by shoving the bottle of liquor back into his hands, letting him have the dregs if that meant I could be allowed to enjoy the silence his swallowing allowed for.

I pushed between dancing bodies, one woman spinning another around so vigorously that I had to duck beneath her outstretched arms while she bent her spine backwards and cooed in excitement.

Most of the Fae in this place were looking to get fucked, their desires making my skin prickle with heat.

But beneath that primary layer of lust there was a deeper desperation for escape in general.

People came to these establishments to forget who they were and what they were destined for as much as to blow off steam in the sweaty company of strangers.

It was exhilarating and depressing all at once and I found myself inhaling deeply as the scent of fogweed got stronger and my own desire to escape the pain in my heart nagged at me.

I’d used places like this to discharge when returning from battle more times than I could count. Debauchery and sin were always the simplest escape from reality that I could find, and it was dearly tempting to lose myself in this place for a little while even if I was surrounded by my enemies.

But as the fogweed sank into my lungs and the alcohol I’d consumed settled into my blood, I didn’t find myself forgetting my pain. It only bit deeper.

Bastian stalked me like a demon at my back and I ignored him, trusting in our oath to get each other out of this place to keep him by my side.

I pushed through a beaded curtain into the back rooms where Fae openly fucked on low couches or lay sprawled across them unconscious or damn close to it, sleeping off whatever concoction of sin they’d partaken in tonight.

I spied what I was hunting for in the far corner, a low table with a selection of bread and fruit. Nothing particularly special but it was sustenance for any Fae who needed it while languishing here and we definitely needed it.

I tore a chunk of bread free from a loaf at the back of the table which would be less likely to have been pawed at – I fucking hated eating from buffets where mouth breathers and food touchers could contaminate everything to their hearts’ content but on occasion there was little other choice to be had.

Bastian seemed less particular than me, grabbing a handful of nuts from a bowl front and centre and dumping them into his mouth.

I shuddered at the thought of all the hands which had dipped their way in and out of that bowl before him but if he wanted to effectively lick the fingers of every miscreant and deviant in this place then who was I to stop him?

“Why are you looking at me like I’m in the midst of something utterly depraved?” Bastian asked me.

“Oh believe me, depravity is far from what’s going through my mind right now,” I replied. “I’m more occupied with watching you devour those cough-nuts as if they were some fine delicacy instead of a germ-ridden influenza party in your mouth.”

Bastian grinned, chewing obnoxiously before stepping into my personal space in that infuriating way he so seemed to enjoy.

“If you think I’m filthy now, imagine how dirty I could get if I liked you.” Bastian caught my hand in his and though I was getting used to his little games of lust blinding me, I still had to blink a few times to clear the vision of him on his knees between my thighs.

“You’re playing with fire,” I warned him darkly.

“Says the walking corpse in the land of flames.”

I snorted dismissively, ripping another large mouthful from the bread, then another and another, that pit of emptiness in my gut slowly filling until the desperate urgency of my bite subsided and I could finally relax a little.

I swallowed a final mouthful, draining a flagon of ice water before leading the way back through the moaning and sighing Fae in the darkened lounge.

I tugged on their lust as I went, the surge of magic which powered through me making my heart pound harder.

“Hello pretty thing,” a man drawled as he stepped into my path, his chest bare, body stacked with muscles and long, golden hair flowing down his back.

He looked like someone had plucked an ancient hero straight out of an oil painting and deposited him before me.

A butt naked hero whose hard on was giving me the side-eye while he shook his hips from side to side, but still.

“Want a ride?” he licked his lips suggestively but it was overkill for me.

“I’m not buying,” I said, moving to step around him but he shifted before me, his entire body changing into that of what might have been the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, her skin dark and brushed with freckles, her eyes a bright amber and lips full and pouting.

“How about now?” she purred seductively, toying with her breasts, slapping them so they bounced.

I expelled a surprised breath. I hadn’t met many Incubuses before but I’d always been curious about them – their gifts were similar to mine in ways but they focused solely on lust to fuel their magic, no other desires required.

They also had this handy little gift up their sleeve – being able to change into the body of any Fae’s perfect desire.

“Unfortunately I prefer cock,” I admitted and he shifted again, this time becoming a battle scarred man with grey hair and a powerful aura with a dick so large it slapped against the floor.

“Whose fantasy was that?” I gasped and the Incubus grinned, shaking his hips from side to side so that the cock dragged across the floor.

“A man who unfortunately regretted his choice ten minutes later.” The incubus made a circle with his finger and thumb which he proceeded to smash open with his other fist dramatically.

“By the stars,” I muttered and he shifted again, becoming a large, grey Wolf and shaking his ass at me suggestively.

“Fuck no,” I cursed, stepping around him to leave and Bastian finally caught up to me, still chewing whatever he’d pilfered from the buffet.