Tav’s hand grazing the edges of her jeans, fingers playing with the soft fabric of her underwear.
“I want you,” Eli said again.
“You can have me.” Tav’s hand on the button of Eli’s jeans. Their hand shook slightly, and they fumbled the button, missing the loop. “Sorry, I’ll just —”
“I can —”
“It’s okay —”
Eli’s hand bumped into Tav’s and they both laughed nervously.
“I can do it,” said Tav. “It’s hard to concentrate when you’re kissing my neck.”
Eli grinned. “I know.”
Button through the loop. The zipper opening. Fingers slipping into the dark brown hairs that curled over the edge of her underwear.
“Are you sure?” asked Tav, hesitating.
“Yes.” Eli fought the urge to shove Tav’s hand into her pants. “Are you?”
Tav nodded. “Yeah. Definitely. I think about this all the time.”
“Me, too.” Eli pressed her hand against Tav. “Do you … want me to do this?”
Tav swallowed. Their fingers played with Eli’s hair, tugging gently. Eli’s eyes half closed in pleasure. “Yeah. If you want.”
“I already told you.” Her eyes were still half-closed, and a lazy crocodile smile arched across her face. “I want you. I want to touch you. I want to taste you. I want —”
Tav kissed her, pressing their tongue into her mouth and swallowing her moan. And then Tav, small, wiry Tav, rolled the powerful witch-made girl over until they were on top, and Eli was staring up at dark eyes and hair as purple as the petals around them.
Tav bent down and took Eli’s nipple into their mouth. Eli couldn’t stop herself, and as she opened her mouth to cry out, crocodile teeth grew from her jaws. Tav stopped and looked at her, their eyes wet and bright.
Then they slowly and deliberately licked the length of a wickedly sharp tooth.
Eli had never felt more alive.
Twenty-Eight
THE HEIR
Kite stared at the sword in wonder.
“From the moon war,” she told the Beast. “A legend.” She scratched behind his ears and he purred loudly.
“Well, you know what to do. Have a fun trip!” Clytemnestra turned a cartwheel in the air and vanished, leaving Kite and the Beast alone with the vengeful weapon.
Kite had always known that the wasteland and the junkyard were not myths. Stories were never just stories. Eli had survived the wastelands and brought back a dangerous weapon. And Clytemnestra wanted more.
More weapons. More allies. More anger and power from the bodies the Coven had deemed worthless.
The creatures lurking in the wasteland would not be happy to see the Heir. Clytemnestra knew this. But Kite was also proof of the Warlord’s power — the Heir Rising answered to her, followed her orders. The Coven was weak. The time to strike was now.
As a messenger, Kite was a symbol — proof that this was a time of regime change. A time of endings, and beginnings.
Out of habit, she reached out with her mind for the familiar tether of power that kept her tied to the Witch Lord. Again, she was surprised and exhilarated when she couldn’t feel the chains that had kept her bound for so long. She was still bound, her fate intertwined with her mother’s, with her root essence — but she had a little more freedom. A little more privacy. A little more choice.
Every step she took now was another betrayal she couldn’t take back. The steps of the Coven turned to fragments of stone and dust. The remaking of the assassins.
She had attacked her mother. Stolen from her.
And now she knew, finally, the terrible fate that awaited all witches who disobeyed or disappointed the Witch Lord — having their essences stolen. Their life-force sucked from their bodies. Their powers absorbed by the tyrant or used to animate dead things. Not just killed, but lost, forever, twisted and used until not a single remnant remained of who they had once been. Kite knew that the Witch Lord wouldn’t hesitate to take her essence if she discovered the depth of her daughter’s treachery. She could always make a new Heir.
But Kite had some of that power now, too. It sang in her blood and cast flashes of light before her eyes, colours running together and bursting and changing like a human child’s kaleidoscope.
Would she use it? Would she dare? If Clytemnestra went back on her promise, and tore the Heart from Eli’s body, sacrificing her for the revolution … Kite pushed the thought away. She had made a promise, and a witch’s promise was unbreakable.
But it could be bent, by clever tongues and minds.
As the power to steal essences reared up under her skull, Kite felt the forgotten blade responding to it. The surge of power in both girl and sword (both weapons, in their own ways, wielded by others) cast the acrid scent of burning hair into the chamber. Magic testing magic.
The Beast rubbed his head against Kite and she petted him, humming to soothe his trembling body. Her profane power settled, like silt in water, and the sword, too, let its guard down.
All she had to do was feed the sword her sacred blood, and it would imprint on her. Then, once she freed it from the enchantments Clytemnestra had used to make it docile, it should lead her to the junkyard. It should take her to its adopted home.
Not all things want to be found. The sword desperately wanted to return to exile. She could feel it in the energy radiating out from the alien metal, could see it in the flakes of rust and blood on its edge. Of course it didn’t want to be here: there was no space for grief in the Children’s Lair, and the sword had been grieving the loss of its home for a very long time.
“Okay, precious, we need to work together, okay?” Kite pressed her forehead against the Beast’s face. “I need
