Page 28 of Courting the Tiger King

Zennon looked away, biting her lip, and he knew this was his chance.

“Do you… know something? Was someone else there that night?”

Voicing the question aloud felt freeing, even as Zennon shut down. Her face pulled perfectly blank even as a new tension settled in the lines of her shoulders.

“I don’t know what you mean. There was nobody there but me.”

Lie. He wasn’t sure how he knew, but he would have bet his life that she was hiding the truth in that moment. The only logical reason he could think of was that she was protecting someone.

Neah, his mind supplied and he tried not to fixate on the thought or the hope it reared in his chest. But why did Zennon think that Neah needed protecting? He would never hurt her, nor blame her for being hesitant to accept the enormity of a mating bond.

Sensing if he pushed, Zennon would shut down further, he instead nodded. “Okay.”

Thunder rumbled faintly and the rain began again, this time in a subtle mist that was visible only in the strands of their hair and the tips of their eyelashes. Zennon didn’t seem to mind the damp though, and nor did Wren, and so they continued their slow walk back to the palace in a silence that he foundcomfortable. He hadn’t gotten all the answers he’d wanted, but he’d learned a lot just the same. In some ways, Zennon had cut to the heart of the issue—she wasn’t his mate.

The realisation brought more relief than panic the second time he repeated it, like the Goddess had been waiting for him to catch-up to what his instincts already knew.

“Thank you,” he said to Zennon as they reached the arched door that would lead them back into the castle. He pressed a chaste kiss to the back of her hand and smiled. “Your honesty was exactly what I needed to hear.”

Without waiting for a response, he turned away and left her in the doorway. Now that he had parsed out some of the truth, he needed time to process it, to let his mind settle the best way he knew how.

Heavy paws hit the earth with only half a thought and he heard Zennon gasp as he shook out his fur and stretched his claws.

For now, he needed to silence his thoughts. He needed torun.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

NEAH

Zennon had seemed quiet all day. Neah had found her standing on the edge of the royal gardens, staring out into the forest with a layer of mist caught in the wind-blown tangles of her hair. She hadn’t said much, just that she’d gone for a walk with the king, and that had been that.

She hadn’t said another word about it—not through dinner, not while they got ready for bed, and by the time breakfast came about it was as if her walk with the king had never happened. The air of melancholy had faded, but Neah knew her sister well. She would tell Neah what was on her mind when she was ready.

Now wasn’t the time to ruminate on it, anyway. The tavern Neah found herself in was large, but crowded. Noisy. The perfect meeting place for someone not wanting to be overhead or noticed. It was something she was using to her own advantage too, tucked in a shadowy corner of the long, square bar and observing who came in and out of the front entrance while she kept her back firmly against the wall behind her.

Jamison’s intel was usually reliable, so she kept her wits about her as the evening wore on and she nursed her ale, content to fade into the background. A good spy could blend with a crowd as easily as they could command it when needed, but thelesser known skill of the spy was spotting those whoalsodidn’t want to be seen.

Much like the two cloaked figures who had just approached the bar, placed their drink order, and then promptly left without waiting for their ale.A code, she surmised, as the barkeep didn’t look perturbed by their departure.

Neah slipped out after them, keeping her steps light and her hood pulled low. The darkness of the bricked passageway would have been complete if not for her enhanced vision, she could only assume that at least one of the cloaked figures was also a shifter—or they used the passage so frequently they knew it well. Neither conclusion particularly comforted Neah.

Unfamiliar territory, unknown threats… she much preferred to have all the info rather than going in blind. But needs must and if these two could help her get the information she needed about the king’s enemies then it would be worth the uncertainty.

The sounds from the tavern faded as they walked the length of the darkened alley. It narrowed until it was little more than a breath between buildings and she was glad that she’d never been affected by enclosed spaces or she might have been struggling about now. A soft murmur of voices told her they were getting close to wherever they were going and Neah hung back as the alley widened, waiting to see where the two men would go next.

It looked like the alley ended abruptly in a bricked-off enclosure, and for a second she was worried she’d walked into a trap, but then one of the cloaked figures reached out and rapped his knuckles on a brick on the wall to their left. Neah blinked and where the bricks had been instead stood a door, clearly spelled to hide its existence from anyone who didn’t already know it was there.

A brief flare of noise sounded when the door opened and the two figures stepped inside. She narrowed her eyes, what was this place? And how did the assassin’s benefactor know about it?It had to be the meeting place, considering it also held a noise dampening spell in addition to the cloaking. Everything about this set-up screamedoff the radar trouble.

Neah hovered in the shadows, deciding whether or not to risk following the men, when the door re-opened and they stepped back out into the dark space where Neah waited.

They didn’t notice her, but they would if she remained still any longer—they had to go past her to get back the way they’d come. So, Neah stalked forward straight to the hidden door. Whether her knowing its location was enough for them or if it was the confidence of her stride, she couldn’t know, but they walked away without a glance at her. Their reaction furthered confirmed her suspicions of this place: ask no questions you wouldn’t answer, and the two men hadn’t hung around for idle chatter.

The darkness swallowed them up and Neah lowered her hand from where it hesitated in front of the door. If this wasn’t where the meeting was, why did they go inside?

She waited half a beat and then followed the two figures back the way they’d come, unsurprised when they came back through the tavern and exited the way the regular customers did, through the front entrance.

They walked for a further five minutes, until they ducked into another alley—a less secret one this time—where another two men waited dressed in a similar garb of dark boots and cloaks.

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