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I breathed a laugh. “Very well. I’ll take you over Commander Rake, but only if you promise me a spectacle if the tables are turned and you’re the one putting me to death.

I quite like the idea of having to fight in the arena against beastly Fae in shifted form if we’re voting on it.

I’d like to go down swinging, if nothing else. ”

“Deal,” Everest agreed. “Though we don’t have arenas like that where I’m from. It’s usually more of a hanging situation I’m afraid.”

I stifled a yawn. “How dull. You don’t even get to hear them scream for long.”

“Well, if it counts for anything, I’m glad you’re still alive and can claim the epic death you’re owed,” Everest admitted. “Perhaps I’ll be the one to offer it to you on the battlefield one day.”

I looked into her bronze eyes, forcing myself to see her for the Raincarver she was, but it was harder to do than it should have been. “I hope that day never comes, kitty cat. I think I’d rather regret robbing the world of you.”

Everest blinked in surprise, then tried to cover it with a shrug. “More fool you then. Because that means you’ll hesitate and that’ll equal the end for you at the tip of my sword.”

“Unfortunately, my death has already been promised to another,” I admitted to her. “But should he meet an untimely end before he manages to claim it, I’ll gladly let you take the place of first reserve.”

Everest laughed like I’d been joking, and I didn’t see the point in correcting her.

“Dalia and Moraine deserved an epic end,” I said softly, reaching into my collar and lifting the vial filled with their blood out from beneath it so that I could twist it between my fingers.

Everest watched the movement of the blood inside the vial but didn’t ask about it.

“They did,” she agreed. “I’m sorry you lost them.”

A lump thickened in my throat so hard that I couldn’t swallow past it. My eyes burned and tears swam in them for an endless moment before tipping over the brim of my lashes and spilling onto my cheeks.

If Everest noticed my tears, she said nothing of them, and I forced myself to take a steadying breath before any more could follow.

“And Cayde,” she said softly. “Were the two of you…did you love him?”

“No,” I spat, rage burning through my pain as I shoved myself to my feet and stalked away from her to the other side of the cage.

I fisted and un-fisted my hands, my eyes roaming over the bars which contained us, the injustice of it all pressing in on me until I felt like the bars themselves were closing in around me.

I let out a furious yell, punching the metal bar and receiving nothing but a shot of blinding pain through my hand for my efforts.

I kicked the bars next, the flat of my boot connecting with one right in the centre of the door to our cell, but it did nothing other than make the hinges rattle loudly.

I released another furious yell and the flames which barred the door to the room beyond our cage flickered as two guards came hurrying into the room to see what all the commotion was about.

I raised my eyes to them, giving them a wicked grin before unleashing the full force of my gifts and bringing them to their knees with their own desires.

“I have to pop this boil!” the Talon on the right screamed, yanking his pants down and grabbing hold of a furiously red boil on his ass cheek before squeezing it with a war cry that resulted in the thing exploding violently and making me want to gag.

“Fucking gross,” Everest complained, but my focus was on the man to the left who was pressed to the floor and professing his undying need for me in a garble of words which all ran together incomprehensibly.

“Lemme lick your skin from toe to earhole,” he begged. “I need you more than air in my lungs. I need to touch you, worship you, hail you above all others. I want to sink my dick into the fold at the back of your knee while you slap me and call me worthless. I need to sniff your hair!”

“Ew, Vesper that’s really weird. I don’t think you should be proud of making him say those things,” Everest hissed.

“Are you wondering what you might say to me if I turned this power on you?” I teased, crooking a finger at the man who had lost his mind with lust for me.

“No thanks,” Everest replied quickly.

The other Fae had started scooting his ass across the flagstones, leaving a bloody trail from his burst boil in his wake while his trousers tangled around his feet. He was no use to me, but the lust-struck fool I could work with.

“Come here, dog, and let me out of this cage if you want to follow through on those desires of yours,” I purred.

He groaned in pleasure and started crawling towards me. “Call me a bitch,” he pleaded.

“You’re not a bitch,” I sneered. “You’re a pitiful, worthless cunt. You can’t even open this door. You’re not even worth killing because your life is so utterly pathetic.”

