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“They’re not real words. Just fractal thoughts and confused noises.” Detangling from me, he stands and pulls me out of the messy nest of cushions and pillows.
When he waves his hand in front of me, and a dress like a dark veil covers me. Shimmering, see-through. It slides over my skin with a tease of friction.
“We’re going for a walk.”
“A walk?” I don’t voice the tiny suspicion he’s stalling to keep me here longer.
He guesses anyway. “You’ll win your prize soon enough, Lily. But there are rules here.”
“Rules I’m allowed to know?”
“Just know, you’ll never be at risk. But you will need to do as I say. And—” He brushes his fingers along the underside of my chin. “Remember that Ester’s bargains always require more of you than you thought you agreed to.”
He holds out his hand, and I don’t hesitate to take it. “I’ve gotten everything I want so far…. Do your worst.”
He brushes his thumb over my hand—the gesture oddly gentle, considering—and leads me through a door that definitely wasn’t there before.
When we step through, the space that was his bower disappears and we’re back with the couches and the smoke…
Babel.
I see Calico and Minx in the corner, heads close as they snicker about something…. tails twined together as they pull smoke from the same wand.
“They will be your friend up until it’s no longer convenient for them.” Jack says quietly, a moment before they see us.
“Isn’t that everyone?”
He doesn’t agree or disagree with me, instead, he sits on one of the couches that is more or less in a corner, and drags me down to straddle his lap.
The dress covers everything and nothing all at once.
“Here?” I ask, even as his erection knocks against my stomach.
“They need to know you’re mine.”
“Don’t the ears give it away?” I ask, smiling as I touch them even though I don’t need to reassure myself they’re still there.
“No. They need to understand you are only mine.” His hand is tight on my jaw when he turns me to meet his eyes. “And they need to see it to believe it.”
There’s something too possessive in the way he’s got his hands on me, in those words….
“You don’t own me.” I say it low enough no one else will hear and my smile is as sweet as his come, but I know he understands how I mean to say it.
“Don’t I?”
“No.”
His lips snick up again, a smile catching on those white teeth. “Not yet, Lily… but soon.”
“It was a bargain, not a bill of sale.” But even as I say it, I know it might have been exactly that.
His hand lashes out so quickly, I don’t have time to react before it’s fisted so tightly in my hair that I gasp. He uses that anchor to lean me into him, to hold me just so….
“I thought you wanted this.” His words are a warm breath on my ear. “I thought you wanted to be the one to carry the next of us into the mortal world and take the Power that comes with that.”
“I do.”
“And this is a part of the cost, Lily.”
