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“I’m sorry, I just thought you were someone else,” I say, my voice submissive.
He chuckles soundlessly, “Well, if you’ll excuse me…” Turning back around, he freezes a moment, as if he expects me to leave. When he realizes I can’t, he spins on the stool, slapping his hands against his thighs. “Okay, look, lady. I’m not sure what your deal is, but you can either join me for a drink, or be on your way. I don’t like people standing behind me.”
I swallow, wetting my throat. It’s so dry it almost burns. “I’ll… um… I’ll go.”
Asmo’s eyes soften as they drop to my hands. “You’re leaking.”
My neck tilts on its own accord. “What?”
“You’releaking.Your hands.”
It takes every ounce of strength I have to look away from him, finding smoke coiling around my fingers, my wrists, the veins so dark it looks like my blood has called upon death itself.
“Calamity,” a familiar growl sounds from behind me, a hand clamping on my shoulder. I’m spun around before I can think a single thought. The shadows coiling around me dissipate in an instant. “What the fuck are you thinking?”
Silver eyes trap mine, the fury in them not even registering in my mind. Though his face softens the moment he sees mine, and he glances up over my shoulder, jolting ever so slightly when he realizes who I was talking to.
“Asmodeus… Why are you… When did you…” Loric struggles for the words as his wide eyes glance between us.
“Is she yours?” Asmo asks, my back to him. “Is she okay? She looked at me like she saw a ghost.”
“Uh, yeah. What are you doing here? I thought the king was getting ready for a gauntlet?” Loric hugs me, and I bury my face into his chest, but I don’t dare let the tears fall, not yet. I just breathe him in, letting the smell of him storm my senses. That alone is the only reason I can breathe at all.
“He is, it was pushed back a few days. Something came up.”
“Do I dare to ask what?” Loric stiffens, holding his breath.
“The king asked me to find someone, and since he’s pissed at me, I don’t really have much of a choice.” I can hear the anger in Asmo’s voice, the uncertainty of what will come next if he fails. It’s not the first time the king has demanded he do something, threatening to set off his cuff and kill him if he doesn’t come through.
“Mad at you? What did you do?”
Asmo’s voice drops to a hushed tone. “He thinks I tried to fake someone’s death, but I don’t have any memory of the girl he’s looking for. He showed me her cell, but it couldn’t have been. It hasn’t been touched since my daughter died. I’ve made sure of it.”
My heart pounds in my ears. Loric didn’t take away his memories, he altered them. Asmo remembers something… he has to or he wouldn’t have remembered my cell.
Loric takes a step back, taking me with him. “Asmo, I need you to answer something and you can’t ask why.” His voice breaks, his arms tightening around me, but I don’t dare lift my head away from his chest. His heartbeat is the only thing keeping me together.
“Alright…” Asmo trials off, and I hear the slide of his glass against the counter. “I sort of figured you must be up to something, especially since we decided you’d stay off the mainland for good since I couldn't cover for you anymore. Though, it’s been what, twenty-something years? What do you want? It’s not like I have anything to lose anymore.”
Asmo was covering for him?Then the realization slams into me, taking the air from my lungs. Whatever Asmo was helping him with, he stopped before I was born, because if he got caught, it meant I’d lose him too. I swallow down the knot forming in my throat, leaning back to look at Loric’s face. It’s so pale… the blood drained from it. His eyes meet mine for just a fraction ofa second and he tucks my head to his chest again, his fingers combing through my hair.
“Well come on, out with it.” Asmo insists.
“Where’s Megara’s body?”
Asmo snorts. “It’s been years since anyone so much as mentioned her name and now both you and the king? What are you up to?”
Loric’s hand pauses in my hair. “It’s better you don’t know, but I need you to tell me.”
“You’re not planning to steal it, are you? If so, that’s a death wish.”
“It’s not in the riff, then….” Loric breathes, a statement not a question. Asmo had planned to use her to trick the king into believing I was dead, and if she’s not in the riff, then it means his plan didn’t work.The king knows.
“No, she’s not in the riff. Not anymore, anyway. The king accused me of putting her in there to fake his prisoner’s death, but I know for a fact, I don’t care who the fuck it was, I’d never drop the mother of my child’s body in the riff.” Asmo pauses, getting up from his stool, and Loric takes another step back. This time, when Asmo speaks, venom drips in his tone, “Did you do it? Are you the reason she was in there?”
“No…” Loric releases me, shoving me behind him and the bar falls deathly silent. “You did, I just made you forget.”
Asmo’s eyes widen as he freezes in place. “Why would I…”
