“Wait here with the bairn, Master,” Jax instructed after a moment’s thought. “No sense in showing yer ownself afore me ’n the cunt’ve scouted the place.”

  My preference would have been to send Fekinell out to do it alone. But as we could not communicate that…

  “Go ahead. But take it slow. I need to prepare Lynnria.”

  “Wake her up, ye mean,” Jax scoffed, regretfully drawing away from my finger—regretfully, but for a mischievous joy coiling in her chest. “Give her a sample from me, why don’t ye? Bet ye half a gold that’ll snap her to!”

  There was no way I was taking that bet—mostly because I had been on exactly the same page. Jax’s mood must have been infectious. Except… no. No, I could not simply shove a finger spiked with lady juice into Lynnria’s mouth. That would be wrong.

  I would put my finger next to her mouth and see what happened.

  Giggling like a schoolboy, I turned to our invisible fourth and reestablished our hand-to-lip communication channel, this time with a dash of added ‘zest.’

  “Lynn-ri-a. Are. You—”

  That was all I managed before she inhaled my palm down to the knuckle. There was tongue, detectable moaning, just going to town on me as she cleaned every bit of essence from my fingers.

  And in my distraction, I dropped my entire assortment of buffs.

  “Holy shit, Lynnria! What was that?!”

  “Amazing… …it was. You’re amazing. Ha~ I feel… something-ful! Light as a… too fast. I’ve been… boating? floating? …for Mike an ewer!”

  Mike a what? I blinked rapidly, trying to piece her confused rambling together. Every time I did this, I felt like a deaf stenographer. My brain was always about five words behind her mouth. Oh! ‘Like an hour.’

  Had it been that long? It was hard to tell. I had been getting pretty tired from holding that accuracy spell, so maybe. Still, that was one hell of a resilient afterglow.

  “But… I had Jax—” I took a breath. Slow down, Donum. “I. Had. Jax. All. Over. My. Fin-ger.”

  “Yeah? We shail… shave? oh, share! …you all the time,” she returned a little slower—and unusually blaze about the whole thing. “You think I’m not grow—going to get some loft-ovens? Wait, no. ‘Leftovers’ here and there? Besides, it’s not like she’ll know.”

  I tilted my head back. Ah, so that’s it.

  I had to keep reminding myself of the distinction between the Lynnria as presented to the public and the rampaging slut lurking behind closed doors. She was well aware of the little gifts the others left behind on me—would have needed to be an idiot not to be, especially given how often they did it just to piss her off. Getting used to it would have been a matter of simple necessity. If there was any part of her that still cared, it was purely for the sake of her own personal image. She might have even—no, there was no might about it, she had definitely developed a taste for it. She just did not want to admit it.

  Not to them.

  That ship had sailed eons ago, of course. You would have an easier time hitting the sun with a water balloon than hiding a developing kink from a bunch of lilim—which she also knew. At this point, she had to be hanging on out of sheer stubbornness.

  “I could just tell the wench I seen what she done.”

  My eyes narrowed into slits. “Not by implicating me, you’re not! You keep my name out of it.”

  “Aye, there’s a challenge. How do ye prove a bally flopped it with no witnesses, eh? But if that be how ye want it…”

  “It is.” Lynnria put a lot of stock into her image. There was no telling what might happen were it tarnished.

  “As ye say then. Might have to tell the bairn how we shares a thought or two now, though,” Jax added. “Just as a how-do-ye-do. T’ain’t my fault if she puts the boars with the sows.”

  The sows might take a while to produce piglets in this case. Lynnria was liable to be awfully distracted over the prospect of permanently sharing our thoughts. So I was not worried.

  “Fine. Now, stop eavesdropping and get to work.”

  “Aye, Master…” She accompanied the message with an image of her licking my—never mind. Her intent might have been provocative, but some things should not be experienced from secondary points-of-view.

  With my prank… well, I cannot say it was spoiled when Lynnria had swan-dived directly into it. If anything, I was more upset that I had been robbed of the visual! Anyway, I turned my attention to putting Lynnria’s game-face on. Just because freeing her had been puzzle-based, that did not mean the Demon Queen would hold to that pattern here, and without arms or armor, Lynnria’s only viable means of contributing to a fight was with her poison bolt spell—Finger of Corruption. She might not have liked it, but her best option was to remain in the back, safely hidden with me.

