She added a friendly smile, and it was as if the sun had risen in the hut. Silver tresses rose, seemingly on their own, to stroke his cheek and trace the line of his chin.
Arclath stared at her, fighting to keep his eyes on her face. Gods, but she was stunningly good-looking! He-he-it was hard not to stare at all of her or refrain from taking a half-step forward and feeling all of her. If they struggled now, their contact would be both vigorous and… intimate.
“I-I know not what to do,” he blurted, feeling a soft hand (Rune’s, and stlarn it, she was unclad, too!) slide around his waist from behind.
He sighed and gave up. “Where’s that tea?”
CHAPTER THREE
I HAVE A LITTLE PLANT wo steps into the room above the shop of Immaero Sraunter, Understeward Corleth Fentable came to a sudden halt, his eyes going very wide. “I-I-”
The smiling man seated down the far end of the table, at Sraunter’s elbow, waved an airy hand.
“Ah, Fentable, you remember me? Favorably, I hope.”
Fentable was too busy sinking into shocked horror to manage a reply-a state of mind he saw mirrored in the eyes of the third man at the table.
Wizard of War Rorskryn Mreldrake looked as if he’d swallowed a fatal dose of poison, and only just realized it.
They were all the mind-slaves of the man at the end of the table. The handsome, amused man whose dark eyes devoured Fentable.
Under their thrall, he sat down in the last empty chair, barely noticing he was doing so.
He, Sraunter, and Mreldrake had been pawns of the dark-eyed man until some brief time before yestereve, when he’d withdrawn from them and made them forget all about him.
Now he was back, to begin their servitude anew.