Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 134898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 674(@200wpm)___ 540(@250wpm)___ 450(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 134898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 674(@200wpm)___ 540(@250wpm)___ 450(@300wpm)
“Figured…you wouldn’t be into fucking right now….” I wanted it to be a joke, but I’m not thinking clearly or Raptor isn’t in a laughing mood. I’m dimly aware of him staring at me like I’ve lost my mind. Maybe I have. “It’s fine. I’m not on birth control.”
“What are you babbling about?” The basket sways, and he instinctively puts an arm around me.
I lean in close, liking that far more than I should. “Taurians are fertile. Aspeth told me. Shit. I used her old name. Sparrow. Sparrow told me.”
“You’re babbling.”
“I know.” My thoughts are all over the place, drifting away, and trying to focus is like trying to catch a handful of fog. “Sorry. You know that Taurians are fertile. I don’t have to explain it to you.”
“A Taurian is only fertile when the god’s hand is upon him, Gwenna. When he has a knot.” He leans over me, smelling my breath. “Are you drunk? Because you sound drunk.”
“Not drunk.” Though I do feel like I’m drunk, a little. Mostly just foggy, as if there’s too much going on in my head and I don’t know where to focus.
The basket rises to the surface, and the worker waiting nearby hooks it with a staff and drags it to the edge of the platform. Raptor lodges his arm tightly around my waist and carries me over onto solid ground like I’m a satchel. Then he eyes the great many pits that dot the area, sighs, picks me up again, and heads out of the drop zone.
“Sorry,” I mumble.
“Did you breathe in something strange? Eat a mushroom? Lick some strange moss while we were down there?”
“Nope.” I giggle, my head clearing a little. “Why, do I sound like I was licking moss?”
“You were asking about knots. Most Taurians are only fertile during the Conquest Moon, when the knot rises.”
“Oh, did yours go away? I didn’t realize.” Him carrying me is making things worse, I think. He moves through the streets at such a rapid pace that I’m bobbing back and forth, swaying far more than I did when I was in the basket. “Can—can you put me down?”
But he’s already coming to a halt, his feet slowing. Raptor stares down at me. “What do you mean, did mine go away?”
“I don’t mean anything,” I tell him, a little faint from all the jostling. At least now I can breathe. The voices are going quiet, and all that’s left is the awful itching sensation on my skin that makes me want to tear it off. That takes longer to fade, I’ve learned.
He puts me down and then grabs my arm before I can move away.
“Sarya?”
Shit.
Twenty-Four
Raptor
Ican’t believe what I’m hearing. How the muck does Gwenna know that I have a knot? Only a sex worker could tell her the truth—or maybe Naiah, who supplies my potions—but the women I go to know that I pay extra for their silence. There’s only one way that Gwenna would know that about my body….
I close my eyes and put my hands on her hips, ignoring her startled squeal as I grope her in the street. I’ve imagined getting Sarya in my arms again so many times. I still know what she felt like, and she felt like…this. I open my eyes again just in time for Gwenna to slap my hands away. “A tall, busty blonde, eh?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Gwenna says in a prim voice.
“Admit it. You’re Sarya.” I’ve cursed that blindfold and my healing eyes a dozen times over since that fateful day. I’m practically giddy with relief that she’s stumbled over her own words and shown herself to me. If she truly is Sarya, this is the best possible outcome for me. I haven’t been neglecting locating the woman I’m obsessed with. She’s not a figment of my fevered imagination. She’s been right here under my nose the entire time.
And considering that I’m wildly attracted to Gwenna, this is perfect.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She puts her nose in the air, glaring up at me. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m tired and hungry and I’d like to go home.”
“First, tell me that you’re Sarya.” I move to stand in front of her, blocking the street. “There’s no point in lying any longer.”
“I don’t know what it is that you think I’m lying about,” she maintains, but her cheeks are bright pink with color. Far better than the bleached white they were down in the caverns. She’s bothered by my words.
She’s bothered because she’s been caught in a mucking lie. How has she hidden who she is all this time? How has she not said anything to me?
Unless there are more secrets she’s hiding from me…like being the thief.
Surely not. I can’t picture her as the thief in question. I can’t picture Gwenna—or Sarya—working with a bunch of cutthroats, opening up necks the moment a foolish repeater is no longer needed. It doesn’t match what I know of Gwenna. She can be a little jaded at times, sure, but who isn’t? And she cares for those she views as her family.