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of the Air 2)

Page 22 of The Wicked King

(The Folk of the Air 2)
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He makes an impatient gesture.

“You mean back when I was merely
the prince?”

“Use your wiles,” I say, exasperated

and embarrassed. “I’m sure you’ve
got some. She wants you. It
shouldn’t be difficult.”

His eyebrows, if anything, climb

higher. “You’re seriously suggesting
I do this.”
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I take a breath, realizing that I am

going to have to convince him that it
will work. And that I know
something that might. “Nicasia’s the
one who came through the
passageway and shot that girl you
were kissing,” I say.

“You mean she tried to kill me?” he

asks. “Honestly, Jude, how many
secrets are you keeping?”

I think of his mother again and bite

my tongue. Too many. “She was
shooting at the girl, not you. She
found you in bed with someone, got
jealous, and shot twice.
Unfortunately for you, but
fortunately for everyone else, she’s
a terrible shot. Now do you believe
me that she wants you?”

“I know not what to believe,” he

says, clearly angry, maybe at her,
maybe at me, probably at both of
us.

“She thought to surprise you in your

bed. Give her what she wants, and
get the information we need to
avoid a war.”

He stalks toward me, close enough

that I can feel his breath stirring my
hair. “Are you commanding me?”

“No,” I say, startled and unable to

meet his gaze. “Of course not.”

His fingers come to my chin, tilting

my head so I am looking up into his
black eyes, the rage in them as hot
as coals. “You just think I ought to.
That I can. That I’d be good at it.
Very well, Jude. Tell me how it’s
done. Do you think she’d like it if I
came to her like this, if I looked
deeply into her eyes?”

My whole body is alert, alive with

sick desire, embarrassing in its
intensity.

He knows. I know he knows.

“Probably,” I say, my voice coming

out a little shakily. “Whatever it is
you usually do.”

“Oh, come now,” he says, his voice

full of barely controlled fury. “If you
want me to play the bawd, at least
give me the benefit of your advice.”

His beringed fingers trace over my

cheek, trace the line of my lip and
down my throat. I feel dizzy and
overwhelmed. “Should I touch her
like this?” he asks, lashes lowered.
The shadows limn his face, casting
his cheekbones into stark relief.

“I don’t know,” I say, but my voice

betrays me. It’s all wrong, high and
breathless.

He presses his mouth to my ear,

kissing me there. His hands skim
over my shoulders, making me
shiver. “And then like this? Is this
how I ought to seduce her?” I can
feel his mouth shape the light words
against my skin. “Do you think it
would work?”

I dig my fingernails into the meat of

my palm to keep from moving
against him. My whole body is
trembling with tension. “Yes.”

Then his mouth is against mine,

and my lips part. I close my eyes
against what I’m about to do. My
fingers reach up to tangle in the
black curls of his hair. He doesn’t
kiss me as though he’s angry; his
kiss is soft, yearning.

Everything slows, goes liquid and

hot. I can barely think.

I’ve wanted this and feared it, and

now that it’s happening, I don’t
know how I will ever want anything
else.

We stumble back to the low couch.

He leans me back against the
cushions, and I pull him down over
me. His expression mirrors my own,
surprise and a little horror.

“Tell me again what you said at the

revel,” he says, climbing over me,
his body against mine.

“What?” I can barely think.

“That you hate me,” he says, his

voice hoarse. “Tell me that you hate
me.”

“I hate you,” I say, the words

coming out like a caress. I say it
again, over and over. A litany. An
enchantment. A ward against what I
really feel. “I hate you. I hate you. I
hate you.”

He kisses me harder.

“I hate you,” I breathe into his

mouth. “I hate you so much that
sometimes I can’t think of anything
else.”

At that, he makes a harsh, low

sound.

One of his hands slides over my

stomach, tracing the shape of my
skin. He kisses me again, and it’s
like falling off a cliff. Like a mountain
slide, building momentum with
every touch, until there is only
crashing destruction ahead.

I have never felt anything like this.

He begins to unbutton my doublet,

and I try not to freeze, try not to
show my inexperience. I don’t want
him to stop.

It feels like a geas. It has all the

sinister pleasure of sneaking out of
the house, all the revolting
satisfaction of stealing. It reminds
me of the moment before I
slammed a blade through my hand,
amazed at my own capacity for self-
betrayal.

He leans up to pull off his own

jacket, and I try to wriggle out of
mine. He looks at me and blinks, as
through a fog. “This is an absolutely
terrible idea,” he says with a kind of
amazement in his voice.

“Yes,” I tell him, kicking off my

boots.

I am wearing hose, and I don’t think

there’s an elegant way to strip them
off. Certainly, I don’t find it. Tangled
in the fabric, feeling foolish, I realize
I could stop this now. I could gather
up my things and go. But I don’t.

