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“That’s right.” Jaco’s amusement had my heart pounding.

“Amund Wraithion. Said the name meant guardian between realms. Guardian between the tavern and the shit house, is what he was. Got himself lost in the desert once, researching. Said he found a way through the Wall and couldn’t find his way back.

Finally showed up dragging a woman with him, looked as cracked as he was. ”

I flinched. The cup I held would have tipped if Kion hadn’t reached out to close his fingers around mine. “Easy,” he whispered. “It’s just talk.”

I didn’t dare move as the gossip carried on.

“Claimed he married her.” A man’s elbow slammed into his companion’s side. “Although none of us ever witnessed a ceremony.”

I held myself still. This wasn’t my father they were laughing about. The woman wasn’t my mother. Some other man had taken my father’s name, pretending he worked for the king. Made himself look like…

Kion’s fingers tightened. I realized I was shaking, not still.

“Must have made it up,” a fourth man said as he rubbed his scrawny beard. “Like all them rock drawings he talked about. Men walking with dragons, on and on, like they were some miracle.”

“You’re an artist, Cobb,” Jaco said. “Always wandering in that desert. You ever find any of them rock drawings?”

“Nothing but rocks and biting lizards in that sand,” Cobb groused. “Weren’t nothing like drawings. Goes to show why you can’t trust a king’s man. Ain’t smart enough to get out of the sun, imagines all sorts of things.”

Except that I remembered seeing those drawings, in the journal my father hid away. I’d asked him about it and he’d said the images were hundreds of years old, carved on a rock he’d found in the desert.

Why would these men claim it never happened? My father had no reason to lie .

Tremors rocked through me. Did Kion sense my distress? Because he moved his hand to stroke my arm, and his cloak fell aside.

Someone shouted, “Mage shackles!”

Chairs scraped back. Dishes rattled. Mage shackles changed the situation.

If Kion was a fugitive, these men would stomp and shout and curse the king.

But mage shackles meant the red priests.

The magic-wielders who wouldn’t stop hunting.

Who would destroy anyone who stood between them and their quarry.

I could feel the rising alarm.

Beside me, Kion stiffened. But he had no weapon other than the knife on the table and the one he’d returned to me. Defending himself against so many was impossible without my help.

I met his hard expression, hoping he’d trust Silk. Trust the king’s justice speaker. I stood and let the blanket fall. If these men bothered to think about it, they’d see no threat in a skinny girl wearing a wrinkled, dirty shift. But no one was thinking, thanks to the ale.

Ale that also muddled their defenses.

I focused on Jaco, slipping into his mind. I wanted him to believe no danger existed, but even with my best effort, Jaco continued to glare.

“It’s harmless,” I said.

“Let’s hear your story, then,” he ordered.

“They’re just shackles,” I said weakly.

“ Mage shackles,” he answered as if he spoke to a muddled child .

I blurted out the first thing that flashed into my head. “It’s a mating custom.”

“Ain’t no custom I’ve ever heard,” someone from the back shouted.

“Give the girl a chance.” Jaco poured more ale like he wanted a longer story, and I aimed for sincerity.

“Where I come from, the girl has to…kidnap the man she wants, and take him away. While his, um…while his friends try to find him. And if they do, she…has to give him back.”

Beside me, Kion choked. I glared at him.

Jaco stared hopefully, and I said, “That’s what he meant when he claimed to be a fugitive. He was having a bit of fun with you. And with me.”

As the meaning sank through the ale-haze, more guffaws erupted in the tavern. One man fell from his chair.

“You want to give him back, missy?” Jaco asked, laughing hard enough for saliva to drool from his mouth.

“Well…” I gripped my hands. “I’ve gone to a lot of trouble to get him this far. And those mage shackles cost me four years of savings, so I’d rather not lose them.”

“How about you?” The red-haired serving girl ran her hand over Kion’s shoulder. “You were interested enough when you walked through the door. Couldn’t keep your eyes where they belonged. If you’d rather not go with her…”

Her finger traced his ear.

I said crisply, “Excuse me, but he’s already spoken for.”

Kion choked again, but there was pure devilment in his eyes .

“That true?” It was the skinny Cobb who wanted to know. His smirk grew lewd while he waited for Kion’s confirmation. And from the way Cobb hitched his pants higher around his waist, if the Angel of Death wasn’t interested in being spoken for, then Cobb was ready to volunteer.

My skin turned clammy. What did I know about men from the frontier? With all the ale they’d consumed, how long would it take before someone stepped up and offered to be “captured,” if Kion rejected me?

I slipped into Cobb’s mind, using magic to shut down his dreams of conquest. Then I turned to Jaco.

But Jaco was already slamming his ale cup onto the table and laughing until tears filled his eyes. “If it’s a custom,” he said, smearing the tears away, “who are we to interfere?”

“Barkeep, find them a room,” Cobb shouted, joining in with the laughter since conquest no longer mattered. “Let’s get on with the mating before someone rescues the man.”

Kion remained silent when the men dragged him to his feet. The jovial crowd hoisted me into the air, and a parade formed, one that marched down a hall and up a flight of stairs to a tidy room with one large bed. Two men shoved Kion through the door while the others dumped me onto the mattress.

As the door slammed, my heart hammered even harder than before. Kion scowled. Voices in the hall carried. The siege would be long because the men ordered more refreshments—food and drink. Lanterns and chairs, since they planned on camping in the hall until we made the sounds they expected to hear .

Wildly, I wondered if swearing would count as sufficiently sensual. Proof of a mating.

“Orm, save me,” I hissed, and Kion hissed back, “Don’t drag Orm into this.”

