Page 102 of This Monster of Mine

Awestruck, she grasped for words. “There’s no need to commit treason,” she muttered. “Thank you, though.”

The ruthless look on his face told her he disagreed. “What’s Aelius using against you?”

“Calumnia. Apparently, he’s taken both of us off Admia’s trial.” She deflated when Kadra nodded in confirmation. “He has a warrant and a list of witnesses from the Metals Guild that he’s bribed into testifying for Helvus.” She cursed. “I’ll steal a scutum if I have to, if it means tearing them down.”

Adjusting herself on his lap—Elsar help her—she winced when her battered arms protested the motion. Kadra’s brow creased. He gently lifted and settled her under the covers.

With a glance at the dwindling night outside, he eased off the bed. “I’ll leave you to rest. Stay here tomorrow and heal.”

Eyeing the loosening line of his shoulders, she had the vague feeling that they’d passed some crucial threshold but was too exhausted to pinpoint what that was.

“Goodnight, Kadra.”

He watched her for a long moment. “Goodnight, Sarai,” he said softly.

And for once, that night, she didn’t dream of that Fall, but only of how close he’d held her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Sarai woke to a pounding head and the unfamiliar tightness of new skin around her neck.

Awareness brought with it bone-deep fury. Cursing Aelius and Tullus to the worst of the ten hells, she took in the noonday sun with surprise. She’d slept for over a day.

Momentarily thrown by the very visible dent on the chair by her bed, she touched the leather and was surprised by its warmth. A drowsy memory surfaced of a hand stroking her hair in the early hours of the morning, and she flushed.Impossible. Kadra had better things to do. Still, the prospect of facing him was nerve-wracking in a way that spoke of long-stifled hungers having received too much ammunition. There was no forgetting his arms around her or how beautiful he was up close in that stern, severe way.

Nothing has changed, she reminded herself throughout her bath. Withcalumniahovering over her head, she had to focus on taking the teeth out of Aelius’s threat. There was no reason to keep dwelling on the way Kadra’s gaze had seemed to memorize her features, or … Realizing she’d paused halfway down the staircase with a stupid grin, she hurried all the way down, vowing never to think of it again.

Her newfound resolution lasted the few seconds it took to descend the stairs and spot the couch she’d had a panic attack on. She cringed.

She was surprised to find Kadra’s tablinum empty. A quick search of the atrium revealed no one. She listened for any creak, any footfall that would indicate his presence.

“Cato?” she called, his name reverberating through the atrium. “Kadra?”

The tower yawned before her, whispering of tantalizing possibilities, buried secrets, and answers on Sidran Tower. She couldn’t refuse the dare. If there was anywhere that Kadra hid his skeletons, it was in here. This wasn’t for Aelius. It was for her, finally being able to probe Kadra’s depths.

She proceeded to scour every inch of the tower, knocking on the walls to search for hidden chambers and testing the flooring for movable tiles. She came away empty-handed. The uppermost floors, above the mezzanine holding Kadra’s bedroom and hers, yielded Cato’s cozily furnished room and a vast library. Even the cellar—accessible via a trapdoor set into Kadra’s study—only contained cask after cask of wine.

She hesitated in front of his bedroom, plagued by embarrassment at going through his inner sanctum. Gingerly pushing the door open, she peered in, headfirst.

Done in the black and gold that adorned his robes, his seal, and gods only knew what else, Kadra’s bedroom contained the usual items found in such places: a bed, wardrobe, various instruments of torture … Sarai blinked.

The serrated metal instruments on a chest were as meticulously clean as every corner of the house had been. Hesitantly, Sarai examined the tip of a wicked-looking knife, and paused, seized by an awful truth. She could take these blades to Aelius. Granted, Kadra would be framed for some awful crime or the other, tossed out as Tetrarch, and forced to face a Summoning in the Aequitas.

But I’d be safe.Aelius and Tullus would reward her. Her sphere of existence could remain unperturbed.

Setting the knife down, she smiled wryly.The Elsar and their irony.Once, she would have done anything for this chance. Now, she couldn’t take it.

Turning from the blades with a hard swallow, she squinted at a threadbare ribbon nailed to his wardrobe. Likely once white, it had since yellowed with age. She touched the soft material with a frown. Below it were two words in Kadra’s script.

Never forget.

It sounded like the ribbon’s owner was dead, or far away at the very least. Her heart sank like a stone, something unpleasant and hot snaking around it. Whose was this? The words below the ribbon spoke of attachment. Regret. Was this the reason for Kadra’s celibacy? A long-lost lover?

Suddenly ice-cold, she looked away, wishing she hadn’t seen it. Forcing herself to complete her search, she went through Kadra’s wardrobe, patting at his folded tunics and trousers, before crawling under his bed.Nothing.

Returning to the tablinum, she leaned against one of Kadra’s wall-to-ceiling bookcases with a sigh and nearly jumped out of her skin when it clicked. Inching away from it, she paused.That sounded like a lock.

Upon closer inspection, an imperceptible horizontal handle jutted out of one of the shelves. She pushed, and the entire bookcase swung open. Sarai stepped outside to what had to be the orange grove she kept smelling around his home. Four rows of trees greeted her, their boughs laden. Woven baskets had been arranged at the base to catch any premature fruit drop.

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