Chapter Nine #5
“I don’t need your sister now. Using or hurting her would be wasted energy, and sloths don’t do that.” He smiled. “Everything I do to protect little Adora is because you wish it, and everything you do to serve me is because I do. That is no lie.”
My lips parted a few times, but every time I thought I knew what to say in response, it would fade before leaving my lips.
What kind of cruel, possessive control was this?
He would do anything to make his pet happy as long as said pet made him happy?
Sure, maybe Dora wasn’t being hurt directly, but she was still being used against me under the guise of pretending it was my choice.
“Why don’t you care that we’re clearly being spied on?
” I asked, veering sharply away from the topic.
“Lucifer knows what I’ve been doing. My phone’s changed so many times, I assumed he wasn’t tapping my calls, but maybe he is or maybe he’s listening in another way, but he knows I haven’t made progress on finding the hallows.
You said this morning that he has most of the vampires working for him as his personal spies and assassins. Does he have them here too?”
“Without question. If it’s true you have something—or you will have something—that Lucifer wants, then you should assume every single word you say aloud is being overheard by his white-eyed spies.”
I shivered. Even though as he said it, it should’ve been obvious, I still couldn’t stand how thoroughly my privacy was being violated. “So confining them to another wing did nothing?”
“It stopped them from moving freely. It didn’t stop their hearing.”
I just nodded. “It’s my fault for being so na?ve. I shouldn’t have been having such an important conversation right out in the hallway.”
“Oh?” A dangerous edge crept into his voice. “And who exactly were you talking to in the hallway, pet? You came into the mess hall alone. Your sainted sister wasn’t with you.”
“I wasn’t talking to anyone,” I breezed, turning away. “Well, I was, but it was just Erlik. I asked him if he ever heard the legends of the hallows and, shockingly, he wasn’t a complete douchenozzle about it. He gave me a tip on who to ask for more information.”
“Hmm.” I felt a sudden, overpowering presence at my back. Cool fingers wrapped around the back of my throat as his lips tickled the shell of my ear. “Now who’s a liar.”
“I have to go,” I announced. Breaking free of his grip, and his scent, I crossed to the wardrobe and took out the backpack with the journals. “I need to find Nik and ask if he knows anything about the hallows. And if he doesn’t, I need to ask him to introduce me to his mothers.”
“No.”
“No?” I shrugged the backpack up my shoulders. “What do you mean no?”
“This”—a snap of the fingers and a metal bar and padlock appeared across the door—“should explain what I mean by no.”
“What are you doing!” I flew at the door, yanking on the lock. “Did you not hear a word I said? I need Nik!”
“You don’t need anyone other than me,” the lunatic replied calmly, “least of all that worthless rat.”
“Don’t call him that.” I whirled around, incensed. “This is not the time for your possessive, jealous bullshit, Ronin! You can’t introduce me to his dryad mothers, but Nik can.”
“Actually, I can too.” His mirthless smile mocked me. “The dryads reached out dozens of times to make a trade deal with my father. He can’t be bothered with stuff like that, or any stuff at all, so I made the deal. Threatening to revoke it would bring all the dryads you want right into your lap.”
“Wait, seriously?” The anger whooshed out of me. “What deal do you have with them? What does House Sloth have that dryads would even want?”
“We trade in one thing and one thing only: glamour potions.”
“Glamour potions?” I let the backpack slide off my shoulders onto the rug as I stepped closer. “How is it different from a regular glamour spell?”
“Minimal downside,” he said. “Prolonged use will cause mild stomach distress, but that’s it. It also can’t be broken by a guess or a slip of the tongue. You’ll revert to your true self only if you stop taking it. As for a glamour spell...” He laughed at me. “Well, you know what that’s like.”
My jaw clenched. “I was found out by the whole school because a vampire threatened to cut my arm off if I didn’t confess to being mortal, so yeah, I know what that’s like.”
“Fae have perfected glamour magic, but they’re like fallen angels in that they don’t share or trade in the secrets of their magic.
