Page 29 of Truthfinder’s Promise

“I’m fine.” She strode into the closet. The clothes within were pristine, untouched by time, the result of preservation spells she diligently touched up every month. She’d cast them on the basement a few months after her father died, needing to hold on to what little she had left of him.

Her mother had never commented on Meredith’s upkeep of the room, and she didn’t know if Savannah had ever even noticed. For all Meredith knew, her father and everything associated with him had gone right out of Savannah’s mind the second his heart stopped beating.

Meredith searched through the clothes for anything that might fit Jensen. Malnutrition had left him thinner than she remembered, but he was still a larger build than Jared Townsend had been. She found a pair of sweats and an old t-shirt that might work and tossed them at Jensen.

He dutifully donned them. The sweats were predictably a little snug around the waist and the t-shirt stretched tight across the shoulders, but at least he was clothed. They could go back to the kitchen and get this over with.

He reached out as she walked by, the lightest brush of his fingertips and a soft, “Hey,” all it took to stop her in her tracks. She’d missed him and that…hurt.

“Whose room was this?”

She shook her head. “No one’s. Come on. I need to leave, so we need to get through this.” Back in the kitchen, she said, “I need a physical connection.” She held out her hand. He didn’t take it.

“You didn’t need a physical connection to know something was off when you found me.”

To lie or not to lie? “I don’t typically require it. But since your magic has fooled me once already, this will guarantee foolproof results. Is that a problem?”

He placed his hand in hers. She pulled her Aspect up to the surface, let it flow through her into him. She heard his quick intake of breath, but he gave no other indication that her power bothered him.

“Tell me your name.”

“Jensen Michael King.”

She tested the feedback from her power, considering its reaction to his response. Most people begrudged her the truth of their answers, fighting the inevitable tug and pull of her power. Jensen didn’t. Her Aspect tested his words easily, its conclusion clear: true.

“Are you the man I met at Savado’s, and that I was involved with for almost a month?”

“Yes.” Again, no hesitation on his part or her power’s.

“Did you approach me at that bar because you knew I had a connection to Aspect Society and you wanted to exploit it?”

“I approached you because I was lonely and you looked like you were too.”

Nice try. “Truth, but not all of it.”

“You can recognize half-truths?”

“Yes. What else made you approach me?”

He gave her a look she didn’t know how to interpret. “Why does anyone approach a stranger at a bar?”

“That isn’t an answer.” Was there something he didn’t want her to know? He hadn’t give her a direct no to the Aspect question.

“You’re hot,” he clarified. “I also approached you because you’re hot.”

Right. Now she felt like an idiot. “Did you have any ulterior motives for approaching me other than the ones you’ve mentioned?”

“No.”

“Did you at any point in the course of our—” she almost called it a relationship, but quickly shifted it to “—involvement become aware that I was a member of Aspect Society?”

“No. I liked you. Is that so difficult to believe?”

Yes. And it sucked that he was telling the truth because it meant they’d actually had something. Whether or not it could have lasted, she’d never know. That foundation had now been, if not obliterated, at least buried beneath the hefty baggage of two intersecting magical lives.

“And Julian abducted you?”

“That’s the bastard’s name?”