Page 67 of Grotesque
I scowled at him. “Obviously.” Could he hear how loud my heart was beating?
He looked over my shoulder. “What are you reading?”
I took a step back to let him enter.He tucked his wings close to his body and hunched forward to cross over the threshold.“Not sure yet. I was just browsing. There are so many to choose from.” I watched him carefully as he crossed the room and dragged a long finger down the spines. “Have any recommendations?”
Corban snorted. “Half of these are useless; they carry no truth in them.”
“All fairy tales?”
Corban looked over his shoulder, a cruel smile on his face. “Oh, the fairy tales are all real.” He cocked his head.
Don’t see it. Don’t look at it, I silently begged as his gaze cut to the shelf where the sketchbook wasn’t fully tucked away. I don’t know why I didn’t want him to find it, only that I knew it was urgent that he not.
“How are you feeling?”
Corban hummed quietly. “Tired, but well.” He threw a grin over his shoulder, his lips parted to continue when his gaze snagged on something.
Please no.
He reached for the sketchbook that was so obviously out of place between the traditional hardbacks. His fingers grazed the bowed spine, stiffened over it and then tugged it free. Shadows flickered– no those were the clouds moving across the sun. Everything was fine.
“What’s that?” I piped up.
His jaw noticeably rippled as it clenched. “This was Maxine’s.” He hesitated before opening the book.
My heart raced faster. The warning I’d read repeated through my head so loudly I feared Corban would hear it.Do not let him out. My children, or their children…me! Realization smacked me full in the face. Macky hadn’t had a relationship with me, with mom, because she’d been trying to protect us.
From Corban.
Something akin to sadness washed over his face. The proud arch of his wings drooped with the drop of his shoulders. “I told you before we did not get along well, but I liked your grandmother. I hated that we could not see eye to eye.”
I swallowed, willing the dryness coating my throat to go away. “What happened to her? With the two of you?”
The shuck of paper sliding against itself sliced through the air as he turned another page. His gaze lingered on the image of the three tall figures. Their lithe forms seemed to sway on the page. Slowly, he brushed his thumb over them, almost affectionately, before he turned to the next image. A portrait of himself, thin and gaunt.
“I never told Maxine what I was. I didn’t have to. She was well versed in things of my world, though to this day I have no idea how she could have known about Under. She feared me.”
The thing I’d grabbed from the floor felt cool and hard in my palm. I slid my hands into my back pockets, shoving it there for safe keeping. “I thought you enjoyed being feared. You like mine.”
“Oh, yes. But Maxine never played any of my games.” He held out a hand and curled his fingers, beckoning me toward him. When I stopped at his side he rested that large hand over the back of my neck. “I can smell you on the pages, Sorcha. Tell me, how far did you get before you thought to hide this from me?”
His eyes remained planted on the sketchbook, on the gnarled and twisted dragon. The weight of his hand was light, and that scared me. I was used to him being vicious and lethal, this calm coolness somehow frightened me even more.
“Not far,” I lied. The corner of his jaw ticked like he could sense it.
“But you did try to hide it,” he pressed.
Was his hand getting heavier? No, he hadn’t so much as moved. Fuck he was so eerily still. While the wings and horns fascinated me, they also made it impossible to forget that he was a predator. At least when he wore his human costume it was easier to pretend.
“Yes,” I said.
“Where are the others?”
“Others?”
His eyes snapped to me then. “The other accounts. Diaries. Where are they?”
I shook my head. “That’s all I’ve found. I thought those were just drawings.”
