Page 115 of Quicksilver

“Fuck. I needwaymore alcohol for this conversation. Hold on.” He gestured to the bartender for a refill, and the craggy-faced creature Lorreth had informed me was a mountain trollcame and poured us both another round. When he'd gone, Lorreth sighed. He held up his drink to mine.

“Sarrush.”

I clinked my glass against his. “Sarrush.”

Lorreth took a deep breath. “All right. Okay. So. No one else has told you anything? About…any ofthat?”he asked hopefully.

“Nope.”

“Well...” Lorreth hadn't flinched during the conflict in the war room, when Danya had tried to slit Fisher's throat, nor when Ren had dropped the staggering news that they were on the cusp of losing the war. But now he looked mighty uncomfortable. “Yes, our canines work just fine. The same as a vampire's would. But blood drinking is very taboo. No, it's worse than taboo. It's scandalous.”

“But the Fae still do it sometimes?”

A pink tinge was developing on his cheeks. “Yes.”

“But you don'tneedblood to survive?”

“No, we don't.”

“Then why would they do it?”

“Because...” He cast another wary look around, shifting awkwardly in his seat. “It's a sex thing. If a male drinks from someone, it'll make his dick harder than it's ever been in his life. It makes you euphoric. Both of you. While you're fucking.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.Oh,” he said. “But it's a slippery slope. If we bite someone, we can still lose ourselves to it. It takes an immeasurable force of will not to keep drinking. It's...not something that's spoken about in polite company.”

My brain was so fogged by the whiskey that I didn't know what to make of that. I supposed it explained Fisher's reaction when I'd told him to bite me. But beyond that...I didn't know what to think.

“If you have more questions about this, then maybe they could be discussed another time. In private. Preferably between you and whoever has suggested they might want to, ahh,drinkfrom you,” Lorreth mumbled, burying his face in his glass.

I blushed hotly. “Yes, of course.” I hadn't said a word to anyone about what had happened between Fisher and me. I'd scrubbed myself raw in the shower in the hopes that I'd be able to mask the smell of him on me, but the Fae could detect things like that underneath the scent of soap, apparently. Did that mean that Lorreth knew I'd had sex last night? And specifically with Fisher? It didn't really matter if he did. Worrying about it wasn't going to change anything. And I didn't even know the first thing about Lorreth, so who cared what he thought? He was a stranger. But I liked him. I didn’t want him tostaya stranger.

“How did you wind up here, anyway?” I asked.

“In Yvelia? I was born here,” he said.

“No. In the middle of this war.”

“Oh.” He waved a hand noncommittally. “Huh, well, let's see. I was a traveling singer once, if you can believe that.”

He did have a pleasant enough voice when he spoke, but I couldn't picture this huge, dangerous-looking, lethal warrior as a singer, of all things. “A good one?” I asked.

“Amediocreone. Turned out I was better suited to killing than I ever was at performing. Anyway, I met Fisher one night out on the road. He was on his way to help some friends. I was lying in a ditch when he found me.”

I buried a smirk. “Drunk?”

“No. Dead, actually. Or very nearly, anyway.” He winked, though he suddenly looked a little washed out in the muted tavern lighting. “I'd been attacked by two vampires. Strays. They weren't part of the horde. But theywerehungry. They took one look at me—a scrawny kid with a lute strapped to his back. Alone—and decided I'd make a decent meal. They nearly drained me dry.”

“Shit. That sounds awful.”

“Well, it wasn't any fun, that's for sure. But it was a long time ago. I've suffered worse since. Anyway, we were miles away from anywhere. I wouldn't have lasted until they could get me to help. If I'd died and come back turned while I was with them, there was a chance I could have killed a number of the party, and some of them didn't want to risk that. They told Fisher it would be best to run me through and have done with it, but he refused. He made them set up camp for the night, and he transported me to Cahlish. He carried me in his arms, for fuck's sake. I was alotsmaller then,” Lorreth stressed. “He put me in a bed, and he had healers come and tend to me, and he waited to see what they'd say. They weren't optimistic about my odds. I had more venom than blood in my veins, and there are limits to what even the most skilled healer can accomplish under those circumstances. They told him to go back to the wolves, and when I passed, they would bury me beneath a yew tree out in one of the fields that bordered the estate. But Fisher didn't do that.”

“What...did he do?”

Lorreth tossed his head back and laughed. “Something I'm sure I've given him innumerable reasons to regret since. He made me his brother. By blood. He gave me a part of his soul.”

“A part of his...?” I hadn't heard him right. The alcohol was making my ears play tricks on me. If souls existed, and I wasn't entirely convinced that they did, then you couldn't just go around giving pieces of your own away.