I stared up at him.
All thought of how he’d looked and how he hadn’t looked, and even what we’d just done, and all the questions swirling in my mind about everything I’d felt on him, entirely left my head. My jaw loosened as I stared back at him.
I think I actually gaped at him.
“Myboyfriend?”I let out an involuntary laugh, but I’m not sure there was much humor in it. Some part of my sluggish mind finally caught up well enough to be genuinely incredulous. “You, of all people, believe the tosh going around that Alaric Greythorne is myboyfriend?”
“Isn’t he?”
“Absolutelynot,”I scoffed. “Gods. I thought you knew him?”
“Idoknow him,” he said, a touch colder.
“Then you should know he’d be a lot more likely to try and shag you than he would me,” I retorted. “Alaric doesn’t evenlikewomen. Not like that, not really––”
That time, it was Bones who let out an involuntary laugh.
“Isthatwhat he told you?” He lifted an eyebrow, staring down at me cynically. “Wings of Hermes, are you really so precious, Shadow? Alaric will put a leg over anything that stands still long enough.”
When I only scowled back, he studied my eyes.
“I don’t know why he would tell you such an outrageous lie,” he added, colder. “Unless he likes you a lot more than I realized. Have the two of you really not fucked yet? If so, he’s playing a longer game than usual. Maybe he’s hoping to convince you that he’s so enamored of you, you’ve made him crave pussy after a lifetime dedicated to cock.”
I flinched at his words, then glared up at him.
“He didn’t need totellme anything,” I said, annoyed. “I have eyes. Not to mention, we talked a lot, including about his love interests,andhis past relationships, and I noticed just how few of them were witches. We’refriends.Maybe that concept is entirely foreign to you, Bones, but some of us actually knowhowto be friends with the opposite sex. I never got theremotest inklinghe saw me as anything other than a good mate. If he toldyou he did, or hinted there was something going on between us, then I’m afraidyou’rethe one who got played.”
There was a silence after I spoke.
Bones hadn’t let go of me, I realized, and I hadn’t let go of him. My fingers still clutched his hair with one hand, and his fingers with the other. His other hand still wrapped around my side. He looked down at me, and the dark green shirt I wore, then met my gaze.
“You’re really not with him?” he asked.
I rolled my eyes. “No. Emphatically not.”
“And Joran?” he asked, his voice a touch harder. “Are you with him now?”
I stared at him, my incredulity turning rapidly to anger.
“Are you seriously grilling me about other mages?” I snapped. “When you’veliterallyslept with half the witches in the school?”
He blinked at me, as if startled by my words. He opened his mouth, as if to respond, but I cut him off before he could. I could admit to myself fully that I in no way wanted to hear him respond to any part of that. I really, really didn’t.
“You seriously aren’t going to tell me if Alaric is okay?” I asked, not hiding my resentment. “Or who has him? Or why they took him? Are you really such a maddeningly stubborngitthat you won’t ease my mind about someone I obviously care about? Whoyouobviously care about?”
There was a silence while he stared back at me.
In it, his eyes went briefly blank. I saw him thinking then, and frustration mixed with anger flashed in his expression, right before he exhaled an annoyed breath.
“His father has him,” he said. “You already know who has him, Shadow.”
“But what does that mean?” I asked, exasperated. “Is he okay? How far would his father go? How far would DarkCathedralmakehim go? Is Alaric in real danger? And if he is, is there anything we can do about it? Do you know any way to help him?”
Bones fell silent, but the look in his eyes changed.
When he still didn’t speak, I gripped his fingers more tightly.
“Why did they take him?” I demanded. “Why now? Do you know?”
