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Lenna

“Y ou two are not so loud now, are you?” Arabella’s smirk had the same effect as a bucket of iced water on Lenna.

The painfully pretty blond held her winning CoreCard up: a Cardinals-damned 55 of Leafs . The two dice the woman had thrown shone bright on the table, the inner part of the glass cubes filled with red liquid, the symbols facing up mocking everyone else on the table: a number 5, and a Floret. A bloody, cursed Floret.

“Shut the fuck up,” Sasha exclaimed, her jaw dropping as her angry, dark eyes demanded explanations.

Brendon threw his cards on the table, his green eyes narrowing to slits as he threw visual daggers at Arabella. “Either you have weirdly awesome good luck, or you’re an extremely good scammer.”

Arabella lifted her eyebrow, her smirk not faltering as she held her palms up, waiting for what she was owed. The noise of clattering grolls and valers filled the room as the players emptied their pockets for the fifth time in a row.

When her hands were full, Arabella’s eyelashes fluttered, her expression a pretty unbelievable portrayal of innocence. “You expect so little of me?”

“Cheating bitch,” Lenna said with a forced smile, fluttering her eyelashes back at her.

She had been suspicious from the first round, but it had taken all her pride to keep from asking Arabella D’Arcy, from admitting that she couldn’t find out the trick of the blue-eyed beauty.

At this point, Lenna’s pride was as lost as the remaining valers and grolls she had just handed in.

Jake snorted from a couch, his hands behind his head pushing his black hair towards his face. He hadn’t bothered joining the game. Beings could have thought he was just chilling, and then those beings would be fools .

Relaxing was not an option for a man like him, for a mind like his. The Fifth only knew what he was thinking about, what Jake was planning, where his head truly was. Other than the lacy, white tights gripping Lenna’s legs and the small black bodysuit marking her cleavage. She had noticed many times how well he was inspecting that .

When his silver eyes met her golden ones, the corner of his lips tucked upwards.

Jake purred into her mind. Fucking purred .

Lenna’s eyes widened, biting her bottom lip as she realized she wanted to hear him again. She needed to hear him again.

Sasha stepped into her vision, frowning. “Have you had too much myster, love?”

Lenna cleared her throat, putting a few rebel red strands behind her ear. She handed her empty glass to Sasha. “I could do with some more.”

“Of course you could.” Sasha laughed, pouring the liquid into Lenna’s glass and refilling everyone else’s at the same time. “Jake?”

“If I drink anymore, I will lose the little control that’s keeping me from fucking Lenna on your playing table.”

Lenna cracked a laugh, tilting her head back as Brendon choked on his drink. He latter coughed twice before he managed to say, “Your navia, your home, Jake. Do as you wish.”

“Excuse me?” Sasha tilted her head, a mass of brown curls dropping to one side. Her dark eyes gleamed with something difficult to identify.

Brendon’s eyebrows lifted. “Jealous, Sasha?”

The brunette pursed her lips. “Maybe I’m the one who’d like to be fucked on the table.”

“Excuse-fucking -me ?” Lenna’s nostrils flared, her hands immediately on her hips, facing Sasha.

“For the love of all the feathers, Lenna, I didn’t mean I’d like to be fucked by Jake ,” Sasha exclaimed, frowning. “Thanks, but no thanks—he’s all yours.”

A proud grin escaped Brendon’s mouth. “Fucked on the table, huh?”

Sasha stared back at him, not opening her full lips again.

Arabella crossed her arms as she put her high heel on the edge of the table. “You’re so dramatic. You could share. It’s way more fun that way.”

Brendon scratched his chin, considering. “Would you want to join?” Sasha elbowed him in the ribs.

“What a stupid question.” Arabella said matter-of-factly. “What about you, Jake?”

“I don’t share.” Jake’s growl did something to Lenna’s cores—the one in her chest and the one at the apex of her legs.

The blond sighed. “You mean you don’t share anymore .”

Lenna’s jaw clenched, her golden, raging eyes not moving from the blue eyes of the teasing bitch. The sudden silence of the room could be cut with a blade.

The past was the past, and of course Jake had his. A multitudinous, centuries-long past. As she had her twenty-five-years-long past, that she had put to good use with half the men of Borealia. So why did this bother her so much?

Jake’s shoulders tensed, as if he knew everything Lenna was feeling and didn’t approve. He stood, pacing until he was behind her, his hand resting on the top of her chest. Could he feel her jealous heart racing?

“Of course, Arabella. I didn’t mind others playing with toys I didn’t care about.” His voice was a shard of glass. “Lenna is my woman. She is my fire. She is mine, as I’m hers. And yes, I don’t fucking share what’s mine.”

The knot in Lenna’s throat eased, her fingers stroking his strong hand, the back of her head resting on his muscled abdomen.

Arabella inhaled sharply, opening her mouth to bicker back—

“Do you miss home, Arabella?” Lenna asked.

The blond snapped her head, looking at Lenna the way a predator would her prey before decapitating it. “Careful,” her voice was a warning whisper.

Lenna didn’t take her eyes off her. It hadn’t been difficult to guess what the soft spot of someone with such bile would be. Someone who had learned how to use her magic in a way that didn’t make her feel ashamed and lacking control every time she moured to a different part of the land, someone who didn’t mind making the rest of the world uncomfortable. Someone with such revulsion, with such hatred, had issues. Big fucking issues Lenna knew all too well.

It would be so easy to make Arabella jump now. So damned easy to make her angry, truly angry. But there were two small things in the way.

The first one, that Lenna knew exactly what it was for home to be one’s soft spot, the trigger that resurrected what needn’t reviving. The second, that Lenna didn’t care enough about her to want to truly hurt her, to open a box that she herself struggled to close with a mental lock every so often. So she didn’t open the box. Instead, she stood up, Jake’s hand moving along her side until he held her close by the waist.

“Mind your own damned business, then.”