Chapter 3
three
George and Isahn are up a creek.
The pleasant soundscape of a rushing stream deep in a forest glade awoke George. Or that’s what she imagined as water trickled, birds chirped, and leaves rustled. With a sigh, she rolled onto her stomach and snuggled into the scratchy mattress.
The nature sounds shifted to the most obnoxiously loud squawking she’d ever had the displeasure of hearing.
“Oh, what the fuck!” Rolling from bed, her legs tangled in her sheet as she smashed into Hildy.
“Get up, the guys went out.”
“Deiwa nekami.”
“You don’t want the goddess to kill you, sleepy head.” Hildy went so far as to ruffle George’s sleep-rumpled curls.
Princess George narrowed her eyes. “What time is it?”
“Night.” Hildy laughed.
“Then why are you waking me?”
“I weighed the risk and decided you’d probably want this opportunity.”
Pulling a palla around her shoulders for warmth, George asked, “For?”
“A different approach? Less torture-y?”
Pressing her lips flat, George walked to the kitchen and took a seat at the rickety table. “I hated it.”
“I know you did. You’re soft.”
She gritted her teeth. “I’m not soft.”
“It’s a wonderful trait, considering how we grew up, and you know it. So no, I won’t hear your complaints, and you better not be feeling guilty.”
There was nothing she could do about the guilt, and George wished, for a second, that her friend Wynnie could’ve come along. Wynn’s vision magic would’ve been a huge help, especially in their current predicament.
The prisoner would probably talk for Wynnie too. She had a way with men.
George pictured the man in the cellar, those gentle blue eyes staring up at her, his tan pants pulled tight over muscled thighs—and she decided two things: One, her mind was atrocious; and, two, it was probably for the best that Wynnie wasn’t around.
Because if Wynnie was there, well, Wynnie would be there.
George wasn’t so sure she wanted this handsome man to meet her gorgeous friend just yet.
She really was going batty.
“Mira?” Hil asked, kicking the leg of her chair with a booted foot.
“He helped the girls without thinking,” she murmured.
“What?”
“Burke played the role of ‘dying girl in the street’ while Dunstan did the dirty work as ‘crying girl in need of help from big strong brute.’”
“And he was a big strong brute?”
“Big, strong, but not a brute.”
“Do you think spies can’t play nice?” Hildy countered.
That was what she needed to hear. With a sigh, George steeled her resolve. She was not her father; this was questioning with a much greater purpose than to serve her own ego. This was information-seeking, realm-saving, serious business. “Let’s go talk to him again. But I don’t like this.”
“I know you don’t, but you picked him.”
Two sets of footsteps descended the steps behind Isahn. He feigned sleep as one of the guards came around to his front, a curl of roses with just a hint of patchouli wafted past as she neared his restrained body. She’d been here before. This was the one who’d touched his hair and maybe—
Isahn was slapped hard, across the face.
He snapped to attention, eyes boring into the woman before him as he tried to decide whether she’d used her palm or some sort of touch magic.
A beautiful, if slightly hardened young woman, with deep brown skin and puffy white hair, stood there, a finger crooked beneath his chin.
Her voice was low and melodious as she spoke, “Hello there, pet. Why don’t you be a good boy and tell me who you are. ”
He narrowed his eyes at the guard. He hadn’t seen the woman who’d been there when he first arrived, but she’d murmured to herself with a different voice, a raspy one—like Mira’s.
This guard smelled identical, which meant one of two things: Either they used the same perfume, or this was Mira and a sound and sight mage were around. Fuck.
That big man, the one Isahn thought was called George, smelled similar too. Though his scent had been muted by the smell of burning flesh, George and Mira must’ve been getting close for him to pick up her perfume like that.
Thank fuck he’d realized their magic or he’d likely have cracked under their confusing game.
“Who do you work for?” she drawled.
Isahn didn’t answer, only eyed the curious woman.
She was beautiful, but something about her appearance felt off, reaffirming his suspicions.
