Page 33 of Iron Crown

My heart thrummed in my ears. I was watching a bomb count down in front of me, and there wasn’t a thing I could do to disarm it.

“I told you I had not eaten, or had anything to drink in the… five?... days that I was captive.” She waved it off, as if starvation was nothing to her. “I can’t remember.”

“Six,” Jericho corrected her, his fist clenched, his jaw tight. “It wassixdays.”

Jericho would have etched every infraction against his sister into his memory. He would have counted the damn seconds! The criminal underground is good at holding grudges. It was practically our love language.

“That wasn’t true.” Yuliya sipped the water in front of her, casually speaking as if sheweren’tt the center of everyone’s attention. “Every night, an Irishman came into my cell. He fed me, he gave me water.”

I wasn’t sure if her ease was because she truly was that unaffected by the past, or if it was a persona she put on. Was it a mask? Or was she truly so powerful, brave, and strong that a trauma that would have broken others was simply a childhood phase that she discarded like an ill-fitting winter coat?

She smiled, as if the days she’d been beaten and tortured were a fond memory.

“I asked him why he did it. He told me that he would never harm a child.” Her eyes came back to me, and I looked away.

God damn, her eyes were a piercing, hostile blue. Nothing like the warm chocolate brown of my Muse.

“So?” Jericho asked, unsure what her point was.

Or maybe he was willfully choosing not to understand her point. I didn’t have to look at Dairo and Kira to know that they had already figured out the end of her little tale. I could feel their eyes on me, warming my skin. I was afraid of what I’d see in their eyes if I looked at them, so I concentrated on Cillian, and his hands on the little fruits on his plate, the way he pinched a blueberry between his index finger and thumb with incredible, but clumsy, care.

“On the last day, something peculiar happened.” Yuliya leaned back, pausing for dramatic effect.

Was she doing that to be a pain in the arse? Or was she doing that because she was thinking? It was impossible to know, but even now, she reminded me of Shiny. Just as she had back then.

“The same man came in, he fed me, he gave me water. Then he slathered something on my skin.”

“Slathered?” Jericho’s eyes narrowed as if she’d just described someone doing a lewd act on top of her!

Bastard.

“Relax, brother,” Yuliya chuckled, her voice so easy and amused.

I was certain she could see the amount of fucking turmoil I was in, and she was twisting it for fun. I’d call her a bitch but if I were in her shoes, I’d probably be doing the same thing.

“I wasn’t sure, but it smelled like sunblock.”

“What?” Jericho said, his brows knit together, frustration growing.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, then shook his head.

With a long, drawn-out breath, he gently placed his fingertips on the table, and with a calm that I wasn’t sure he was capable of, he asked, “What is the point of this, Yuli?”

“I was strung up for hours in the hot sun, and as you all can see, my skin is as pale as the virgin snow.” Amusement still colored her every word, even as my heart beat so hard, it was as if it wanted to leap from my chest.

Dairo turned his head, opened his mouth, then closed it again, pursing his lips. He looked innocently up at the ceiling.

“What were you about to say, nephew?” Yuliya asked, amused, leaning forward with a smile.

“Nothing!” Dairo said, placing his hand on his chest as if the very notion of making a comment was shocking to him.

“Yes, you were,” Yuliya dragged out. “Out with it. What smartass remark were you going to make?”

“I was… going to say…” He looked around sheepishly. “That it’s probably the only virginal thing about you.”

Yuliya laughed, clapped her hand on the table, and the two of them chuckled together.

“English bastard,” Jericho said quietly.

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