Page 32 of Beasts of Briar
“I can tell if you’re lying.”
“By using your magic?” she bit out.
“By using my intuition,” I said, raising a brow. “You forget I’m thousands of years old. I have experience with liars. So I’ll ask my question again, and I want you to think very carefully before answering.”
She glared at me, and my lips twitched. Such fire in this one. I wasn’t used to mortals fighting back, wasn’t used to them being so bold. Even if those in the past had her kind of power, they wouldn’t dare use it against one of their gods.
She clamped her mouth shut, refusing to reveal anything. Secrets. So many secrets, and I wanted to know them. She would reveal them in time. I just needed to be patient. I’d taken her friends’ shadows. They wouldn’t be able to leave without them, which meant she wouldn’t leave either. She was stuck here, and that gave me the perfect opportunity to figure out who she was and why she seemed so familiar to me.
“You can take the briar while you’re here. There are rules, though.”
“Excuse me?” she asked.
“If you want to stay here.” I took a step forward. “There are rules.”
She crossed her arms but didn’t argue. So she wanted the briar badly. Bad enough to not argue. Once again, my lips twitched.
“You do not go into the east wing of the castle.”
“Why?” she asked.
“You do not ask my staff about me,” I forged on, ignoring her question. If she could have her secrets, then I could have mine.
She pursed her lips.
“You do not try to escape. You are here as my guest as long as you follow the rules. Break them and there will be consequences. Remember, I have your friends’ shadows. I can take yours, too, if you can’t follow my rules.”
She thought a minute, then stretched out a hand. I studied her long pale fingers, not a scar on them.
“I’m not going to use my magic on you,” she said. “It’s just a handshake to say that we have a deal.”
“I don’t deal with mortals,” I said drily. “I set the terms, and you either accept or you don’t. You do not have any leverage in this situation.”
She rolled her eyes and began drawing her hand back when I shot my own out, grasping hers. Without the fog of her power, I could focus on the touch, on the heat of her skin, on how soft it was. We stayed like that for a minute, hands clasped, then she yanked hers free.
“Good night, Kairoth.”
She turned, her figure beginning to disappear, the room around us fading into darkness.
Chapter Nineteen
BELLAMY
Isat in the garden, a basket by my side while Driscoll and Leoni sat on a stone bench nearby, watching as I cut the stalks of the nettle weed with a knife. The thorns poked my skin, and I winced every time I touched them. My hands were already turning red, little blooms of blood appearing where the nettles had jabbed me.
“This is painful just watching,” Driscoll said.
After I’d infiltrated Kairoth’s dream again, I’d fallen into a deep sleep, waking up this morning with Driscoll and Leoni pounding on my door, demanding to know what happened. Goji had been kind enough to pack us a basket of fruit and cheese to take to the garden. She’d said Master Kairoth gave us permission to cut the nettles, and I’d wasted no time rushing down here to get to work, my brothers on my mind.
I wished I could see them, could know they were safe. But one of Kairoth’s rules had been that I couldn’t leave his castle. I wouldn’t compromise this shaky agreement between us, no matter how uncomfortable it made me.
I swallowed back my tears, my hands throbbing as the poison infiltrated my body, already making my hands swell.
“So what did you find out?” Leoni asked.
I dropped a stalk into a basket Goji had given me, then signed,“He is suspicious about my powers.”
“Well, that makes two of us,” Driscoll mumbled.
