Fortune Favors the Cruel Read online

  “Ow!”

  “Stop prodding me, bastard,” she growled. The two Cisean warriors stepped up beside her, glaring at Draeven.

  “She-wolf no like you touch,” the one on the left said. Draeven rubbed his jaw, opening and closing his mouth.

  “Quinn, can you explain to them I wasn’t trying to hurt you?” Draeven asked, eyeing them warily.

  “I most certainly will not,” Quinn replied, turning on her heel. He reached out to stop her and the same one that had spoken stepped in front of her, while the other came up on her side to escort her forward.

  They stayed like that, one walking beside her and one behind her as they led Quinn to the feast while Draeven and Lorraine trailed behind.

  “She has a point, you know,” Quinn heard Lorraine tell Draeven. “You shouldn’t have prodded her like cattle. She’s part of this house now.”

  Draeven’s reply was lost in the noise as they approached a set of wooden steps that led up into a tree hut far larger than the others. Two guards stood on either side of the railing, halberds at their sides and pelts around their shoulders. They nodded to Quinn as she climbed the stairs to the very top. Where there should have been a door, only three walls and a thatch roof stood. The place for the door had been left open so that those seated could look out over the forest behind her.

  Five long tables were filled to the brim with exotic fruits and stews and roasted meats. Most of the places at the tables were full, only a handful of seats had been saved at the center—the largest—where both the Cisean leader and Lazarus sat. The woman from earlier who had brought them clothes sat on Thorne’s lap, ripping juicy meat from the cooked leg of a bird and feeding it to him with her fingers. She wasn’t the only one, Quinn realized. Most women didn’t have seats of their own, but instead lounged on the laps of their men, not a child in sight.

  Thorne sat at the head of the table, with Lazarus on his right and the pale-eyed warrior, Vaughn, to his left. Beside Lazarus, the seats had been taken, the one closest occupied by a stunning beauty with hair the color of rubies. Quinn narrowed her eyes at the slight hand that touched his arm.

  Quinn took a step forward, toward that side of the table and paused. A flash of anger ran through her as her stomach hardened, as though someone had poured cement down her throat and let it settle. Heat ran to her head. The rush making her woozy with power. It was that trickle of darkness that started to swirl around her and the creeping tendrils of a web being spun that made her pause.

  She wavered on the edge as Lazarus looked up. His dark stare sliding from the beauty at his side to the tendrils of fear snaking along the table, straight to Quinn as she reached up and unclasped the cloak. It slid from her shoulders and she caught it with one hand before it hit the floor.

  And his dark, midnight gaze … it burned.

  The smallest of smiles sat on her lips as she pivoted and walked up the other side of the table. Vaughn jumped to his feet and pulled out the chair beside him. “She-wolf Quinn, sit by me,” he said very seriously.

  “Alright,” she said, taking the open seat. Vaughn settled in on her left as Draeven took his seat on her right. No one helped him, though one of the warriors who’d escorted her did pull the chair out for Lorraine.

  “I’m glad to see you joining us, Quinn,” Thorne said. His booming voice drew her attention, his red eyes unsettling. Quinn reached out, snatching the giant leg off the bird in the center of the table and grabbing a handful of crimson berries she hoped weren’t poisoned.

  “I’m a vassal of his Lord Fierté,” she said. “Where else would I be? Hm?” She lifted a delicate silver brow before digging into the meat. She groaned with how deliciously juicy it was, not like the slave’s portions she’d eaten most of this last decade that kept her painfully thin. They’d smoked the meat to bring out its natural flavors, seasoning it to perfection. Quinn took another large bite, then another—only stopping when she’d demolished the entire thing and picked the bone clean. She licked the juices from her fingers and paused, feeling eyes on her. Lorraine cleared her throat but remained passively scolding instead of vocally berating her.

  “She-wolf Quinn has good appetite,” Vaughn said, nodding in appreciation. She didn’t miss the way his eyes trailed from her slick fingers to her mouth.

  “You have no idea,” Draeven quipped. Quinn turned to glare at him.

