Chapter 11
Ten
Gus edged back, feeling numb as she touched her bottom lip with her tongue. “W-what are you doing here?”
Ryan’s face was impossible to read as he studied her quietly. “I told you I was coming.”
“Right.”
He had done that. She’d forgotten.
“Is there a reason you’re acting so strange?” Ryan asked.
Gus’s stomach tightened at the look on his face.
Of her siblings, Ryan was the one who scared her the most. She’d never been able to figure out why.
There was nothing overtly hostile about his manner.
He’d never hurt or threatened her. If anything, he was always a little too reasonable.
More likely to listen where some of the others would resort to violence to get their way.
It was how they were taught. When you encountered a problem, bash it until it submitted. Or was destroyed.
The worst Ryan had done to her was keep her from home for weeks—sometimes months—on end. That was irritating but not a reason for the extreme level of caution she felt every time she was in his presence.
Maybe it was his face. He wasn’t just pretty. He was beautiful with a capital B. Every line exquisitely rendered. From the curve of his jaw to the high cheekbones that made him look like something out of a fairy tale.
His hair had a slight wave that almost begged you to run your fingers through it, just to see if it was as soft as it looked. Its color was a warm brown that reminded Gus of the branches from the Lord of Titan. His eyes a distinctive orange that stood out among the rest of his features.
He was the embodiment of perfection. In more ways than one. Everything he did was well thought out. Every move calculated for maximum impact. He always seemed ten steps ahead of everyone else.
“Don’t the forty-three consider me strange all the time?” Gus threw back at him, knowing if she stayed silent much longer, he would get suspicious.
Ryan’s gaze grew intent. “Not like this. This is new.”
Like he would know. Like any of them would.
She was their outcast. An outsider every bit as much as Kira and Jin. They didn’t know her. Most of them had never even tried.
“What are you hiding from me, Pityrodia Augustensis?”
“Nothing,” Gus protested.
She almost winced at the defensive tone of her voice. If he hadn’t been suspicious before, he would be now.
Sure enough, Ryan stalked forward, somehow managing to expertly avoid the unstable areas. As if he’d done this before. Not just once or twice but over and over again until he was an expert.
Gus didn’t like that thought. She didn’t like it at all.
Bad enough that he knew about the administrator’s office. The only thing worse was if he visited frequently enough to be aware of its dangers.
“You’re lying to me, Pityrodia,” Ryan exclaimed with an air of discovery.
He didn’t sound angry. Rather, surprised.
And maybe a little intrigued.
“You’re paranoid,” Gus said with a calm that would have been a harbinger of what was to come.
If he’d actually known her, that is.
Her expression smoothed out. Her anxiety and fear were pushed to the background as she made furtive movements under the cover of her cloak, careful not to stir its fabric as she brushed one finger over the third knuckle of her left hand.
Then she waited.
For him to come closer. For her chance to present itself.
She’d only get one.
If she failed, Ryan would kill her. He might do that anyway.
Predictably, Ryan closed the distance between them, wrapping his fingers around her throat. Not hurting, but holding her securely.
“My dear, Pityrodia, you’re not as inscrutable as you like to think,” Ryan purred, his breath brushing the sensitive skin of her neck, sending a shiver through her.
“I gave you a chance to come clean, but you didn’t take it.
Now, we’ll have to do things the hard way.
Tell me—why is Belladonna making unauthorized moves? ”
“So, you know.”
A cool sensation crept over Gus’s skin, originating from the place on her neck where his fingers were touching.
It didn’t hurt. Not yet. But it would.
Soon.
Ryan caught her hand when she went to grasp his wrist. “Ah, ah, we’ll have none of that. I’m familiar with your tricks, Gus.”
“Not all of them.”
Ryan’s forehead crinkled as a whisper of confusion stole across his features before it was replaced by understanding.
He stumbled back, letting go of Gus as he stared at his hand like it belonged to someone else. Black spots spread from everywhere that had come into contact with the skin around her throat. It climbed up his wrist to his forearm as he struggled to keep his balance.
“How did you—?” Ryan demanded, his breath coming in short bursts.
Unable to hold him any longer, his knees gave out. Ryan fell. He caught himself with his arms briefly before they too lost strength. He ended up face down before somehow managing to roll onto his back.