  “If you say so.” I could almost feel her eyes rolling. “Say, do you think… missed that …a Rune to summon… no idea …Xyn has? That would… Hold on, is she talking about skill picks? …poison or lightning?! Can you… something? Or what about—”

  “Lynnria. L-Lynnria?” I started thumping her wrist. “Lynnria!”

  “What?”

  “Not now!”

  “Oh! Right. Sorry!” I felt her sigh against my palm. “This sticks? Stinks! I can barely understand you.”

  “No shit?” My mental word processor was starting to smoke from correcting all the typos. And besides, skill picks? Now? Even if we could have asked, Mia was not in the building. She had said something about putting the Ottomans together to form a search party and buggered off. “Now, pay attention!”

  “Okay!” she huffed, coming to my side. Despite being completely undetectable, she decided we still needed to crouch. It felt a bit like whispering in a thunderstorm to me, but whatever.

  While Lynnria and I had been talking, Jax had breached the domain line, thus revealing herself and dispelling her imposed cone of silence, to check on her subordinate. Fekinell had been holding completely motionless, staring warily ahead.

  “Yer spying sommat, cunt, or just cutting about the day?”

  Fekinell hesitated, as though she were struggling to find the words. Her eyes never left the fountain. “I’m… uncertain, Mistress.”

  “Nay call me that,” Jax replied automatically.

  “Yes, Mistress.”

  Jax’s lips curled over her teeth. “Be I allowed to punish this bam poptae? She’s taking the piss, I know it.”

  “Stay on topic.” We could figure out that sort of thing after we knew it was safe.

  “Aye? That mean I’m owed a poke, do it be?” She turned just enough to cast a devilish grin over her shoulder, then paused as though I had just given her a lovely idea, and without a moment’s further deliberation, ran the back of her finger up along Fekinell’s exposed hip.

  The silver-haired woman gasped and shivered, visibly unsettled. It was hard to say what emotion Jax had just magnified—though I could guess—but it must have been a doozy for the normally stoic creature to react like she did.

  “What was that for, Mistress?”

  “Waxing me gash,” Jax replied bluntly. “Now answer the question: what be ye staring at?”

  Fekinell twisted her spine a bit, trying to re-center herself before she could speak.

  “I’ve been trying to decide what that rose vine is. From its light, it must be one of the Destroyer’s creatures, but there’s something…” She shook her head. “I do not know. It’s off.”

  “Off? Off how?”

  “Just off. Like it’s spoiled. Or the wrong color. I have no desire to consume that thing.”

  Jax turned to regard the pair of roses suspiciously. They were not moving, but that was unsurprising. Plants were the undisputed champions of playing possum.

  “It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve run across a plant monster,” I sent.

  “Ain’t a Tongue-Flower, any which,” Jax replied, absentmindedly dragging a loose strand of hair over an ear. “Not craving it, eh? No taste fer sap?”

  “Perhaps. I’ve fed on nothing but Executioners thus far. It may be that I desire only monsters of a certain type.”

  ‘Monsters with blood, you mean,’ I mentally interpreted. If there was one thing I was certain of, no Hollywood horror would be caught dead grazing on plants.

  “What about Arx?” Jax asked, scanning the area. “I ain’t seeing e’en a short hair of that one yet. There ain’t no trees about this time, neither. Unless she’s bound and gagged t’other side of the fountain, that rage shite ain’t here.”

  “She’s here. I can sense her.”

  She could sense me too. An unusual level of excitement was buzzing through our connection, and no wonder. It had taken us over a day to get here. Her hunger must have been palpable. I could almost envision her straining at her bonds, eyes gleaming with a feral light as she struggled to get to me.

  Jax only nodded in answer to my thought.

  “The other side… or concealed within the fountain,” said Fekinell. “I cannot see beyond the monster’s light, and with those vines everywhere…” She pointed to one side. “Look there. Along the path. See how they spread across it?”

  “Trying to catch us up, be like,” Jax agreed, folding her arms. “I’d wager this be some kinda trap monster. Step on one o’ them shoots, and ye’ll be dangling by yer nethers. Wouldn’t take long for the critter to bleed ye, neither. Not with them thorns.”

  Fekinell hummed thoughtfully. “I doubt it would waste effort with dangling. If I were a monster like that, I would want to immobilize whatever prey I caught and drag it over my roots so it could digest. If your friend is anywhere, that’s where she’ll be.”

