“Who? What?”
“I think I know who took Soraya,” I blurt, and then tell him everything. “If the seneschal is covering it up, then he has to be obeying Malechus’s instructions. But why would the Prince of the Blood Court kidnap my sister? How does the seneschal know?”
“You don’t think Malechus found her out?”
“Unless she made her move on her target and was caught….” I think about the rumpled sheets, the blood…. “No. She hadn’t made her move yet. She wouldn’t have returned to the room. She wouldn’t have left her locket in the room…. When she strikes, she’s always packed those belongings she wants to keep and spirited them away. She grabs them, runs, and she’s never seen again.”
Keir brushes a long pale curl behind my shoulder. He tugs at the chain around my throat, and the locket that’s hidden beneath my bodice spills free.
A crescent moon and three stars.
Soraya’s locket.
I hastily stuff it back inside my dress. I found it in my trunk along with all the other jewelry he’s had commissioned for me, but something made me put it on today. “I’m just keeping it safe for her.”
The amber heat in his eyes flares a myriad of colors. “Sometimes I don’t understand the relationship between the two of you.”
“That makes two of us,” I grumble, but he lets me tuck it away.
I hate the way he looks at me as if he sees right through me.
Grabbing a fistful of pretty pink skirts, I pace to the edge of the folly. “Malechus has to be our chief suspect. But what would he have done with her?”
“Dungeons?”
“I checked,” I admit. “It’s why I was late.”
“His rooms?”
“All feature glass windows,” I reply. “I wafted past them the second night and saw His Highness in bed with a blonde. He doesn’t have Soraya stashed beneath his bed.”
“She’s not dead,” he points out.
“Then why did he take her? What purpose does she serve?”
“Maybe she was discovered,” Keir points out, “and Malechus seeks to learn who sent her?”
Plausible. But again, there’s been no sign of her in any of the cellars I’ve found. All the usual places are devoid of stubborn wraiths.
“We know who took her,” Keir says with more gentleness than I’d expect. “We know the horn is in the maze. We just have to find the both of them.”
“What happens if the horn’s the easiest object to find?” And there it is. The question I’ve been trying not to think about.
Our eyes meet.
“I’m fairly certain if you find the horn first,” he drawls, “I’m not going to know about it until after you’ve rescued your sister.”
I can’t stop myself from wrapping my arms around me. Guilty. I shrug. “I’m the only one she has to watch her back.”
His voice roughens. “Would she do the same?”
I hate the fact I don’t have an answer to that question.
Keir sighs. “I’m trying to decide if I care. She did try to kill me.”
“If Soraya truly wanted to kill you, then you would be dead,” I point out.
“Not unless she knew what I was.” Keir captures a handful of my skirt, glancing down as he fingers the fine silk, rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger. “I’m not so easy to kill Mira. And if someone didn’t know what I was and caught me by surprise well… they’d only do it once.” He takes another step, his thighs pressing against my skirts. Slowly, his gaze lifts to mine. His voice is a dangerous thing. It whispers inside me, like the velvet stroke of a glove beneath my skin. “The only way someone gets a shot at me is if you told them the truth.”
Little lightning sparks shiver down my spine. The wall of the folly is against my back. Nearly seven foot of repressed dragon is staring down at me, his eyes gleaming like a shark’s. There’s nowhere to go. Nowhere that won’t out me as surely as if I suddenly flashed into being right in the middle of the lawn. Even from here, I can tell there are eyes upon us. Somehow, we’ve become the talk of the court, which was precisely what I’d hoped to avoid, and no doubt half the party is dying to know what he’s saying to me.
The dress clasps around my ribs. It was one of the few I could wriggle into without assistance, but it’s so tight that every breath betrays me. He notices too, his attention drawn down to the deep dip of the bodice in an utterly male fashion.
Stalemate.
“I haven’t told anyone you’re a dragon.” I hate the way he looks at me like that. “I wouldn’t.”
Instantly, the sounds from the garden vanish as if he’s warded us within an impenetrable bubble. All the better to keep our secrets. “I have to admit that I wondered whether you would or not.”
That earns him a glare. But to do so means I have to look up into his eyes. He’s so close I could touch him. So close I could kiss him. But fury itches through me. Is this truly what he thinks of me? That I would betray him like this?
“Is that why you didn’t insist I keep my mouth shut about our pact? You were testing me?” It never made sense.
Heat flares to life in his eyes. “Maybe.”
If he’s thrown down the gauntlet, then I don’t hesitate to pick it up. I poke a sharp nail into his chest. “I may have a sliding scale of morals in regards to the ownership of certain items, but I wouldn’t tell someone such an important secret. If the fae of these lands knew the truth, you would have no rest. Regardless of your intentions, all they would see would be war.”
The dragon kings were too powerful. Ancient spirits who were blessed into being by the goddess. In this world, where every fae prince measures his importance by the size of his dick, knowing
