Glint (Plated Prisoner Book 2)

Rip circles me.

The highest spike between his shoulder blades juts up like the fin of a shark breaking the surface of the water.

The other three have squared off against each other, every man and woman for herself, fighting like it’s their favorite game as they trade insults and goad one another.

But I can only pay attention to them for the barest of moments in my peripheral vision, because I know better than to take my eye off the male stalking me.

The bonfire is to my left, draping a blanket of orange over the snowy ground, casting everything in fiery light.

“You still look scared,” Rip says as he comes to a stop in front of me.

“I’d be stupid not to be.”

I don’t care if he really doesn’t rip people’s heads off. He’s still a killer. Still capable of cutting down armies and slaying kingdoms. His entire body sings with strength. I can almost hear the vibrato of violence as it hums through his veins.

“You’re right.” He shrugs off his fitted leather coat and drops it to the ground. My heart starts to pound.

His eyes stroke over the length of my body, probably to set me even more on edge. “Do you want to take off your feathers, Goldfinch?”

I clutch my own coat to my chest. “No, thanks.”

With lips twitching, his hands come up, deft fingers unlacing the brown straps across his jerkin. The spikes along his forearms and back recede beneath his skin before he slips the leather off and tosses it away.

He watches me as he reaches behind him, pulling the black cotton tunic off and dropping it on the pile. Then he’s standing there bare-chested in front of me, and time freezes, like suspended sand in an hourglass, grains paused in their plummet.

I shiver from the intimidation of seeing him like this, because he is intimidating. But he’s also beautiful. Rip has otherworldly allure and unmistakable magnetism.

I suddenly understand the insects that fly willingly into carnivorous plants. The draw is too strong, the pull too bewitching, that you forget about the danger until you’re already trapped inside.

Why is it that he can undress, and yet, it makes me feel vulnerable?

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My eyes drift of their own accord as I take in just how strong Rip really is. His body is a vessel for battle. Every single muscle has been worked to perfection, and the sight makes my mouth go dry.

His pale skin isn’t ghostly or sickly like Malina’s. It’s chiseled, with a light dusting of hair on his chest, but my eyes move to the row of black dots that go up his forearms.

It should look odd, or freakish, or scary, but it’s none of those things.

He’s so entirely fae.

He stands in front of me, not hiding, but letting me see, letting me assess, and I can tell from his stance that he’s proud of who he is. Of what he is.

It makes something in me ache. I can’t look away from the fierce refinement of him, the predatory grace. My heartbeat pounds in my ears, my lips parting with a shaken breath.

Before I can stop myself, I’ve stepped forward, so close that my skirts brush against his pants. Rip goes still. I don’t think he’s breathing.

I stare at the four spots from wrist to elbow where the spikes have sunken in. There’s just the slightest peek of them beneath the separation of his skin, like a notch in his arm. There’s no strange bulging or odd angles with them retracted. It’s as if they’ve melded into his bones.

“Incredible…” My whisper passes unbidden.

Unable to help myself, I lift my hand, my fingertips brushing against the black indentations in his ashen-white skin. I hiss out a surprised breath when I feel the spike catch on the fabric of my glove, the sharp tip of a talon ready to pierce.

Rip clears his throat, and the noise yanks me out of my reverie.

Mortified that I’d touched him so boldly, I snatch my hand back. “I’m sorry,” I blurt. “I don’t know what came over me.”

The blacks of Rip’s eyes, indistinguishable between iris and pupil, look larger right now, like the color is taking over. “You don’t like to be touched. I don’t seem to mind so much.”

My cheeks go hot. There’s something there in his voice. A caress that smoothed over its harsh edges and slid over my skin. It scares me, even as it draws me in.

My already heated face burns hotter, but I don’t look away, don’t back up. I’m that beguiled insect, caught in his carnivorous clutches, ready to be devoured.

All this time, I’ve been cautious of him. Cautious because of his rumored viciousness, of the danger he poses to my secrets, of his threat to Midas.

