Page 42 of This Monster of Mine

CHAPTER EIGHT

Red was one of the few colors that hadn’t vanished from her vision. It ran from her pulverized limbs to form puddles with the rain and coated her throat when she tried to speak.

The man who’d argued with the owner of the beautiful voice was still retching. He stopped when footsteps drew near. Apparently having recovered his composure, he then began yelling instructions at the newcomers that made no sense.

“I want every limb mended!” he roared. “Put her back together.”

A chorus of gasps rose as the others reached her, but no one questioned his directive. Hands gingerly slid under her, lifting portions of her body.

“Tetrarch Othus?” someone called through the rain. “We need a name for the records.”

“Mark her as dead,” the man ordered.

“But—”

“She is dead.” This time his voice rang like steel. “Do you understand?”

But why?Sarai wondered as people pulled her onto what felt like a clothbound frame. Why did she have to be dead and nameless? Agony spiked when someone gripped the back of her broken scalp. The world went dark before she could find an answer.

Sarai jolted awake, clapping a hand over her mouth before the scream building in her throat could come free. Breathing hard, she hunched over her writing desk.

This flash of memory was new, unmarred by repetitive terror as the others were. She parted the curtain and closed it just as quickly at the sight of Sidran Tower’s spire in the distance.You’re bringing it all back, aren’t you?She wanted to remember. But the place made her seize in a way that went beyond whispers of a faintly remembered terror. Something shifted in the ravines of her mind whenever she dug too deep, and part of her feared she already knew. After all, her clothing had been torn that night.

She dragged her mind away from that path.Tetrarch Othus. She’d been right about the other man’s identity.But why did I have to be dead, Othus? Why were you killed when you covered for Kadra?

Stumped, she rolled up the pile of petitions she’d finally finished reading before bed. A few sported annotations in Kadra’s sharp script—clearly for her benefit as they detailed Guild customs and business practices.

She sent an accusing glance at the Elsar, wherever they were.Wisdom and Wrath, make him make sense.Everything pointed to Kadra’s involvement in the Fall from the Petitor deaths beginning around the time of his election to the fact that he was an unapologetic madman. And said madman had left her helpful notes on Edessa’s Guilds.Gods, why can’t evil be simple?

Groaning, she jumped at the sound of a door close to hers unlocking.Speak of the Wretched, he’s awake.Footsteps rang on the slim stretch of tile between their rooms, and she sprang into motion.Clothes. Decency!She’d barely gottennihumbactive when he knocked.

Giving up on putting on a robe, she undid the bolt. “Good morning, Tetrarch Kadra. Will we—” She froze.

Kadra’s bare chest was less than a foot away, unmissable even in the dark. Her head shot to the left fast enough to pull a neck muscle, but the sight of water dripping from his hair, sluicing through the light trail on his muscled abdomen, had already carved itself into her brain.

She stared at a point beyond his shoulder. “Will we be heading out?” she asked icily.

His eyes dropped to the sweat-soaked neckline of her tunic and returned to her face. He raised a finger. The candle stump on her desk sputtered to life, illuminating the stack of petitions.

“You’ve been busy.”

“I said I wouldn’t slow you down.” She crossed her arms, horribly aware of how close his bathrobe was to slipping off his shoulder. “I gather we’re heading out a little early?”

“Jovian’s brother, Decimus, has agreed to meet with us. Will half an hour be enough for you to get ready?”

“Less. I’ll meet you downstairs.” She watched his gaze almost imperceptibly return to the sweat trailing from her temples. The lines in his brow deepened for a second before he nodded and left.

Closing the door, she exhaled.It’s just a chest.She could name every blood vessel weaving through it, could fracture his sternum with a touch.

Stripping off her tunic, she dropped the illusion and regarded the mess of scars circling her ribcage, bisecting her breasts. No one would lust over this. He’d robbed her of even that.

Dressed, she went downstairs and found Cato lounging on a couch in Kadra’s tablinum. She didn’t understand him either. Why would Othus’s husband share walls with the man suspected of killing him? A thought shook her.Were they in on it together?

She’d barely begun considering the horrifying possibility that she lived with not one buttwomurderers when Cato raised his cup of tea.

“Drenevan’s outside. Watch your step, Petitor Sarai. Stormfall hit us a few hours ago.”

So that’s why Kadra was wet. “Tibi gratias ago.”

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