Page 120 of Season Warriors & Wolves

“Green. Like stomach sickness.”

“Royal prick,” he muttered under his breath when I stood to leave.

“Dickhead.”

Chapter twenty-six

Black Bishop takes F3

Snowlin

My Skye general had finally given me the nod that I’d shed all my rust away. Physically, I felt the sturdiest I’d felt in a long while. Mentally—

Perhaps it was because of the sleep. This time I could sleep, I just didn’t want to.

Tristin sighed, dropping down on the bench I sat on and her wing almost scooped an eyeball of mine out. “You’ve not done that before. Should I be concerned?” She turned her head to me. “Fight to kill. You always dance around those you fight, turn them to prey rather than an opponent, taunt and lure them, trick and direct them into slicing the dagger that they once used against you over their own throats.”

Leaning back, I squinted at the sun. “The game is no longer fun.” And I am too hollow to feel anything from it.

“I see.”

She passed me a cigarette and I touched the tip, letting the clove tobacco burn on the heat of electricity. “You need to quit, Tristin.”

The stony woman nodded. “I will. My hands are fidgety lately. Lea says it happens because they’ve been soaking in blood for so long—and this waiting taunts me more than any fight. Shocking as it is, this is the least bad thing I can do with them at this point.”

“I can’t find what to do with mine. Perhaps I need to start an incredibly toxic habit like you.”

She was quiet for a moment before she said, “This is not your fault, Snow. I hope you know that.”

Except that it was.

I’d barely inhaled a couple puffs when it was snatched out of my hand. Kilian stood behind me, a hand on his pocket while the other brought my cigarette to his lips. He exhaled a cloud of smoke and then flicked the rest of it to the ground. After briefly touching his lips to mine, he said, “That shit is bad for you.”

It had been one long day since he’d gone down to Hanai to observe the situation in east Hanai where we were expecting my father’s troops to strike the Autumn kingdom. Though Elias had burned down the camp, there was another one built just close to it. Hanaians were loyal stock and father had absolutely no eye inside Moriko’s court. His spies were already attempting to sneak in, trying to gather intel on what side she would be locating her forces.

His thumb brushed my chin lightly. “Wife.”

“I thought you went to take care of the Isjordians entering Hanai?”

“I did.”

“Take care?” Looking like that?

“Not much care was involved, my love. They rather…dissolved?”

“Oh.” I shifted on my seat, the sweet ache between my thighs growing uncomfortable when he sat beside me and curled a big hand around my ankle, drawing circles over my skin with his thumb.

In his dark navy suit lined with specks of silver and glistening dark sapphire buttons, he looked so royal.

He raised a brow when my eyes dropped below his hips, where the tight trousers strained against his muscles and—

“It’s still where you last saw it, my heart,” he murmured in my ear. Slowly, as if on purpose, he stood and unbuttoned the jacket, setting it over the training court fence. He hooked a finger at me, walking backwards and folding his sleeves. “Bring your pretty face here.”

Hopping from my seat, I stretched my arms up and fired electricity all over my body as if I hadn't just charged the whole skies of Numen with thunder not even a few minutes before.

“I’ve gotten better at mimicking the dream veil, Snow. Your mind might start to play up, too. Keep focus,” he said.

My mind.