But right now, I realize that there’s an entirely different reason I need to stay guarded against him. And it has everything to do with the way warmth is spreading through my chest, with the way chills have scattered over my skin from the purr of his voice.

Warning bells peal through my head, but they sound like the best sort of song.

He dips his chin. “Did you know, the color of your cheeks grows darker when you blush? Like warm umber,” Rip says, words pitched low, a sound that seems to dig beneath my skin and burrow in the deepest parts of me.

I shiver, as if a phantom drew a finger down my back. I can’t even hear the others fighting anymore. It’s just him and me, me and him.

“Why do they really call you Rip?” I ask. I barely recognize the whisper as mine.

He shakes his head once. “You remember the rules, Auren. Keep a lie for a lie, or tell a truth for a truth. That’s the only way I’ll play.”

I swallow thickly. “Then I don’t want to know the answer.”

“You will.” He lets a lazy smile crawl up his face. He takes a step back, arms hanging loosely at his sides. “Now, we fight.”

Just like that, the moment between us is doused, old fire beneath a toss of water. I blink quickly and shake my head, as if I’m waking up from a dream.

“If you want to see your guards, this is the only way,” he reminds me.

All of those confusing emotions roiling through me get shoved beneath the mask of his smug arrogance. I’m a puppet being made to jump through hoops. I just need to get this over with.

“Fine,” I say. “What do you want me to do?”

“For one, we’ll start with your stance. It’s all wrong.”

I look down at my body. “What’s wrong with it?”

“You’re too tense. If I were to come at you right now, you’d be too locked up to react smoothly,” he explains, circling me again. “You need to be ready to move, not have such a stranglehold on your muscles.”

I have to force myself to let out a steadying breath, and only then does my body relax a fraction.

“Better,” he says.

And then he comes at me.

No warning, no change of expression, nothing.

He flashes forward quicker than I can blink, and then I’m on my back, staring up at the sky in shock, while the air is knocked out of my lungs and puffed out in a cloud that hovers above my lips.

Rip stands over me with his arms crossed, looking entirely too pleased with himself.

I manage to get up, choking on breath, shoving snow off my ass as I stand. “You prick!”

He grins. Actually grins at me, teeth and all. I forget all about his otherworldly beauty, about the strange moment that was just between us. Right now, I just want to smack him.

“What the hell was that?” My words spark with anger, a fire wanting to catch.

“We’re fighting,” he reminds me, still amused as hell.

“I wasn’t ready!”

“Your opponent isn’t going to do a countdown, Auren,” he explains, like I’m an idiot.

“I can’t fight you,” I snap. He’s too strong, too experienced, and I don’t want to turn into that little girl grappling in the street, getting my ass handed to me every time I’m shoved forward.

“No? That’s unfortunate for you,” Rip replies.

He spins—I don’t even know how he does it so fast—and then he’s suddenly behind me. He hooks one arm beneath both mine and pulls them against my back, wrenching a grunt of pain from my lips. His other hand presses between my shoulder blades as he tips me forward, completely at his mercy with my ass jutting into his thigh.

“Try to break away,” he says calmly, like he doesn’t have me bent to his will, sputtering like a hissing cat.

I struggle, but I realize very quickly that I can’t straighten up because he’s too strong, holding me too firmly. I can’t lean forward either, because I’d just land on my face. I can’t even get my arms out of his hold with the way he’s gripping me. My ribbons tense and swivel at my spine like snakes provoked, wanting to lunge and bite. I grit my teeth, hold them back, keep them wrapped.

“I can’t.”

Rip clicks his tongue in disapproval.

A second later, I’m released. My steps stumble, barely keeping me upright with his sudden departure. When I look up, he’s already in front of me again, ready and cocky. I glare at him, shoving hair out of my face, while he stands there with brooding cockiness. The ends of my ribbons trill.

“Try and hit me,” he says.

He certainly doesn’t have to talk me into it.

I rush forward with balled fists. I don’t even know what I’m going to try to hit, but I suppose smacking the smug look off his face would be a good place to start.

