Total pages in book: 55
Estimated words: 51407 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 257(@200wpm)___ 206(@250wpm)___ 171(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 51407 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 257(@200wpm)___ 206(@250wpm)___ 171(@300wpm)
She swallows hard. “No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have put this on you. You gave me a lovely night and I responded by weeping all over you.”
I have to pause to make sure I can modulate the fierceness of my tone. “You have nothing to be sorry for. I will take your tears any day, Belladonna. They are as much a part of you as your laughter and your desire.” I press a quick kiss to her forehead. “Sleep, little one.” It’s tempting to press a little magic behind that command, but I resist.
I don’t go back to the party. I certainly don’t go to bed. Instead, my footsteps trace the path to my study. As much as I’d like to spend my time out amongst my people, these days the true battles are fought through paperwork. Predatory trade agreements are just as threatening as a sword and offensive magic. Our territory isn’t particularly rich in resources outside of lumber. We have small swaths of farmland, but only certain types of crops prosper here. We need trade with the dragons for wheat and the gargoyles for the medicinal herbs that grow in their mountains. Even with the krakens for the deepwater fish that could feed a small village for weeks. As for the bargainers, they deal in more elusive products, ferried back from other realms.
And none of them will commit to a long-term trade agreement between territories.
That leaves me begging for scraps from individual traders, most of whom are only too happy to raise their prices to predatory heights. Like the current asshole I’m engaging in a continued battle of letters with. He’s a dragon who wants to pay half of fair market price for our lumber and for us to pay double for the wheat he has excess of.
I’m still hunched over my desk, cursing under my breath, when Danik steps through the door sometime later. His shirt is unbuttoned, and his eyes are heavy-lidded, but he seems alert enough as he drops into the chair across from my position behind the desk.
“You should be at the party,” I say without looking up.
He raises his brows. “You either get me or you get all three of us. We had thought—hoped—Belladonna arriving in the territory might help you recover a little balance, but . . .” He waves a hand at my study. “Here you are, and there she is alone in her bed.”
“She’s been here a day,” I snap.
“I know. Talk me through it. What’s wrong?”
Damn it. I should have known that they noted my mood and decided to do something about it. I know what the proper thing to do is. Smile and make a joke, send him back to the revelry, continue my slow seduction of Belladonna, allow her to have a baby to benefit the territory and everyone who lives in it. That is the only course of action that will result in the outcome of what I’ve been working so hard for the last few years: to be a leader powerful enough to make the other territories pay attention, a fact that will be doubly true if Azazel has his way and finally puts us all on even territory.
I know that, and yet I can’t banish the anger that roils inside me, sickening and so strong that it’s no wonder the people who care most about me noticed. I grip the edge of my desk and barely resist the urge to sink my claws into the wood. “They harmed her. Her parents. Her community, if you can call it that. Even—maybe especially—the sister she sacrificed everything for.”
“Yes.”
I love him all the more for not arguing with me. “We can’t kill them.”
His voice is even and calm, a direct counterpoint to mine. “We don’t have access to humans in the physical realm. We literally cannot kill them, morality arguments aside.”
Which isn’t to say we shouldn’t. I study Danik, taking in the barely banked fury in his crimson eyes. “You’re angry.”
“Of course I am.” He nods sharply. “Even though she’s only been here a short time, we can tell she’s a good girl, sweet and kind. In the midst of your magic, even with Zhenya boosting it with everything ze has, none of us missed the soul wound Belladonna carries. She didn’t acquire that on her own.”
No, she didn’t. There are names behind that wound, names of people still walking around, benefiting from her sacrifice.
My claws prick the surface of the desk, and I make an effort to raise my hands and place them on my thighs. “Danik.”
“I’m listening.”
“Find them.” I should feel guilt for this order. Succubi and incubi may have a shitty reputation, but for generations we have tried to feed ethically. There are plenty of willing dreamers, happy to entangle themselves in our spells of lust—more than enough for our entire population to gorge nightly, even with the toll it takes us to reach across the distance between realms.