  I frowned. Disturbing imagery aside, she made a solid case, but the vibes I was getting through my connection were nothing like danger or pain. Arx was not in trouble. She was just restrained and hungry… which meant she was horny. Horny hungry. Horngry?

  Anyway, if she was in the fountain, she was either being shielded from the plant or guarded by it, which amounted to the same thing: Kill plant. Free Arx.

  That seemed… suspiciously straightforward.

  Apparently, Lynnria was skeptical as well. “I don’t… …this. What… …of trap sits in plain view?”

  I tapped a finger against her cheek to show that I had understood. But how to respond? There were two options I could think of off the top of my head. Well… three, but the last was something of a dick move.

  One: the obvious trap was a cover for a not-so-obvious one. Given that we could never find something like that without Arx’s detection abilities, that seemed in-line with how this maze had been designed.

  Two: the Demon Queen had not accounted for Fekinell’s presence when she had created this area, so what was obvious to us now likely would not have been without her help. It was a sucker’s bet, but you never knew.

  Or three: sometimes obvious things were obvious. I could easily see the Queen throwing something simple at us just to watch us second-guess ourselves for hours on end. Fortunately, I was familiar with the tactic. It was an old Dungeon Master’s trick for dragging out a session when you had nothing else prepared. That did not mean I was immune, of course… or anything like resistant.

  But none of that concerned me right then. This arena may have been a trial to free Arx, but its theme was certain to be Lynnria. And if its opposite side had been any indication, its solution would be perverse in the extreme.

  Quickly, I reminded myself of the clue we had been given.

  "A path ahead, both lush and fair,

  Yet lurking teeth will bring despair.”

  Unless those roses out there were about to sprout fangs—a distinct possibility—I could think of nothing that line might be referring to beyond as a simple warning against the Vorpal Bunnies. Hopefully, we had finished with them.

  “Tread with care, for the softest bloom,

  Holds the key to the darkest doom.”

  I glanced again at the vines lying across the path. Vines attached to flowers… Watch your step… Makes sense. That line had been our ticket to avoiding catastrophic rabbit attacks, and with the Queen’s love for double meanings, of course it would be extended to the area’s final encounter. But what about that reference to a key? Was it a simple turn of phrase, or was there more to it?

  “To claim the prize, you must decide—

  Will beauty live, or will it die?"

  That was the part that was throwing me. I could only assume the ‘beauty’ in question was the flower, but if the flower was a monster primed to attack whenever someone approached, what else would we do but kill it? The line implied a trade-off. Something would happen if we killed it… and something else would happen if we did not. Something involving a prize.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  Hmm… and Arx is nowhere in sight. That had to be significant. Was the prize Arx herself? Was there something I was missing? Or was I overthinking this?

  I grimaced. Probably.

  “Whatever,” I sent, getting frustrated. “We know the solution will have something to do with Lynnria. Let’s just have her hit the thing with a poison bolt and see what happens.”

  Jax made a dissatisfied sound in her throat. “That ain’t sexy-like, though, be it? Ye know what we had to do t’other side.”

  I would have argued that firing the concentrated liqueur stored in your breasts was kind of sexy by default, but I got what she was saying.

  “Alright, fine! I’ll… get her in the mood first. You guys are more powerful when you’re in the right mindset. Right?”

  Jax nodded faintly, eyes scanning for threats. “It should do, aye, but the wean ain’t a full Dolilim yet. Dunno if she’s growed enough fer it to work.”

  I had not known that would be a factor, but I had to suppose Jax would be the expert.

  “No harm in trying, I guess. But, uh… hmm…”

  Explaining this to Lynnria was going to be a bitch. Granted, she was already in a decent headspace for it, but how was a guy supposed to convince a girl she was the sexiest woman alive and that feeling that way was crucial for increasing the caliber of her finger bullets while screaming into her hand? Pilates?

  However, before I could broach the subject, someone out there decided to throw us a curveball.

  “Haa ha ha ha ha!”

  Four sets of startled eyes followed the sound upward, but there was nothing to be seen. The source of that imperious laughter had been beyond the illusory plane shielding the sky, but we did not have to wait long. Like a pebble reversing time out of an inverted pane of water, something fell from the blue directly between us and the twin flowers.

  More specifically, someone.