  “Black baac,” she cursed and rolled her eyes at his insinuations.

  “Have you seen how much you eat?” he asked, his fork hitting his tray with a clang.

  “Do you have to be such an ass?” she growled.

  “Do you?” he shot back, picking at his own piece of meat. Quinn narrowed her eyes, sending an inky dark tendril slithering up from her skin and down her arm toward him.

  Draeven’s eyes widened a fraction before he jumped up, hitting his chair so hard it slid back into the one three feet behind him.

  “Quinn,” Lazarus snapped. She froze, redirected the tendrils back to her, lifting her right hand where it wrapped around her. Comforting. Consoling. “What did we talk about?” he asked, a not-so-subtle reminder that she was supposed to be on her best behavior.

  She turned, and her crystalline eyes were ice cold as she regarded him.

  Or, more specifically, regarded the pale hand caressing his forearm.

  She didn’t understand why the sight of it bothered her. She knew that wasn’t quite right … she understood. She just didn’t like what it meant. Lazarus never let anyone touch him, not of their own accord. Not Draeven. Not Lorraine. Not even her.

  Oh, he could touch and push and pull all he wanted, but kept his distance when it suited him. He stayed as far away from her as he could, at every possible chance, but here—now—he let this girl who was nothing … who was no one, touch him.

  She knew there was a word for this slicing sensation through her chest and the heat that pounded in her blood, like he was there, even now, touching her without her permission.

  But she didn’t want it. She didn’t want to feel it. She didn’t want to give him any more than he already took.

  And so, she shut it down. Closed it out and turned to the cold.

  That was one embrace that she would always welcome, along with the clarity it bought her.

  A hand reached to touch her, and she moved. Reacting on instinct, her upper half twisted, and her fingers came up, gripping the wrist of the offender in a vice.

  Fear bloomed, like the most pleasant of flowers, its black tendrils stroking her senses.

  She tilted her head and inhaled deeply.

  Ahhh. This. This is what I need to take the edge away…

  “She-wolf Quinn?” a voice asked, soft, gentle, and completely masculine. It didn’t share that darkness with her that she wanted—needed. But it would do. For now, it would do.

  She blinked. “Yes, Vaughn?”

  “You okay?” he asked, and the expression in his eyes was nothing short of heartwarming. She didn’t want to be warm though. She didn’t want to feel this night, because then that emotion would sneak back up on her and into her heart. It would rip through all those barriers she kept, because she cared for nothing and no one but herself.

  She didn’t want that, but what she did want … her gaze strayed to that pale hand, still curled around Lazarus’ forearm. She followed that thick bicep up, along his taut chest, to the hard set of his jaw, and finally to those eyes. They might have blistered her if she hadn’t cut herself off and slinked deeper into the cold.

  As it was, she simply smiled. “Yes, I’m just fine.”

  Demons & Doorways

  “Darkness is a dreadful gift … and a sweet curse.”

  — Lazarus Fierté, nobleman and dark Maji

  Lazarus clenched his teeth so hard that had he been less aware of it, they might have cracked. She’d gone cold, right before his eyes, colder than she’d ever been with him. He didn’t like it—the way her magic pervaded the air and darkened the veins beneath her skin. It slithered up and d
own her arms like an animal protecting its master, ruthless in its quest to serve.

  She wasn’t fooling anyone, certainly not him, when she loosened her grip around the boy’s wrist. She’d struck so sudden that the table went silent, though she likely hadn’t noticed. Lazarus said her name twice, and still, she didn’t respond. No, she responded to him. The boy that Thorne was enjoying putting in her path at every turn. The red-haired bastard leaned in, speaking low enough only Lazarus would hear.

  “Just a vassal, eh?” He tilted his chin, giving Lazarus a pointed look before smiling to Quinn. She still had that look in her eyes, like a feral creature ready to strike. But she released Vaughn and patted his hand like nothing happened, and the table breathed easier for it. Never mind the terrible power she summoned without a thought and dissipated it just as easily.

