Fire ripped through Grace. “Stop talking about me like I’m not here. I’m a Key, damn it, and that means something even in your fucked up little world.”
Dayne’s eyebrows rose. “She’s got a mouth on her.”
“For now,” Terre said, stepping up next to his brother. “I may cut her tongue out. She’ll only need it long enough to give me the information I want. Then she’s useless until we find the other Keys.”
Dayne winced. “Can you imagine living without a tongue? Pizza would be a thing of the past.”
Now they were joking about her?
Terre laughed. “Stop looking so angry. We’re just messing with you. If I cut out your tongue, which probably will happen, by the way, then you can heal yourself and grow a new one.”
If she had those skills. She still didn’t know if she could actually heal herself. More importantly, they hadn’t answered her about Adare. She couldn’t do this life without him.
Nowshe realized she loved him?
Terre palmed the glass. “I think we scared her too much. She just turned stark white.” He patted the glass. “Relax, Key. You’re immortal now and will probably survive anything we do to you. You might not want to, but you will.”
“All right.” She put her hands on her hips, faking bravado. “Enough with the threats. Why don’t we just exchange information?”
Dayne pursed his lips. “Interesting. Okay. Where are the other Keys?”
“I have no clue. Where’s Ulric? Is he back?”
Dayne sighed. “No cluedoesn’t help me, and I’m sure you’re lying, anyway. Besides, we wouldn’t want to deprive Terre of his plans, would we? He’s definitely earned some fun time after pretending to be human all this while.” His chin lowered. “Now. I’m not going to ask you again. Show me the Key marking.”
“No.” Her voice shook, but she held her ground.
Seeing a Kurjan roll his eyes was an experience she never wanted to have again. Dayne reached to the wall on the side of the glass, pushed something, and an electrical current ran through the floor. Just enough to make her yelp and jump up. She turned to see Benny still not moving.
Dayne returned. “That was a tickle. The next one will shock you to the roots of your hair, and who knows what it’ll do to him.”
“Fine.” She jerked her shirt to the side, revealing the perfect mark of a key between her heart and her collar bone.
Dayne’s nostrils flared. “Excellent.” He turned to his brother. “We have work to do. Meet me in the war room in fifteen minutes.” He turned on his combat boot and strode away, hands still in his pockets.
Grace swallowed. “Your brother is the leader of the entire Kurjan nation?”
Terre nodded. “Yep. I’m the spare.” He grinned and his fangs were partially revealed.
They’d been friends once. Could she get through to him? Or had it all been a game? “I really liked you as Brian. Was there any of the real you in there?”
“You didn’t like me that much,” Terre said. “We went out a few times, hung out a lot, and I still couldn’t get you naked.”
Oh, thank God. She hadn’t wanted to ask, because she hadn’t wanted to know. “We didn’t sleep together?”
“No. I lied about us living together, too. We didn’t.” He shook his head. “For an artistic type, you were surprisingly prudish.”
“More likely my instincts were on track, even if I didn’t realize it.” She breathed out, eyeing the floor. Where did the electricity come from? Would there be a way to somehow divert it to the door? “Was any of it real? Any of our friendship?”
He rubbed his smooth chin. “Sure. It was fun playing human for a while, and you were a challenge.” He stepped away from the glass. “Not enough to keep me from extracting information from you now, however.”
“Hey. I’m happy to tell you anything you want,” she said. It wasn’t as if she had any classified information or knew anything that they didn’t, apparently.
“How will I know you’re not lying?”
She drew in air. He was playing with her like a cat with a goldfish, and she was done being agreeable. “Didn’t your brother order you to a war room? You should probably obey him.” She put her back to him and leaned down, checking on Benny to make sure he was breathing.
Terre laughed. “I’ll send food down to you. You’ll want to keep your energy up.”
