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Back The Starving Saints Save as PDF
Chapters (57)
  1. Cover
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
  7. 6
  8. 7
  9. 8
  10. 9
  11. 10
  12. 11
  13. 12
  14. 13
  15. 14
  16. 15
  17. 16
  18. 17
  19. 18
  20. 19
  21. 20
  22. 21
  23. 22
  24. 23
  25. 24
  26. 25
  27. 26
  28. 27
  29. 28
  30. 29
  31. 30
  32. 31
  33. 32
  34. 33
  35. 34
  36. 35
  37. 36
  38. 37
  39. 38
  40. 39
  41. 40
  42. 41
  43. 42
  44. 43
  45. 44
  46. 45
  47. 46
  48. 47
  49. 48
  50. 49
  51. 50
  52. 51
  53. Acknowledgments
  54. About the Author
  55. Also by Caitlin Starling
  56. Copyright
  57. About the Publisher

“She doesn’t have to know,” the Loving Saint purrs.

He presses on her shoulders, and she has no choice but to slide partway down the length of his body, until her mouth is close to his hips. He means it to be seductive, but the angle makes her bristle. He thinks she is weak.

She must put them back on equal footing.

Her hand finds her knife. She slides it from her boot as she trails her lips along the line of his hip. His hands slide into her hair, and his eyes narrow to pleased slits.

She presses the flat of the blade to the inside of his thigh.

He goes still as death.

“Surely you’re not afraid of a little danger,” Treila says with a coy smile, leaning back for a better view of his face. “Surely you trust me. What say we mark each other?”

She trails the point of it up his body, up his throat, until it touches the underside of his chin. Now it’s him who’s afraid. Cornered-animal afraid. Even though he could take another form in an instant, or even simply back away. It’s like the steel of it holds him fixed upon its point.

Only the third knife he’s seen since he arrived, hm? Yes, she supposes with the Priory’s requisitions, there aren’t many blades left. Strange, though, for him to be so frightened.

A whisper of sensation on her hand: a bee, alighting, wings shivering in the air. Treila flinches.

For one second, the blade no longer touches the Loving Saint at all.

That’s all it takes, and then she’s falling back, the Loving Saint rising up to his full height. His beautiful face doesn’t shift, but the tension that dances between them has a different edge, now. He, like all the rest, is hungry, and he watches her with the eyes of a shrike, prepared to impale her on barbed thorns to keep her all to himself as he tears her to pieces.

The creature who cocks his head and scents the air is something old.

He smiles, and his teeth are sharp.

“I’d recommend you run, little girl.”

And Treila does.

34

34

Cleaning the rest of the room is barely the work of breathing.

Pneio and Ornuo even help, their bodies drying out the stone once she’s cleared it. Everything is back in its place so quickly it’s as if it never left, as if she never fell apart into the frazzled shell of a woman. It should feel unfamiliar, this care and order. But she slips into this new skin of hers gently. It feels like coming home.