Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Briar
I tried to keep my face impassive when he said this, but I was determined to get back into those woods. There was another animal out there that could communicate with me, and I would find it. Not to mention, while I had more freedom here than in Nightshade, I wanted more of it.
Plus, I might, by some miracle, figure out a way to escape this place if I could get beyond the walls again. I refused to spend the rest of my life in a limbo where I could be returned to Nightshade or tossed out of here when I was no longer useful.
I was done with having no control over my life.
Seth was dead; in his place stood a man I didn’t know and barely liked. Holding on to the past would only guarantee me more heartache than I’d already had.
“You have to be careful while harvesting the mushrooms,” I told him. “And handle them with care.”
With his large hands and impatient personality, he might destroy the mushrooms before they ever made it into a basket. He studied me before his attention shifted to a nearby rose, drooping beneath the gray sky.
“Fine, I’ll take you out to gather more of them tomorrow,” he relented.
I hid a smile. “Good. I’ll start a new potion with the mushrooms I have until then.”
We didn’t speak again as we walked to the castle. As we approached, the sprites watching for us started opening the gates.
Once inside the bailey, he shouted at the sprites to close the gates. Two of them fluttered around as they turned the crank, and the gates started closing.
“Get inside the castle and stay there,” Knox ordered brusquely. “If I find out you left the walls again while I’m gone, I’ll return you to the tower.”
“That is where I sleep.”
He had started to turn away from me, but my words caused him to swing back toward me. “Didn’t Dromon tell you that you could choose a different room?”
“He did, but I decided to stay there.”
“I thought you didn’t like the tower.”
“Things change.”
Our gazes remained locked in a war of wills. “Fine, if I find out you left, I’ll take that lowleeto from you and throw it in the woods.”
My heart sank as Gizzi rose on my shoulder and released an incensed, twittering sound. I reached up a hand to soothe him, but he wasn’t in the mood for that.
“Let him try, and I’ll rip his throat out,” Gizzi hissed.
“No one is tearing out anyone’s throat,” I told him. “I can’t get away now anyway.”
“But you’re going to try.”
“I am going to try and succeed.”
Gizzi settled back on my shoulder. “Yes, you will. You deserve better than this asshole.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I told Knox.
He nodded briskly before his jaw started twisting into something more. Razor-sharp teeth erupted in his mouth as his snout elongated. The snout and black nose resembled those of a wolf, as did his forehead and the shape of his eyes.
I winced when his bones cracked. His shoulder blades lifted and went back as they twisted into something different with a loud pop. Sleek orange fur, like a tiger without stripes, spread across his body as claws erupted from his toes and fingers.
A thin, catlike tail emerged as red dragon scales spread across his belly and groin. Golden scales rippled across his chest.
His knees twisted backward until he went to all fours. While his eyes remained the color of fire, his pupils became slitted like those of a dragon or a cat. A monstrous beast stood before me; it was so large its back almost reached my chin.
I’d seen part of the beast emerge in the harem and when he battled the basilisk, but I’d never seen the full transformation. However, I felt as if there was something more… something he was holding back.
I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was missing, but I also couldn’t shake the certainty that there was.
The memory of the trees crashing in the woods earlier flitted across my mind. Had that only been this morning? It felt like weeks ago, not hours, when I’d stood and watched some strange beast surge toward me.
Then the trees ceased crashing to the ground, and Knox emerged from the forest, irate and trapped between his beast and man forms. Had he been something more before I saw him?
Was he the reason the trees fell like dominoes?
Knox blinked at me before spinning and racing toward the still-closing gates. Shifters could change into either feline, canine, or dragon, but when my mother cursed Knox, she created a monstrous mix of all three.
Despite being so large and strangely misshapen, Knox was far faster than I would have expected. His speed caused him to blur, and his claws clicked against the bricks while he raced through the gates. He was halfway to the woods when the doors shut completely.
I stood for a moment as I tried to process what I’d seen. I wasn’t the only one harboring secrets.
A sinking feeling filled my chest. “I’m not sure I can escape that,” I told Gizzi.
“Neither am I.”