Free Shadowfae by Erica Hayes

themselves.
    Four more seemed insignificant.
    My blood burned, and I pulled my hand away, letting my head fall forward to hide the hunger surely apparent on my face. My hair brushed his arm, tangling over the thrall bangle, and I swear I heard him catch his breath. “Tell me. What must I do? Those words, they’re nonsense to me. How did you know it was Nino you needed?”
    “Odium.” Rajah’s hot whisper tingled my scalp alive. “That one was easy.”
    “Odium,” I repeated softly, closing my eyes. “Hatred. I don’t understand.”
    “Neither did I until a few weeks ago. It’s the moment, get it? Not just the person. You have to pick the moment when they truly hate you. I’ve probably missed a thousand chances in four hundred years. But in this city, you can see it. It shines around them like—”
    “Like an aura.” I could barely hear my own words for the thudding pulse in my head. In my mind I saw Killian Quinn, face twisted, pistol cocked in his thick hand, his body glimmering with swirling gray light. If anyone truly hated me with every straining fiber of his body, it was Quinn. Odium. The first key to my freedom, within my reach.
    Rapture burst within me, flooding my nerve endings with hot sensation. I gasped, my muscles rippling, tension wrenching deep inside, like an imminent orgasm that just wouldn’t break.
    “Jade? Are you okay?”
    I didn’t dare look at his face, his swelling lips. My hair touching his arm was bad enough, his spicy scent thick and delicious on my tongue, every slight movement of his body so close to me an agony. But it was Quinn I burned for, vile Quinn I longed to subdue, crush, devour with every seductive wisp of glamour I could muster. I didn’t care that I loathed the thought of touching Quinn, of letting him touch me. I wanted his soul, and my mouth watered.
    Rajah’s warm fingers brushed my chin, the briefest of caresses. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for that to happen. Come on, I’ll walk you home.”
    Sensation shot through me where he touched me, along the skin of my throat and down to my breasts, a promise of pleasure and release. I jerked away and scrambled to my feet, my face hot. “I can find it, thanks. I’m not lost.”
    “I know that. But you’re not going alone, not after what Angelo did to you. He might be watching for you.”
    That was kind of sweet. I felt sorry I’d snapped at him. But I didn’t want Rajah at my place, not tonight, not while I shuddered and yearned. Too easy to embarrass myself. I tried to step around him. “I’ll be okay.”
    He blocked my path, stuffing his hands in his pockets with a disobedient smile. “I can argue until the sun comes up. If you want any sleep tonight, you’ll have to submit.” Still I hung back, and he grimaced. “Believe it or not, I understand what you’re going through. Look, no hands. Three feet away at all times. I’ll walk you to the door and disappear. I won’t even kiss you good night. Good enough?”
    Like he would have wanted to kiss me good night, if I let him? I scraped a hand through my hair and sighed. “I’m sorry, okay? It’s just—”
    “I know. You don’t have to explain, remember?” And he stood back and held the door to let me out ahead of him.
    This part of
    Brunswick Street
    was closing up this late on a Sunday night, the restaurateurs and café owners switching their lights out and locking steel grilles closed over their windows. The pub on the corner was still open, the smell of beer drifting, the band’s thudding bass vibrating onto the footpath. A drunken troll hunkered in the gutter at the traffic lights, snoring, his horned head lolling on one leather-clad shoulder, his curled black toes twitching.
    Heat haze shimmered the air above the road, the concrete tram tracks sparking as a tram clunked past toward the city. I walked along, sweating and silent, my arms crossed, my blood cooling only slowly. My hair stuck to my neck in strands, itchy, and my fingertips stung