Chapter 6 What Lies Beneath
What Lies Beneath
A hush fell over the room. Even the musicians stopped playing, bows screeching across strings before falling quiet.
Everything was perfectly, terrifyingly silent for one breath, two. In my mind I could hear Octavian’s words to me: It’s your silence that I fear.
And then someone screamed.
That broke the spell. The room erupted into chaos, with people shouting and goblets clattering and frenzied steps moving across the floor.
George—Radven—was still gripping my arms, and while he released one he squeezed the other even tighter.
Before I could even register what was happening, he was dragging me away from the crowd and along the wall.
He was remarkably strong and fast, and I couldn’t have freed myself even if I’d wanted to.
“What’s going on?” I asked, but my words were lost in the confusion. Radven offered no explanations, and his steps never faltered as he pulled me down the length of the room. More than once I thought I saw him push people away from us, but it was too dark for me to be sure.
His grip was starting to hurt, his fingers digging into my skin, and I was about to demand he release me when the lights flickered, then came on again.
Most of the guests were just as shocked by the return of the light as they’d been by its sudden disappearance, and once again the room fell quiet and still.
A number of the revelers had clearly been rushing for the exit, as evidenced by the tangle of bodies near the door, while others were scattered around the room and surrounded by the evidence of the recent chaos—torn dresses, broken goblets, elaborate wigs askew.
Only Radven never stopped, and he continued to drag me behind him as I watched the party come back to life.
Guests relaxed again, even laughing as if this whole scene had been some sort of elaborate performance.
I heard more than one relieved boast of, “I knew it was nothing! Just a brief power outage!” Even the musicians were already picking up their instruments again, and a waltz began just as Radven and I reached a nondescript door at the end of the room.
“What are you doing?” I tried to tug myself free, but his grip remained firm. “It was just a minor blackout. Look, the party’s starting up again.”
But either he didn’t hear me or he chose to ignore me. He pushed through the door and dragged me along behind him, into a quiet hallway on the other side.
At this point, I could feel both anger and panic welling up inside me, so I reached into my purse with my free hand and grabbed the little canister at the bottom.
“Let me go or I swear I will pepper spray the shit out of you.”
He released me immediately, but when he spun around to face me, there was something terrifying in his eyes. He was no longer a predator toying with his prey, but instead one who’d sensed a threat.
And despite the can of pepper spray in my hand, I got the distinct impression that the threat wasn’t me.
“Do you have any idea what’s happening right now?” he practically growled at me.
“No,” I snapped back. “That’s exactly what I’ve been telling you this entire time.”
His expression softened somewhat, the animal in his eyes retreating.
“I’m just trying to keep you safe,” he said.
“From what? Whatever made that woman scream?”
He shook his head. “That was just some idiot being dramatic.”
“Then what did you need to protect me from? A blackout? Were you worried I’d get trampled by a stampede of wild ball gowns?”
His face had gone very rigid. “That might not have been a blackout.”
“Well, it’s your house. I guess you’d know better than me.” Why won’t he give me a straight answer? “That still doesn’t explain why you dragged me here.”
He let out a frustrated sigh and shook his head again. “There isn’t the time to explain this now. I need to get you somewhere secure so Oak and I can investigate this.”
Who the hell is Oak? I wondered. But before I could ask him—not that I honestly expected him to answer, since he’d dodged all of my other questions—he tried to grab my arm again.
This time, though, I managed to twist out of the way.
“Please,” he said, “there isn’t time for this. The less you know, the safer you are.” From someone else, that might have sounded like begging. But there was an edge to Radven’s desperation.
“And if I refuse to go with you?” I asked.
His eyes sharpened, the wolf returning. “Then I have no qualms about throwing you over my shoulder and carrying you.”
I didn’t even have to consult my body to know he was telling the truth. And despite the alarm bells blaring in my head about this entire situation, I absolutely believed that he saw a threat somewhere, and that he absolutely believed he was saving me right now.
From what, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
“Okay,” I told him. “I’ll come with you willingly.”
Apparently that was enough. Without a word he spun back around and gestured for me to follow him, then hurried down the hallway.
I had to practically jog to keep up with him.
Which was a shame, because I really wanted to get a closer look at the house around us.
The walls of the hallway were just as white as those in the huge room we’d left behind, but there was less art here.
I would almost have described them as starkly bare, but elaborate chandeliers above cast pebbled patterns of light on either side, keeping the place from feeling completely austere.
Right now the lights were relatively dim, and between that and the complete absence of windows, it felt more like we were moving through a tunnel than walking along a clifftop.
Radven stopped abruptly, turning toward a door that was as plain and white as all the others. He slipped a key out of his pocket and undid the lock, opening the door just wide enough for me to slip through.
“In here.”
I only hesitated a moment, long enough to remember that I didn’t have my phone, that if I made the wrong decision I might be trapped without any means of calling for help.
But I had no doubt that Radven would make good on his word and throw me inside if he had to, and I decided to be obedient for the moment—if for no other reason than I’d have the element of surprise on my side if I decided to bash him over the head later.