He shucks his cuffed white shirt

over his head in a single elegant
gesture, revealing bare skin and
scars. My hands are shaking. He
captures them and kisses my
knuckles with a kind of reverence.

“I want to tell you so many lies,” he

says.

I shudder, and my heart hammers

as his hands skim over my skin,
one sliding between my thighs. I
mirror him, fumbling with the
buttons of his breeches. He helps
me push them down, his tail curling
against his leg then twisting to coil
against mine, soft as a whisper. I
reach over to slide my hand over
the flat plane of his stomach. I don’t
let myself hesitate, but my
inexperience is obvious. His skin is
hot under my palm, against my
calluses. His fingers are too clever
by half.

I feel as though I am drowning in

sensation.

His eyes are open, watching my

flushed face, my ragged breathing. I
try to stop myself from making
embarrassing noises. It’s more
intimate than the way he’s touching
me, to be looked at like that. I hate
that he knows what he’s doing and I
don’t. I hate being vulnerable. I hate
that I throw my head back, baring
my throat. I hate the way I cling to
him, the nails of one hand digging
into his back, my thoughts
splintering, and the single last thing
in my head: that I like him better
than I’ve ever liked anyone and that
of all the things he’s ever done to
me, making me like him so much is
by far the worst.

One of the hardest things to do as a

spy, as a strategist, or even just as
a person, is wait. I recall the
Ghost’s lessons, making me sit for
hours with a crossbow in my hand
without my mind wandering, waiting
for the perfect shot.

So much of winning is waiting.

The other part, though, is taking the

shot when it comes. Unleashing all
that momentum.

In my rooms again, I remind myself

of that. I can’t afford to be
distracted. Tomorrow, I need to get
Vivi and Oak from the mortal world,
and I need to come up with either a
scheme better than Madoc’s or a
way to make Madoc’s scheme safer
for Oak.

I concentrate on what I am going to

say to Vivi, instead of thinking of
Cardan. I do not want to consider
what happened between us. I do
not want to think about the way his
muscles moved or how his skin felt
or the soft gasping sounds he made
or the slide of his mouth against
mine.

I definitely don’t want to think about

how hard I had to bite my own lip to
keep quiet. Or how obvious it was
that I’d never done any of the things
we did, no less the things we didn’t
do.

Every time I think of any of it, I

shove the memory away as fiercely
as possible. I shove it along with
the enormous vulnerability I feel,
the feeling of being exposed down
to my raw nerves. I do not know
how I will face Cardan again without
behaving like a fool.

If I cannot attack the problem of the

Undersea and I cannot attack the
problem of Cardan, then perhaps I
can take care of something else.

It is a relief to don a suit of dark

fabric and high leather boots, to
holster blades at my wrists and
calves. It is a relief to do something
physical, heading through the
woods and then slyfooting my way
into a poorly guarded house. When
one of the residents comes in, my
knife is at his throat faster than he
can speak.

“Locke,” I say sweetly. “Are you

surprised?”

He turns to me, dazzling smile

faltering. “My blossom. What is
this?”

After an astonished moment, I

realize that he thinks I am Taryn.
Can he really not tell the difference
between us?

A bitter pit where my heart should

be is pleased by the thought.

“If you think my sister would put a

knife to your throat, perhaps you
should delay your nuptials,” I tell
him, taking a step back and pointing
to a chair with the point. “Go ahead.
Sit.”

He sits down just as I kick the chair,

sending it backward and him
sprawling to the floor. He rolls over,
glaring at me with indignation.
“Unchivalrous,” is all he says, but
there’s something in his face that
wasn’t there before.

Fear.

For five months I have tried to use

every bit of restraint I learned over
a lifetime of keeping my head down.
I have tried to behave as though I
had only dribs and drabs of power,
an important servant’s power, and
still keep in my head that I was in
charge. A balancing act that makes
me think of Val Moren’s lesson in
juggling.

I have allowed the Locke situation

to get out of hand.

I place my foot on his chest,

pressing down a little to remind him
that if I kicked hard, it could shatter
bone.

“I am done with being polite. We’re

not going to play word games or
make up riddles. Humiliating the
High King is a bad idea. Humiliating
me is a terrible idea. Running
around on my sister is just dumb.
Maybe you thought I was too busy
to take my revenge? Well, Locke, I
want you to understand that for you,
I will make time.”

His face pales. He’s obviously not

sure what to make of me right now.
He knows I stabbed Valerian once,
but he doesn’t know I killed him, nor
that I have killed since then. He has
no idea I became a spy and then a
spymaster. Even the sword fight
with Taryn was something he only
heard about.
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