Yes, people came in all shapes and sizes.
But her skin was smooth and flawless, and her hair too perfectly coiffed.
It didn’t bounce when she fidgeted. Her amber eyes were a touch too round and too far apart. She was ever so slightly unnatural.
Curiosity and a burst of stupidity got the better of Isahn and he sent out a negligible pulse of vapor to brush the guard’s hair. It passed straight through, unimpeded, until it met a mass of curls bound atop the woman’s head. Interesting.
“Come, come, little pet. If you speak with me now you won’t have to deal with a visit from the big mean guards who want to hurt you. What do you say about that?” She paced back and forth, speaking in a patronizingly sing-song voice.
Isahn sort of wished the sound mage would fuck off so he could hear Mira speak in those raspy tones.
.. assuming it was her. Her voice, her scent, had been a balm during those confusing moments.
Was this that disease of the mind they spoke about in the military?
When a man falls for his captor because of time spent together?
She’d hardly been around—not that he could prove anyway. It made no sense.
With the soft scent of rose coddling his senses, when she slapped him across the face again, it backfired and sent a shiver of pleasure to his groin.
He hummed.
Oh, what the fates?!
“What do you want?” she barked the question, clearly getting annoyed at his lack of response.
“You,” Isahn blurted.
She stiffened, though her expression remained neutral. “What?”
His lips twitched at the realization he was throwing her off-kilter from his spot, strapped hand and foot to a chair. He could work with that.
“You. Come on over here, beautiful.” The woman before him was gorgeous and fierce, even though he was pretty sure she was showing him a mirage. It was a long shot, but he hoped being flirtatious would get her to crack, to give him some useful information, so he could decide what to do.
It didn’t work.
Her hand connected with his jaw, this time in a full, furious fist rather than an open-palm slap.
Isahn sucked in a breath, fighting the tears welling in his eyes as his guard took a staggered step back and blinked down at him.
He stared back, wishing he could break that mirage and see who lay beneath.
“Let’s go,” the woman barked at someone over his shoulder before sweeping around him the same way the big man had done before.
George flung herself into the kitchen, snagged Hildy’s abandoned flask from the table, and popped the cork as she burst outside into the star-blanketed night. The cottage door closed behind George for a second time, and Hil’s palm landed on her shoulder.
“Are you all right? What happened? I thought you were going for less torture-y.”
“I don’t know,” George mumbled, swigging the Domossan whiskey. It burned down her throat, reminding her of all the bitter pills awaiting at the capital—everything she needed to fix.
She’d lost her temper. She never lost her temper.
Hildy offered, “He spoke to you, that’s progress.”
“He said nothing useful.” She took another sip and with her jaw tight, added, “And I was acting like my father—both times I’ve tried to question him. I can’t do this.”
“Maybe you acted like Gasparo on the surface. But no, Georgie. I know you, and you’re nothing like him.”
She turned toward Hildy, grass squeaking beneath her feet. “I was testing the prisoner. He passed and I failed.”
“What do you mean?”
“He just took it, Hil. Even when I punched him, he just took it. He called me beautiful, and I punched him in the fucking face! I think we’ve made a terrible mistake. I don’t know if this is the man I need.”
Hil cast her gaze up and to the side as her lips pulled down the slightest bit.
“Don’t say it.” She could hear the “I told you so” without Hildy using any words or her magic.
A cold, wet wind whipped in off the farmlands and George snuggled into her palla, pulling the scarf tighter around her shoulders.
“What do you want to do?”
“Let’s go back inside.”
“And after that?”
George wished for a spot of her usual impulsivity. Scrabbling for her standard decision-making abilities, she said, “We need to get back to Domos. We’ll take him with us.”
Hildy lifted a brow.
“We’ll figure out who he is at Elio and Greta’s.”
“And if not there?”
Fighting a sneer, she replied, “Then we get him to Nowosmont and get Wynnie to have a go.”