“What did you just say?” I demand, unable to stop myself because it’s just so insane.
Doubt and mystification move through his features like a tidal wave as he eyes me more critically. His assessing silver gaze flits over my hair and my eyes like he’s confirming what’s in front of him, but when his measuring stare falls on my freckles, on the constellation of sun spots that speckle my nose and upper cheeks, he pauses.
I see the moment that another realization dawns in Verus’s eyes. I wish more than anything that I knew what it was, because his face crumples in sympathetic horror, and his pupils blow out so big and so fast that they drown even the smallest hint of silver in his now alarmed gaze.
I step closer to him, menace radiating from every pore. “Who the fuck am I?”
“You’re dead,” he answers hauntingly, and I rear back as though he just landed a hit. “We…we looked for you, but you died before—”
“Who am I!” I shout at him, closing the distance so I can tear the truth out of him with my bare hands.
He shakes his head, terror and torment in each jerky move, and then suddenly they’re gone and all that’s left is steely resignation. He whispers something I can’t hear over the fury pounding in my head, and then out of nowhere, the iron dagger I left lodged in the arm of the chair, is lifted by some invisible force. It hovers in the air for a beat before it suddenly goes flying.
I barely have time to react as strong arms wrap around me and pull me back. Powerful, thick, muscular bodies move to protect me, but it’s notmethe blade is aiming for.
I watch with impotent horror as the iron blade sinks deep into Verus’s throat. He lurches forward with shock, and blood blooms violently around the hilt of the dagger, pouring down his throat and chest like a river that’s broken its dam.
“No!” I scream as I struggle to break free of the Scorpions holding me back. “Who am I? Where do I come from?” I snarl as Verus’s lids droop and his body sags.
His mouth moves as though the whinnip root is working even during death, but there’s no sound, and I can’t tell what he’s saying.
“You fucking coward!” I screech at the dying fae, who would rather kill himself than tell me the truth, than help me.
I fight against the Scorpions, needing to break free, but they pin me between them despite my efforts.
“You will rot,” I vow to Verus as I’m forced to witness his life bleeding away in steady streams down his torso and onto the floor. “I will hunt your fucking clan and make them pay for this!” I seethe, but Verus’s body hunches forward, the only thing keeping him from falling out of the contraption altogether is the bindings that are still secured tightly around him.
“What the fuck?” I snap at the Scorpions, pushing them away more easily now that the damage is done and the bastard’s dead. “I could have stopped it,” I yell at them. “I could have tried to heal him,” I argue, but three angry stares are having none of my shit.
“He was an impel, Auset. Their thura allows them to move objects with nothing more than a thought. They’re dangerous until they’re dead. It wasn’t worth the fucking risk,” Curio contends.
“We’re lucky that wasn’t worse,” Tarek observes as he assesses Verus’s dead body and the table off to the side where his weapons have been laid out since we began questioning him. “He could have cut us down at any moment. Judging by the force he used to end his own life, he wasn’t a weak impel either.”
“No wonder the fuck was so arrogant,” Curio scoffs. “We would have never seen that kind of power coming until it was too late.”
Riall shakes his head as he scans the macabre scene. “You didn’t sense his thura?”
“No,” Tarek admits. “But it’s because I’m a daft fuck. I didn’t sense any thura from Auset either when we first met. I should have realized that he might have the same ability to cloak it that she does. It didn’t even cross my mind until now. Fuck, that was close!” he barks as he runs his fingers through his knotted hair, loosing dark black strands around his face as he goes.
“Shit. I’m sorry, none of this went how I thought it would. You three make this look way easier than it is,” I confess with an angry huff.
I’m reeling with fury. I know this wasn’t their fault, technically it’s mine. But I’m pissed. So much went wrong, and I don’t know if we have enough to go on. Pulling a dagger from my leathers, I stride over to Verus and cut his wrist. I swoop a finger through the small amount of blood that wells there and stride back to Riall.
“Taste this. Maybe it will give us a clue.”
He wraps his lush lips around my finger and sucks off the blood. I’m too upset to feel turned on by it, although an outlet for all the pent up rage I’m feeling right now isn’t the worst idea.
Riall tilts his head in thought as he swallows Verus’s blood. I collect my own sample, careful to avoid anything that could be tainted by iron from the dagger still lodged in his throat. I shove my finger in my mouth, and a little zing sparks through me. It’s on a smaller scale from what I’ve experienced drinking from Gartox, and nothing compared to how I feel when I drink from Riall.
“There’s a foundation in the blood that’s somewhat similar,” Riall observes, his eyes far away as he formulates his response. “I picture a harvest moon on a crisp night. Something piney with a hint of rich soil. It’s like a misty forest is where he’s spent most of his time, and the notes of it are steeped in his essence. You have that cool night under a full moon too, Beasty, but layered on top of that, I taste the dry heat of a three quarter moon rising over shadowy sand dunes. You have a sweeter flavor too, like honey made from moonflowers and night-blooming jasmine. There’s a hint of salt mixed in with your sweetness. A sharp little tang that amplifies the flavor even more.”
I stare at Riall, my eyebrows almost to my hairline with shock.
“You can get all of that frommyblood?” I ask, astounded.
I smack my tongue against the roof of my mouth as though that will activate all the things he just found in Verus’s small sample, but all I can really identify is that I like Riall’s blood better than whatever was flowing in Verus’s veins.
“I only feel a little power surge,” I confess, feeling slightly disappointed. “Where’s all the moon stuff? And how do you even know what athree quarter moon rising over shadowy sand dunestastes like?”