  The woman—of course it would be a woman—rose from her landing crouch with the unhurried elegance of a dancer relishing in the breathless hush of her audience. Her skin was an unnatural shade of white, more porcelain than flesh. Everything else was black. Black hair, black claws, black horns. Even her lips were black. And her clothes… well, they were more a series of leather straps than clothes, but they were black, too. I was sensing a theme.

  It went without saying that she was imposingly gorgeous, but then, she was a lilim. To inhabit a body not beyond the ken of mankind would have been an insult.

  For a moment, all was silent—though I could feel Lynnria trying to say something into my hand. It was too fast to make out, but I could guess. ‘What was a lilim doing here? Had we annoyed the Queen again? Were we to overcome yet another implacable foe?’ I had thought myself on reasonable enough terms with the goddess for Her to at least say something were that the case, so I responded with a quick burst of Comfort. Whatever this was, a lead-up to another titanic clash between deities was not in the cards.

  Jax had instinctively fallen into a fighting stance when the lilim had landed, but when the creature did not immediately attack, she remembered herself and shifted into something more graceful. Her cohort had not moved.

  The woman paid neither heed. Her enormous black eyes had skipped over the two with a gloating, almost contemptuous ease to settle somewhere approximately between and slightly above the spot where Lynnria and I had crouched. Her chin gained a knowing tilt, and a smile crept slowly over her features, revealing teeth so white they probably glowed in the dark. But when she licked her lips, her tongue was as black as tar.

  “Well… well… well.” A low chuckle emerged from the depths of that rather impressive chest. “It seems we are fated to meet once again… sweetling.”

  Again? That raised an eyebrow. Had she been among the number assigned to wait on us during that farcical dinner party Xhinn had put together? If so, I did not remember her, nor was there anything particularly familiar about her. Not her shoulder-length angled bob cut, not her classic devil horns—sweeping back from her forehead, then curling up and slightly out—nor even her oddly monochrome coloration. Something about her voice was tickling my ear, though.

  “And?” Jax called back. “Ye looking fer someone to tongue yer fanny?”

  Fekinell leaned toward her mistress and whispered, “You know this creature? She looks… similar to all of you, but she has not our lord’s light.”

  “Tell ye later,” Jax returned in a low growl.

  Fekinell took the rebuff in stride, but she had a follow-up question: “Am I allowed to eat her?”

  The redhead gave her a sidelong glance.

  “I ain’t forbidding it,” she returned after a moment. “But let’s see what the squint has to say first.”

  “What I am looking for,” the woman interrupted, extending her hands like a ringmaster calling to an unseen audience, “is retribution! Did you really think you could cheat me and get away with it? Me?! All I wanted was a bit of fun, a soup?on of mirth to break up the tedium, and what do I get for my trouble? Lies! Dreams of the world outside. A body of my very own…”

  “Cheat her?” My eyebrows shot up. “Waaait a minute.”

  I knew there was something familiar about that voice. It was her! That stinking lilim that had conned us! And now she had the gall to claim we had cheated her?!

  “Master… what did ye do?”

  “Do?! I didn’t do anything! We won that bet fair and square. It’s a frame job!”

  “Wait, that minge?!”

  “Yes!”

  “The one what paid us with a locked box and buggered off?”

  “Yes!!”

  “…where did she get a body?”

  “Don’t—I… How should I know?!”

  Unaware of our mental conversation, the lilim had taken a moment to reflect on her delusions by piteously drawing her bottom lip between her teeth, then dragging her claws down between the valley of her breasts—as though she could not bear the pain in her heart, the lying wretch!

  Admittedly, it would have been quite the distracting sight had I not been in the middle of freaking out over her bullshit accusations.

  “For such things, I would have given… everything. But it is too late for that.” Thrusting her arms to her sides, she flashed her claws. “You took your prize and cast me aside. For that, you will pay the price!”

  Her foot came down with enough force to ripple the ground at our feet. And then another.

  Instinctively, I tensed. She was about to come straight for us…

  …until her next step landed right atop one of the waiting vines.

  “No one turns away the great Nyeaaaaah!”

  I jerked to my feet, both flabbergasted and momentarily bewildered over my own inability to vocalize an appropriate level of shock.

  What the hell? The crazy bitch had just fallen for the Dungeon’s own trap! It was like a Coyote and Roadrunner cartoon!

  “Moron! Nitwit! Let me go. Let me go, you stupid—ack!” The lilim’s shouting went unnoticed by the now-animate plant, which was already busy with binding its victim into python-like coils, and with an edge of frustration and no little panic, the lilim turned to us. “Don’t just stand there, you quartet of clowns. Get me out of this thing!”

