Page 64 of Owned By the Fae
I regard him unblinkingly, wondering if he’ll take what I say at face value, or call me a liar again.
‘Varrik’s experiments. He doesn’t just do the procedure on the fae he brings here to give skills to. He uses what he learns to make himself more powerful, to prolong his life.’ I frown at Kal. ‘I suppose that could be considered another skill he has.’
‘How do you know this?’
Dane takes a drink and I think it’s so that he can stop himself from interrupting before I can finish speaking.
‘I heard him and Grith speaking in the library once. They thought I was asleep. But the truth is, most who live in the keep know. It’s just that no one really speaks of it.’
‘How olddo youthink he is?’ Kallum asks.
‘I’m not sure exactly,’ I say, ‘but at least thirty years older than you think, and he doesn’t look as if he’s aged since we left.’
Dane chokes and sprays his water all over the floor. ‘But that would make him eighty or ninety.’
‘Yes.’
‘But,’ Kal looks at a loss for words for once. ‘His face ...’
‘He’s looked the same since I was brought to the keep as a child,’ I say simply. ‘You rarely saw him then, but I did almost every day. I’m not wrong. If his plan is a long one, it’s because he thinks he has the time.’
‘How?’ Dane rasps with a cough.
I shrug. ‘He’s Varrik. He’s secretive. He doesn’t even perform his experiments here in the fold. How should I know how he did it?’
Dane and Kallum stare at me for a moment. With Dane present, I probably shouldn’t reveal anything else. His loyalty isn’t to me, after all.
Kallum stands and begins to pace. ‘But why? Why do all this? What are the experiments for? Power? Over whom?’
Dane regards him. ‘Varrik seeks the betterment of the fae. That’s what the camp was about. That’s why he saved us.’
Kallum puts his head in his hands and lets out a longsuffering sigh, casting a look at me. ‘And what about Lia? You’ve seen what he’s done to her, what he lets others do. How does that weigh in with your beliefs about Varrik’s goodness?’
Dane’s lips purse. ‘The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.’
Kallum growls a low curse. ‘So, what? You’re going to come in here every day. Pretend to fuck the Harbinger, and when she doesn’t get with child, you’re going to let Varrik enact the next part of his plan with her?’
Dane looks at me, his face giving nothing away. ‘I won’t be pretending. Varrik will know if I don’t seed her. He’ll have his most trusted healer make sure it’s being done properly. He won’t trust my word. He won’t trust anyone’s as she’s … a human.’
He takes another long drink of water while Kallum paces.
‘What are we going to do? She can’t still be here by the next moon!’
‘Orchestrate her escape,’ Dane whispers so quietly that I’m sure I’ve misheard him.
‘What?’
Dane doesn’t say the words again, but he looks determined. ‘We’ll find a way before the time runs out. You won’t be staked out in the hall to be used, Harbinger. I promise you that.’
Kallum looks confused. ‘But you’ll still help Varrik.’
‘For now. There are so few of us. He’s trying to save us, Kallum. But there are ways he can do that without the Harbinger.’ He looks at me. ‘The Harbinger isn’t needed.’
The words he doesn’t say have my gut twisting.You aren’t needed.
I don’t show anything outwardly, but I can’t help but think that Dane means that he doesn’t need me either.
Why does that pain me?
