My “father,” which still felt totally foreign and weird to say, was suddenly protective?
Brayden stood, pulling on his t-shirt, and answered the door. “She’ll be right out for training,” Brayden announced.
My heart hammered in my chest at the fact that Artemis knew I was in this room sleeping with Brayden. I mean we hadn’t had sex or anything, but… it was weird.
“And the room situation?” Artemis pressed him, causing my cheeks to burn with shame. “I will gladly take the couch and she can have my bed.”
Holy crap. He was totally blocking me from hooking up. This was mortifying.
“Yes, sir,” Brayden replied, a dejected sound in his voice.
Kill me now.
I slipped out of bed and pushed past Brayden. My cheeks had to be the same shade of red as a tomato. “See you later,” I mumbled to him and stumbled into the bathroom across the hallway.
After finding a fresh toothbrush and a set of clothes, I changed and got ready for training.
Artemis was waiting for me outside, sitting in a wicker high-backed chair and reading a book.
“Whatcha reading?” I asked, wondering what the Elder Fae read for fun.
“History of the Wild Hunt, Volume Three,” he said, closing the book and placing it on the ground. “I’m taking notes on all the weaknesses Novus has so that we can kill him when the time comes.”
I thought back to the man-like creature we’d seen last night and shivered. I was pretty sure the dude didn’t have a weakness, but I was glad someone was doing their research.
“Do you know anything about what Lora’s weaknesses are? Because I’m going to kill her too.”
He chuckled. “To find a weakness within Lora would be to find a weakness within the rest of the Fae Lords’ magic.”
“What do you mean? Are they connected?” Had the lesson started? It kind of felt like it had.
He nodded. “Lora is the most powerful, and is imbued with extra abilities through the remaining Fae Lords. Killing Mace will have weakened her a little, but not much. And don’t forget if you kill her, you will be killed by the curse that protects her life.”
“How?” I stepped closer to him. “How does that curse work? Can I break it? Because if I can, or maybeyoucan, then I can take her out.”
Artemis assessed me with an intellectual gaze. “Are you asking me for a lesson in curse breaking?”
Duh.
I looked at him blankly. “Yes.”
He reached up and stroked his chin in a comical way that said he was thinking. “Pull up a chair and then grab a pen and notebook from over there.” He pointed to a little journal with a pen on top that had been laid on the coffee table a few yards away.
Notes? He wanted me to takenotes? I needed to shoot fire out of my eyeballs or something in order to kill Lora, not take notes.
He snapped his fingers, indicating I hurry, and I jumped into action. I dragged the other chair over from the open grassy field and then grabbed the pen and notebook, sitting before him.
“A curse only lives as long as the curse maker,” he declared, and I jotted that down.
“So, kill Lora and every curse she’s ever done will die with her?” I said.
He touched his nose, with a small smile. “Precisely.”
I groaned. “Well, that’s stupid. Then I would die for killing her because she protected herself with that rebound killing curse!”
He nodded. “In a case that a curse is too powerful to break, you candissolvea curse.”
I perked up at that. “I thought that’s what we were talking about.”
