Page 14 of Vengeance and Vipers
He’s staring openly at my body even more than Maddox, and, to be honest, I don’t want to antagonize him even if heislocked up. I stoop to pick up the clothes I dropped and throw on the underwear and jeans with my back to them both.
I turn around for the bra and the shirt, backing into the corner by the slab. They aren’t paying attention to me anymore, though. Maddox is outside Krase’s cell. He’s touching the tacturn. Both their eyes are open and looking around. Their mouths are moving, but no sound comes out.
I throw on the bra and shirt, not taking my eyes off the disturbing scene in front of me. Was that how I looked while that fucking thing took me into my nightmares? I thought I was screaming the whole time. That’s what it felt like, but was I just standing there like a puppet?
That’s fae shit for you, I guess. It’s either sublimely ethereal or creepy as fuck.
While Maddox is indisposed, I go back to the dish and lick the remaining residue of food off my plate. Hunger still gnaws at me, though, and I wonder if I can reach Krase’s meal, too.
Keeping an eye on them, I shuffle to the shared bars of our cages and stick my arm through. My middle finger just brushes the plate, but I can’t reach it well enough to pull it closer. With a small noise of frustrated displeasure, I stop trying, stalking back over to my bed and sitting on it cross-legged.
ChapterFour
IRON
Iwatch Jayce and Axel from my position in the hallway, looking through the crack in the door like a voyeur. They’re talking about cars, and it seems like they’re coming out of whatever love spell Jules had them under. They’re actingnormal.
Too normal.
My eyes narrow, zeroing in on their faces. I can’t see any outward signs that this is a trick, but we’d better be damned sure they’re back to themselves before we ease up on the security, or they’ll cause a heap of trouble for us.
I was right to change the estate’s conjures to stop them from leaving, though it was Maddox’s idea for the spell to steal energy from them every time they tried. I have to admit that was pretty inspired. As it is, we’ve only got maybe a couple of weeks before we’ll all need to feed properly. They won’t risk their energies trying to escape more than once or twice.
I turn away and head back upstairs. There’s something niggling at me, and I can’t work out what it is. Or maybe I just don’t want to examine it closely. I told Maddox I didn’t care that we’d left Jules in the Mountain, but every time I think about it, I feel sick.
So, I trynotto think about it.
But everything just keeps circling back to the fact that we left a defenseless human girl in a prison of supe monsters. In the hands of Dante, one of the worst of them all. It was on Maddox’s orders, yeah, but I can’t blame him for this. I should have gone back for her, found a way to get her out of there.
Maybe the arania saved her.
I sigh, giving myself a nervous shake. I need to do something other than wander around this house.
And I need to forget Jules. She deserved what she got.
I go up to one of the round turret chambers in the west tower. The Sunroom. The walls are painted in fae symbols. Maddox had this room created for me to practice my fae magick in when I first joined his clan. It had only been a few months since I’d been kicked out of the military when they found out I was a supe. Now, of course, there are special supe detachments in all branches of the forces, but back when they first learned of us, it was a ‘get the fuck out, you freak’ type of deal.
I make a turn of the room, taking it in. I haven’t been up here in a long time. I’d forgotten how calming and centering it is. My magick was so weak before that there wasn’t much point in trying to perfect it because it wasn’t any more useful than Krase and Jayce’s fae toys that they were always playing around with, but I did enjoy coming up here to meditate.
Now, I’m wondering how powerful I actually am because the Mountain did something to me. I felt it then, and I can feel it even more clearly now that we’re back, in this room especially. I never could have changed the estate’s magickal defenses before. We used to have to pay some mid-level fae kid to come here and tweak it for us when we needed something altered. It would take him all day. This morning, I fixed it in five minutes.
I close my eyes, my countless childhood lessons with GiGi coming to the front of my mind. I sense rather than see the symbols on the walls when they start to glow as I push out with the tendrils of my personal magick, or at least the magick from my mother’s side.
I’m shocked when I feel them, ropes of magick so thick and infused with power, tinged with my demon side as well. When I was a child, these same ropes were like tiny, limp threads of nothing that embarrassed my mother’s fae kin.
Something in my mind relaxes, and it’s like dust being blown off a table, clearing it. I can see the conjure around the estate, the little clouds of blues, greens, and purples that come from the many old spells added over the years to the house and surrounding land. The maze, especially, is like a watercolor painting, being one of the older and historically more favored parts of the garden.
My brow furrows as I see the house itself. Most of those little conjures I know, like the one that Robertson used to use to call objects to him from around the grounds or the golden glow of the portal keys locked up in the safe in the library. I can even see the lone ones secreted around the house for emergencies. But there are a few other spells that I’m not sure of, and one in particular, down in the wine cellar, draws my attention. I get closer to it, but it’s muffled. Isn’t that my own—
Someone bangs on the door, breaking my focus and my connection to my magick.
‘Maddox wants you,’ Daemon says from the other side of the door. ‘The pixies Jayce called are here, and he wants you to check them out for spells and stuff.’
I roll my eyes; the conjures I was looking at forgotten.
‘What the hell did he used to do before?’ I mutter.
‘Used Jayce and Krase’s collection of fae crap,’ Daemon snorts. ‘But that sure as shit isn’t going to work with one of them being dead and the other one outside the trust circle.’
