Page 69 of A House of Fangs & Deceit

Chapter Sixteen

Samara

“Another dead-end,”I grumbled.

Wordlessly, Alaric reached to the stack of books to his left, grabbed the dark blue one off the top, and passed it over to me. He didn’t even look up from the page he was reading.

I sighed and took the book from him before leaning back in my chair.

We’d settled into a routine over the last three days. First, we met at the training courtyard every morning after breakfast and practiced archery for an hour. Then we headed to the library where we poured over every book, scroll, and scrap of paper that had anything to do with blood magic and Moroi history until dinner.

Usually, Rynn would pop in via shadow form at some point in the afternoon to update how things were going on their end.

Neither of us talked about our awkwardness from that day in the courtyard three days ago. But it felt like something had shifted between us, or was at least starting to.

Sometimes we’d go an entire hour without Alaric sending any thinly veiled hostility or cruel insults my way, which was nice.

The problem was that once he realized we were not only getting along but almost approaching friend status, he’d say something cutting to piss me off. His attitude towards me had always pissed me off… but now it hurt a little.

Every time I got him to smile at one of my asinine jokes or felt his muscles flex beneath my fingers during archery practice, I felt things shift between us a little more. Moons damn it all… I was starting tolikeAlaric. It had to be some type of temporary insanity because of the long hours I was working. Surely, that’s all it was. Because there was absolutely no fucking way I was developing a crush on the impossibly arrogant Alaric Lockwood.

I was also attributing how much I missed Kieran to temporary insanity. Although, even I recognized that was a weak argument since it’d been just three days and the feeling was only getting worse.

A rather attractive courtesan with teal and gold eyes had tried to strike up a flirty conversation with me the other day, and I had grown bored of him in minutes. Plus, I decided that only Kieran should have golden eyes. I made some excuse about having to leave and immediately went to the library.

So apparently, I wasn’t horny for just anybody, which was troublesome.

I’d have to play hard to get when Kieran came back. I couldn’t let him know just how much I’d missed him. He’d never let me live it down, and then he’d totally use it to torment me.

And I absolutely couldnotlet him know about my growing feelings towards Alaric.

Kieran had already hinted about how much that idea interested him, and he would be impossible if he found out my little secret.

It was unlikely Alaric felt the same way, and it would make things weird—well, weirder—between us if he learned aboutit. I bit my bottom lip as I tried to focus on the book I was supposed to be reading once more.

After a few minutes, I let out a frustrated breath.

“We’re not going to find anything.” I tossed the book Alaric had given me onto the table after skimming the first twenty pages. “These books are all saying the same commonly known shit.” We needed access to better information.

He shrugged. “Once we get through these, one of us can go to Drudonia,” Alaric said in a bored tone. “A trip to the Sovereign House might be in order, too.”

“You think they’ll have something that they won’t have at Drudonia?” I furrowed my brows, trying to think of what the library was like at the Sovereign House.

It’d been years since I’d been there and even then, I’d spent most of my time in the gardens or sitting rooms while Carmilla and Queen Velika caught up. They’d grown up together, and their friendship had only strengthened over the years. Carmilla had once confessed that she felt closer to Velika than she had her own sister, my mother. It’d been on a night after she’d had a few drinks, and she’d felt awful about saying it the next day.

I could remember the Sovereign House library being grand in appearance, but I didn’t recall anything particularly impressive about the collection itself.

Drudonia was shared between the Moon Blessed. It was the second generation that was cognizant enough to want to gather knowledge and keep it somewhere safe. So early on, any books, scrolls, and artifacts recovered had been taken there. Now knowledge was a little more spread out as Houses became more independent and the Furies more distant.

“I know they have some Unseelie scrolls there that don’t have copies at Drudonia.” Alaric flipped another page in the book he was reading. “Who knows what else they might have?”

“Well, it’s on the way to Drudonia, so I suppose it makessense to at least take a look.” My lips quirked up into a smile. “Plus, it’d be nice to see Carmilla.”

He glanced up from his book. “And why do you get to go and not me?”

I raised an eyebrow. “So eager to get back on a horse?”

He blanched and went back to reading. I snickered. Maybe another round of tea was in order. I needed something to motivate me to get through another book or two before calling it a day.

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