Chapter 18
Jessiah
“What the hells are they doing out at this hour?” I paced back and forth in the room. All common sense had been thrown out the window, and goddess above, I was going to throw myself out next.
Xavier sat on the chaise, entirely unbothered by the late hour.
It was after midnight. Who in all hells ate dinner this late? It wasn’t right.
He wasn’t right.
“Relax,” Xavier ordered. “She’s obviously eating up his charms, and he clearly has an interest in her. If anything, it’s a good sign that they’re still out. It means they’re getting along.”
“Why the fuck should I care about whether they get along? She could be in danger.”
He dropped his head back. “She’s not.”
“She could be. That woman said he wants to raise the dead, for fuck’s sake. I should go find her. I should make sure she’s not—”
My words were cut off when I was hit square in the face with a decorative pillow.
I stomped closer, fists clenched at my sides, ready to—
“Say one more thing about flying out of this window to find your woman,” he gritted out, “and I’ll be forced to tie you to this bed. So you better watch what you say next.”
I shut my mouth before Xavier would actually kill me.
Distant footsteps had me whirling toward the door. My hearing was more heightened than Xavier’s, but he sat up, on guard, eyes fixed on me.
Had we been waiting here all damn night for her to return? No, that would be absurd.
But we’d been here for a while. Of course we had. I assumed she’d return hours ago. And waiting here for useful information was better than lingering around the damn castle, pretending like we had any clue what was going on.
Rummy was our best bet at getting information. It made sense to debrief her as soon as she returned from her date with the suspicious king.
Xavier froze when he heard the footsteps, too.
When I realized there were two sets, I took two silent steps toward the wooden door and pressed my ear against it.
“It’s been a lovely night,” the king said. “I hope I didn’t scare you away with my directness.”
Even his voice made me cringe.
But Rummy laughed, and though I was accustomed to the way her fake, forced laughs sounded, the sound still made my stomach curl.
“I enjoy the directness,” she replied, her tone lighter than usual, flirtier than usual. “There’s no use in wasting such a valuable man’s time, is there?”
A silence filled the air. The fucker was probably smiling at her. And she was definitely fluttering those dark lashes.
“Think about what I’ve said, okay? You were sent to me for a reason, Rummy. I can’t sit idly by while the fates offer me this one chance at my destiny. This could be our future. Together.”
What. The. Fuck.
What the hells had transpired during this damn date of theirs? I darted a look at Xavier, but he only shot me a warning look in response.
“Don’t,” he mouthed.
My restraint was quickly slipping. I was about to yank that damn door open. I was about to wrap a hand around Cornelius’s useless throat and demand he tell us what the fuck he wants with Rummy, what the fuck he’s been doing in this damn kingdom of his.
But then Rummy turned the knob.
I pressed myself flat against the wall beside the door, praying to the goddess above that Cornelius didn’t come in after her.
But so what if he did? She had come here with us. She wasn’t ours by any means, but it was our duty to look out for one another. And did the man have no damn respect? He walked around here like Xavier and I were invisible, like the only person he wanted anything to do with was Rummy.
“Good night, Cornelius,” she called over her shoulder.
He returned the salutation, his tone pathetic and a little lovesick, I swear.
Only when Rummy closed the door behind her did I exhale a long breath and step away from the wall.
At the sound of my fluttering wings, she jumped and spun around. She opened her mouth, ready to scream, but Xavier was already behind her, clasping a hand over her mouth to keep her quiet.
“It’s just us,” I said, hands out in front of me. Goddess, she wore a tight black dress that fit her perfect body like a damn second skin. Her blonde hair was tousled—it better have been from the wind and not that grimy snake’s hands.
Get it together, Jessiah. You have no control over who does and does not touch her hair.
While I reined myself in, Xavier loosened his grip on her. “I’m going to let go of you now,” he whispered. "Don't scream, okay? We’re just here to talk.”
Rummy rolled her eyes, and when Xavier finally released her, instead of screaming, she snapped, “What in the hells do you two think you’re doing here?”
“Waiting for you,” I answered. Should we have been embarrassed? Maybe. Probably. This certainly didn’t look great for either of us, but we were a team. We were supposed to be figuring out Cornelius’s weird plan together.
And neither of us would have been able to sleep knowing she was out there with him.
Wolf would murder us if anything happened to her.
