“Yeah, I’m sure. This much incompetence can’t be faked.” Sariah nods to this Soren guy before turning her cerulean gaze back on me.
“We know many things, pretty boy.”
The male unwillingly obeys and proceeds to unclasp the chunky lock keeping the chains together. They fall with a loud thud, pooling at the base of the chair.
I crack my neck left, then right, before standing up and facing the Fae pair.
“Okay, let’s try to fucking do this again. I’m Blaise, enchanted to make your acquaintance, my lady.” I bow slightly in mock courtesy before straightening to my full height. “And who the fuck are you two, exactly? Because you’re definitely not who Aimee said you’d be.”
Sariah looks almost sheepish at the mention of Aimee, before Soren takes the lead.
“Soren and Sariah Voxhall. Siblings. Leaders of the Order of Ereshkygall.”
“The what now?” I ask, puzzled. Never heard of such a thing before.
“The Order of Ereshkygall,” Sariah answers. “Also known as the Dark Umbras.”
“Why haven’t I heard of this before?” I mutter more to myself than to them, dragging a hand through my braids.
“Because unlike you, we arethatgood.” Sariah doesn’t lose a breath in throwing another jab at my expense, and it’s no surprise to me that I find her snarky attitude irresistible. I like them feisty, what can I say?
I take a heartbeat to appraise her more thoroughly. Her blond locks are pinned away from her face in a messy braid, and her bottomless sky-blue eyes glint with mischief but also a depth I hadn’t noticed earlier. She’squite a mystifying creature, and I wonder what it would feel like to have her wrapped around me. To put that sharp mouth of hers to other, more pleasurable uses.
“If you’re done ogling my sister, we would like to know about Aimee. How is she?”
“She’s the Foretold One,” I blurt out, still looking at Sariah. What the fuck is wrong with me? It seems I lose all my spy skills around her.
“Obviously,” she retorts, rolling her eyes as if I haven’t just divulged the biggest, most shocking revelation of the century.
“You aren’t surprised?” I frown, switching my gaze between the siblings. This encounter is getting more and more surreal by the minute.
“We are keepers of the prophecy, Blaise.” Soren’s gravely voice cuts through the tension gathering in the space between us. “We know more than you could imagine, but we won’t disclose more to you. Not until we meet with Aimee and the Vampire King. Come now. If my sister trusts you enough to unchain you, we can leave the interrogation chamber and discuss other important matters.”
He swiftly turns and with determined strides crosses the expanse between us and the door.
“After you, pretty boy,” Sariah quips in an amused tone, gesturing towards the exit.
“I know you’re trying to get on my nerves with that moniker, moonlight, but truthfully, all I hear is that you think I’m pretty,” I say, smirking as I brush past her, making sure my arm touches hers, the burn of her skin on mine a lingering whisper.
She snorts gleefully as she stalks behind me. “Oh, you’re so full of yourself, it’s almost hilarious.”
“And you’re delightful,” I quip back, meaning the words as a sarcastic comeback, but they lack the bite, betraying my inner thoughts. The more this female takes a piss at me, the more I feel enthralled by her, like a helpless fly caught in a black widow’s web. She’s dangerous; I can already feel it deepwithin my bones. And I don’t mean it in the “oh, she’s part of a super-secret society kicking ass” kind of way. No, her danger and her allure come from the way she makes my head spin and my other head throb.
“If you two are done flirting for the night, we have other crucial matters to attend to.”
Soren’s gaze as I reach him by the door is nothing short of petrifying. I sense the male doesn’t like me very much, but it doesn’t come as a shock, since I’ve been drooling all over his sister since I came back to my senses.
That reminds me of something, and I turn slightly towards Sariah before asking, “What was that thing you used to subdue me with in the alley?”
“Our personal vampire tranquilizer concoction. Two parts bloodbane’s root, one part liquefied iron. Inserted directly into the bloodstream through a hollowed dove’s wing bone. Puts your kind to sleep instantly,” Sariah answers with a proud glint in her eyes. I could find her terrifying if I weren’t so damn besotted with her. The sooner I can scratch this itch, the faster I can stop being this blubbering mess that I currently am. I have a rakish reputation to uphold, for Akaori’s sake!
We step out of the barn into a long hallway lit by torches, with doors scattered left and right. That’s an interesting turn of events. Soren called it an interrogation chamber, not a barn, and the fact only hits my brain just now.
“Where are we exactly?” I ask, looking at the nondescript hallway that seems to stretch for miles on both ends.
“The Order of Ereshkygall’s Sanctum, of course,” Sariah answers from behind me.
“Of course, how could I not know that?” I roll my eyes. “I must have missed the history lesson about your little secret society.”