  “She and I have a contract,” he reminded Thorne through gritted teeth. He suspected what caused the outburst when her gaze hovered on the pale hand that touched him and for the first time in a long, long time, Lazarus felt something almost like … unease.

  A restless anxiety stirred in him when her cold calculated gaze had settled on the hand touching him. It was the same reason he went back to the alley the night she was attacked in Ishvat. No one knew—not Lorraine, not Draeven, and certainly not Quinn—that he ripped the boy who had touched her into little, tiny pieces, scattering his entrails with a dark satisfaction coiling in his gut. No one realized how dark, how deep his fascination—his obsession—with her was beginning to run. Except maybe Quinn herself.

  None of them had realized why he had been in a hurry to get out of that town come morning. They’d all just been content, especially Quinn, with leaving.

  But now … he looked down and followed the trail to the beautiful woman on his arm.

  Would Quinn do the same? he wondered, and he worried. This wasn’t good. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Claudius said she would make him the greatest empire this world had ever seen … or destroy him. He’d heard the second half of the warning, all those moons ago, and it still hadn’t stopped his search for her. It never occurred to him why she would give or take to begin with, only that she would.

  “And where does she fall with this contract when you become king?” Thorne mused, just a fraction too loud. He saw it the moment the words registered. She’d been leaning into the boy, Vaughn, listening to whatever he told her when she froze and slowly lifted her cold eyes to his.

  “King?” she asked, looking between them.

  “Of Norcasta,” Thorne nodded. For someone who was supposed to be his friend, he was doing a great job at dividing his vassal from him.

  “King of Norcasta,” she murmured, nodding to herself. “I suppose it all makes sense now.”

  Thorne leaned back, looking between the two of them. “He hadn’t told you?”

  Her answer was clipped and curt, and above all, cold. “No.”

  “I see,” Thorne said slowly, facing Lazarus once more. “I assumed your vassals already knew of your intentions. My apologies if I’ve overstepped.” Lazarus bit into a boysenberry, the usual tartness followed by sweet, lacking as he tasted nothing but ash.

  “Oh, he tells me nothing,” Quinn said. She took the goblet in front of her, not even looking at its contents as she downed it in one go. Lazarus grimaced as her face screwed shut.

  “She-wolf Quinn?” Vaughn asked.

  “Oh, for the love of—” Draeven muttered, finally taking his seat again.

  “Water,” she rasped. The boy, Vaughn, slid the plain cup on the other side of her plate towards her. Quinn sniffed it distrustfully before tasting a sip. Soon she emptied its contents and slapped it down on the table. “Thank the gods,” she groaned, her eyes falling closed.

  “What is it?” Lazarus asked, pulling away from the red-haired woman at his side.

  “I don’t drink spirits,” she replied, her voice like ice. It chilled him to the core that she spoke to him like that and yet spoke nicely with the boy.

  He gritted his teeth.

  “Why not?” Draeven asked.

  “You’re not entitled to answers,” she replied. “None of you are. Except maybe Vaughn.” She patted his hand again, letting it linger, and Lazarus clenched his jaw. Her eyes fell closed once again and Thorne shot a quizzical glance between them.

  The beat of drums filled the night as torches were lit, and the celebrations moved to the deck overlooking the forest below. Men lifted women, carrying them toward the drums, and the females laughed and smiled all the way. How easy it must be to have one of those women, Lazarus thought. How boring.

  “… dance?” Lazarus turned his head, catching the tail end of conversation between Vaughn and Quinn.

  “I don’t dance,” Quinn said, though there was a slight smile to her lips.

  “You dance,” the boy said, smiling at her like she was a warm fire in the dead of winter. But he didn’t know. He didn’t see her as she truly was.

  Quinn wasn’t sunshine and flowers. She was moonlight and shadows. Blood and bone. The edge of a knife, so beautiful and yet so sharp it would cut should you touch it without knowing how to handle its edge.

  “I don’t know how to dance like they do,” she said, pointing to the couples that bounced and leapt and hollered into the night. “The way I was taught to dance is different.”

