Page 3 of Magic Hunted
“Come. Our king is waiting,” Sinon said, striding ahead.
They dragged me through the tunnels and up several flights of stairs to the top level of the castle where Titan resided. All the while, my heart pounded against my ribs, pumping blood too thick for my veins. Dots sparked the edge of my vision and my chest clamped so tight it vaguely surprised me I could still breathe as we approached the door to Titan’s suite.
Sinon threw me a smug grin before he rapped on the gleaming black paint, swung the door open and stepped inside. Peder’s dark chuckle assaulted my ears as he dragged me inside to the waiting monster.
Chapter Two
Stars burst through my head when my cheek slammed into the floorboards, but Titan didn’t look up as Peder threw me to the floor in front of the massive antique desk. I glimpsed an antiquated scroll of paper with an illustration of a cave on top of the desk. Lion’s Head. Hand-scrawled numbers.
“You need the maid. There’s dust down here,” I wheezed, spotting dust bunnies in the corner. Such an odd thing to notice when my insides might be ripped from my stomach at any moment.
Shiny black shoes entered my field of vision, followed by a chuckle that made my blood freeze. My gaze trailed over faultless dress shoes, tailored black pants tight across bulging thighs, to his black jacket, handmade to fit his body, over his neatly buttoned crimson silk shirt and into soulless black eyes peering at me with impassive nothingness. Titan’s dead eyes always sent shards of ice through my heart.
“Why have you been gone so long, Little Eyes? What kept your attention so badly to make you forget when I wanted your return? Should I have been more persistent in reminding you?” His deep voice was deceptively gentle. He always spoke like that. So soft it might lull you into a false sense of security. I knew better. The gentler his voice, the angrier he was, and right now he spoke so softly it was almost a caress.
I clenched my shaking hands into fists, losing the ability to think. “Titan. Please, I…”
I choked on my breath when Sinon kicked my mid-section. “King Titan to you, sewer-rat,” he snarled.
“Sewer-rat? That’s an apt name for her, I suppose,” Titan said.
“It’s where she lives. Down in the sewers,” Sinon said.
“Above the sewers. Not in it directly. I have some standards.” Apparently my tongue decided to have a vacation from my brain now it could work again.
“Oh? You discovered where she lives?” Titan mused, quirking a brow at Sinon.
“Followed her as soon as she stepped foot in the stronghold,” Peder said.
Sticky heat broke out over my body. That meant they’d been waiting for me and somehow tracked me. Either my route was compromised or Titan had lent them magic to find me as soon as I’d come back. Either way, it was good I didn’t plan to ever come back here because my room and the secret it hid could be lost.
Titan crouched in my line of sight. His dark eyes bore into me, pressing me to the floor with the weight of his power. “Tell me, sewer-rat. Why would you go back to the sewers instead of coming directly to me after making me wait for two whole days? You know better than to do that.”
I flattened my hot palms on the floor, thinking fast. “I didn’t want to disturb you. In case you were busy.”
“Because I didn’t call you like this?” Titan flicked his fingers and burning agony sliced through me.
I convulsed on the floor, unable to breathe. Or think. Blind to everything surrounding me save the agony spearing through every bone in my body. The pain stopped abruptly, leaving me gasping and sweating on the floor, turned off by Titan as easily as he turned it on.
“That would be against my better judgment. You can’t get back to me if you can’t walk, however if you don’t have anything useful to say maybe I should just kill you this time. I’ve often wondered how long that might take,” Titan mused.
My mind spun, losing traction. I’d gone out of my way not to anger him enough that he would kill me, because if he did, he’d know part of the grimoire was inside me. The death magic my mother had woven with her last breath was the only way he would know, because as much as I might desire it, I would not stay dead.
“No. Please I…I stayed to find out all I could. I didn’t want to come back with nothing for you,” I gasped, looking at him through the strands of sweaty hair plastered over my face.
Titan blinked down at me, his face impassive. He gave no hint he’d tried to melt my bones from the inside. No hint he felt anything toward me at all. “And?”
“Drisella couldn’t get through the dome. She used dragons. None of them could penetrate through,” I said.
I’d watched as hundreds of dragons had fallen on her mad attempt to break through the magic. It’d only been when Anise had tried to break through that Drisella had stopped the useless deaths. I’d watched, barely holding the contents of my stomach as she’d tortured the dragon alphas and taken Anise to her stronghold. I couldn’t leave her to that fate.
“It shouldn’t have taken you two extra days for that information,” Titan said. He cupped his fist and flashes of blue lightning crackled from his palm. “Do you like the feel of my magic so much you would lie to me?”
My heart seized. “The dragons have a mate!”
Titan’s brows rose. “A mate? What of their mate? Why should I care what thing any shifter fucks?”
My breath shuddered. I had to be careful what I told him. Too much information and it would be bad, too little, and Titan would recognize my lies. The best lies had a sprinkling of truth. I would never tell him the full truth about Anise—that I knew her as the wolf’s adopted sister. I’d done so much to the wolf alphas, but in this I could help. “She appeared at the dome and Drisella took her to her stronghold. If the dragon’s mate was that important to Drisella, she would be important to you too. So I followed to find out.”