“Why not, when you wear his stupid curse tablet around your stupid neck?”

He bared his teeth.

I ignored the late show of aggression. He could have intervened at any time if he’d wanted to help. Instead, he did nothing while I made things worse.

Glaring toward the door, I measured the strength of my magic and wondered if I had any chance of reaching some random mind through the wooden barrier. Convincing that man to leave…

Frowning, I asked, “How long are they going to drink out there?”

“Until dawn or they pass out.”

I flounced on the bed and rocked in agitation.

He drawled, “Start bouncing before they barge in here.”

I leapt up and stormed away from the mattress edge. There wasn’t much room to move unless I counted jumping from the window. I considered it as a viable option.

Glaring at the muddy street, I hissed, “I’m glad you find this funny—didn’t you see those weapons?” The men wore knives and a few swords, and there’d been plenty of weapons in the room besides the ale. “They were going to turn you over to the red priests if I didn’t do something.”

“The Black City is known for overheated emotions. Another round of ale would have calmed them all down. ”

“And did anyone bother to tell me?” I spread my arms, then whipped them tight to my waist in case open arms were an invitation to him. “I was trying to help.”

“By spouting the first foolishness that came out of your mouth?”

“It wasn’t foolishness. My father told me there were mating customs like that in some…places.”

“Really?” His arched eyebrow wasn’t a question but ridicule, and the way he stood with his back pressed against the door, I wasn’t sure if he was barricading the room against invasion or preventing my unauthorized exit.

A muscle flicked in his jaw. I missed the usual glitter in his eyes. Instead, the dull light made me realize he was truly angry.

“Look,” I began, when a fist pounded on the closed door hard enough to make the handle rattle.

“Get on with it, in there,” someone in the hall bellowed. Raucous laughter agreed with the command. “Else we’re thinking them mage shackles ain’t yours, missy, and the two of you are running and might be worth something.”

The Angel of Death pointed toward the bed. “Noise,” he ordered.

I sat down and bounced.

“More. Up and down. Hard.”

I gritted my teeth.

“Now…make it sound like you enjoy it.”

“Enjoy what?” I snapped.

His beautiful mouth curved. “Such a na?ve little Silk. How do you think a woman sounds when she’s pleasured?”

I bounced with enough force to make the bed frame thud. “I’m sure you know.”

His grin turned pitying. “If that red-haired wench was in here, she’d know.”

I pretended boredom. “Then you should have dragged her along.”

Kion pushed from the door and took a step toward me. “Moan like you just tasted the perfect food. The way you moaned last night over the cooked hen. That little sound, soft in your throat, with your eyes half-closed.”

I growled with my eyes wide open and my fingers clenched in the bedding.

His laugh was deeply male. “You sound like a wounded cow.”

My face heated, but cheers filled the hallway, and Kion sighed. He snatched me upright. My bandaged feet skidded as he dragged me toward the door, which he opened with a flourish.

The door banged against the wall.

Then he turned, cupped my face and kissed me.

My heart jackknifed into my throat. Fingers curling, I clutched his shirt. The press of his mouth forced my lips apart. His tongue swept in to battle against mine, and the fight between us unraveled every thought until I was a shriveling mass of weakness.

My knees wobbled. My breath tangled with his and I hated it, hated the way I wanted to melt, to wrap my arms around this…infuriating male. Find shelter in his st rength.

The shaking sensation was so vivid that no shred of magic could cool the eroticism, threatening to turn this moment into something that it wasn’t.

Then his mouth left mine. His chest rose as he glared at the men in the hall. “Happy, now?”

“We’ll leave you to it,” Cobb chortled, while Jaco thumped his rotund belly before making a lewd hand gesture. Someone at the back shouted for more ale, and the group gathered their chairs and filed noisily downstairs.

Kion slammed the door while I retreated to the corner near the bed, out of his way while he stalked to the window to study the dark street. “No one’s leaving,” he said.

“You think they believed us?”

“They’ll drink for the rest of the night and in the morning, we’ll be gone.”

As ridiculous as it was, I realized my attempt to save Kion Abaddon from the angry men contradicted the goal of dragging him back to the king. Because, when given the opportunity to ask for aid, I’d come up with the exact opposite.

The men in the tavern had been wide open, unable to defend against my magic.

Not with all the ale they’d consumed. And despite their attitudes toward the king, they would have believed any story I spun about mage shackles and the need to return to Thales.

I’d become the heroine with Kion Abaddon acting like the villain since he already was one.

Instead, I’d told them about fleeing lovers and a ridiculous mating custom when few people regarded relationships in that light.

People married for reasons as simple as survival and loneliness.

Happiness or love rarely mattered, not on the frontier.

And yet, the men had fallen for the romance with more enthusiasm than the women in the Black City would have, given the chance.

The iciness coating my skin refused to ease.

Now that my pulse wasn’t thundering so hard and warming me, everything registered as clammy.

The wet weight of my hair pressed against my spine and the shift clung to the curves of my body—inadequate compared to the lush sensuality of the red-haired woman.

But…Kion had kissed me and not her, and insanely, his taste still lingered on my lips. I still burned with the need clenching my muscles when, moments earlier, he’d said I moaned like a wounded cow, and all I’d wanted was to force a physical response from him.

“You are the prisoner,” I whispered past the lump in my throat. “And I have to take you back.” For Nikki. For the king. For…loyalty.

The sound of Kion’s boots against the floor was nearly silent. He cupped my cheek, then smoothed the pale hair where one strand stuck to my skin.

“But not tonight, Senaria.”