“Why? Couldn’t we have waited until tomorrow to discuss whatever it is you want to talk about?”
“Why wait for tomorrow?” I asked, arms crossed. “Were you planning on inviting your date inside for the evening?”
She glared, though the expression quickly turned into a mischievous grin, her perfect lips tipping up wickedly. “Maybe I was,” she said. “Why? Interested in watching?”
Rage washed over me, clouding my vision.
“Everyone, relax.” Xavier stepped between us before I could say anything I’d regret. “We’re all here now, let’s not waste this time bickering.”
Rummy took a long breath.
I did the same, though it came out more like an angry huff. “Fine.”
She squinted at me. “Fine.”
“Good, good. I’m glad we can all be civil, friendly adults.” Xavier clapped once, like he hoped it would break the tension in the room.
But that was an impossible task.
So instead, he shuffled over to Rummy’s massive bed and perched on the edge. “Care to fill us in on the details of the evening, Rum?”
Her gaze flickered between Xavier and me. She didn’t give a shit about filling us in. She was the type to move on her own, to move silently. The strange defense mechanism she had picked up at some point during her life practically required her to lie in just about all situations.
But that wasn’t going to work here. Not when she’d been out with Cornelius until the early hours of the morning. Not when we needed information to take back to Wolf and Huntyr.
She knew something.
“What do you want to know? We ate dinner, including a couple of glasses of wine—which I love way more than the ale in Scarlata, by the way—and then we just talked. That’s it.”
A beat passed. Then another. We looked at her, she looked back, her expression full of challenge.
I was two seconds from absolutely blowing up on her when Xavier leaned forward from his seated position on the bed, and said, “That’s seriously all you’re going to tell us?”
Lips pressed together, she looked away, though she quickly met his gaze again and shrugged. “Sorry to inform you that you waited up for nothing. Maybe consider the possibility before you break into my bedroom again and wait around like stalkers.”
Xavier scoffed, a vein in his temple pulsing.
He had more patience than anyone I’d ever met. I’d only seen him angry a handful of times, and every instance had been during training.
He understood Rummy in a way that most didn’t, cut her a lot of slack. But the way he looked at her just now? The anger in his eyes and the ticking of his jaw were so out of character.
He stood from the bed and crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re being a real bitch right now, Rum. You just spent hours with the guy.”
She shrugged. “So?”
“So?” He shook his head. “We’re in this together.
We were tasked with handling this as a team.
You learned something tonight, don’t fucking act like you didn’t.
You’ve been keeping secrets since those damn Whispering Caves, and we’ve given you space to process and the opportunity to come to us, but I’m running out of patience. And time.”
Damn.
He stormed toward the door, but just as his hand landed on the knob, Rummy called out.
“Xavier, wait.” Her jaw flexed, like it pained her to give in.
He stopped but didn’t turn.
“I did discover one detail we should talk about.”
“Great.” He spun on his heel, but his friendly, flirty demeanor was long gone. “I’m all ears.”
She shifted on her feet, smoothing out the skirt of her black dress. She didn’t meet my eyes. She didn’t meet Xavier’s, either. “His magic is…concerning.”
“He showed you his magic?” I took a step closer. “What is it?”
“According to him, magic here is nothing like the magic in Vaehatis. It’s limitless, really. There are so many different kinds… Anyway.” She took a deep breath. “From what I gathered, his power is somehow connected to the dead.”
“Okay…” Xavier shuffled to my side, and the two of us faced Rummy, waiting for details. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”
She gritted her teeth. “I wanted to ask more, but I didn’t want to seem pushy. But it sounds like he has a strange connection to the dead. He didn’t go into much detail, so I’ll need time to learn more.”
The loose hold I had on my temper snapped. “You need time? You didn’t want to be pushy?” Fire burned in my veins, searing me from the inside out. “How can you not push after what the healer said? And what was that about you being sent to him for a reason?”
She was hiding something. As fucking usual. She was feeding us breadcrumbs so we’d think she was telling the truth, but it was never that easy with her.
She always had an ulterior motive, there was always something to hide.
“I—” Rummy stuttered, her shoulders drooping, her body curving in on itself.
For the first time ever, I caught myself actually feeling sorry for her. The expression on her face was one of pure confusion.
I shook the concern away quickly, reminding myself that she was a master manipulator.
And I’d told myself that I’d never fall for that again.