Page 62 of Kill the Beast
Lyssa scowled, wishing she could draw her own knife or pistol without also drawing unwanted attention. If she got herself arrested, she would spend days she couldn’t spare cooling her heels in a prison cell.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded, though she had a sick feeling in her stomach that she had just figured out the answer. “Why aren’t you in Bleakhaven?”
The corner of the Hound-warden’s painted lips curved into a smile. “I wanted to see whether Alderic has had a change of heart about hiring you.”
“Must have been a dull conversation, given the fact that you can barely string two words together without your mistress’s collar choking you,” Lyssa sneered.
The Hound-warden’s smile deepened. “I don’t need to speak in order to be persuasive. You, of all people, should know that.”
Lyssa forced herself to grin back, all teeth and malice, despite the sharp knife of fear in her gut. “Is that why you showed up here dressed like an expensive whore instead of putting a knife to his throat?”
“Knives don’t always work on men like Alderic. But unlike you, I have other tools in my arsenal besides violence.”
“And did it work? Did you manage to…persuadehim?” Lyssa hated that she could hear the waver of uncertainty in her own voice, no matter how hard she’d tried to keep it steady. If Alderic had given this bitch anything she could use…
Honoria smirked, crossing her arms in a way that served to highlight theother toolsin her arsenal. “You’ll have to wait and see, won’t you?”
Lyssa took a step forward, baring her teeth. “I want you to listen to me very carefully,Honey.I don’t give a shit about your little agenda, or whatever it is you’re doing with the Hounds. You can keep the Creightonville Horror, for all I care. But the Beast of Buxton Fields is mine, and if you try to steal it out from under me, I will kill you.”
“You’ve threatened my life before,” Honoria reminded her,looking her up and down in a way that felt like being flayed alive, “and yet here we are.”
“Then I’ll make you a different promise,” Lyssa hissed, furious at the heat spreading over her face at the clear evidence of her own weakness: that she hadn’t put Honoria in the ground yet. “One you can be certain I’ll keep. If I get to the Beast’s lair and find that the monster is not at home, I will do everything within my power to hunt down your faerie mistress and slaughter her in front of you. And, once her head is mounted on the wall above my bed, I will find and slay the Hounds you have stolen from me, including the Beast. Everything you have worked towards since you walked out of the Witch’s Wood for the last time will have been fornothing,and when I am finished with you, you will be less than nothing.”
Honoria’s smile faded. “Then I’ll just have to make sure you don’tgetto the Beast’s lair, won’t I?” She tilted her head. “Has our dear Alderic told you how to find it yet?”
Lyssa tried to keep her face impassive, but the Hound-warden seemed to see right through her.
“You don’t know anything, do you?” she said, sounding delighted. “But that’s not the only reason you’re dragging him around with you everywhere you go.”
Lyssa could feel the blood leave her face. “How did you know—”
“Magic,” Honoria said, looking like she was truly enjoying Lyssa’s consternation. “If you’d had any say in the matter, you would have left him at Ragnhild’s cottage, safe and sound, while you gathered the ingredients for your weapon. The LyssaIknow wouldn’t suffer a fool like that unless—”
“He’s not a fool,” Lyssa snapped, then cursed herself when Honoria raised one perfect ginger eyebrow. No need to give the bitch any more ammunition than she already had.
But Honoria didn’t comment on it. Instead, she said, “You clearly didn’t have a choice, though. Which means that you must need him to contribute his own ingredients, in order for the weapon tobe powerful enough to kill the Beast. Without Alderic, this whole thing comes crashing down.”
Lyssa tightened her grip on her steel billet, ready to swing it at the Hound-warden’s head, crowd full of witnesses be damned. “If you hurt him, I’ll—”
“Kill me. So you’ve said.” She didn’t seem intimidated in the slightest. Was smiling like she had already won.
And no wonder. She knew something that could prove very, very dangerous—that without Alderic, Lyssa wouldn’t be able to forge a sword powerful enough to finish the job. Wouldn’t even be able tofindthe Beast, let alone kill it.
But didHonoriaknow where to look for the monster?
What, exactly, had shepersuadedAlderic into telling her?
“I am so glad we bumped into each other,” the Hound-warden said. “I really must be going now, but I’m looking forward to seeing you again, Carnifex. Let’s make it sooner rather than later.”
And with that, she turned and walked away, tossing her curls over her shoulder as the crowd swallowed her up.
As soon as Honoria was gone, Lyssa stormed into the Plaza, ignoring the doorman’s startled shout as she shoved her way past him, wrenching the door open by herself. The slow grinding rise of the mechanical lift only sharpened her fury, her fear, and by the time it let her out onto the top floor, she was ready to punch something.
She tried the door to Alderic’s suite first, but it was locked. Lyssa fumbled with her key, unlocked the door to her own suite, tossed her steel billet onto one of the armchairs, and flung open the connecting door.
Alderic’s room was empty.
There were clothes strewn all over the bed, and she found his pack open and lying on its side on the floor beside it. She checked the sitting room, the closets, the bathroom…
