What Lurks Between the Fates (Of Flesh & Bone, #3)(15)

Everything in me tightened when he did not wake. He always woke when anything came too close, his instincts protecting him even in his sleep. Concern for his injuries and worry about the female I wasn’t certain I could trust slithered inside me, but I shoved it away.

Caldris remained shirtless despite the bitter cold temperatures of the dungeon, but where I’d been curled up into a ball and unable to keep warm, it didn’t seem to faze his sleeping form.

“Yes. He’s mine,” I said, making sure to put my claim to words when I recognized the way she looked at him.

“He’s a good male,” she said, and I wished it surprised me that she recognized him. “He was the only one who was kind to me when I was locked away down here, separated from the sea I called home. My mate was killed in the battle that led to our capture; I was barely alive. But Caldris sewed my scales back on so that I would not die,” she said.

She knelt beside him, reaching forward as if she might touch a hand to his face. Her touch went through him, unable to make contact with the male she clearly respected. It didn’t look like love that graced her face, but pity. As much as I knew my mate would hate to see that, it soothed the jealous parts of our bond that would drive me to do something irrational.

“He’s a good mate to me,” I said, recognizing that he would truly do anything to see me freed from the chains that bound him. I might not understand the reverence the Fae had for the mate bond just yet, but I knew I loved mine.

“He was sorry when I died down here alone, but it is him whom I feel sympathy for. At least I can no longer feel the pain,” she said, rising from his side. She came back to my cell. Curling up against the wall, she looked at the smaller creature, who seemed to study me. I couldn’t be certain without seeing his eyes, but his nose pointed in my direction.

“He would not want your pity,” I said, drawing a sad sort of smile from Monos. She knew him well enough to agree, but she cast her gaze back over to where he slept.

“He would not,” she agreed, sighing lightly as she lowered herself to the floor. She sat upon the stone, leaning into the iron bars of my cage and picking up a piece of rubble. She tossed it into the air, catching it when it fell back down to her hands. “I suspect he has the pity of many, anyway.”

My face slackened, a bittersweet huff of laughter escaping me as I nodded in agreement. Aside from the monster capable of such atrocities, who would not pity a creature who had spent his entire life in servitude and suffering?

“Is it considered rude to ask what kind of Fae you are?” I said, raising a brow when she smiled slightly.

“Very,” she said, her lips peeling back into a grin that revealed sharpened teeth at the corners of her mouth. There were two rows of them, twice as many teeth as any human I’d ever met. “I am a Selkie, a creature that prefers to live in the water. Lozu is a gnome, though he’ll never admit it.”

“What good does it do to deny what we are?” I asked, glancing down at where the smaller creature stepped up to my legs. He leaned forward, grasping my dress in his hands and rolling his fingers over the fabric.

He pushed it up slightly, moving it out of his way as he stepped in. I scrambled to press the fabric against my body, watching in confusion as he leaned forward and pressed his nose to my ankle. It twitched as he sniffed.

“What is it?” he asked. He pressed his nostrils against my skin, breathing in so deeply that I felt the suction. That nose pointed up in my direction, and I caught the briefest glimpse of red, slitted eyes beneath the hat as he shifted.

“I… what is what?” I asked, swallowing past the haunting feeling of even a moment with those eyes settled upon me. They were all red, with the narrowest diamond of black at the center like a pupil. There were no whites or iris, only the color of blood where it consumed the eye.

“You. He means to ask what you are,” Monos answered. She didn’t seem surprised by Lozu’s fixation with my ankle, with the way he tried to shove more of my skirt out of the way so that he could get to more of my skin. “You look like a Sidhe, but you do not smell like one.”

I glanced down at the smaller creature when he finally stepped out from beneath my dress. He tipped his head back, his nose continuing to twitch as looked at me. I considered looking away, wanting to avoid that unsettled feeling of his red eyes again, but if I could not withstand the first of the creatures of Faerie I encountered, how would I fare when I faced the monsters of legends?

“Can I taste? Just a small one?” he asked, his lips parting just enough to reveal the sharp row of teeth that filled his small mouth. He ran a sharpened claw over my ankle, a red line blooming on my skin as he scraped it. He didn’t draw blood, only scratching the surface.

“No, there will be absolutely no tasting,” I said with a swallow.

His lips turned down, his beard falling with the motion. It was the closest I’d ever seen to an actual frown on any face, his pout making him appear somewhat less menacing.

“We are most curious,” he said, as if that curiosity entitled him to a taste of my flesh. His tongue ran along the seam of his lips, wetting the dry flesh as he waited, hoping that he would change my mind.

Over my dead fucking body.

“I truly do not know what I am. I’m sorry I cannot provide the same answers you offered to me,” I said, biting the inner corner of my mouth as the gnome moved away. He went to Monos, curling up in her outstretched hand and making himself comfortable.