“What are we reading?” I ask.
“Master-level Potion Bases and Variations,” he says, tapping the book before flipping the page.
“Are you getting anywhere?” I ask.
He scrubs a hand down his face, motioning to where he tossed the last potion at my feet. “Not really.”
Which is the perfect opening for me to pull the egg from my pocket and rest it in the groove down the center of the opened book.
“Want a distraction?” I ask, realizing that I’ve curled my legs underneath me and begun to hug his arm.
He moves his arm to wrap around me, picking up the egg and turning it to inspect all angles.
“The lines aren’t random,” he muses, then jumps up so suddenly that I crash to the floor, thumping my head on the floorboards. I moan, which he ignores as he grabs paper and an ink pot.
“Quick, move,” he says, nudging my shoulder with his foot.
“I am moving quickly,” I mutter, sitting up, rubbing my head, and frowning at him.
Which he also ignores.
At least he isn’t telling me to pee in the corner like he did last time he fell into his ‘learning cool stuff and ignoring the world’ mindset. This Roarke is super-focused, and it’s all inside his head, taking no notice of what’s outside it as he sits down hard – on my hand.
I wince and pull it free from being squished, and I’d curse at him too if I wasn’t biting my lip.
He puts the stuff down slowly and turns towards me, focusing enough that some of that far-away look in his eyes dissolves.
“Sorry, Kitten,” he says, his dark eyes scanning over my body as if he knows something hurts, but not what.
I hold my hand up for him.
“Not a cushion,” I say, pointing at it.
He quirks a soft smile, takes my hand, and gently kisses my knuckles.
“I didn’t see it.”
“I don’t think you were looking. I could have held your quill pointy end up, and you would have sat on the thing.”
He grimaces. “Please don’t.”
Which makes him look… adorable. Yes, that’s exactly what Roarke is. Adorable.
“What was so important, anyway?” I ask.
“Watch,” he says, dropping my hand so he can scoot closer to me.
He pours a puddle of ink onto one piece of paper then rolls the egg into it. The ink goes everywhere, leaking off the edges of the page and into the wood grain of the floor. My beautiful egg is stained before I can gasp.
Not that he seems to notice as he shoves the inky page away and pulls a fresh one over. With the egg between his thumb and forefinger, he rolls it across the white surface – leaving behind a print.
Wings.
The egg has the exact same pattern as the blood on the rock. Much, much smaller, but the same curves, detail, feathers, everything.
For half a beat I just stare at the beauty of the design, then I come to my senses and snatch the egg off of him. Wiping it on the leg of the pants he’s wearing, because he made the mess.
“I think you were right about the wings,” he says, not objecting to the growing stain.
“I’m always right,” I mutter, relieved that the ink is coming off but still annoyed that he almost stained the thing in the first place. “So the thing got covered in her blood while it was open, hit the rock or something, then closed itself?”
He stiffens, then snatches the egg off me, eyes wide – looks like I’m right again.
“I think this was inside her.”
“It’s her heart?” I gasp because it was in my pocket and that’s gross.
“No. I think it was in her chest, though. I didn’t double-check for her actual heart, but it’s probably still in there. This thing just burst out when she died, ripping her chest into a mess and shredding everything around it.”
“Like a parasite?”
He shakes his head sharply. “No. I doubt it was doing anything other than hiding. There’s nothing about it in her notes, so she might not have even known it was there.”
It’s my turn to snatch, and I grab for the egg as fast as I can. And miss, because he’s faster. Chuckling softly, he offers it to me.
It’s cold in my fingers, but aside from the pattern and the wings, there are no other hints as to what it is. At least not to me. It could be a bird or a bat or some random Silvari creature.
“Is it a dragon egg?”
“No, they’re impossible to carry.”
“What could it be, then?”
He tilts his head to the side, thinking, his gaze focused and the soft smile still on his lips. “I don’t know,” he says, threading his fingers through my hair and resting his palm against the back of my neck. “And we’ve got more important things to research right now.”
I’ve kind of lost focus on what he’s saying, the warmth of his skin against mine shifting from normal into a slow sizzle.
With a little pressure on my neck, he turns me to look at him, then leans forward to rest his forehead against mine.
“You are more important,” he says.
Killian stomps loudly off the staircase, clearing his throat for added effect.
I startle, but Roarke doesn’t, straightening slowly but not letting go of me – which means Roarke probably sensed Killian was coming.
“Now,” the Darkness guy grunts.
“Huh?” I manage, entranced by the soft glow of emotion still in Roarke’s expression.
Killian grabs my arm and yanks me so hard that I stumble over Roarke’s books, and the egg drops to the ground. Roarke just points to it, smiling up at me.
“I’ll keep it safe.”
“Lose it and you die,” I shout.
I don’t get a chance to reinforce my threat since Killian manhandles me down to the next landing.
“Wait,” I demand, pulling free from him.
He glares at me, but otherwise waits.
“Toilet?” I start by asking, folding my arms over my chest and hoping he realizes that it’s not really a question at all.
He