“Wow, you’re really not holding back, are you?” Everest muttered, moving from the bed to stand at my side, watching as the man who had been trained as one of The Matriarch’s elite soldiers was reduced to a simpering mess at my feet.

“He likes it,” I shrugged. “He’s looking to be shamed and dominated, aren’t you, worm?”

“Please,” he begged, reaching the cell door and grabbing at the lock. He fumbled with the keys at his belt, whimpering and begging me to slap him but I didn’t really want to dirty my hands on his flesh.

Everest reached out and snatched the ring of keys from his hands and I tugged on his desires sharply to stop him from reacting to her.

“Oh stars,” he groaned, gripping the bars and jerking wildly, his hips thrusting at nothing but thin air and a wet stain appearing around his crotch.

Everest was trying to fit the keys into the lock one at a time, cursing when none of them would turn.

“Cuffs first,” I barked, holding my wrist out to her, and she frowned at me.

“You can’t tell me what to do,” she growled.

“I just did. Now get these fucking cuffs off of me before-”

The door banged open again, a squadron of ten Talons racing through it with Kaiser at their lead, his eyes glowing red as he took in the scene.

I sighed dramatically, backing away from the bars while the Talons rushed to stop the guy who was still butt scooting all over the flagstones and drag the one who had come in his pants away from the bars of our cage.

“What is going on in here?” Kaiser asked in a deadly calm tone.

“It was her,” I said, jerking my thumb towards Everest who glared at me over the top of the key she was trying to jam into her cuff.

“Give me the keys,” Kaiser barked, and Everest’s spine straightened, a battle taking place within her eyes for the count of three before she cursed in Cascadian and tossed the keys out through the bars into Kaiser’s awaiting grasp.

“How did you do this, silka la vin?” Kaiser demanded while the two Fae who had been lost to my gifts were dragged from the room to wails of protest.

“Kick me in the dick and call me a worm again!” the one who had messed himself shrieked as a last goodbye, and I snorted in amusement.

Everest broke a laugh too and the Talons who remained in the room started yelling profanities at us, calling out for our deaths. Kaiser silenced them with a bark of command.

“Tell me,” he ordered, his eyes only on Everest, and though she locked her jaw defiantly, words still slipped past her gritted teeth.

“Obviously that wasn’t my work,” she snarled, and Kaiser’s eyes shifted to me.

“Oh,” he said.

“Oh,” I echoed dumbly, looking to get a rise out of him, but he only swept his eyes over our cuffs to confirm they were still in place, checked the cell door was locked, then commanded the remaining Talons to follow him from the room.

“Your new boyfriend is a delight,” I drawled as flames exploded over the doorway behind them and the bang of the door closing at their backs echoed through the room.

“What? I fucking hate that man. He’s not my anything,” Everest spluttered, and I shrugged innocently.

“Must have been someone else’s lust I felt tainting the air when he came charging in here flexing his muscles and barking orders then.”

“Must have been,” she agreed before dropping back down onto the cot with a sigh of frustration. “I’ve never seen your kind of gifts in action like that before,” she said, and I could tell she was keen to change the subject, so I let her.

“I suppose you thought my power was only good for sex?” I asked, my tone bored at the predictable summary of my gifts.

I didn’t really care that so many Fae liked to narrow my power down to nothing but lust in their imagination.

It only made it easier to gut them on the battlefield when they realised just how potent my magic really was.

“I mean…there may have been a rumour or two to that effect circulating Cascada about you,” she admitted.

“Well, when I’m not turning battlefields into orgies for my perverted delight, I do occasionally use my gifts to make fools of Fae too weak to resist them.”

Everest’s lips twitched. We were almost smiling at one another, joking among ourselves and acting very much like we were allies instead of enemies.

“So the Fury has you in his thrall with his possession?” I asked, and she huffed irritably.

“That’s the least of it.”

“What kind of range does he have with that power?”

“The possession?” she questioned. “I’m not sure. It usually wears off once I put some distance between us. It’s the-” Everest cut herself short, the words clogging in her throat and her furious desire to spit the truth from her lips flickered out around me.

“There’s more?” I guessed, crossing the cell to sit beside her.

“No,” she said quickly.

“Liar,” I contradicted.

Everest spread her hands in defeat. “I can’t tell you anyway. Can’t tell anyone.”