Page 63 of Venomous Lies
“Can you sense Isla, Bricriu?”
The question was so unexpected I just blinked at him in shock before his question fully hit me.
“Why—?”
“Just answer the question.”
“Yes,” I replied slowly, thinking about it. He just stared at me with a predator’s glint in his gaze. “I can sense the presence of her magick all the time, but particularly when her magick or emotions spike. Why are you asking me this?”
“Isla was attacked today in her dorm room,” he replied evenly, orange and red fiery eyes watching my every move. “I found her stumbling out of the dorm building covered in bruises and blood. Did you not feel it?”
Cold detachment poured through my veins as I pushed myself to standing. My senses were on high alert, and even the wildlife around us slowly fell silent.
“Who did it?”
“Did you sense it?” Ambrose repeated his question.
“No,” I growled, offended and angry he would even ask that. “If I had, I would have gone to her.”
“Can you feel her now?” he pushed, refusing to drop the subject. I swallowed hard, knowing that even though every part of me wanted to go to Isla, his questions were important.
I searched within me, looking for the bond that had been established between the witch and I, but found nothing but a dull ache. It was there, but faded somehow.
“I can feel it, but it’s… Something is wrong,” I rasped, my voice rough with pain and confusion. “Why can’t I?—?”
“We will have to ask the others,” Ambrose commented after a moment of tense silence. “A troubling development indeed.”
Forcing myself to focus on what I could control, I looked at the fae beside me and studied his red-orange eyes. “You didn’t say who attacked her.”
“We don’t know. I got her to Julian and a healer then came to get you. She’s getting the help she needs,” Ambrose explained as he stood up. He lit a cigarette, maintaining a calm stare. “We need answers.”
“What about her friends?”
“They weren’t there,” he answered after a long drag. “But then again, there seems to be more going on than it appears since no one else in the dorm said anything.”
Every instinct I had urged me to hunt down her attacker. I would rip them apart at every joint until I fashioned Isla her own personal marionette. She would be the type of person to savor each scream whenever she played with it.
But then I recalled her friends being cautiously nice.
Wells had easily talked with me, letting off no stench of fear as we worked together in the greenhouse.
Taking every ounce of self-control, I inhaled deeply and rolled my neck, cracking it in multiple places.
“We’ll find our answers. The people we need to start with are her friends. Then we go hunting.”
ECHO
“Z, can we just talk about this?” Aizel asked Zhara. Wells and I shared an uncertain look, the two of us choosing to stay back once they started having it out. The four of us were heading out of the dining hall.
I had tried to talk to my brother earlier today but to no avail. He didn’t want to listen to anything I had to say, and I couldn’t blame him. The irony ofmetrying to calmhimdown was just too much for both of us.
“Talk about what?” Z shot him a dirty look. “The fact that you went off to fuck a bunch of people with your brother, multiple times, might I add? How about the fact that youliedabout it on top of everything?”
“I’m an incubus?—”
“Tell me, did you fuck me after you fucked one of thosebitches?” With a growl, Zhara stopped and spun around to face my brother. “Did youtouchme while covered in the scent of them?”
“No,” Aizel replied, shaking his head. “I would never do that. I was just feeding, Zhara!”
