Rapture - Jacquelyn Frank Shadowdwellers

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strong chest.

      “I want a companion, K’yindara, who is going to fight tooth and nail to make me realize what she wants and needs. I want a partner who will beat the shit out of anyone who tries to screw with her head. I want—” He stopped and she saw him struggling to crush the emotions trying to overrun him. Unable to help herself, she reached up and smoothed her fingers over his mouth again, strangely unable to bear the strain she saw drawing at it so painfully.

      “What do you want?” she asked him, whisper soft, creating a cloud of intimacy around them with her gestures of kindness. Dae knew he understood she was not a kind person. Not that she liked to show, at least.

      Magnus raised a hand to her face, his thumb tracking over her lower lip slowly as he cupped her jaw in his palm. Here, he thought, was temptation in its glory. Its finest moment. Even though she showed the discoloration from the guard striking her, she had symmetry to her features that drew attention to her sleekly beautiful eyes, their sultry tilt such a flirtation. And the perfect foil was her mouth with its curvy, succulent lips.

      “I want to trust you,” he admitted, though it was a hard, harsh thing to do. “And I am afraid I won’t be able to.”

      “Because of the bitch that bit you?”

      That made him smile for some reason. He supposed it was the way she stripped the bullshit away from everything and laid it all out the way it was. He could get used to that. Although he wasn’t sure about the rest of Sanctuary.

      “Yes,” he agreed.

      “Well, just keep in mind, I’m a whole new kind of bitch, okay? And I won’t bite unless one of two things happens.”

      “I’m listening.”

      “First, you don’t ever try to cut my balls off just so you can be top dog over me. I won’t do it to you if you don’t do it to me. We’ll figure out some way of doing this on equal footing. Okay?”

      “I can live with that. Give me room for some minor screw-ups?”

      “Very minor,” she warned.

      “Deal. And don’t ever give me a reason not to trust you, K’yindara. I know I don’t feel it yet, but I’m trying, and Darkness help you if you ever betray me for any reason. You don’t know the meaning of the word ‘penance’ until you cross me.”

      “Deal.” She gave him a succinct nod.

      “And what’s the second thing that would make you bite, K’yindara?”

      She grinned.

      “If you ask me to, of course.”

      “Of course,” Magnus sighed. He stepped back and looked down at her body. “Are you going to get dressed now?”

      “Are you?” she countered, impishly eyeing the damage she’d done.

      “Yes, brat.” He pushed her away and started for the door.

      “Daenaira,” she corrected. “Or Dae. Brat is so passé.”

      The information stopped him in his tracks and he looked back at her with an inscrutable look on his face.

      “Fine,” he said, continuing into the bath before calling back to her, “and if the wood of my scabbards warps, Daenaira, I’m taking each one across your backside.”

      Dae snorted softly at that, not believing it for a minute.

      She was so tense he could have snapped her in two.

      Magnus watched Daenaira out of the corner of his eye because she hadn’t moved from the spot exactly one pace behind him and a little to the right. She had followed him into the dining hall and looked like she wanted to bolt ever since. Well, to him she did. To anyone else she looked quite placid. But placid on Daenaira was just wrong. He had the damp hair to prove it.

      When she had dunked him, he had wanted to wring her neck so badly his palms had itched. He’d been ready to blow up, to do everything she was probably expecting him to do, no doubt proving to her that people were the same no matter who and no matter what. Then he had realized that he was supposed to be better than all of that. He was supposed to be gaining her trust. Instead, he was doing exactly like she said, trying to train her like a child that needed to behave. No chains, no electrocution, same intent.

      Gods, had he felt like an ass.

      Now he had her swimming in the deep end of Sanctuary society when he should have taken it easy on her this first night and dined alone with her in his rooms. He was really racking up points for being a thoughtless idiot today. The idea made him frown. He was supposed to be better than this. It was too late now, though. She had to be introduced to everyone now that some of them had seen her. Besides, he wanted her to have the freedom to walk around Sanctuary unquestioned as soon as possible. She shouldn’t feel confined to her rooms.

      Dae stood very still, her eyes on the crowded room as her heart raced at the sheer volume of people. She hadn’t anticipated this. Such a wide array of such beautiful men wearing the violet slacks and tunic of priests, and all those well-heeled women at their elbows in midnight blue. She felt like an imposter. A pretender.

      “Well, Magnus, who is this?” one of the handsome men asked, smiling down at her.

      She instantly disliked him. Disingenuous and perfect, his smile rang false.

      “M’jan Shiloh, this is K’yan Daenaira, my new handmaiden.”

      “Drenna has blessed you,” Shiloh said expansively, reaching to seize her hand. She jerked both hands behind herself and stepped closer to Magnus’s back, hating herself for the reaction. “Shy little thing, isn’t she?”

      “It’s her first night. I remember being overwhelmed myself,” Magnus said easily. “Dae, this is K’yan Nicoya. She is M’jan Shiloh’s handmaiden.”

      Now Nicoya was familiar. Just the surety and superiority of her smile told Dae exactly who she was. All she was missing was the nine-tailed cat. Tall, majestic, and beautiful, she was definitely the queen bitch in charge. Daenaira stayed right where she was, very carefully guarding her tongue and other impulses. She could make enemies just as well later as now. Meanwhile, she let Nicoya think she was as delta as they came.

      Things were not looking very promising so far.

      “M’jan Cort and K’yan Tiana,” Magnus continued.

      Dae never lost track of a single name or face. Nor did she greet anyone differently than the rest, despite how easily she felt she could read most of them. In the end, there were a few she liked, a few she did not, and surprisingly a few she couldn’t get a bead on. One such was the priest named Sagan. He had no handmaiden, and from what she gathered he hadn’t had one for some time, and it was a point of interest to everyone else but the tall, silent man. He had clearly heard it all before and didn’t give a damn what anyone else thought. His idea of greeting her was a cool nod before continuing on his way. She couldn’t decide if he was being rude or if, for the first time, someone had gotten the picture that she wasn’t in the mood to be slathered with social graces.

      She didn’t understand the handmaiden named Greta at all. That the veteran handmaiden was hostile toward her was clear. She didn’t even hide it from Magnus, which was probably pretty ballsy. Dae could actually respect that. However, she didn’t care for being judged without having even done anything yet. She liked to earn her contempt the old-fashioned way…by pissing people off.

      K’yan Hera was going to be interesting. She was the first woman Dae had ever met of such an advanced age that she actually had developed silver streaks in her black hair and crow’s feet by the corners of her eyes. Dae wondered how old exactly one had to be before they started showing it like that. Had this woman been a handmaiden for every single one of those years? There had to be some kind of retirement plan, didn’t there? But besides her agedness, the human equivalent of nearing fifty as Dae understood it, she had a keen smile and a sparkle in her eyes that gave Daenaira the feeling she had been

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