If she was in trouble.He was implying she had something to reproach herself for, a reason to fear the Inquisition’s judgment. Essentially calling her a bleakwitch! And he had the gall to suggest she’d whore herself out for a pardon she didn’t need.
“Please, listen! I understand you may be scared, and that what he’ll offer could seem like your only chance at redemption. I understand it, really, I do! This man is powerful, and so is the law he represents. Yet I beg of you to … to not consider … it.” Themas grasped her shoulders. “For your safety.”
The witch sneered at him. Oh, now he was worried about her safety? More likely, he meant his peace of mind. The knight wanted to be absolved of the guilt should she be unwillingly taken during the night. If he truly worried about her safety, he’d have rejected Inquisitor Velten’s order.
Yet he hadn’t. He still led her to his room. The hypocrite.
Her coven sisters had warned her about inquisitors. They had also warned her about the kind of men who would assist them, men like Sir Themas. She should have known better.
Semras shrugged him away and faced the door. Her glare stopped him in his tracks when he tried to open it for her. “Leave me be,knight.”
Dropping his arm slowly, Themas took a step back, then another, then turned on his heel and retreated into his room.
Her contemptuous stare followed him until he disappeared inside.
Semras turned the doorknob, breathed deeply, and entered the room of Inquisitor Velten.
Chapter 05
Atfirstglance,noone awaited her behind the door.
The dying flames of a fireplace bathed the room in an amber glow. A wide, empty canopy bed rested against the opposing wall, where a single nightgown waited for her on the thick blankets.
Semras narrowed her eyes. Where was he?
Her gaze swept the room, gliding over the furniture set against walls of white plaster—the chest at the bed’s feet, the tall mirror leaning against the dresser, the bathtub beneath the window. Lit candles here and there created pockets of soft, flickering light fighting back against the window’s encroaching moonlight.
In the night’s silence, the scratching of a quill betrayed the inquisitor’s presence somewhere to her left.
Semras turned her head stiffly, numb fingers curling against the air, as if chasing threads of the Arras to drape herself within.
Hunched over a desk covered with scattered paperwork, Inquisitor Velten sat in the corner of the room. A fine meal, discarded or forgotten midway, rested upon a silver plate to hisright, illuminated by dozens of candles gathered all over the desk.
“To bed, witch,” Inquisitor Velten ordered idly, still focused on whatever paperwork was so important to fill out at such a late hour. His quill pen scratched the file beneath his eyes rhythmically. “Now.”
He signed his letter’s closing with a flourish. Glistening under the candlelight, the fat strokes of carbon black ink revealed his full name to her: Inquisitor Estevan Velten.
A dead man’s name if his words implied what she thought they did.
“I. Beg. Your pardon,” Semras said, jaw clenched.
Throwing his elbow over the chair, the inquisitor glanced at her. Deep shadows cast his tired eyes into a morose expression. “I said, ‘To bed, witch.’ We are leaving an hour past dawn tomorrow. Or are we ‘today’ yet?”
“Tell me which bed you speak of exactly. I see none here other than your own, and itwon’tbe that one,” Semras said, sneering. She’d maim him before he even dreamt of touching her.
“Yet it will be,” he replied without a shred of shame. “Now, be a good witch, and go lie down.”
The bastard.
“Agood witch,” she said, chin lifted, “would sleep in the forest where she belongs. You’re full of brilliant suggestions today, Inquisitor Velten. I’ll go outside and weave myself a shelter at once.”
He cocked an eyebrow at her declaration. “You will waste an entire night’s rest by the time you are done, and it will only exhaust you more. Do not be unreasonable.”
“It might not. What do you know of these things?”
“A great deal, if I must confess. Itwill.”
They stared each other down. Her eyes blazed with scorn; arrogance brightened his own.
