Page 54 of These Vile Hearts

Maddox takes another sip of coffee. “And whatisthe actual truth? If you aren’t as cruel as they say…why would Archer behave like that? Like you were some kind of monster?”

There goes the verity, slipping away like silk sheets sliding off the end of a bed. The wordmonsterstings even more coming from her mouth. My fingers tap out a quick beat on the arm of the chair. Then I clench my fist. “If you must know, my brother is not the only Sempervirens with a fearsome affliction.”

Wonder if the expert liar can sniff out the vestiges of my falsehood. Or the subtle tremor in my voice.

Wrapping her hands more tightly around the mug, Maddox leans forward, enhancing the fullness of her décolletage. I tear my gaze away, ignoring the heated blood rushing south.

“What do you mean?”

Taking a moment to allow my traitorous lust to recede, I rise from the chair and move to the carefully crafted bureau topped by a vase of red roses. Holding her gaze, I place my palm flat on the top. Veins of blackness course down my arm and into the wood, traveling across the surface like ink in water. Decay eats away at every natural thing until the integrity of the bureau breaks down, and it collapses in on itself.

Maddox takes in my destruction, silver eyes tracking the shattered petals of the now-withered roses. The mug of coffee lowers from her agape mouth.

My voice comes out quiet. “You see why creatures of the forest might fear me.”

Leaving her with this dawning understanding, I head for the door before she can ask anything else.

“Thanks,” she says suddenly, “for the coffee.”

“Of course,” I tell her without looking back.

Tamarind holds the door open for me when Maddox says, “Castor?”

I turn in question. For once, she doesn’t look guarded or dangerous. Merely curious. “Why would you spare me when you believed I came here to murder you?”

“Honestly?”

She rolls her eyes. “No, lie to me.”

“To behonest…I spared you because when you kissed me the world went silent, and it’s been rather deafening lately.”

Her mouth turns lopsided. “So you spared me because you hoped I would kiss you again?”

“I’m not saying that.”

“But you aren’t not saying it.”

“Good night, Maddox. Be wary of who you choose to invite into your bed. You may never leave it again.”

~

The iron door to Evodia’s room slams shut behind me. I slide down it, immediately lighting my nepenthe and taking a deep pull of the burnt-sugar smoke.

Evodia casts vines of silence without looking up from whatever letter she’s composing. “Your plan is going well, I take it?”

I allow the nepenthe time to deaden my sizzling nerves beforeresponding. “This plan is damned.Archernearly destroyed everything tonight. After they slept together, might I add.” I look pointedly at her. She doesn’t look back. “And what precisely is the woman who is meant to fall in love with me doing in bed with a visitor? I thought her duties revolved only around bookkeeping.”

Evodia’s leaf quill scratches across the parchment, eyes on her words. “I imagine Miss Oleander is taking advantage of the perks of her new position.”

“Sleeping with Durian’s mortal-snatcher is far from a perk. It is a detriment. Ahazard.”

Signing the bottom of the letter, Evodia sets her leaf quill patiently down and peers up at me. “Do I detect a hint of jealousy?”

I hold the smoke in my lungs as long as possible, letting it stream out through my nostrils. “You detect a hint of vexation. That woman is a plague.”

“Your task is proving to be more difficult than you anticipated, is it?”

Rubbing the end of the nepenthe out on my knee, I flick it into the iron bin by the marbled bureau. “It is going horribly, thanks for asking.”