Page 17 of Empire of Dark

Oriane was a witch and the bane of my existence at some times, power that I needed to utilize at others.

I glared at her. “Oriane, I did not know you had arrived at the castle. I didn’t expect to see you here for another three months.”

“Pwew.” She spit off to the side, her long stringy grey hair swinging about her shoulders. “You don’t control me, boy.” Her ancient eyes skewered through Ada and I could sense her digging into Ada’s mind. “This. This is fresh meat.”

Before I could step between them, much less introduce them, Oriane grabbed Ada’s wrist and yanked it toward her belly. Still, I stepped closer, ready to rip Ada out of Oriane’s grip if necessary, and the stench of the old woman assaulted my nostrils.

Ada’s eyes had gone wide, but she made no motion to pull away from the old hag. At least Oriane hadn’t shocked Ada.

She liked to send jolts of electricity into my guests far too often.

Oriane stared up at Ada’s face, her eyes sinking into tiny pinpricks as she scoured the panthenite. Then she spit off to the side again as her gaze sliced into Ada. “Go. You don’t belong here.”

“While I don’t disagree with you, I made the commitment to be here.” Ada smiled prettily at the decrepit witch, still notmaking any motion to pull her arm free from Oriane’s grasp. “So I will have to respectfully decline.”

Oriane hissed, her body shaking. “You don’t know what you are, do you?”

Ada’s head snapped back. “What I am?”

“You are death.” Oriane leaned in on Ada, her look manic. “Death. It hangs on you. Drips from every one of your pores. Death. Leave, leave this place. Leave now.”

Too far.

I pushed my way between Oriane and Ada, ripping the hag’s grip away from Ada’s arm. Stopping whatever the witch had planned before she got her claws into Ada’s head and did irreparable damage.

“Oriane, leave us. Make yourself scarce.”

Oriane tore her stare off of Ada and looked up at me. “You think I am not needed at this juncture? You are misguided as always, Damen.”

My jaw set hard. “Don’t go near Ada. That is an order.”

With a glare at me meant to singe, Oriane spit off to the side and turned, grumbling as she scurried away down the hall to her room.

I’d have to keep an eye on her.

This reaction of hers to Ada was unusual. She rarely inserted herself into my affairs, and to do so now, when Ada had barely been in the castle for six hours, was disconcerting. Oriane’s chambers were so far removed from this level and this wing that she would have had to sense something in the air to make the trek up here.

Another problem for another day.

I looked to Ada. “I apologize for her outburst. She does not exactly adhere to common decency in her interactions.” I motioned down the stairs. “Shall we?”

Ada nodded, not looking the least flustered by Oriane’s interruption. Interesting. A witch like Oriane shrieking about death should have tweaked out a bit of discomfort in Ada. But she looked completely unperturbed. Triaten had claimed he hadn’t told Ada much of me or the castle.

A lie from him?

Charlotte had surely told Triaten about Oriane, and he could have very well warned Ada about her.

Either that, or Ada was quite good at producing a veneer of calm.

We started walking down the stairs and next to me, Ada pointed over her shoulder. “Who exactly was that?”

“Oriane.”

She nodded. “A relation to you?”

I shrugged. “Of sorts.”

“What does ‘of sorts’ mean? A grandmother? Or is she a distant relation?”

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