Page 11 of Blood & Roses

I filed this nugget of information away as it bolstered my own suspicions. I was fairly certain I knew who had murdered the king. If I was right, we were in trouble whether or not we were able to help Rowan’s brother.

“So, how canIhelp?” Lis asked, glaring at Orson who had opened his mouth, probably to argue. He snapped it shut, kissing her nose and sitting back on the cushions with an ursine smirk.

Mates were the absolute worst.

“We need to subdue Rowan’s brother without hurting him,” I explained, trying to keep the conversation on track. “I’m hoping you can use your shadows to hold him while I knock him unconscious.”

“While you what?” Rowan asked, voice steely.

“I can’t assess the curse if he’s raging, even if he’s restrained,” I said evenly, trying not to lose my temper at Rowan. He was far too emotionally invested to be reasonable. I supposed I would feel the same if it were one of my sisters trapped as a creature and hunted by a wicked queen, so I tried to placate him. “I won’t hurt him,I swear.”

“And what about me?” Orson growled, looking at me expectantly, as if waiting for his assignment.

“You won’t be coming,” Lis answered for me, giving her mate an exasperated look. “A great, hulking bear will be far more terrifying than a small party cloaked in shadow.”

“Where you go, I go, Kjære,” Orson proclaimed, settling the matter in the unarguable way he had. “If Izzy wants our help, she will havebothof us.”

“Please tell me you’ll be less overbearing once you’ve been mated for a while?” I sighed, unable to keep the smile from my face as I looked at my sister’s mate. “Pun intended.”

“Unlikely,” he replied, grinning as Lis rolled her eyes at him. “So where is this stag?”

Rowan was able to pick up his brother’s scent easily once he shifted back into a stag, and all four of us set off in the direction of Mysthaven, Lis atop Orson’s back with me holding tightly behind her.

Rowan had only raised his brow at me when I told him I’d ride with Lis, shrugging as if it were my funeral and shifting before our eyes.

“I can’t get a good read on him,” Lis murmured as Orson chuffed after the stag running several feet ahead of us. “Do you think he’s telling the truth?”

“Mora looked at his memories,” I said, holding onto my sister’s waist as her mate bounced us around. Orson’s gait was even less smooth than Rowan’s, and I was a little glad we’d be parting ways after this. “She pulled the truth from him before he could realize what she was doing.”

“That doesn’t mean it was all complete truth,” Lis argued. “Mora can’t see everything.”

“She did say he was shielding something,” I confirmed, uncertain why I felt the need to defend the huntsman to my sister. “But I believe him for some reason.”

“Does that reason have anything to do with his broad shoulders and green eyes?” Lis teased, looking over her shoulder knowingly. “Green eyes have always been your weakness.”

I had been romantically involved with exactly two males, both for very short periods while Lis was growing up. Both had green eyes, both had mediocre bedroom skills, and both had been too impatient with my younger sisters to be serious prospects for anything more than a momentary distraction.

I was better off alone.

I gave Lis a look that Lena always said reminded her of Mother. “He’s aclient.”

Lis laughed. “Orson was a client once, Izzy.” Her face softened, and she lowered her voice. “You deserve to find someone, youknow. You’ve done so much for all of us. You deserve love and happiness.”

Blessedly, we had to stop talking as Rowan came to a halt and shifted, putting his finger to his lips. We must be getting close, so Lis and I dismounted awkwardly, Orson choosing to remain a bear for the sake of propriety. It would be very cold for him to shift in the middle of the woods, his own abilities not allowing his clothes to shift with him.

I’d have to ask Rowan more about how that worked when I next got the chance.

This part of the forest was unfamiliar to me, but everything looked the same when covered in a blanket of snow. I couldn’t tell how far we were from our cottage or the town, but it must be some distance since the only scenery was trees.

Rowan held up his hand as I made it to his side, pointing to a copse of trees maybe thirty feet away, branches bare but for a dusting of snow. A set of spiky branches—antlers, I realized—moved restlessly, and he gave me a nod.

We had discussed the plan before leaving. Orson and Rowan in animal form would dart around the back of the stag, herding him toward us. Lis would use her shadows to hold him long enough that I could get a hand on him and slow his pulse to put him to sleep with a sleeping potion I had whipped up at Lis and Orson’s cabin. Hopefully it would be enough to keep him down.

Lis crept to my side as Orson and Rowan, now shifted back into his own stag form, moved in opposite directions into the trees.

“Won’t this drain your magic?” she whispered, shadows at her fingertips as she readied her own.

“Possibly,” I whispered back. “But the sleeping draught should knock him out until we get back to the cottage at least.”