“Hmm, I can’t choose. I like them all. Why are there so many guards and sentries?”
“The Children of the Harbinger and your Barbie Doll Ken friend Silas Boon were after you. More than likely are still after you. If you could take one drink, and one drink only, with you to a deserted island, which would it be?”
“Bergamot Tea…oh, and honey too if that’s allowed. Why are parts of the Keep locked off from me? You said I could wander anywhere.”
“You can wander anywhere, just not my family’s quarters or places where you’ll be fucking tempted to steal a weapon. Honey would be allowed. I know you’re fond of a teaspoon of honey with your tea. What’s your favorite song?”
“Set Me Free by House Boulevard.”It wasn’t my favorite song, but he didn’t need to know that, and by the tic in his jaw, I’d struck hard.“How did this tower get infused with wild magic?”
“I’ll tell you if you kiss me.”
“Fuck you, Crowther!”
“Is that an offer?”
As I rounded a weeping willow, ducking beneath its moisture-slick fronds, despair trembled along my bones with a melancholy note. The Crowthers’ estate was truly set up like a fortress, and the Keep was thick with sentries patrolling its hallways and soldiers on the parapets. Now that Silas Boon’s intentions were known, everyone was on high alert. Unfortunately, it meant the soldiers’ domain was as heavily protected as Fort Knox. I’d tried sneaking in, even cajoling Penn, but there was still no way past the guards posted outside.
Discovering Zrenyth’s Mites meant nothing if I couldn’t get anywhere near the Crowthers’ armory.
A glance upward at the dirty wash of sky peeking through the canopy told me dawn was swiftly approaching. I needed to get back to the tower before Graysen returned from the garage and vanished again for whatever the hells he was up to during the day.
I picked up my pace, weaving through the savage, gnarled forest, far more sinister than the airy woodland back home. Half-bending beneath a curtain of Spanish moss, I glimpsed a small cottage tucked in a clearing with roses climbing its sagging porch, dust clouding its windows. Curiosity tugged at me, slowing my steps.
Sage gave a halfhearted bark, as if reminding me I was wasting time even looking. He was right. Pale light was now threading through the trees, bleeding into the forest’s deep greens and earthy browns. I needed to push on. Whatever story the abandoned place held would have to wait.
Not long after, we broke through the treeline and plunged straight into the greenery of Tabitha’s shared gardens, jogging along the stone paths. By the time I reached the eastern gate, my legs burned. I slowed to catch my breath, Sage bounding besideme. The yellow glow of my flashlight slid over the dangerous spikes of the portcullis and the dark walls beyond.
The inner courtyard was waking, not with birdsong, but with voices and scraping footfalls as servants and soldiers filed out for morning drills. Everyone trained here. Everyone was deadly. I’d learned that the hard way with Penn.
They jogged on the spot, rotating arms and hips, some heading out through the gateways and casting curious glances my way. A few soldiers frowned. Not everyone liked me wandering the Keep alone. But Graysen kept up the pretense that he had me under control, and I played along—shoulders shrinking inward, keeping my timid gaze averted as if I were afraid.
I felt him before I saw him, that incessant prickling feeling whispering to me he was nearby. I glanced sideways to see Graysen saunter down the steps from one of the Keep’s inner entrances, wiping the grease from the creases in his palms with a soft cloth before he shoved it into a pocket of his dirty overalls. His expression was impassive and cold when it fell on me, and I picked up my pace, hurrying toward the lofty tower, darting a terrified glance over my shoulder as he leisurely stalked the space, a cruel slant to his mouth.
The smell of grease pinched my nostrils as his heavy footsteps thudded upon the tower’s spiral staircase behind. I rushed up, round and round and round, the flickering wildfyre flames still burning in sconces whereupon they’d be extinguished when the sun rose fully. There was only one room at the very top. I didn’t know why the rest of the tower wasn’t carved out with further chambers. It seemed a waste of space to me.
I made it to the top landing just as Graysen finished barreling up the staircase with his excessive speed.
Our gazes slid to one another. Mine narrowed. “Morning,” I spat, with a churlish tone.
“Morning,” he replied with a warm smile, ignoring my snarkiness. The menacing expression he’d worn down at the inner courtyard had been wiped from his features. Now Graysen just looked like him, the guy who lived with me up in the tower. A guy who had returned from a night shift of fixing cars, exactly how I’d imagined at the cottage by the lake—him a mechanic and me working at a diner.
After being in his company for the last week, I knew his routine. He’d shower off the dirt and grease, and then climb into his armor and join in the drills going on down below in the training pit, teaching new defense moves to the servants or assisting with sparring practice and weaponry, before he headed off the estate for the day.
There’d been a change in him too. Ever since my first excursion to the library, he carried himself differently. He was still his confident, cocky self, but there was an ease about him and some other feeling suffusing his carriage. It was similar to the way you’d step out of home, greeting blue skies but feeling the air tremble against your skin as if a storm was brewing beyond the horizon. You couldn’t see it, nor know from what direction it would come, but you accepted that change was on its way and were eager to see the clear sky torn to shreds by wrathful black clouds.
I couldn’t figure out what was going on with him and what he was up to, but I knew there was something. Graysen Crowther always had an agenda.
Before I could open the door, Graysen got there first, turning the handle and standing aside to allow me to enter first before following inside and ducking into the bathroom. I went straight for the kitchen, switching off the flashlight and tossing it onto the couch as I strode past. I carefully placed the canvas bags on the granite counter, making sure the one that wriggled wasn’tgoing to fall off, and then I quickly got to work while Graysen was in the shower.
It took only a few minutes. I’d done the same thing yesterday morning, and the residue usually took a day or so to show its effects. All I was doing was giving it a helping hand by reapplying a second coating. I discarded the crushed and bruised leaves and the gardening gloves in the trash bin before beginning my second just-as-spiteful-as-the-first plan. Pulling out the silver kettle, I filled it with water and pressed down the switch to start it boiling.
Sage cocked his head in curiosity, watching as I claimed a coffee mug and the salt shaker from a shelf. I unscrewed the shaker’s lid and dipped a teaspoon inside to collect the white grains carefully, sprinkling them into the mug. I heard the telltale sound of the shower being turned off. Hurrying to the bookshelf, I snatched up a car magazine and swiped my finger along the edge of a single glossy page. Heat and pain flared from the paper-cut, and a fat crimson bead burst from the ruptured skin. Sliding the magazine back into place, I moved back to the kitchen and let three droplets of blood splash into the cup, tinting the salt pink.
The shrill sound of the kettle boiling pierced the air as Graysen swaggered out of the bathroom with a towel loosely wrapped around his hips and hung so low that delicious masculine vee was on show along with the smattering of dark hair. As he strode to his makeshift wardrobe, his gaze flicked to me, lingering on my mouth. Dark sensuality lowered his eyelids in hunger.
A look he didn’t even bother hiding.
His craving surrounded us both the last few days, thickening the air like a bonfire catching and smoke spilling out with rolling heat. It would be so easy to step inside the raging flames and let myself burn. And for a moment, a mindless hum crept up my throat as I briefly closed my eyes. His sensual starewhispered over my lips, evoking memories of steam-damp skin sliding together when our bodies had entwined. Ever since the bathroom escapade, he’d been thinking about our kiss, and I’d been thinking about it too. The way his demanding lips had moved over mine while his brutal hands roamed as much as mine had done. Both of us at war, wanting to dominate the other with slashes of red poetry, biting teeth, and clashing tongues that spoke more of our truth than we were willing to say aloud.
