“Long ago.” He pulled his gaze away and whispered, “She told me the war would end soon.” He rubbed his fingers over the bridge of his nose and massaged above his eye. “This pain? It will end. Soon. Some days are worse than others.” A small laugh escaped him. “Not that there are ever days or nights, just endless false light. The air here is thin, cycled through a million bodies a thousand times a day. The food tastes like ash. And I am…” He swallowed. “I am—” He cut himself off and tossed a careless smile my way. “But I have you. Her killer.” The glassiness washed away. “I am unsure whether I should hate you—as you hate me—or…”
His focus softened and roamed over me, snagging where the gown had slipped, exposing fragments of the marks climbing my thighs. “You have killed more of your kind than many fae soldiers. Do you think that makes you worth more than them?” he asked with a smile, but this time it was the dangerous one—a prelude to an attack.
My pulse raced, chest tight. “Mab did.”
He reached out and flicked my gown open, exposing my leg below the knee and the patterns inked into my skin. Goosebumps scattered across my flesh. He saw. He saw and heard everything. Heard my heart race. Felt my shivers. He read and absorbed all the signs of human desire.
He touched my knee, settling his warm fingers over an elaborate, sweeping tattoo. “Does your kind despise you as they should?” His hand followed the mark higher, easing the gown back farther. I felt the beat of my heart everywhere, felt desire pulse low.
“If they knew, they would.”
That answer brightened his eyes. He leaned forward in the chair and chased the mark higher, across my thigh. Where the ink thickened, his touch became heavier. His hands weren’t as smooth as I’d imagined. He had worked them once, likely around the hilt of a sword.
He shifted to his feet, scooped his hands around my waist and lifted me onto the table. My thoughts raced, panic battling with need. I planted my hands on either side of me to steady myself, keeping my touch off him, despite the temptation. With his gaze fixed on mine, he eased my thighs open and pushed between them.
Bowing his head, he brushed his cheek against mine and whispered, “A monster among your kind and a monster among ours. It must be a lonely life, Wraithmaker.”
Just words. Don’t believe them. Don’t let them in. But they did ease in through my defenses to toy with my heart. He was alone, like me. I didn’t know why he had shut himself away or forced himself to live this life, but I understood the ache of loneliness.
I touched the hard line of his jaw. A muscle fluttered beneath my fingers. From restraint or anger, I couldn’t know, and the heat he summoned in my veins pulsed harder. He had been alone for longer than I’d been alive. Yes, I needed answers. Yes, I needed to know what was really happening inside Arcon. But in that moment, he was the closest thing to Faerie I had experienced in five years. For him, I was the closest thing to the home he had been shut away from for a lifetime and more. I hated what they had done to me, but that only made this need more savage. I could own him back. He hated me, hated how I was human, how I’d killed his queen, but he needed me… just like I needed him.
Slowly, methodically, he unwound the gown’s belt, his breath brushing across the curve of my neck.
I hooked my fingers into the buckles holding his jacket closed and flicked them open one at a time. When the garment hung loose, I pushed it back, relishing the muscular curve of his shoulders. He tore it free, tossed it away, and captured my face in his hands. A fresh madness sharpening his glare, and his mouth. This wasn’t about me. He wanted Faerie, but I’d do. I wanted answers and didn’t care how I got them. I lunged in, sank my hand into his loose hair, twisted my fingers and yanked him into a kiss. He tasted wrong, like everything mothers warned their children about, like the old fairy tales; he tasted like sweet poison, the kind that would slay you slowly while you begged for more. His magic tainted the air, igniting my taste buds, and set my thoughts spinning, and I didn’t care that he was about to drag me down into his fantasy, turning my reality inside out. It would be worth it. His mouth worked with mine, tongue taking, teeth nipping. He pushed and I pushed back, my grip in his hair tightening, reaping shudders from his body.
His hands fell. One sweeping around my hip, the other falling to my neck where he paused. The collar. If he removed it, he would taste all of me, but I’d also be free and have my magic to hand.
Do it, I silently demanded. Enslaved, this was nothing. But if he could take me while I was free and taste Faerie’s magic in me? His body trembled against mine, muscles tight with restraint. He tore his mouth away and lifted his head, teeth gritted.
Do it. Take it off.
I rode my hands up his chest, lifting the shirt, revealing deep black ink. His marks interwove and danced and swirled like none I’d seen before. Entranced, I shoved the shirt higher and ran my tongue over the bramble-like maze that hooked and curled across his upper abs, leading me astray. I would have continued, would have fallen into the trap of tasting him, if the scar hadn’t caught my eye. The fae didn’t scar. But something had happened to him, something that had opened his chest right over his heart. Scar tissue distorted the flesh around the cut, and stitched down its middle, delicate metal threads glimmered.
Tek.
I froze. The thump-thump of his heart beat almost too loudly.
Larsen’s touch fell away. He stepped back, putting space between us, instantly chilling my skin. He tugged his shirt down, covering the scar, and picked up his jacket. He stood still, holding the garment, his face turned away in... shame?
I wiped the sweet and salty taste of him from my mouth.
He had tek stitched into his chest, holding an old wound together. Tek that should kill him, but somehow…
He pressed his hand to his chest, his usually controlled face racked with pain.
“This was…” He waved at me, my gown askew, lips and body flushed with heat. “This is nothing.” He wouldn’t meet my eye. “I can’t afford this distraction.”
He pulled his jacket on and regarded the door across the room. His escape. But he didn’t move, and I watched his expression crumble before he turned his back to me. Because out there wasn’t an escape. This place was his sanctuary in an entire system that wanted him dead—had maybe tried to kill him from the inside out. The tek was inside him, combining with and living off fae magic. Like my whip lived. Like Sota lived.
Larsen had a human-made heart.
“You will fix me,” he said firmly while dragging his gaze upward.
And finally, I understood why I was here.
The fractures I’d seen on his face had vanished, replaced by a sharp determination. “You can fix this.”
“I…”
“You have her magic. Mab’s magic. You create life where there is none. You weave magic and tek together. You’re a tek-whisperer. I am dying, and you will fix me, Wraithmaker. Mab sent you to fix me. She gave you her gift of magic for me. You will serve your purpose. You will serve me as you served her. Remove the tek from around my heart.”
“And if I don’t?” My voice trembled under the weight of what I’d seen.
“Then I’ll turn Arcon on itself and open the door to all of Faerie.” He lifted his chin in defiance.
I already knew Arcon had complete control of Halow’s security, including the barrier between our systems. He could cripple the entire Halow system at the touch of a button or the sweep of his hand. It was a miracle he hadn’t already.
“How did this happen to you?” I asked.
“Just agree,” he snarled. “Unless you don’t want to save your people? Unless you think opening the door will make the fae forgive you?” He paused, watching for my reaction. I didn’t move. Didn’t dare to. “Whatever you want, whatever your dreams, I can make them real.” When I didn’t answer, he came forward. “We’re both monsters among our kind.” He clutched my face, crushing it painfully tight. “Don’t you want all your sins to be forgiven and to be loved by Faerie once more?”
Chapter 18