Page 50 of The Jester

And with that, my body uncoils.

When Eldrion finally emerges from his bedroom, I am sitting in his armchair, legs crossed.

I greet him with a rather cocky stare, but he seems oblivious to its meaning.

If I hadn’t known what was happening a moment ago, there would be no visible signs of it anywhere on his face or his body.

Fully clothed now, he walks over to the table where he keeps his whisky and pours himself a glass.

“I want you to tell me who I am,” I waste no time and speak firmly, feeling a newfound sense of assurance that he will not hurt me because a man who calls my name like that could surely not hurt me.

Eldrion takes a slow sip from his whisky. “You’re an empath,” he says.

“An important one,” I counter.

My words are more of a statement than a question, but Eldrion tilts his head from side to side and says, “Perhaps.”

“You tracked me down in my village long before you brought me here.”

Eldrion chews his lower lip. “I did.”

“Why?”

“I cannot tell you that, not yet.”

Again, I ask, “Why?”

Eldrion’s eyes flash and he drums his fingers on his glass. “Are you a child?” he says, his voice like gravel in the back of his throat. “Always asking why, why, why.”

“You bought me at auction, gave me chambers in your castle, and have spent every night for nearly two weeks questioning me on things you already know about. You took me outside the castle and made me use my powers against an innocent man. And you’re afraid of me.”

I stand up to meet his stare.

He glowers down at me, his eyes glittering like diamonds, sharp and deadly and beautiful.

“You have searched my feelings?” he asks darkly.

“No,” I say, “I have not. But some of them crept in when we were with the innkeeper. I didn’t realise it at first; I thought it was all him. But the tendrils of darkness I felt, they were you, weren’t they?” I tilt my chin up towards him, fire rising in my belly. “How can you, the most powerful fae in the kingdom, be afraid of me? A fae with so little magic that you allow me to roam your castle unrestrained while my friends rot in your dungeon.”

“They’re not your friends,” he says. “They will never be your friends. They did not understand you or appreciate you. They do not trust you. They do not know what you are. You offered to free them, and still they do not trust you.”

I stifle a sharp intake of breath. How does he know? Finn? Henrik? They would not betray me, for they have done things that would get them in far deeper trouble.

But then how?

In one quick stride, Eldrion closes the gap between us.

He flexes his wings so wide that a shadow falls over me, and I think he’s going to wrap them around me. “It is you who should be afraid of me,” he growls.

My heart thunders in my chest. Am I afraid of him? Perhaps I was, but now, in this moment, I’m simply curious.

A sudden, tremulous knock on the door causes Eldrion to look up and stride away from me.

He flings it open in a way that makes me think he’s going to strangle whoever is on the other side, but when he looks down and finds Briony blinking up at him, his expression softens just a tiny bit.

“What is it?” he barks.

“Trouble,” she whispers, her voice shaking. “The dungeons, my lord. Trouble.”

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