Page 73 of The Never List
The doors slide open, and I move to step out, but Baydel jerks me back with nothing but his power, punching the button to close the doors and lock them there.
I try to move, but I’m immobilized. My mind whirls as it tries to scratch and claw its way from his hold.
Baydel walks in front of me, delight shining from his eyes at my frozen position. “I’m so glad to know you have a sister,” he says, his voice sugary. “It’s wonderful to have family you care about, and I can tell you care about her a great deal.” He smiles, looking me over. “Family is important. We’re nothing without our legacies…” His eyes shift to the side. “Even if those legacies disappoint us from time to time.”
He’s talking about Jax, but I have no clue how he could ever think him a disappointment or why he feels the need to immobilize me to say these things. Power-hungry bastard.
“I hope I’m wrong about you.” He inhales quickly through his nose a little too close to my neck for my liking. If I could cringe, I would. “Hope my son is right about you. For the sake of both our families,” he finishes, and his power releases my body so fast I almost tumble into him.
I right myself, my breathing shaky as he comes so close I can feel his breath on my cheeks. I want to back away, want to fight and cringe and get the fuck out of this elevator, but I can’t give him the satisfaction of the reaction he wants.
“Do we understand each other?”
Not even a little bit.
I swallow around the razors in my throat and nod.
“Good.” A slow grin spreads across his lips. “As you just witnessed, there is nothing in this world I cannot use to my advantage,” he says. “Nothing will ever stand in my way if I do not wish it to. Not even a potential.”
My comment earlier about choosing Kal, about what he’ll do when he’s on the throne, provoked this. My fucking mouth. My need to rise to every challenge. Goddess damn it, his threats are vague at best, but I might’ve inadvertently put Erin in harm’s way.
But if my records were changed, maybe whoever changed them changed Erin’s, too. Maybe she’s simply out there, living a life with someone she fell hard and fast for. Who knew one of my biggest fears could be one of my ultimate dreams?
I study Baydel as carefully as I dare, but he’s immortal and has played this game infinitely longer than me.
The doors open, and I step through them quickly.
“Who knows, Rylee,” Baydel says as I turn to face him where he remains inside the elevator. “If you’re smart, we may have a combined family. Perhaps I’ll find your dear sister so she can join us in the end.”
The doors close, and icy shivers skate across my skin.
He may have thought he veiled his threats, but I feel them with crystal clarity.
I can’t run my mouth again, or else Erin will pay the price.
the sapphire cove
22
Axl
“I knew you were a feisty little kitten from the second I saw you dancing with Jax.” I laugh as I take her hand, eyeing Rylee’s emerald green tunic and white leggings. She’s a fucking knockout, for sure, but those are Pierce’s colors she’s wearing.
I lead her away from the main road, Kal following behind, after they’ve discarded their shoes in the carriage where Mirren waits. The Occuli linger not too far away.
We head down a set of stone steps that are as old as the kings. Their surface is cracked in some spots, the rock laid right into the solid earth and leading all the way down to the white-sand beach far below.
Rylee tips her chin, barely biting back a grin as we pause on the beach. Awareness ripples between us, a tightening tension I’ve felt every time I’ve been around her. My muscles flex at the challenge in her eyes, but there are smudges of purple beneath them, like she didn’t sleep at all last night.
I glance at Kal, a silent conversation passing between us that I understand well enough—this morning’s royal post account of last night’s execution had been brutal. No doubt witnessing the real thing kept Rylee up all night.
Fucking Baydel. His displays of power are getting outof hand, not to mention getting old. The bastard always comes up with new ways to fuck with the potentials, but this seemed…personal.
Neither she nor Kal wanted to talk about it when they first arrived, so we’re all playing the denial game like pros.
“I bet you love things with claws,” she says with an irresistible smirk.
Fuck me.
