Page 95 of Truthfinder’s Promise

Oh. She didn’t have to be the one falling off the balcony. So long as she distracted Julian—by giving the appearance that she was going to give him what he wanted—she might even manage it.

Meredith leaned against the balcony and rested her hands on the railing, shoulders back and relaxed. A soft breeze blew, ruffling her hair, and she knew the picture she painted, the picture Julian would see.

His footsteps approached. “What are you doing out here?”

She looked over her shoulder and smiled. “Waiting for you.”

“Were you?” His fingers closed on her chin in a bruising grip and he turned her to face him. “I find that difficult to believe.”

“Why? Because I took control when we spoke to Analisa?”

A muscle beneath his eye twitched. He hadn’t appreciated the idea that she was capable of controlling anything. But if she let him turn this into a contest of physical dominance, she would lose. He wanted her under his control, and she needed to give him that fantasy.

“I thought she needed to see that we could both be useful to her.” She smiled at him and stepped in closer. “Was I wrong?”

He let go of her chin and trailed his fingers down her neck to the hollow between her breasts. “In the future, you will discuss what you say to our associates with me first.”

Oh, of course.

“You need to learn your place.”

“And where is my place? Is it—” She dropped to her knees and looked up at him through her lashes “—on my knees?”

Lowering herself into this position came with the risk that it would put Julian on his guard. That he would realize what she planned. Because after reliving the memory of her mother’s threat, she’d remembered she did, in fact, know one other self-defense move. One she’d looked up before discovering another way out of that situation. One that didn’t require practice, because even if it did, no one was going to let you practice it on them.

Please let this work. He might be suspicious of her, but it was more likely he would expect her to humiliate him than to do what she was going to do. After all, her weapons of choice had always been words and emotional manipulation prior to this moment.

You said I belonged to you. Get on with the using what’s yours part so I can block this from my memory for all eternity.

He let her kneel there, the beading on her dress digging into her knees, for a full minute before he reached for the buckle on his pants.

Nerves threatened to make her hands tremble but she broke everything down into steps in her mind, focusing on her objective to the extent that it drowned out what was actually happening. What she was actually doing.

Be quick. Don’t overthink it. Don’t lose your damn nerve.

He unzipped his pants. She slipped her hand inside...and closed it in a fist around his balls. She twisted viciously and pulled. Julian screamed, hunching over. She shot up, driving the heel of her palm into his nose, just like she’d practice with Valkyrie.

Bone crunched. Julian staggered and his back hit the railing. She lunged, putting the full force of her momentum into her drive, and struck him in the chest. He toppled over the railing. As he fell his hand lashed out, grabbed her right arm and dragged her over the side with him.

She scrabbled, caught the top of the railing with her left hand, the muscles in her shoulder wrenching as Julian’s weight pulled on her. Her fingers slipped. But so did his. She kicked out, the sharp stiletto of her heel catching him in the throat, and his weakening grip gave.

She wrenched her right arm up, grabbing on to a vertical balcony bar just as she lost her original hold. She latched back on with her left hand and hung there, shuddering as the breeze caught the heavy skirt of her gown and swayed her slightly back and forth.

She squeezed her eyes shut. She hated heights. Sweat slicked her palms, making her already precarious grip more so. She forced her eyes open and looked up. Her hands were locked on to the iron bars at the very bottom of the three-foot-high railing. A horizontal bar crossed the vertical ones about a foot up from the bottom. She just had to pull herself up enough to reach it.

Her heart pounded in her chest. What if she missed the bar? What if she fell?

Then you’ll die, you idiot, because no one is coming to rescue you. She was the bloody rescue party and if she didn’t get off this balcony not only was she going to die, but Jensen probably would too.

Her recent love affair with working out meant she could do a pull-up. On a good day she could do three. She’d never done one hanging from two stories up so scared she could barely think.

“Fuck.” She was not going out like this. No way. Not after what had just happened.

She took a deep breath, engaged her core, and exhaled as she pulled. Her muscles screamed and she drew her shoulders up to level with her wrists. She held there for a fraction of a second and lunged for the horizontal bar with her left hand. Her right arm almost gave out before her left caught.

But it caught. It fucking caught. She forced herself to keep moving, her right hand coming up to join the left on the horizontal bar. The ache in her muscles, the shakiness of her grip, told her she couldn’t do it again. But with the higher position, she didn’t have to. She kicked her right leg through the side slit in her gown, freeing it from the skirts and began to swing side to side. It took two tries to hook her right foot between two of the vertical bars, but once she did she had the leverage to pull the rest of her up, to crawl over the top and land on her back, safe on the balcony floor.

Her whole body shook, the relief so intense tears leaked out the corners of her eyes. How did Val do this shit all the time? Meredith wanted to curl into a ball and kiss the solid ground beneath her. But she had a feeling if she did that she might not get up for an hour.

She rolled onto her stomach and peered over the side. Julian lay on the ground. No thralls came to investigate and she didn’t know if that meant he was dead, or if Analisa simply didn’t care enough to check it out. Meredith pushed herself up and started walking.

Inside, she caught sight of herself in the dresser mirror. Her hair was a mess from where Julian had wrenched it and the wind had blown through it. She reached up, checking the pins were still in. Dirt streaked her dress, the right strap had almost given way, and the skin of her hands was torn and bloody. A bruise already blossomed on her wrist from Julian’s grip.

She looked like some feral pageant queen. That was fine. Feral things were deadly when cornered, and pageant queens knew how to take a lot of shit and keep going. Besides, a queen needed a crown—like the one that rested on the white satin pillow on the dresser.

Had Julian known it called to her? Had her mother held it in that repository for Meredith all these years? Was it meant to be worn by a Truthfinder?

Inside the house, with the nullifying spell in full force, she couldn’t feel the circlet’s call. Not like she had in the repository, but more like the faint call she’d felt every time she’d gone to her mother’s mausoleum. It wasn’t the place that had pulled her there—it had been the faint pull of the circlet.

She hesitated a moment before placing it on her head. Without access to her Aspect, the all-consuming need that had overtaken her in the repository didn’t come. Until the magic came back, her crown was only a crown.

She stepped out into the hallway. Two thralls waited, one to either side of the door. She picked one at random. “I’m alive. Julian’s not. I want my wolf.”

The thrall inclined his head. Meredith followed him to the first level, then to a large steel door that opened into—what else?—a basement.

“If you go in,” the thrall said, “you stay until the auction is over.”

Meredith smiled. “Not a problem.”