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One of her bony hands lifted and pointed to the velvet bag. “Pick. Them. Up.”

Rehv’s eyes locked on hers, and he shook his head back and forth slowly.

“Better get back to our uncle,” he said in a rasp. “I’m willing to bet if you’re gone too long he gets suspicious.”

He had her on that one. Their father’s brother was a calculating, suspicious sociopath. Just like the two of them.

All in the family, as they said.

The princess’s robes lifted from the floor and floated over to her, and as they hung in the air beside her, she took a wide red sash out of an inner pocket. Slipping it between her legs, she bound up her sex, keeping what he’d left behind inside of her. Then she clothed herself, covering up the half of the robe he’d torn by making it wrap under the top layer. The gold—or at least he assumed it was gold, given the way it reflected light—belt was next.

“Send my uncle my regards,” Rehv drawled. “Or…not.”

“Pick…them…up.”

“You’re either bending over to get that bag, or you’re leaving it behind.”

The princess’s eyes flashed with the kind of nastiness that made murderers so much fun to spar with, and they glared at each other for long, hostile minutes.

The princess cracked. Just as he’d said she would.

To his ever-loving satisfaction, she was the one who did the retrieving, and her capitulation nearly made him come again, that barb of his threatening to engage even though there was nothing for it to lock in against.

“You could be king,” she said, holding out her hand, the velvet bag with the rubies lifting from the floor. “Kill him and you could be king.”

“Kill you and I could be happy.”

“You will never be happy. You are a breed apart, living a lie among inferiors.” She smiled, true joy reflecting in her face. “Except here with me. Here, you can be honest. Until next month, my love.”

She blew him a kiss with her hideous hands and dematerialized, dissipating in the manner his breath had outside the cabin, eaten up by the thin night air.

Rehv’s knees gave out and he collapsed to the floor, landing in a heap of bones. Lying on the rough-hewn planks, he felt everything: the twitching muscles of his thighs, the tickle at the tip of his cock as his foreskin eased back into place, the compulsive swallows which were caused by the scorpion venom.

As the warmth in the cabin leached out, nausea rolled into him on a fetid, oily tide, his stomach curling into a fist, a whole lot of we’re-outta-here tightening up his throat. His gag reflex followed orders and he popped open his mouth, but nothing came out.

He knew better than to eat before he had a date.

Trez came through the door so quietly that it wasn’t until the guy’s boots were in front of Rehv’s face that he noticed his best friend was with him.

The Moor’s voice was gentle. “Let’s get you out of here.”

Rehv waited for a break in the heaving to try to push himself up off the floor. “Let me…get dressed.”

The scorpion poison was barreling through his central nervous system, jamming up his neuro-highways and-byways, making it so that dragging his body over to his clothes involved an embarrassing display of weakness. The trouble was, the antivenin had to stay in the car, because the princess would have found it, and showing a core weakness like that was like handing over your loaded weapon to the enemy.

Trez clearly lost patience with the show, because he went over and picked up the coat. “Just put this on so we can get you treated.”

“I…get dressed.” It was whore’s pride.

Trez cursed and knelt down with the coat. “For fuck’s sake, Rehv—”

“No—” Wild wheezing cut him off and took him flat on the floor, giving him a quick close-up of the knots in the pine boards.

Man, it was bad tonight. The worst it had ever been.

“Sorry, Rehv, but I’m taking over.”

Trez ignored his pathetic attempts to fend off help, and after the sable was wrapped around him, his friend picked him up and carried him out like a broken piece of equipment.

“You can’t keep doing this,” Trez said as his long legs took them quickly to the Bentley.

“Watch