Orin stirred as he studied Cole. “Wherehave the two of you been?”
“The Lord wanted to meet with me,” Cole said. “And he brought her along for the ride.”
Orin paled a little; he stopped stirring and stepped away from the stove. “What happened?”
Cole gave him a brief rundown on what occurred while Lexi chewed her bottom lip and paced from the back door to the kitchen window and back again. Stopping at the back door, she pulled aside a corner of the curtain and peered out.
The night remained hushed, but a malevolent air had settled over the place. Things would never be the same. As long as the Lord lived, she would always be a pawn for him to use against Cole.
And she had a bad feeling that no matter what Cole did, no matter how well he played the game and obeyed the Lord, the insane man would never be satisfied. He would find a reason to punish Cole by handing her over to Malakai. Cole knew it too. That was why he was so volatile right now.
When Cole finished speaking, Orin was speechless for the first time since she met him. She turned away from the window to look at the brothers.
Orin remained in complete control while Cole was unraveling again. His joints cracked and popped, his face elongated and retracted as she returned to stand near the basin sink.
“I don’t see anyone out there,” she said.
“I made sure no one was around when I came out of the tunnel,” Orin said. “I remained cloaked in shadows until I pulled the curtains over the windows.”
“You shouldn’t have risked it,” Cole said.
“I didn’t know the Lord had decided to have you over as his guests when I did,” Orin replied.
When Cole leaned toward him, Orin gulped. Lexi had never seen him look anything less than perfectly composed, but it was clear Cole’s instability unnerved him. No one spoke as the sauce on the stove bubbled.
Snap. Crack. Snap. Crack. Crack. Pop.
When sauce splattered the stainless-steel surface of the stove, Lexi reached to turn off the flame. Before her hand settled on the knob, Orin snatched it and drew it toward him.
“What is that?” he demanded.
Lexi had no idea what he was talking about until he lifted her hand to examine it. On the back of it, a swirl of silver ran across her flesh. She frowned at the marking, uncertain where it came from, but then she recalled the dragon’s nose brushing against her.
“I’m not sure what it is,” she said. “But one of the dragons touched me.”
Orin’s face was unreadable as he stared at her hand. Then, before she could stop him, he stuck her hand in the fire beneath the pot.
Chapter Sixty-Seven
When her fleshbubbled and sizzled, Lexi gasped and ripped her hand away. “What iswrongwith you?”
The question was starting to slip from her lips when Cole hit Orin with an uppercut that shot his head back, lifted him off the floor, and sent him soaring ten feet backward. He hit the gray stone wall behind him with a loud thud.
Blood poured from his nose and mouth as he slid down the wall to the ground. Cole’s shoulders hunched forward, his face and hands changed as he stalked toward his brother. His eyes burned silver, but blackness seeped across the whites of them.
And as he walked, something black emerged from him. It floated in the air around him as it seeped from his pores to darken the room. It took her a second to realizeshadowswere oozing out of him.
How is that possible?
Lexi gawked at him as she cradled her blistered hand against her chest. She’d seen a lot of things recently, but she’dneverseen anything like the blackness emanating from him. The shadows rose around him like demons set free from Hell.
She’d sensed the increase of his power since he emerged from the trials, but now, shesawit. And it was a terrifying sight to behold. She had no idea how it was possible, but the shadows hissed as they weaved around him.
If this had happened while they were in Dragonia, they would be dead. There was no way the Lord would let him survive if he saw this.
Had he kept this hidden while there because she wasn’t injured or because he’d known that unleashing it would get them killed? Or had he been pushed too far throughout the day and couldn’t maintain control anymore?
She suspected the latter. Orin’s actions were finally the breaking point.