Gus moved closer. Until the tips of her shoes brushed the edge of his clothes.
His gaze found hers, a demand in it.
“You and the others weren’t the only ones to receive gifts from the masters,” Gus informed him with a detachment that hid how sick she felt inside.
For all that she’d been the master’s favored pet, she hadn’t escaped their tender mercies. If anything, she was subjected to more horrors because of it. Fed a daily dose of poison to see how much she could take.
It turned out she could take quite a bit.
The result was immunity from most toxins in the known universe. A side effect of those experiments was that now Gus could secrete every poison she’d tasted from her skin.
A bitter smile touched Gus’s lips as Ryan lost consciousness. “I got some too.”
Watching Ryan struggle to breathe, Gus felt oddly numb.
Interesting.
She hadn’t realized this particular poison would be quite so fast acting.
For a moment, she considered letting Ryan die. After what he’d just tried, he kind of deserved it.
But no, that wouldn’t work. His faction was too powerful. They’d try to avenge him.
She could kill some but probably not all. As soon as they learned about her poison, they’d be sure to keep their distance and strike from afar.
She’d be forced to flee. There were already so many people she was running from. She had no desire to add to their number.
Ryan had to survive.
With an internal sigh, Gus crouched, popping an antidote that was similar to the one she’d given Anandra what felt like eons ago into his mouth. It dissolved on contact with liquid. He’d absorb it through his tongue and gums and be fine.
It did put Gus on something of a time crunch, however.
With that in mind, she rose. She needed to move quickly or she’d lose this opportunity.
Letting herself back inside her office, she headed straight for a shelf across the room. It was unorganized and full of clutter. As such, it took a moment of rifling to find what she was looking for.
Finally, she pulled a set of cuffs out from beneath a couple of precious gems and meteorites filled with rare metals that she kept on hand as a sort of slush fund.
The cuffs themselves were made of seiki stone.
One of the few known minerals capable of blocking a Tuann’s ki.
Gus had picked them up from a black market Tuann auction as an impulse buy.
Past Gus must have had amazing foresight because these things might just give her a chance.
Cradling the cuffs, she hurried back to Ryan’s side to put them on him. Once that was done and his ki was firmly suppressed, Gus stood back to admire her handiwork.
Much as she hated to say it, she doubted the cuffs would be enough to restrain him long enough for her to say what needed to be said. She needed to incapacitate him somehow. Otherwise, he could just overpower her with his bare hands.
Gus concentrated, staring at the floor around Ryan.
Carefully, she sent tendrils of her soul’s breath into the tree. The Lord of Titan responded to her request, tiny shoots sprouting from beneath the moss. They grew at an exponential rate, crawling over Ryan’s body to wrap around his torso and limbs until they covered every inch from his neck down.
Sweat beaded on Gus’s brow as she fed the tree more of her soul’s essence.
The sprouts thickened, becoming young trunks strong enough to hold someone of Ryan’s caliber.
With a grateful gasp, Gus cut off her ki.
The onslaught of faintness that set in immediately afterward made her wobble on her feet before she caught herself. Her efforts had wiped out her reserves, leaving her weak and vulnerable.
This was why she didn’t use her ki often. There was just too little of it and the consequences when she ran low were brutal. Headaches. Body aches. Sometimes even unconsciousness.
That was the case this time too.
Plopping down, Gus settled in to wait for Ryan to wake up.
Gus hummed softly to herself, the multi trunks of the tree cradling her back just right as she reclined against it. At the subtle shift in atmosphere, Gus dropped her hand from where she was idly petting the tree. “Oh good, you’re awake.”
Ryan’s expression was alert and surprisingly calm for someone inhibited by seiki stone and bound by the trunks of the Lord of Titan.
Gus supposed that meant he didn’t feel like he was in any real danger.
Then again, there was reason for his confidence. If she’d intended to kill him, she wouldn’t have given him the antidote.
“You poisoned me,” Ryan observed.
There was a curious lack of anger in his tone. If anything, he sounded bemused.
“I did,” Gus agreed.
“You never touched me. I made sure of it.”
Yes, he had.
