Page 25 of The Demon's Discovery
Vassago and I worked side by side in his classroom with him showing me some of the unorthodox ways he communicated with people or how he located missing objects and different ways he practiced his craft. He’d fetch me ingredients and tools so I could continue to practice my chemistry, allowed me full access to his vast library of books to find recipes of interest or research my stone kin heritage. He was always calm and encouraging, even when I didn’t get the result I wanted.
One of my visits, I attempted the experiment I’d been hung up on since before leaving the manor. Instead of watching from across the room like he usually did, Vassago lingered at the table with me. Nervous but also hyper-focused because of his nearness, when it came time to finalize the mixture, I flinched.
“Trust yourself,” he said quietly, breath warm against my ear as his hand wrapped around mine, steadying the flask so I didn’t lose any of the precisely measured solution.
I’d inhaled sharply, but thanks to his intervention, by my next visit, I’d grown a perfectly shaped purple alum crystal in the vial instead of cultivating another demoralizing failure.
If I was honest, Bea wasn’t far off with her flippant assessment that I’d become enamored with the man and partially obsessed with seeing him, even though I didn’t entirely understand why. But my chest ached every time I had to leave his general vicinity, and I could only breathe again once I was back on the campus grounds. Every time he brushed my skin with his I felt as though I might catch fire. More than once I’d caught myself daydreaming about what it might be like to have his mouth on mine, his hands on my skin.
The more time I spent away from the manor, the more foreboding curled in my gut every time I went back. It spiked every time I spotted Lara and Henrik talking quietly with their attention fixed on me. They never outright scolded me for visiting d’Arcan, nor did any part of my duties overtly change, but the tension in the house was palpable. Something was coming, and it had to do with me.
It all came crashing down when I was preparing to leave for d’Arcan one afternoon.
“Curse the saints, you haven’t left yet,” Bea said breathlessly, hauling me by the arm back toward the kitchen just as I arrived at the bottom of the stairs.
“What’s happening?”
“My parents are looking for you. I was hoping the carriage had already retrieved you.”
My heart sank. Clem was probably right down the street, but I didn’t dare leave until he was in the drive. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know.” Bea shook her head, mouth tight. “But I had to sit through what felt like a suitor meeting with Ellis and his father earlier, so I have to wonder if it’s something similar. There’s a carriage out front I don’t recognize.”
“Ellis?” I inquired, and she beamed, her fingers squeezing into my arm.
“Yes, and it feels very promising. I tried to stay neutral, but it wassodifficult. The last thing I want is some random smelly merchant for a husband when I could have Ellis?—”
“Beatrice? Please bring Greta at once!” Henrik bellowed across the house.
We both winced. Bea took a moment to help me straighten my shirt and dipped in for a quick hug. “I’m so sorry. Good luck,” she said, leaving me outside the den.
I approached the doorway with a heavy sense of dread. Flattening myself against the wall, I clenched my jaw as myemployers bickered about me, not caring that anyone passing by the room could hear everything they were saying. They hadn’t even bothered to properly close the doors to have their discussion. Henrik’s side-swipe comments left just as much sting as Lara’s direct ones. It seemed I’d gotten thoroughly spoiled by the kindness offered to me at d’Arcan.
I inhaled, trying to bolster my confidence, and knocked gently.
“I will not allow her to ruin this for us, Henrik,” Lara whined, a catch in her voice. “We’ve waited so long for him to show.”
“Shh, it’ll be fine. He’s said he doesn’t mind her appearance more than once. I know we expected him sooner, but the money he’s offered…”
Their voices traveled away from me as he soothed her. The fake sobbing she had a habit of doing grated on my nerves as I strained to hear more. I didn’t understand many of Lara’s complaints about my looks, but I was used to them. Knowing now that I was stone kin, it made sense why I was usually a head taller than most of the men who visited Henrik for business and just as broad.
Instead of their negative commentary, I focused on the way Vassago watched me move around a room, the intensity in his golden eyes and the draw I felt to him. The way he made me feel beautiful no matter what I was wearing and how his only response when I blew up something in his classroom was to check for my safety and promise to get me more supplies. Better ones so it wouldn’t happen again. He was, in every way, the soft place to land they should have been but never were.
I knocked again, irritation an itch under my skin.
“Greta?” Henrik called, finally. “Please join us.”
I inhaled a breath through my nose and strode into his office, joining them at the ostentatious round table that sat in thecenter of the room. I selected one of the seats closest to the fire, earning Lara’s pinched-mouth glare in response.
“You will make proper eye contact with this man, understood? And I’m sure I needn’t tell you that your best behavior is expected.” Her icy eyes bored into me.
“Yes ma’am.”
“Good.”
After a brief moment, a butler appeared at the door. “Introducing Lord Otto Feiser.”
We all got to our feet as he bowed, a tall, slender man who resembled a wet cat strolled into the room. “Welcome, Lord Feiser. Such an honor to have you in attendance,” Henrik said.
