I don’t look up, but I’m faintly aware of the look Damien passes to his brother.
“Gravier took him earlier today,” Damien finally says.
And I swear my heart stops dead in my chest.
My fucking father sat at lunch with me today.
All while these men grew sicker and sicker.
And the king plotted Ryke’s punishment.
Or possibly, his death.
6
Ryke’s Handler
Aries
My hands slam down on the long table, and the asshole seated across from me is not the one I want to take my anger out on, but he’s the only one available at this late hour.
“Where the fuck is he?” I demand so loudly that the other men milling about flinch away from me and my temper tantrum.
“Easy A. You know if I knew, I’d tell you,” Sev says with such a shit-eating smile, I don’t believe him for a single fucking second.
“Easy A?” Krave repeats with a glare toward the Shadow Guard leaned back in his chair, his dirty boots kicked up on the paperwork littering the tabletop. “My apologies, who the fuck are you again?” Krave asks with all kindness but blatantly repressed hostility.
The other dozen or so men dressed in all black keep pretending to work on their files and their cases, but I’m very much aware that they’re listening to every word passed within their range of hearing. It’s their job, after all. They’re alert. They’re good at going unseen. And they’re ruthless at getting information. And that’s how I know that Sev knows.
“Tell me,” I grind out, my teeth clenching so hard, my molars shoot a pain deep into my jaw.
“No,” Sev says with a lift of his dark eyebrows. “Don’t think that after three fucking years of radio silence you can prance in here with the king’s pet on your leash and think for a single godsdamn second that I’ll sayanything.” His smile fades. “Your recklessness used to be inspiring. Now it’s just dangerous. Get out. Before you fuck us all, like you did back in the necropolis the night you left.”
There’s a deadness in his eyes. That boyish charm of his is gone entirely, and for a moment, I don’t know what to say to him.
But thankfully, someone else does.
“Get your dick out of your ass, and stop being a cunt to her.” A small woman with long glossy red hair stops to look up from her manila folder. Her shifting gaze searches me like she’s reading a book. “Gravier took the largest demon from the dungeon to gift him to his niece. He’s too much of a racist fucker to realize it’s the one he accused of killing his son. Bet they all look the same to him, you know?” She cocks a sharp eyebrow at me, and I can tell she’s still trying to decide if I’m trustworthy or not.
I wonder if that’s why she said what she did in such a harsh way. Or maybe that’s her normal speaking voice...
“Thank you,” I say, while my heart drops through my stomach.
He gave Ryke to Pen. Pen owns Ryke. Ryke’s hers. And no matter how differently I say it, each time, it stabs through me over and over again.
He’s bound to her.
I swallow hard.
“He was standing watch outside her bedroom door on the second floor just ten minutes ago,” the pretty redhead adds as she knocks over a towering stack of papers to the floor. They flit around at her feet and I’m stunned to see Sev rushing to pick up after her. Her eyes close slowly with a breath pushing from her lips as if she isn’t as put together as she seems on the surface.
I nod and turn toward the door.
“Be careful, Princess,” she says on a rush. “He’s a new one. They’ll test him, you know?” Her head tilts low like she’s back to reading her assignment, but I know she’s still aware of me.
I was once the only female in the entire Shadow Guard. And now she is.
It’s hard being surrounded by men twice your size while trying to carry your own.
