Page 101 of Of Bargains & Betrayal

“Don’t even start with that,” I seethed. “Jasper. I. Don’t. Want. To—agh.” I’d misjudged where my bed was.

Instead of backing straight into it, my foot caught on the bottom of the poster, and I went sailing straight back onto my ass with an inelegant string of curses. Funny how the mage didn’t seem interested in using his magic if it meant, oh, I don’t know, making sure I didn’t go arse over fucking teakettle.

He approached slowly as I splayed my legs out in front of me and sighed.

I was too fucking tired to deal with him, with any of this.

Without a word or warning, he grabbed my wrist and hauled me upright. My head swam at the sudden movement, and all my attention narrowed to his hand, holding my arm between us. I realized then why he seemed to prefer wearing gloves. Just like the blue-black veining that spider-webbed out from behind his eyepatch, his right hand and part of his forearm were afflicted as well. Whether it was an injury or some kind of illness, I hadn’t the faintest idea, but it was captivating in the strangest way.

“Have you even slept?” he asked, the sudden shift in his tone disarming.

My attention flickered up long enough to see he was clearly just then taking in my stale and disheveled state before I dropped my gaze back down and shook my head.

“No,” I rasped. I had to lick my lips to get a bit of moisture back into them. “I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so…?” His free hand found my chin, and I kept my eyes down-turned as he nudged my face up. “Look at me for a second.”

“You reek of liquor.” I was deflecting, but it was the truth. Now that we were so close, I could smell the faint undertone of some warm, potent spirits rolling off him. Clearly, he’d had a rough night too.

“Enora.” His tone was full of exasperation. “Look. At. Me.”

Why he wanted to see my eyes was clear as day.

I’d been there a dozen or more times with Theo and the others, after all, when they suddenly disapproved of my recreational indulgences becoming a little less recreational. As if any of them could judge me for how I soothed my ailments with how thoroughly they all liked to indulge theirs.

Slowly, I lifted my gaze to meet Kieran’s. He studied me with that one scrutinizing green eye, and I knew exactly what he saw looking back at him: my pupils blown wide, my gaze a little unfocused.

A look of disappointment flitted across his face quickly, and he gripped my wrist tighter. “Where is it?” His attention darted around my room.

I licked my lips and lied. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

If looks could kill, I’d finally have some fucking peace with the glare he shot at me. He released me, though, and stalked away, leaving me to rub my reddening wrist as he strode towards the desk across the room.

The desk I’d never once used.

It gave me precious time to back up towards my vanity, where my satchel of Frost lay on its surface. I watched as he rifled through the desk first, then turned his attention to an end table, inching myself backwards a half step at a time, praying he’d turn his attention to the wardrobes next.

But he didn’t.

His attention snapped over, his head inclined ever so slightly. Mist swirled around him, and I spun on my heels, deluded that I had a chance of beating him. I’d launched myself all of a couple of steps towards the vanity before he re-materialized in a swarm of darkness in front of me. He swept the pouch and its contents into his hand, sending powder kicking up into the air, and charged straight towards the bathroom.

My stomach plummeted.

“Kieran,” I warned in a panicked hiss as I scrambled to catch up with him. A feat, with how all the movement was making my head swim again. “Kieran! Whatever you think you’re going to do with that, do not.”

He came to such an abrupt stop in the doorway, I almost slammed into him.

“One,” he said deliberately. “That is not my name anymore, so stop saying it. And two, what the fuck happened to you, Nora?” He turned to face me with the satchel in his hand and gave it a look of revulsion. “Frost? Really? I thought you were far better than such things.”

I fixed him with an incredulous look. “You thought me better? Fuck. You. Don’t pretend like you don’t have vices of your own, high mage. The liquor is coming out of your pores.”

There was the slightest chance I’d spat his title with more anger than I thought I had left in me.

But if he didn’t want me to call him by his goddess-given name, the only name I truly knew him by, if he thought he could act high and mighty, I had news for him.

Slowly, he shook his head, white tendrils of hair settling over his eye patch, and huffed a beat of humorless laughter.

His next movements happened so fucking quickly.