His head snapped back. Not as much as I would have liked, but it was gratifying.

Tam wiped his bloody lip with the back of his hand. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

I think my mouth fell open. “Everything!”

A bolt fired from below barely missed us. Tam grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the same ladder I’d come up. I dug in my heels.

“Raine, please come with me.”

Tam rarely said “please.” I wasn’t the only one who saved certain words for special occasions. My word had four letters. Tam’s word was “please.” He’d said it to me at the rehearsal to warn me to stay away from him. Now that same word was asking me to trust him.

Regaining my trust was going to take a lot more than one word, but it was a start. We had to get off this catwalk.

By now the Guardians must be halfway to the citadel with Piaras. And where the hell was Phaelan?

When I reached the bottom of the ladder, Tam took my arm and pulled me past the dressing-room area and into the back of the theatre.

“Where the hell are we going?” I muttered between clenched teeth.

I caught a glimpse of Sedge Rinker and two of his watchers talking with unfamiliar Guardians, and a dead Nightshade sprawled on the floor nearby, blood pooling beneath his head.

“Do not call out to them,” Tam warned and walked faster.

I let out a bitter laugh. “I’m safer with you than them?”

“For now, yes. Sanura Mal’Salin unwarded her mirror to admire herself, and the Nightshades were waiting.” Tam’s voice was tight with barely contained rage. “They took Talon, Valerian’s granddaughter, and Ronan Cayle.”

Dammit. I pulled back against Tam’s grip.

“Nathrach!” It was Sedge Rinker. The chief watcher had seen me and was after Tam.

Tam hissed a curse in Goblin, tossed me over his shoulder, and ran.

The back of the theatre was dark; Tam knew it like the back of his hand, and he was a goblin. Rinker and his men were human. No night vision. There were plenty of things to trip them up, and from the thumps and swearing, the watchers had found them. But Rinker wasn’t chief watcher for nothing. He cleared his path and kept coming.

All I could see was Tam’s ass and the floor.

Tam opened a door and closed it behind us, and went down a flight of stairs entirely too fast for my comfort.

“Put me—”

“Shhh!”

I shushed, but I wasn’t going to stay shushed for long.

Tam stopped at the bottom of the stairs. Above us, Sedge Rinker and his men ran by and didn’t come back.

“Put. Me. Down,” I said from behind clenched teeth.

Tam didn’t put me down. He slid his hand under my gown and up my bare leg to my thigh sheath. Finding that one empty, he went in search of the other one.

No way in hell.

Tam and I had wrestled before—once with intent soon after we’d met, and a couple of other times since then for fun. He knew my moves. This probably wasn’t going to end well, but I wasn’t giving up my last dagger without a fight.

I clasped both of my hands together into one big fist and hit Tam in the back as hard as I could. When he grunted in pain and surprise, I twisted. We both went down, and I got to be on top this time.

A single globe offered meager light, but it was enough for me to see that Tam wasn’t fighting back.

He held his hands up, palms out. “No weapons,” he whispered.

“Because you didn’t get mine!” It was all I could do to keep my voice down.

“To keep you from carving me up.”

I sat back, still straddling him. “What the hell is going on?”

Tam looked as tired as I felt, but he languidly moved his hips beneath me. “This is the best thing to happen to me all week.”

I gasped at the source of the contact and the delicious shock of sensation that followed. Focus, Raine. I glared at him. “I repeat, what the hell?”

“I’m touching you.”

“Yes, I’m aware of that.” Parts of me were much more aware than others. “That doesn’t answer what—”

I realized what he meant; I shut up and didn’t dare move.

Tam was touching me. I was touching Tam…

… and the Saghred wasn’t touching either one of us.

But it was there; I could feel it, hot and coiled, ready to strike at the slightest provocation. I knew it’d be a good idea to get off of Tam, but I thought it’d be a bad idea to move.

“How?” I whispered.

“I haven’t used a death curse lately?”

I narrowed my eyes. “You mean no überevil black magic.”

“Don’t act surprised.”

“How am I supposed to act? You’re a dark mage.”

Tam was incredulous. “I was the queen’s chief shaman. What did you think I was?”

“Shush!” I heard, felt, or sensed something like a snake’s angry hiss.

Tam froze and didn’t even blink. He’d heard, felt, or sensed it, too.

Apparently passion ignited it—that or strong emotion. Great. That’s all Tam and I had. Ever since we’d met, either he was trying to seduce me, or I was arguing with him.

I sat quietly and waited. Tam closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and slowly let it out. When he opened those glorious midnight eyes, he had himself under control. Possibly. Me straddling him while wearing a slinky, black velvet gown wasn’t helping matters any.

The pissed-off-firesnake sensation didn’t entirely go away, but it had lessened. I’d take that for now.

“Raine, what did you think I was?” Tam asked again, softer this time.

“I don’t know.”

Tam hadn’t talked much about his past; I hadn’t asked him to tell me. I thought we had a fine arrangement.

My family’s big on denial. And if we denied something long enough, we thought it’d go away. I know that’s not how it works, but we’re in denial about that, too.

In my mind’s eye, Tam’s dark-mage nature paced restlessly on the edge of the shadows, eager and hungry. The Saghred was coiled like a fiery serpent near his feet, tongue flicking, tasting the air, searching, wanting the black magic Tam held in check.

So long as Tam didn’t antagonize that snake, it wouldn’t bite me. Maybe.

I didn’t feel like taking that chance. Time to leave.

Tam’s hands tightened around my waist. “Wait.”

“I’m helping you control yourself. You’re a fuse. I’m explosives. Remember?”

The goblin’s lips curved into a slow, wicked grin. “Yeah, I do.”

I just looked at him. “If the Saghred strikes a match, that fuse of yours is going to get us both into trouble.”

“I like playing with fire.” Tam’s hands explored my velvet bodice with a mind of their own.

“I know you do.” And after some heavy breathing in a dark alley, I did, too. “So the farther I stay from you, the better.”

Tam ran his hands down the length of my bodice from ribs to hips, like he was memorizing the curves for later. “It would be the smart thing to do.” His breathing had taken on a ragged edge.

I dismounted. I had to take the moral high road sometime.

I hate moral high roads.

I sat on a nearby crate and crossed my arms. “Now talk. What have the Khrynsani got on you, and why is Rudra Muralin your houseguest?”

Tam sat up. “Talon.”

“Huh?”

“The Nightshades took Talon.” A muscle worked in Tam’s jaw. “So no one has anything on me anymore. Tonight, I’m going to make the Nightshades permanently sorry.”

I did the math, made some assumptions, and when that got too convoluted, I just trusted the answer my gut gave me. Talon’s swagger, the bravado, the feline grace, but most of all the eyes. Tam’s eyes were black. Talon’s were aquamarine, but they had the same bad-boy sparkle—and the same intent.

And Tam had taken on the Khrynsani to protect him.

“Talon’s your son.”

“Yes, he’s mine.”

Talon obviously wasn’t a result of Tam’s only marriage to a pure-blooded Mal’Salin duchess. Tam liked elves. Tam liked me. Judging from Talon’s eyes and pale, silvery skin, I wasn’t the only elf Tam had liked.