I nearly chuckled. This monster was slowly taking shape. With each sketch and letter on the desk, he was looking more human. And quite well traveled, judging by all the photographs and postcards littering the desk. In my hands was the evidence of an exciting life, and somehow, it made me curious. I dug deeper into the papers, but no sign of maps or any notes on the ley lines. Maybe in the drawers?
I pulled on the first drawer and scoffed. Locked.
Maybe if I pulled harder?
Nothing.
Irked, I crossed my arms at my chest and looked around. A sudden realization turned my blood into ice.
The music died mid-note, leaving behind a silence so sharp it pricked the back of my neck.
The candles flickered, and the air around me shifted. Before I could react, there was a hand around my neck, large enough to crush my windpipe in a single move. A human hand, not a monster’s, with long elegant fingers—the fingers that had sketched all those pictures before me. It was the opposite of the cold, clinical touch of Vexley or the fists of Arthur; it was warm, the calloused fingers lingering on my skin like a warning. The monster pulled me in and pressed my back against a hard plane of muscle, holding me tight enough not to run but not hurting me. My heart was beating so loud that I was sure he’d hear. I clawed at his grip, my mind racing—how had he arrived so fast? My hand reached for the letter-opening knife a few inches away.
“I’d advise against that.” His voice was deep and warm but sounded detached. Bored. Unlike anything you’d expected from a frenzied demon. I swallowed hard.
“You startled me,” I choked.
“Did I?” Strands of hair so dark it nearly looked indigo tickled my bare shoulders. His voice wasn’t loud. He didn’t need it to be. There was something far more unsettling in his quiet composure, in the way he simply held me like he had all the time in the world to pick apart my presence here. He knew perfectly well that I was at his mercy now.
I straightened, forcing the tremor from my limbs. “I was just looking.”
“Is that so?” His face was behind me, but I could swear he was smiling.
“I,” I stuttered, my fingers clawing at his steely grip, “I was just—”
“Looking.” He finished for me. “So tell me, little thief, what exactly were you hoping to steal?”
Then, he let me go. Instinct propelled me to the door, but it swung shut before my face as if moved by an invisible hand. My momentum and the slippery stone underneath my bare feet made me skid, and I crashed against the wood. My nails dug into the surface, and I slowly turned around, blinking. Something hot trickled down my face.
“You’re bleeding,” he stated cooly. He was tall, still holding the violin’s bow. His shirt was dark, unbuttoned at the throat, his hair slightly tousled—as if he had been alone here for hours, immersed in something only he understood.
He watched me for a long, unreadable moment—then smiled as if already weary of my lies.
“Who sent you here?” he asked again, softer this time. More dangerous.
A single step, soundless, predatory, brought him closer. His frame was lean but strong—a strength that didn’t need to be flaunted. And his face…
Now I understood what the Renegade meant about ladies who became… something else around him.
This was no monster’s face. He was beautiful, but so was the devil.
“Nobody,” I said, wiping the blood from my nose with the back of my hand. “I lost my way.”
When I blinked, he was at me, studying me under thick, dark eyelashes. His eyes flashed silvery-gray as if glowing with light of their own.
“I don’t believe in things lost,” he stated, tilting his head. “Just misplaced. So I’ll ask again: how did you end up here?”
My breath hitched.
He knew. Maybe not everything. Not yet. But enough. Enough to kill me.
I should have begged. I should have lied. Instead—for reasons I couldn’t name—I grinned at the devil and dared him to bite first.
I lifted my chin defiantly. “Who do you think sent me here?” I asked.
Daphne
The Hollowborn