They only trade food,” Ronin went on. “But House Sloth was forced to perfect glamour magic too after twelve thousand, two hundred and thirty-six attempts to kidnap me after I was born.”
My eyes bugged. “Twelve thousand?! Are you kidding me!”
He tipped his head, brows furrowing. “Why would I be kidding?”
My gods, what the hell goes on in this nightmare?
“Anyway,” Ronin continued. “Father needed to conceal my beauty, but normal glamour spells aren’t up to the task.”
“Hence the creation of a ten-times-more-powerful potion,” I finished, “that’s safe for a baby to consume.”
He nodded.
“But why do dryads want that?” I asked.
“For their trees. The Others are constantly being hunted down and slaughtered, and trees don’t pull up their roots and run,” he said. “The dryads needed a way to hide their trees from sight of all.”
“I guess that makes sense.” I narrowed on him. “But what do they trade you in return?”
“Does it matter?”
Sighing, I replied, “I guess not. All that matters is if they’re willing to talk to me. I assume the meeting will have to take place outside the academy, since only werewolves, demons, vampires, fae, and murderous, man-sized crows are allowed on the grounds.”
He chuckled.
“So how soon can you set it up?” I asked. “Without threatening them. I find people are in a much better mood to discuss when they haven’t been dragged to the table.”
Ronin hummed. “With threats? Today. Without threats? Tomorrow,” he replied. “But neither option matters, because there won’t be any such meeting.”
My rising smile died on my lips. “Excuse me?”
Ronin shook his head at me like I was the problem. “You still don’t understand where you are, pet. This is hell, and whatever dryads may have been when they frolicked in the sun and rain in your world, that’s not what they are now.
“That rat would have you believing they’re good-natured because they took him in when no other demon would, but they’d have wanted him because he served a purpose, and no more,” Ronin said.
“Dryads can’t move more than a half a mile from their trees.
The rat can. It would have been his job to fetch water and keep the saplings alive.
Should he have failed in that task for a second, they’d have killed him without a second thought. ”
I flinched. “That’s not— You don’t even know—”
“I don’t know dryads? And what, mortal, you do?
” His mocking laugh curled my fists. “Dryads are twisted, amoral pests. They’re minor nature goddesses, and see every other creature as a tool born to serve, worship, or entertain them—no more.
What will most likely happen is they’ll be so offended that you dared to request information from them without an offering, they’ll kill you and use your body as fertilizer. ”
“Well, then, I’ll give them an offering!”
“And what do you have that a dryad wants?”
My lips parted, but nothing came out.
“That’s what I thought.”
Frustration would’ve exploded my head if it were only possible. “Ronin, what was the point of telling me you could help me with the dryads if you never planned to!”
He roared up, eating the distance between us.
“The point was to rid you of the delusion that anyone else can, or will, help and protect you the way I can. That Nik”—he spat the name—“has put you in danger once before to win a challenge he didn’t give a shit about.
What will he do when you’re screaming for mercy, and his mothers tell him to stuff a gag in your mouth and shut you up?
” He flashed me a huge pout. “Ahh, do you think he’ll choose to protect you? ”
“I don’t know what he’d do,” I pushed through gritted teeth. “I don’t know if he can help me. I don’t know if the dryads can! But I do know I have to try. When Lucifer calls back asking for the identities of the hallows, I have to be able to give him an answer.”
He snorted. “Make up whatever answers you like, Hunter. The hallows don’t exist.”
“Yes, they do! I’ve seen—!”
“What have you seen!” Ronin burst out, blowing me back. “Tell me exactly what you saw that has you so determined to throw your life away at every fucking turn! Fuck’s sake, Charlotte!” A new emotion bled into his ruby orbs. “Why do I care more about your life than you do!?”
I backed up, eyes wide. Gone was the laid-back, devil-may-care jerk from only moments before. This devil was shouting, he was angry, but most of all what I saw in his eyes was—
Concern? Is Ronin... worried about me?
I tossed my head, ridding my mind of it the second it passed through. This wasn’t concern or worry. It’s control, and the most dangerous thing I could do was confuse the two.