  Fekinell did not move an inch. Nor did her mistress—beyond canting her hip and folding her arms apathetically. “And why’d we go and do a thing like that? Seems a bother.”

  “Fiend! Mercenary! Can’t you see I’m—uht!” the lilim tried to reply, but her breath was cut off.

  Its victim now bound head-to-toe, the huge rose bush began drawing the woman up and over its blossoms—which had opened to reveal a yawning void of thorny teeth. As predicted. I had not expected them to remind me so much of a cheese grater, though. Or to rotate.

  Huh. It’s like a living industrial shredder.

  Lynnria started slapping at my shin, doubtlessly urging me to do something. Still, I hesitated. I would have loved to extract the Key this creature owed us—those Maximum Attribute Crystals were far and away the best things we had found this run… if we could just get to them—but that delinquent con-artist up there had been on the verge of attacking not a moment ago. By all accounts, the smart thing to do would be to simply allow the monster to finish her.

  Yet there was something tickling at the back of my mind, telling me that would be a bad idea.

  “Fine!” the lilim wheezed. “I’ll… I’ll hel—w-whatever you…”

  Good enough.

  Taking a decisive step forward, I crossed the domain line, and the Concealment spell fell from my shoulders with a barely detectable chill. But I had no time to spare for such developments.

  “Shoot it, Lynnria! Aim for the mouth!”

  “Finally!” she yelled, and before I could rebuke her for following me out of cover, she shoved me to one side. “Now, move! I need a clear shot.”

  Quickly drawing a bead of poison from one of her ‘quivers,’ she assumed an archer’s stance and, glistening claw outstretched, released an imaginary string to fire. It seemed a lot of unnecessary ceremony to me, but I could see the Runes flaring down her limb and to the tip of her finger, as though her arm had become a magical railgun. So it clearly worked. In an instant, a colorless bolt had left her digit, looking more a rippling distortion of heat than anything you might find in a video game.

  Sadly, the bolt sailed well over the pair of roses to splash directly across the lilim’s face.

  “I think his lordship meant the flower’s mouth,” Fekinell observed dryly.

  “What the—” Lynnria’s hand lowered in shock. “I missed? I never miss! That… It’s not my fault! It didn’t arc!”

  “It be magic, wean. Ye expected an arrow?”

  “But my wand arced!” she protested.

  I grimaced, giving the byplay only half an ear. It was hard to say what effect the unintentional spell might have on the lilim. She was looking less panicked and her face was turning blue, but that probably had more to do with oxygen deprivation than a sudden influx of foreign Life Energy.

  “You… id-i-ots…”

  “Damn it!” That’s what I get for letting that accuracy spell drop. “Line up another shot, Lynnria. I’ll support you this time.”

  Even as I said that, I could tell we would be too late. The lilim would be ground into chowder within seconds!

  “Jax! Fekinell! Distract it. Cut her down if you can, but whatever you do, do not let that thing swallow her!”

  “Aye, Master!” Jax shouted, summoning her axe, but she hesitated before taking more than a step.

  The entire place was crisscrossed with vines, and there was more than one flower. Just getting to the lilim without winding up in the same kettle was going to be a problem, never mind cutting her down. And trying to distract a creature without eyes with shadow clones would have been useless.

  Glancing back, she considered her follower briefly, but Fekinell had not moved even a single step. From her face, she seemed to view both the command and what it might mean for her with a foreboding distaste.

  “I was not meant for combating plants, my lord.”

  “Sod that, ye rage shite.” Jax pointed toward the descending vine. “Toss me!”

  Fekinell blinked uncertainly. She was strong, but not tossing-full-grown-women-forty-feet-through-the-air strong.

  “Mistress?”

  “No questions! Do it! Now!”

  Even as she spoke, Jax was already exuding a steady cloud of brackish smoke, so I had a pretty good idea of what she intended. But I had no space in my head to think about the quality of her plan. I was elbow-deep in spell chants.

  Accuracy had come online with barely a second thought, but as per usual, Detonating Sap Varnish was being a complete horse’s ass. I simply had not had the time or the available Energy to practice it properly, leaving it languishing at a skill level in the low teens where it could tie my tongue into knots. Admittedly, the spell could not be wielded to its full potential without a source of fire around, but it was the only damage buff I had, damn it! I was going to use it!

