When I reached the door at the bottom, I found it ajar, and faint light was emanating from within. At least I wasn’t going to have to explore in the dark. I pulled the door open and stepped through.
The room beyond was—disappointingly—not a sex dungeon. It appeared to be a home office. Or perhaps a stuffy mancave. At the center of the room was a large, ancient-looking wooden table like the one where the royal advisers gathered in myThrones and Kingsfanfic. Three of the walls were lined with bookcases, interrupted occasionally by pedestals supporting more art pieces, and the final wall, no surprise, was floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the bay.
This room must be built right into the cliff itself, I thought, and sure enough, when I took a closer look at the wall opposite the window, I realized it was carved right out of the stone.
I glanced around for a phone, just in case, but I didn’t spot any means of calling for help. And there were certainly worse places to be temporarily imprisoned. The whole room gave me those sameshiveryvibes I’d been feeling all night. My body was telling me something about this place, but I still didn’t knowwhat.It wasn’t fear. Italmostfelt like excitement, but it was still too strange to analyze just yet.
I made a circle around the room. It wasn’t especially large, for a mansion this size, and the big table in the middle almost overwhelmed the space. Someone had burned a symbol into the very center of its surface—the same linked triangles and rose I’d seen on the invitation and the statue outside.
I perused the bookshelves next, wondering what sort of volumes billionaires collected. Business books, maybe. Or stuff about wealth management, or maybe travel guides for all sorts of exotic places I’d never see in my lifetime. If one of the brothers was a collector, there might be some valuable first editions of classic novels or something.
The first book I grabbed off the shelf was bound in red leather, and old enough that the binding was starting to come undone. It was alsothick, so I opened it with great care.
It appeared to be an old herbalist’s handbook. Each page featured a sketch and description of a plant and its uses, both medicinal and otherwise. It would have made an awesome resource for myThrones and Kingsfanfic, since one of my characters was a hedge witch. I made a mental note to ask Radven about it when he returned, but in the meantime, I intended to keep exploring.
The next book I grabbed randomly was slightly thinner and bound with brown leather that was so soft I made an involuntary sound of pleasure when I touched it. When I flipped it open, I discovered it was an old anatomy book. And when I say old, I mean that some of the diagrams were flat-outwrong, and there was a whole section devoted to bodily humors. I flipped ahead, but when I got to the creepy drawings of half-dissected corpses, I slammed it shut and shoved it back on the shelf.
Exactly the sort of book a serial killer might enjoy, I mused. That was enough reading for the moment.
I turned away from the bookshelf and stepped toward the nearest pedestal. The pedestal held a unique artifact beneath a dome of glass, and at first glance it looked like some sort of metal spider the size of a dinner plate.
Rich people have weird taste in art, I thought, stepping closer. Upon closer inspection, the “spider” had only five appendages, and it looked more like a starfish with a round central body. The whole piece appeared to be crafted of a brushed gold—or maybe bronze?—and there was a pattern etched on the back of the “body.”
Tingles raced across my scalp and down my spine, and I found myself drawn closer, almost against my will. Something about that pattern looked familiar, but I couldn’t place where I’d seen it before.
Footsteps on the stairs outside snapped me back to the present. Was Radven coming back for me already?
I straightened, stepping away from the artifact so he wouldn’t think I was snooping—not that he had any right to complain, given he’d thrown me down here without any sort of explanation.
But the man who stepped through the door wasnotmy captor.
He wasn’t as large and broad as Octavian, nor as lithe and athletic as Radven, but somewhere in between—and there was a stateliness to him, apresencethat filled the entire room from the moment he stepped inside.
He didn’t notice me. Apparently, he wasn’t expecting anyone else to be here. He strode across the room with brutal purpose, and I involuntarily drew back, afraid to even breathe. At first glance, his suit appeared to be crafted of black velvet, but when he passed the light I could see that it was in fact a deep eggplant. His mask was almost iridescent, changing colors as he passed between the shadows and light, but it wasn’t the colors that made my throat clench.
The mask was shaped like a dragon.
7
The Dragon
AlastorCrestwood.
I couldn’t say what it was about this brother that felt so different from the other two, but it made my mouth go dry.
There was something intimidating about the way he moved, and I glanced toward the door, wondering if it was possible to sneak out without drawing his attention. It wasn’t thebestplan, but maybe I could hang out on the stairs until Radven returned and explained the situation to his terrifying brother.
Alastor crossed the room, pausing only to slide his arms out of his velvet jacket and throw it over one of the chairs at the table. He undid the buttons of his shirt next, letting it fall open as he went over to a bookshelf in the far corner. There he reached up and pulled a nondescript book from the top shelf.
Except it wasn’t a book at all. When he flipped it open, I could see that the pages had been carved out to form a compartment inside. Whatever it held was hidden from my view, but Alastor stared down at it for a long moment, then reached inside to stroke it gently, even tenderly.
As curious as I was, this was a clear sign that I needed to get out of here before he noticed me. The last thing I wanted was for this terrifying guy to think I was intentionally intruding on some private moment. And with his back to me, I wasn’t going to get a better chance to make my escape to the stairwell.
I tried to be sneaky. But I only made it about two steps before Alastor whipped around, his dark eyes snapping right to me.
He was across the room in three large strides, and I found myself backed right up against the pillar with the weird metal starfish. I could feel itsshiverat my back.
“Who are you?” he demanded. “What are you doing here?”
