Page 20 of A Touch of Poison
Mine thudded harder, perhaps at the threat, perhaps at his intensity up this close. But I raised one eyebrow like I was brave enough to face both. “Fae eat hearts?”
“Not literally. But still cruelly.” He leant in like he wanted to take another step.
His warnings were kind. Protective, even. But it wasn’t as if I didn’t already know fae were dangerous. Hadn’t my internal alarm bells clamoured the instant I’d realised what he was? I’d known I was in danger from that moment.
“Don’t worry.” I shrugged and managed a reassuring smile. “I don’t know what I want anymore. How could I possibly tell anyone else?” I tried to laugh, brash and bold like the Wicked Lady on the road at night, pistol in hand. But saying it…
Saying it made it real. And the reality of it was the opposite of funny.
His gaze skipped between my eyes. “What do you mean?”
“For so long, I’ve been clinging to survival. Foryears.” Oh, gods, the thoughts I’d tried to escape yesterday were spilling out and I couldn’t stop them—as inexorable as a river bursting its banks. “And yet, I let go of that in the grove. Ichoseto take that poison. Ichoseto not survive.”
He might’ve paled then. It was hard to say with the window behind him and his face cast in shadow. “Whydidyou choose that?”
“Because I realised there was something more important than survival.” I found myself studying my poison stained hands as they wrung together. “But… I don’t even know what that means. I don’t know who that makes me now.” It had been at the core of who I was and what I did for so long. Who was I without it? “What do I want, if not to survive? What elseisthere?”
The terror of that gripped my throat.
There was a long silence before he spoke softly, “Perhaps…” His hands closed over my shoulders, warmth seeping through my gown. “Perhaps there is living.”
Before I could shake my head and tell him that I didn’t know whatthatmeant either, the door opened.
Brynan stood there, mouth open as he eyed the two of us. He blinked at the floor and cleared his throat. “I—uh—sorry. It’s just… your next appointment is here.”
Bastian’s arms snapped to his sides as he backed off. Shadows bubbled at his feet.
I folded my hands and straightened my spine, poised, my feelings shut safely away.
The rules for Elfhame were clear: bargains were currency, lies were weapons, and your heart was your greatest weakness.
8
Bastian
“You didn’t tell me your little friend had woken up.”
Midway through asking Queen Braea a question, I clamped my mouth shut. Her dark, dark eyes stayed on me, level, a glint of amusement in them.
I loved her as my queen. But I also hated how she saw right through me so easily… and raised her findings in the middle of a morning report before removing her earrings like nothing had happened.
Exhaustion dragged on me. I hadn’t slept well after Kat’s debriefing. Any moment of quiet I found, her words gnawed on me, becoming dreams where I cut the changeling down again and again. But each time, he rose, slashed and bloody, and came after Kat, dogging her every step, sinking his fingers into her, ripping her apart while I could do nothing but wade through his blood.
My day had been filled with re-interviewing witnesses to the previous Hydra Ascendant encounters. I’d read and re-read every report from the time and summoned everyone involved to interview them personally. If I’d missed any detail the first time, I’d find it now.
So far, though, nothing.
The frustration of that had made sleep difficult last night. And when I did manage to drift off, instead of nightmares about unCavendish, frustration of a different kind found me, tightening down my spine and low in my belly as I played out how that moment in my office might’ve gone differently.
Except it never would’ve ended with fucking her on my desk until I couldn’t think straight. Not in reality. I’d destroyed any hope I had with Kat when I’d used her.
Listening to her apologise to me had only added fuel to my guilt.
Especially when I couldn’t even bring myself to say it back.
It was too big. There were too many words. An explanation I didn’t know how to give.
Now, I stood before my queen, fresh from those impossible dreams, groggy and grumpy and attempting to put a professional face on it all.