“You’re not the only one the masters gave claws to,” Gus said.
You would have thought he’d suspect something given all the missions he’d sent her on. Most of them had been dangerous. If not for her self-defense mechanism, she would have been long dead.
“Is there a reason why you felt the need to poison me?”
“You were threatening me. I no longer felt safe.”
Ryan seemed somewhat taken aback by her statement. “I did? Me?”
“What would you call it then?”
He’d grabbed her by the neck and would have used his soul’s breath on her if she hadn’t stopped him.
Ryan pursed his lips but didn’t answer her, just watched her with those striking eyes of his.
“I acted in self-defense,” Gus asserted.
She wanted him to remember that when he finally got free. Maybe it would give him a moment’s pause when thinking about seeking revenge. She wouldn’t hold her breath though. He wasn’t exactly known for his understanding nature.
For the next little while, she’d have to give him and the rest of the forty-three a wide berth. At least until memories had a chance to cool and their grudges settled.
She had no idea how long that would take given their reputation for never forgetting a slight.
“Your response was a bit dramatic, don’t you think?” Ryan gave an experimental wiggle in his bonds.
Someone else might have fallen for his apparent calm.
Not Gus.
Their history spanned too many years. She knew how silver tongued Ryan could be. How he could lead you in circles until you thought up was down or left was right.
“I don’t. I’m familiar with your methods.”
She didn’t know his exact affinity or what the masters had given him, but she suspected it was mental.
Like Thea. Only on a much greater scale.
She’d observed a few of his interrogations on those rare times one of his minions crossed him. Their screams still haunted her. The nightmares he’d caused in their minds, the phantom pain he’d subjected them to, it had broken them.
Gus had no intention of following their fate. That’s why she’d acted so decisively.
“Are you sure it’s not a guilty conscious making you see things that aren’t there?” Ryan asked.
Here we go.
“I’m not your traitor, Ryan. Someone is setting me up.”
Ryan’s gaze followed Gus as she rose. “Where are you going?”
“There are matters that require my attention.”
And a traitor, or traitors, to catch.
Ryan shifted in the tree’s hold. “Do you really think these are enough to contain me?”
“I do.”
Ryan set his head back, closing his eyes tiredly. “Let me go, Gus. I promise not to hurt you.”
For a moment, Gus thought about it.
But no.
“Don’t bother trying to escape,” Gus told him. “Ever heard of Lueraheim?”
Ryan opened his eyes to look at her curiously.
Gus fondly patted the trunk next to her. “This tree’s from there.”
Lueraheim was a Tuann proving ground. Its flora and fauna had evolved to be uncommonly strong. The Dominus orbis terrarum was particularly hardy. Enough to withstand whatever Ryan threw at it.
He wasn’t going anywhere. Not without help anyway.
Ryan relaxed further into his bonds. “You seem to have put a lot of thought into this.”
Gus was glad it seemed that way. In reality, she’d gotten lucky. If Ryan had attacked her anywhere else, the outcome would have been much different.
“Rest, Ryan. I’m sure one of your henchmen will be around shortly to retrieve you.”
Her guess was Pallas. Or maybe Enoch. Hopefully, he didn’t send either of those two after her.
But if he did, she’d handle it. Just like she always did.
“Gus,” Ryan called as she headed toward the trunk she’d used to gain access to the hollow. He waited until she looked at him. “It’s good to see your face again. It’s been a long time.”
Nonplussed, Gus reached up to touch her cheek. Her bare cheek. There was nothing hiding her features from sight. At some point during her descent, her hood had slid down, and she hadn’t thought to pull it back into place because she’d never expected to encounter anyone else here.
Cursing internally, she grabbed the hood and pulled it over her head, giving it one sharp tug to make sure it was firmly in place.
Ryan’s smile was faint and a little too smug for Gus’s liking. “You should let people see you more often.”
“No thanks,” Gus snapped.
His husky chuckle followed her. “I’ll see you later, Pityrodia.”
“No, you won’t,” Gus muttered under her breath.
After this incident was settled, she was taking herself on a nice, long journey. Somewhere far away that was difficult to get to. Far off the beaten path. In fact, the more isolated the better. She wanted a place no one in their right mind would visit.