Page 89 of Viper

Viper drew in a deep breath and looked beyond her—something he often did when she asked him questions. “Some secrets aren’t only mine to share, you get me?” he asked, his eyes returning to hers. “If you react badly, if you tell others, a lot of people could be affected. Even killed.”

Ella’s skin chilled at the grave note to his voice. He wasn’t being dramatic here. This whole ‘regular’ thing was strongly linked to one of the things he’d so far kept from her. “Those people being your brothers,” she guessed.

“They rely on me to keep them safe.”

Ella licked her lips, only then becoming aware that her sister and Dice had fallen silent. She looked their way. He was rubbing at his nape while Mia—who’d now also dropped her glamor—stood with her hands on her hips, her chin up in challenge … as if daring him to cough up a truth he clearly felt compelled to keep quiet.

“Ella,” Viper said, pulling her attention back to him. “I promise you, baby, I have not betrayed you. Never would.”

“I want to believe that.”

“Then believe it,” he implored, his eyes delving so deep into hers it was hard to hold his gaze. “Trust me.”

“Why? You don’t trust me, or you would just be honest with me here and now about what Prophet meant.” She paused. “I guess this answers the question of whether or not you always planned to keep me ignorant. If you’re ever willing to share anything with me, now would have been the time to do it.” She pulled her face free of his hands and whirled, meaning to walk out.

Power rushed through the room. The door slammed shut. The lock flicked. A growl sounded behind her. Mia sucked in a breath. Dice cursed low.

Ella furiously spun back to face Viper … and froze. His eyes had changed, becoming all white. A white so pure it faintly glowed.

What the fuck?

Her skin prickled as the temperature dropped … much in the same way it did when a person’s inner demon surfaced. But what stared back at her was not a demon. Nor was it Viper.Somethinglived inside him. Something not anything close to holy—a strange sort of malice oozed from it.

Her demon should have been unnerved. Instead, it was plain intrigued, the weirdo.

Mia’s mind touch hers.What is happening?she asked.

I have no clue, Ella replied, swallowing hard.

The entity cocked its head. “You’re wary of me,” it noted. “There’s no need for fear. I’d never harm you. If it makes you feel better, I promised Viper I wouldn’t.”

It was a little worrying that Viper had felt a need to extract such a vow. “Do you always keep your promises?”

“No.” But the entity didn’t appear to see why she might not feel so reassured.

Oookay.

“He’s telling you the truth,” it went on. “There was no betrayal.”

“Why won’t he explain what Prophet meant?”

“He doesn’t have your full trust, loyalty, or commitment. He has no surety that you will hold your silence. In his position, would you so easily confess a secret that keeps many safe?”

Well, no.

“Maybe you can be trusted to say nothing, but there are ways of extracting information from people. For instance, I could enter your mind, take out anything I wanted—even the memory of this conversation; you’d never know we’d had it.”

She went cold all over.

“But I won’t,” said the entity. “Instead, I propose a geas. You would promise to never repeat what you are told, and you would be bound to silence by his power. It would also mean that no one could take the information from your mind—the geas would keep it hidden from prying psychic eyes.”

Ella blinked, having not expected such a suggestion. She’d heard of geasa, of course, but she’d never had reason to use them. Considering that death was often the infraction for violating such oaths, the idea had never appealed to her. “I wouldn’t beboundto my word. Geasa can be broken.”

“Not those put in place by celestial power.”

Fair enough.

“We can do something similar with a spell,” Mia told the entity. “The magick would bind us to our vow to never repeat whatever we hear.”

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