Page 50 of Reap the Night
“Yes.” But it looked awful. “It’s working. Just wait.”
Ariella fell to her knees with her hands over her face. Her dark hair lightened to blond, soft waves tightening to something coarse and curly.
“Oh fuck…” Hemlock said.
“No…” Ariella whined. “What have you done?”
“Look at us,” Ordell demanded. “Show us your face.”
She shook her head. “Please…”
“Now!” Hemlock boomed.
She slowly lowered her hands and tipped her face up to us. Round, almost cherubic, with a snub nose and large brown eyes. Pretty, but nowhere near as beautiful as the glamour. Nothing like the woman who was meant to save Ezekiel.
Hemlock exhaled. “Who the fuck are you?” He reached for her, and she shrank back with a sob.
“Hem!” Ordell stepped between them. “You’re scaring her.”
“Scaring her?” Hemlock asked incredulously. “She’s been wandering around the castle wearing a fake fucking face for weeks. Who the fuck are you? Tell us what you’re doing here. Who sent you? You tell us everything or I’ll make sure you’re left with no face to call your own.”
He hovered over her like an avenging dark angel, and I couldn’t help but be a little aroused.
“Okay, okay!” She held up her hands to placate him. “I’ll tell you what I know, but please, don’t hurt me.”
“I’m not making any promises,” Hemlock growled.
Ordell stepped in and held out his hand to the woman. “I won’t let him hurt you. Just tell us what we need to know.”
She blinked back tears and allowed him to help her up.
I knew he was playing the good hunter to Hemlock’s bad; we did the same play in the Order from time to time, but I still didn’t like the fact that he was willingly touching her.
“Sit down.” I indicated the armchair in the middle of the room—Hemlock’s favored seat when he lounged in here.
She parked her ass and looked up at me warily. “How did you know?”
“I’masking the questions here. Start from the beginning. Who are you and who sent you here?”
“My name’s Ruby, and I’m just an actress. I was hired to play a role. Coerced more like. I mean I’m not getting paid, at least not in money.”
“Start from the beginning,” Ordell said gently.
She took a shuddering breath. “My fiancé died six months ago. His heart stopped for a minute. The paramedics were able to resuscitate him, but when he woke, he was different. He’d changed. He had these…powers, like…magic. Then these people came for him and took him away. They said he was dangerous. An Onyx mage or something. Anyway, they took him, and I tried everything to find out where, but no one would help me.”
“Onyx mages are rare,” Hemlock said. “The mageri council must have protocols in place to locate them.”
“They do.” I knew it because a friend of mine had been in a similar position—turning and having to hide his nature. Onyx mages were part human and part mageri in a world where the union between human and mageri was forbidden. Mageri magic was a gift from the fae, and to maintain its purity, mageri prohibited procreation outside of their bloodlines. But it still happened. Hybrids were born. And nothing untoward happenedto them unless they died before their twenty-fifth birthday. If that happened, they reawakened as Onyx mages.
“What happened then?” Ordell prompted her.
“A man came to see me. He offered me a deal. Work for him and he would get James back. He said it would be for a few months and all I had to do was act. They gave me a breakdown of how to behave. Told me I needed to charm the vampire king and that he would want to protect me. But the main instruction was to keep you away from him.” She looked at me. “He said that I needed to drive a wedge between you and the vampire king. That was the main objective.”
Me? This was about keeping me away? But why? Unless…
“Oh shit,” Hemlock said, his wide-eyed gaze on me.
No, I couldn’t think about that right now. “What did this man look like? Did he tell you why he needed you to do this?”
