Page 66 of Madness of Her Mages

I cleared my throat. “You summoned us, General?”

“Lord Inferni, Lord Blaze.” She motioned toward a table in the center of the cell with one long bench on one side and a solitary chair on the other. “Won’t you have a seat?”

Blaze and I sat at the bench opposite her, and that’s when the fuzziness crept into my brain. As far as I could tell, she couldn’t read my thoughts, so I wasn’t sure how she knew when I was lying or when I was telling the truth. When a rat scurried under the table and over my boot, I tucked my wings behind me so they didn’t drag on the damp floor.

The general shuffled stacks of parchment. I recognized them as missives from her spies across Caldaria, for I’d written several such letters to the palace myself, stamping them with the winged crest of Delfi.

She looked at us with eyes of iron. “Malvolia tells me you failed in your mission to kill Princess Flora and Duke Derrick.”

Blaze grumbled beside me.

Easy, brother,I warned through thought.Don’t let her ruffle your feathers.

“We didn’t fail,” I said casually, trying to pretend I wasn’t unnerved by her accusation. “Our mission changed once we found Shiri.”

She arched a thin brow. “And Shiri is?”

She knew who Shiri was. This was her tactic, starting off with easy questions while watching us for cracks in our façade. “Our fated mate.”

She looked from me to Blaze. “She’s mated to both of you?”

“And our youngest brother,” I added.

“I see.” She leaned back, pursing her lips. “And why did your mission change?”

“Because we had to keep Shiri safe,” I answered.

I swear when she looked at me with those piercing dark eyes, she could see into my very soul. “You couldn’t do that while killing her parents?”

I worked hard to unclench my jaw. “She wouldn’t let us kill them.”

“I want to hear from him, too.” She nodded toward Blaze. “She used her siren voice on you?”

Blaze nodded. “She did.”

She drummed her fingers on the table, her long, black nails sharpened to points. “What other magic does she possess besides siren magic?”

Other magic? Blaze and I shared confused looks.

“We don’t know of any other magic,” I answered.

She gave us each a hard stare. “You don’t?”

“No,” we simultaneously answered.

She looked down at her papers then back up at me, her eyes belying no emotion. “Do you resent your mate for not allowing you to kill the Fae who murdered your parents?”

“No,” I ground out, aggravation driving a nail through my skull.

Her eyes narrowed, and her lips twisted as if she’d sucked on a sour lemon. “You’re hiding something.”

I squeezed my knees to still my trembling hands. “I am,” I answered honestly. No use in lying when she’d know.

She leaned back in her chair, stretching her long Fae neck. “Care to tell me?”

I shrugged then mimicked her action, though I couldn’t lean as far back on my bench. “Not really.”

“Lord Inferni, please don’t make me resort to more persuasive measures to get you to talk.” Her sharp smile promised all methods of torture. “Why wouldn’t you resent your mate for preventing you from getting vengeance on Flora and Derrick?”

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