Page 98 of Fragile Oath

“Just before the festival, maybe a week or two before,” he said quickly.

A muscle ticked in Davin’s jaw. Wordlessly, he set the capsule on the bench. Then he placed his hand on my lower back and led me out of the dungeons.

We didn’t look back, even as the screaming followed us all the way to the stairwell.

ChapterForty-Two

DAVIN

While Galina returnedto the library with Gallagher, I went to do some research of my own.

The interrogation had taken up most of my day, so I hadn’t yet gotten to talk to my new favorite suspect, something I planned to remedy now.

All the way down the hallway to the guest wing, I tried to make sense of what I knew. The Viper wanted my family off the throne. MacBay was trying to accomplish that same goal. He lacked the casual cruelty of the Viper, but Fiona had no known feelings or conscience to speak of.

And, of course, of-sodding-course, they were sleeping together.

Were they working together knowingly, or was she only using him to do her bidding? My fists clenched, and I took a calming breath. It was one thing knowing that the Viper was likely someone on the Assembly, another to have a name, to truly come to terms with just how close they were to everyone I loved.

I stopped outside Fiona’s door, the first one in the long hallway on the lower level of guest suites. She opened the door herself, raising a single dark eyebrow when she saw me.

“Expecting someone else?” I asked, keeping my expression carefully neutral.

“Jealous?” she purred.

I tilted my head. “Is that what you’re after?”

“I wouldn’t turn it down.” Her tone left very little doubt as to what else she wouldn’t turn down.

I grimaced at the necessity of being alone in a room with her, but I wasn’t naïve enough to think she would talk with anyone else here. So I gestured for her to let me in her rooms, ignoring the horrified look my guards — and MacBay’s — cast us.

They would report back to him, but at least they wouldn’t gossip to the whole castle. And my men knew why we were here.

Fiona smiled like the cat that ate the canary, triumph shining from her bright blue eyes. At least, until the door shut and I turned on her.

“I think we both know that’s not why I’m here, Fiona,” I said flatly, refusing to turn my back on her.

She crossed the room to flounce on the small red sofa near the hearth, patting the cushion beside her in invitation. I stayed near the door, refusing to budge, and she rolled her eyes.

“Then why are you here, Davin?” She sounded bored now.

“Why are you with MacBay?” I countered.

Her obsidian brows rose in genuine surprise. The emotion was fleeting, though, and instead of trying to deny it, she raised a single slim shoulder. “I’m not sure you want me to answer that question.”

There was something overly satisfied in her tone that told me I did not, in fact, want that answer.

“Is that all you get out of the arrangement?” I pressed, trying to reconcile the Fiona in front of me with what I knew about the Viper. She had a loose moral code, one I used to share and appreciate, but standing before her now… It was impossible to reconcile her with someone who was capable of mass murder.

What could she possibly gain from being the Viper? And why throw her lot in with MacBay when she had very clearly tried to tie herself to me over and over again?

“Is that not enough?” she asked, genuinely curious. “It used to be for you.”

I wanted to argue with her, but I couldn’t when I had just been thinking about that very thing. How many times had I lost myself in someone else to ignore the things I couldn’t cope with? Still, even then, I had my lines. And adultery wasn't something I ever knowingly engaged in.

“Surely there are other, less married options,” I said after a moment.

She shook her head, the corner of her mouth quirking upward. “None with his power.”

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