Before I can even raise my hand, I’m spun around, legs knocked out from under me, cheek shoved against the ground. “You know you won’t hit me like that,” he says with mirth.

Spitting mad, I try to roll, but his knee lands against my spine, pinning me in place. White-hot anger courses through me, because not only is this humiliating, but that also hurt, dammit.

“Get off!”

“Make me,” he counters.

Did I think he was beautiful before? I take it all back. He’s an ugly bastard.

My legs kick, hips buck, but it does nothing. His knee digs in harder against my spine with every failed attempt to knock him away. I’m growing angrier and angrier with every panted breath, my body refusing to stop moving but too weak to break free.

“Stop holding back,” Rip orders, tone suddenly stern. “You know what you need to do. If you want to get out of the circle, you have to actually put up a fight.”

My cheek burns where it’s pressed against the snow, but my anger burns hotter. “I’m trying!”

“No, you’re not,” he growls above me. “Listen to your instincts and stop holding back.”

I go still beneath him, suddenly realizing what he wants. “I can’t use my ribbons.”

“Why not?”

Why? Because Midas wouldn’t want me to. Because I have to keep them hidden. I have to keep everything hidden.

Like he heard my errant thought, Rip makes a noise of disgust. He releases me, the painful knee blessedly gone from my spine. I manage to get my hands and knees under me so that I can stand, snow stuck to my face and hair, my dress wet, my mood incensed.

He glares at me, making me feel so much smaller, so weak and insignificant. His breath is still slow and even, like knocking me down took absolutely no effort.

“Why do you keep hiding what you are?” he demands, anger shading his features, making the slash of gray scales over his cheeks seem darker.

“You know why,” I say bitterly.

He, of all people, should understand. Maybe that’s why he pisses me off so much. Some part of me feels like he should be an ally.

“No, I don’t,” he retorts. “Enlighten me.”

I silently fume, daggers tossed between our glares. My ribbons start pinching my skin, little nips that tell me they don’t appreciate being held back while Rip so openly provokes me.

“They’re a secret,” I finally say. “My secret.”

But he shakes his head. “It’s more than that. I already know about your ribbons—that they can move. You hold back because you’re ashamed of them.”

My eyes flare, spine going rigid. He struck a chord, a sour note that clangs through my ears and echoes in the hollow cavity of my chest.

“Shut up.”

But he doesn’t shut up, doesn’t back down, doesn’t stop. Of course he doesn’t, because he’s Rip, and for some damn reason, he’s made it his mission to unravel me completely.

Starting with my ribbons.

Rip takes a step forward, gripping the space between us and tearing it to shreds. “You think of them as a weakness, but they are a strength, Auren. Use them.”

I can’t help the flash of fear that springs up in me like a pressed coil. For so long, I’ve taught myself to hide them, to keep them close, to not let anyone see.

Rip looms in front of me, blocking out the rest of the world, his presence all-consuming. “Stop thinking,” he growls in my face. “Stop thinking about everyone else. About him. About hiding.”

I whirl, and my anger whirls with me. “Easy for you to say. You have no idea how things were for me, how they are.”

There’s a flash of something over his face, something scary, giving me the feeling that I went too far. “No?” he snaps back. “I have no idea?”

My throat bobs with dry fear that I can’t swallow down. He has me on a ledge, finger pressed to chest, ready to push me over.

“What are you, Auren.”

It’s not a question. It’s a demand, gnashed through teeth, pinched through the growl of his chest. It’s a test that I’m sure to fail, because there is no winning, not for me.

I shake my head, squeezing my eyes closed tight. “Stop.”

He refuses to let me escape him, though, because his aura presses in, just as demanding, just as unrelenting. Rip is tugging at my seams, trying to pull the bindings I’ve wrapped myself in, and my fingers are slipping around the knots.

“Say what you are.”

My head pounds. My ribbons writhe. I open my eyes to glare at him. “No.”