I stepped through the doorway—and found myself at the top of a flight of stairs leading downward.
“Where does—” Before I could even get the words out, the door slammed shut behind me, and I heard the telltale click of the key turning in the lock.
Instinctively, I grabbed for the door handle, but there wasn’t any way to unlock the door on this side without a key.
“It’s for your safety,” he growled through the door.
“Then why does it feel like a prison?” I countered, but either he ignored me or he was already gone again.
Isaac is never going to let me live it down if he finds out George Crestwood locked me up. In that moment, though, I would have given anything to be able to call my friend. As well as the police, obviously.
Turning back around, I looked down the staircase leading below. There was just enough light for me to see that there was a door at the bottom.
I might as well explore if I’m trapped here, I told myself. Maybe I’ll discover that sex dungeon Esmer was talking about.
Allowing myself a little humor made me a feel braver, and I made my way slowly but deliberately down the stairs.
When I reached the door at the bottom, I found it ajar, and faint light was emanating from within. At least I wasn’t going to have to explore in the dark. I pulled the door open and stepped through.
The room beyond was—disappointingly—not a sex dungeon.
It appeared to be a home office. Or perhaps a stuffy mancave.
At the center of the room was a large, ancient-looking wooden table like the one where the royal advisers gathered in my Thrones and Kings fanfic.
Three of the walls were lined with bookcases, interrupted occasionally by pedestals supporting more art pieces, and the final wall, no surprise, was floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the bay.
This room must be built right into the cliff itself, I thought, and sure enough, when I took a closer look at the wall opposite the window, I realized it was carved right out of the stone.
I glanced around for a phone, just in case, but I didn’t spot any means of calling for help.
And there were certainly worse places to be temporarily imprisoned.
The whole room gave me those same shivery vibes I’d been feeling all night.
My body was telling me something about this place, but I still didn’t know what.
It wasn’t fear. It almost felt like excitement, but it was still too strange to analyze just yet.
I made a circle around the room. It wasn’t especially large, for a mansion this size, and the big table in the middle almost overwhelmed the space. Someone had burned a symbol into the very center of its surface—the same linked triangles and rose I’d seen on the invitation and the statue outside.
I perused the bookshelves next, wondering what sort of volumes billionaires collected.
Business books, maybe. Or stuff about wealth management, or maybe travel guides for all sorts of exotic places I’d never see in my lifetime.
If one of the brothers was a collector, there might be some valuable first editions of classic novels or something.
The first book I grabbed off the shelf was bound in red leather, and old enough that the binding was starting to come undone. It was also thick, so I opened it with great care.
It appeared to be an old herbalist’s handbook.
Each page featured a sketch and description of a plant and its uses, both medicinal and otherwise.
It would have made an awesome resource for my Thrones and Kings fanfic, since one of my characters was a hedge witch.
I made a mental note to ask Radven about it when he returned, but in the meantime, I intended to keep exploring.
The next book I grabbed randomly was slightly thinner and bound with brown leather that was so soft I made an involuntary sound of pleasure when I touched it.
When I flipped it open, I discovered it was an old anatomy book.
And when I say old, I mean that some of the diagrams were flat-out wrong, and there was a whole section devoted to bodily humors.
I flipped ahead, but when I got to the creepy drawings of half-dissected corpses, I slammed it shut and shoved it back on the shelf.
Exactly the sort of book a serial killer might enjoy, I mused. That was enough reading for the moment.
I turned away from the bookshelf and stepped toward the nearest pedestal. The pedestal held a unique artifact beneath a dome of glass, and at first glance it looked like some sort of metal spider the size of a dinner plate.
Rich people have weird taste in art, I thought, stepping closer.
Upon closer inspection, the “spider” had only five appendages, and it looked more like a starfish with a round central body.
The whole piece appeared to be crafted of a brushed gold—or maybe bronze?
—and there was a pattern etched on the back of the “body.”
Tingles raced across my scalp and down my spine, and I found myself drawn closer, almost against my will. Something about that pattern looked familiar, but I couldn’t place where I’d seen it before.
Footsteps on the stairs outside snapped me back to the present. Was Radven coming back for me already?
I straightened, stepping away from the artifact so he wouldn’t think I was snooping—not that he had any right to complain, given he’d thrown me down here without any sort of explanation.
But the man who stepped through the door was not my captor.
He wasn’t as large and broad as Octavian, nor as lithe and athletic as Radven, but somewhere in between—and there was a stateliness to him, a presence that filled the entire room from the moment he stepped inside.
He didn’t notice me. Apparently, he wasn’t expecting anyone else to be here.
He strode across the room with brutal purpose, and I involuntarily drew back, afraid to even breathe.
At first glance, his suit appeared to be crafted of black velvet, but when he passed the light I could see that it was in fact a deep eggplant.
His mask was almost iridescent, changing colors as he passed between the shadows and light, but it wasn’t the colors that made my throat clench.
The mask was shaped like a dragon.