  Fekinell leapt to obey her mistress by gripping her elbow and knee, then twirled her about in a makeshift hammer throw. Within two spins, the pair had achieved an incredible velocity, and after the third, Jax was away, swearing a blue streak as she sailed high into the air—way… way too high into the air.

  Again.

  That was the problem with all these hastily executed plans. Just as Lynnria had failed to grasp the mechanics of her own spell, Fekinell lacked an understanding of her mistress’s capabilities, leaving her with a wildly inaccurate weight-at-launch. It was no surprise that she would overcompensate in her toss vector.

  Xyn was right. We really did need a training regimen.

  Fortunately, all was not lost. I had a new tool in my kit for just such a scenario.

  “Adjust! Quick, suck in mass and add drag!”

  My mental shout was met with so much profanity, it almost interrupted my spellcasting.

  “…shite, shite, shite… WHAT?! …shite, shite, shite…”

  “Damn it, throw out your… You need to… YOU’RE LOOKING REALLY SEXY RIGHT NOW!”

  Yeah, I have no idea. When you are working in microseconds—and dealing with lilim—sometimes a simple compliment goes a lot further than trying to find the relevant synonyms. Besides, it was true! A fit-as-hell warrior woman in a skimpy party dress soaring through the air? What was not to like?

  And it worked, if not in the way I had intended. Instead of turning off the ability and flaring out her limbs to catch the wind, she puffed entirely into smoke, arresting her momentum near instantly right above the fountain. I had to suppose that moving through the air was kind of difficult when you were the air.

  Just as she was about to re-coalesce, the final syllables of my spell tumbled into place, and I cast the result into the thickening cloud of smoldering particles, hoping it would catch on something useful. Then I turned to Lynnria.

  The youngest of us was already preparing her next shot, eyes gone flinty over her recent miss. She was determined to prove her competence, that she was more than dead weight. Any other day, I would have been happy to sit by and root for her, come what may, but this was not the time for egos. I could not have said why, but something in my gut was telling me that getting her poison into that creature’s mouth—and as potent as she could—would be critical for what came next.

  “Lynnria,” I began, my voice low and commanding to snatch at her attention, and as I reached up to cup her chin beneath her ear, I felt as if the world had slowed to hang upon whatever next I might say.

  Well, too bad for the world. I was no linguist, no master of song and rhyme. I was getting better at flirting, and I was certainly more confident; yet, to spin out something to encapsulate my feelings, convey why that would be even remotely relevant right then, and resonate strongly enough to empower her next shot? All in a fraction of a second? No freaking way! I was just a wizard.

  So… I did something wizard-y.

  My lips formed around a Word I was in no state to cast, physically, mentally, or otherwise, but my tongue knew its shape more intimately than it could any lover. It was a good Word—all but meaningless on its own, as so many are, but ripe for interpretation.

  “Be.”

  Her eyes widened in instant recognition. Not because I had done something so outrageous as to Speak. Like I said, there was no way that was happening. But because it was the one Word we happened to share. She would know that Word—even unvoiced—better than her own mother’s face.

  And in forming those unvoiced syllables, I had reminded her of something that would be true no matter what the next few seconds might hold. We were together. Whether she made the shot, whether she proved herself, whether she remained as dead weight for the rest of her days, we were together. Her status was not, nor could ever be, threatened.

  So just be. Be yourself. Be a hero! A noble warrior today? A couch-potato tomorrow. Whatever. Whatever she wanted to be, I would be there beside her.

  Smiling, I released her, leaving a dose of Happiness in my wake, and as I stepped back, I gestured toward the chaos about to unfold.

  “Go on, hotshot.” I wrinkled my nose, daring her to miss. “Show me what you’ve got.”

  Grinning from ear to ear and giggling faintly, she nocked a second ‘arrow’ and nodded.

  “Yes, Master!”

  Then she aimed and fired so smoothly and so carelessly, it made everything leading up to that moment seem like a bunch of pointless nonsense.

  The bolt splashed dead center, of course—just as the beast was reeling back from having a Sap-covered axe slice clean through its vine, sending both Jax and the lilim it contained tumbling to the ground below. But neither of us noticed that.

  My eyebrow crawled slowly upward even as a flush crept over her cheeks.

  “Mas—?”

  Her finger slapped against my lips.

  “No! Just… no.”