He’s ink in the water. A black cloud in the sky. An abyss in the ground that I’ll fall inside forever. I hate him for it. I hate him for every push, for every challenge he has no right to demand.

Fury flashes in his expression, jaw tightening around his words. “Say it, Auren.”

I try to walk away, but he prowls after me and matches my stride, not even giving me a second to think.

He cuts me off, gets in my space so I have nowhere to go. He shoves his demand down my throat until my entire body is shaking with anger and intimidation. The drum of my pulse slams in my skull as he looms over me like a thundercloud waiting to strike.

“Fucking say it!” he roars in my face, a yank to pull out my roots.

And I snap.

“I’M FAE!”

Fury rushes like a flood, so strong I can feel it sing down the length of my ribbons, flexing through them with a shudder as they come undone.

Spinning like golden tendrils of a cyclone, the edges of my ribbons fold like jaws ready to bite, lashing out in the blink of an eye.

My coat rips off my back from the force as they launch forward. They snap around his legs, pulling them out from under him, and then throw him across the circle with a vicious hurl.

Rip lands in a spray of snow, so hard that I feel his fall resonate up to my teeth. But I don’t care, because he fractured something integral inside of me, and I’m not sure if I can put it back.

I stalk toward him, gratification oozing off of me, something feral taking over. Something that’s intensely pleased that I’ve shoved him down into the snow, that it’s him on his back and not me.

I raise a single ribbon, end hardened, edge sharp. I send it shooting toward his prone body, ready to slice him, ready to make him hurt.

But in a move that even now I’m impressed by, he leaps upright, planting both feet, facing me. He’s ready, like he was waiting for me all along.

Right arm raising, Rip meets the sharpness of my attack, ribbon and spike clashing together like the blades of swords.

The clang reverberates up the silken length all the way back to my spine, vibrating my bones.

Rip moves so fast. Before I can tug my ribbon back, he curves his arm and twists the length around his sharp spikes. Trapping it, he pulls it so tightly that it pulls the base of my back, dragging me toward him like a dog on a leash.

With a screech of frustration, I send four more ribbons lashing out, but the bastard somehow catches them all. He crumples them in the ball of his fist, my ribbons thrashing against his fingers, like trapped fish in a net. His hold is so strong that I can’t yank them away, a glimpse of his fae strength coming out to play.

He wrenches the ribbons hard, making me spin around, nearly toppling me over. Then he pulls me toward him, my feet skidding against the snow, heels digging in, until my back slams against his chest.

“Enough,” he says.

I elbow him in the gut. The asshole doesn’t even grunt, though, which pisses me off. His free hand traps the rest of my loose ribbons at my spine, cinching them off before they can even try to attack, trapping them between us.

His scratchy jaw scrapes against my ear, and all at once, I become aware of how our bodies are pressed together, how I can feel the heat of his chest sinking into my back.

“Enough, Auren.”

His order is spoken deeply enough, calmly enough, that it seems to reach beneath my rage and lift me out.

Panting, I blink past the fury that had wholly consumed me. I glance down at his arm that’s now banded around my middle, spikes gone, hand cupping my hip.

I can feel my ribbons pulled taut in his grip, but he’s not hurting them. My heart is pounding so hard that it’s just a war beat in my ears, thrumming through my veins and pulsing at my temples.

I don’t know how long we stand like that or when exactly the fight flees me. But it does, slowly, like syrup dripping down through my feet, leaving my soles stuck to the ground.

My ribbons go limp in his hand, and as soon as they do, he lets go of them and peels his arm away from my body and steps away. I shiver from the loss of contact.

I’m suddenly exhausted.

He slowly walks around to face me while my ribbons curl up, winding around me in retreat. I flick my gaze up to his face and brace myself.

I expect gloating. Or taunting.

Instead, he shocks the hell out of me when his face pulls into a smile. Not a cocky smirk or a patronizing grin. This smile is soft. It’s proud.

“There it is, Goldfinch,” he purrs, and that dark caress is back in his voice. “You’ve finally found your fight.”