Page 35 of Beyond Those Gilded Walls

“Yes,” I said slowly. Flashes of Emyl’s handwriting on the parchment came back with a shocking clarity, cutting through the fog I had not realized was still settled around my head. I shook my head to clear it further. “Yes, I did. My youngest brother has come down with the blood plague. I—” I bit my lip, cutting myself off.

“Did you have a nightmare? Is that how you were hurt?” His words were smooth, his head tipping to the side slightly as he looked down at me. The lines in his forehead had smoothed out, but for a moment, something else flashed in those gray eyes. A warning, almost. But even despite it, I couldn’t help but notice how, unlike Zaharya, his wording had not implied that I had hurt myself during the nightmare.

“I—” I shook my head again, pinching the bridge of my nose, unwilling to let him distract me yet again. “No, no. You brought me back to my room after you found me in the hall. That Soulshade wasinside of me, Tallon. How? What is happening to me?”

He looked at me with a carefully constructed mask, but instead of one made of ornate silver and filigree, it was crafted of skin and muscle. He said nothing.

I pressed my fingertips into my temples, trying to claw through the memories and the haze they were wrapped in. “Tell me the truth, Tallon.”

He pulled my hands down from my head, keeping the left one in between us and letting the other fall. “Look at me, Odyssa,” he said. He ducked his head to catch my gaze. “What happened in your nightmare?”

I narrowed my gaze. “A truth for a truth, then?”

A quirk of his lip broke through the mask and he inclined his head. “Certainly. You first.”

“My brother died, and then his Soulshade dug his nails into my flesh and ripped it. He wanted me to stay with him.” It was as emotionless as I could manage—strictly facts, and sparse ones at that—but I still heard how my voice shook. I rolled my shoulders back and met his eyes. “Your turn.”

“Odyssa, truly,” he said. Dropping my hand, he tilted my chin up to meet his eyes. “I have no idea why the Soulshades in this castle are after you.”

“You agreed to a truth for a truth, Tallon.”

“I am telling you the truth.” He looked at me, an unreadable expression on his face. For a moment, I was convinced he would drop whatever ruse this was and tell thewholetruth, but his face hardened and something shuttered over his eyes, turning them dull and lifeless. “Perhaps you need to see a medic. The prince should know if one of his staff is hallucinating being attacked in his home.”

I jerked back, anger heating my face and overpowering the confusion at his sudden shift. The nightmare and the Soulshades had already wrought havoc on my mind, and now this. If this was who he wanted to be, this cold and indifferent being, then I could reciprocate. I tucked my hands behind my back and raised my chin, feeling the expression fall from my face.

His eyes narrowed slightly, but his expression did not change.

“The infirmary is not for servants. Though I think you know that.”

“Do I?”

I hummed. “I cannot see how you wouldn’t. Given that you are so close with the prince.”

He looked at me for a long moment. I almost jumped when he moved, once again invading my space and stepping up to my side, our shoulders meeting as he peered down at me. “What a pretty mask you wear, little wolf.”

“I wear no mask.” It wasn’t a mask; it was a wall. One that he would not break through.

“Don’t you?”

I raised my chin and rolled my shoulders back. His eyes briefly flicked down to where my gown dipped between my breasts before rising back to my eyes as he licked his lips slowly. Heat unfurled in my belly, but the coldness still in his eyes tempered it.

It was foolish to rise to the bait, but I could not resist the challenge. I rose on my toes and leaned in until I knew he could feel my breath against his neck. “If the prince wants me dead, he’ll have to have you kill me yourself.”

I dropped back to my heels and stepped away, watching for his reaction.

He tilted his head back and laughed, a loud sound that came from deep in his chest. A laugh like that could not be forced. It was a challenge to keep the frown from my face as he continued to laugh for another moment.

Finally, he was finished. Faster than I could track, he was behind me, his fingers tracing over the marks high on my neck behind my ear and following the lines down to my shoulder. His touch was cool against the hot skin around the wound there.

My eyes closed and I shivered, cursing my body for reacting. It would have been too easy to give in and lean back into him, to play whatever games he wanted and let myself be consumed by the storm. But nothing in my life had ever been easy.

“Odyssa, the prince does not want you dead. But if he did, he would not need me to do it.”

“Why’s that?”

He moved behind me and then his lips were on my skin, brushing against where my neck curved into my shoulder. The next touch of his lips was firmer, pressed against the top of the deepest gouge in my flesh. I felt his mouth curve into a smirk against my neck. “Well, you seem to be doing a remarkably good job attempting that for yourself.”

The familiar heat of shame washed over me, settling in my stomach that had fallen to my knees. It had been another game. And I’d lost.

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