  Lazarus’ lips twitched and his eyes narrowed a fraction as he caught those words. Taught to dance … who would teach a slave? Unless she wasn’t always one. It occurred to him then how much he was learning about her tonight, these pieces of her that she was giving away to Vaughn so flippantly but wouldn’t dare let Lazarus touch.

  It infuriated him. Almost as much as when the boy leaned into her and said, “You show me?”

  Quinn gave him a lazy smile that said the bastard had worn her down. “Alright, I’ll show you.”

  Wood scratched against wood as they scooted their chairs back. Vaughn got to his feet first, holding out a hand. Quinn took it in hers, and even though she wore a smile on her face, Lazarus saw straight through it, to the ice around her heart. He could see it in her eyes, the way she danced with Mazzulah, the god of the dark realm. They moved to the deck, well within sight still, and the Cisean people moved to make room. The drums changed, going deeper, harder than they had before. A bass rooting itself in the air and pulling them along for the ride.

  Her shoulders stiffened for a brief second, and then she pulled back craning her neck in an elegant but harsh sort of pose as she lifted her left-hand and circled him. He repeated the motion although far sloppier than her precise and even graceful movements.

  “You said you could control her,” Thorne said lightly, leaning forward to take a sip of his ale. “But from where I’m sitting, it looks like the other way around, my friend.”

  “We’re still working out the dynamics of our arrangement, Thorne,” he said dismissively. He should have known that Thorne would not leave well enough alone.

  “She’s young, probably untrained, given the level of power she’s channeling without even trying. How did you find such a treasure, Lazarus?” he asked, twirling the goblet of ale.

  “I didn’t.” And he was telling the truth. Technically. “She found me.”

  Thorne paused, took another swig and hummed. “All the more curious that fate would draw you two together. She’s taken a liking to my warrior, though.”

  Yes, she had, and Lazarus resented it.

  “He’s a boy.”

  “He’s a man and one of the finest warriors we have. If it weren’t for the darkness in her, I’d say they would make a fine match.”

  Lazarus’ grip tightened around his own ale when her body began moving. Her hips swished, and the damned furs she wore hid nothing, not from his eyes or any others. She moved with a lethal grace, compared to the bumbling of the boy trying to keep up with her.

  The dance she chose was not one he knew, but it was a formal affair. That much was clear.

  She was dra
wing on her roots, he realized. This was something she’d learned if not in N’skara, then from its people.

  “She is an unfitting match because she is a dark Maji—one that doesn’t just accept the darkness. She embraces it … it becomes her.” Lazarus took a swig of the ale and then proceeded to drain the goblet. Tonight, the dark whispers were worse than usual, and he turned to his vices to chase them away.

  “Fortunately for you, Lazarus,” Thorne said, tossing a few berries in his mouth while he openly watched Quinn, “that is the case. Quinn’s a beautiful woman with a lot of fire. She would do well here in the mountains where she would be free.” Lazarus tensed. “But I think her heart would always yearn for another, one that could understand her. To hold such power, and so dark …” Thorne shook his head. “It is a gift, but also a curse.”

  Lazarus downed another goblet of ale, but the more he drank the louder the whispers became. He eased back into the wooden chair, watching the tantalizing twists and turns of her body. He wondered if she noticed the way they watched her.

  Knowing her, she probably did and reveled in every second.

  The very thought infuriated him. He pushed the chair away and got to his feet, ignoring the whispers as best he could as they followed him, prodding at his mind and his soul for a weak point. They became louder and louder, chasing him from where he stood, until he wasn’t sure if it was the whispers at all, but rather a voice that was very real.

  He came to a stop and his mind cleared.

  When the sounds died out he was looking down at Quinn. The music still beat, but she wasn’t moving. The other’s danced around them, pretending not to notice. Not to see. But not her.

  No, she simply smiled, and it was wicked.

  Playing with Fire

  “Playing with fire doesn’t mean you’ll get burned. Those that understand the flame understand that it cannot help what it is—and take heed.”

  — Quinn Darkova, former slave, vassal of House Fierté, fear twister