The flutter of wings alerted me to a large falcon sweeping over my head. A feather broke free and floated into the sunlight streaming through the glass panes surrounding the golden dome above. It drifted down to settle in front of the second door.
Despite the servant leaving me here, my father was nowhere within the building. I opened the next door and stepped outside to discover him standing on a grassy section of lawn.
The man with him lifted a falcon from the gauntlet covering my father’s arm. The hooded bird remained calm while being transferred from one man to another.
When the falconer turned toward me, his step faltered before he bowed his head and continued past me into the aviary. My attention shifted from the falconer to my father, who stared at me with shock and rage.
“Where thefuckhave you been?” he demanded.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
Ryker
“Good day to you too,Father. I see you’ve picked up a new hobby.”
He glowered at me as he jerked off the gauntlet. I thought he might throw it at me, but he stopped himself from doing so.
“Has falconry always interested you?” I inquired.
“You always think you’re so smart.”
“I’m trying to make polite conversation. Apparently, that’s not appreciated today.”
“Where have you been?”
“I’ve been here before, but you were at the palace. Otherwise, I’ve been doing what I always do—whoring and searching the Revenant Woods for the Hooded Robber. It’s a fantastic time.”
“I’ve sent men in search of you, but no one has seen you in the whorehouses lately.”
I kept my displeasure over this revelation hidden. I couldn’t have this asshole hunting for me and looking into my life.
I paid Dalia well to tell anyone who asked I was sleeping with her, but she wouldn’t lie and say I was there when I wasn’t.Thatwas too easy to disprove and would get her killed.
“As I said, I’ve also been hunting for the Hooded Robber. There are whore houses in the woods too.”
“The fuck there are.”
“Some of the finest establishments I’ve ever visited. Any woman who can survive those woods is someone worthy of fucking. They’re wild.”
Despite his irritation with me, he couldn’t hide his curiosity.
“Did you send men into the Revenant Woods after me?” I asked.
“I did.”
“Did they return?”
“No.”
“Well then, it’s not my fault your men are trained so poorly that they can’t handle some ghosts and monsters.”
His jaw clenched as the look I recalled well from my childhood descended over his face. If I’d still been a boy, he would have whipped me unconscious for that. If he tried to now, I’d kill him, and we both knew it.
“So, your hunting skills are still so incompetent you haven’t caught the thief yet? Why did the ghouls ever fear you?”
He’d tried another tactic to cut me, but I shrugged it off. “Because I made them scream with my lightning. If I catch the thief, I’ll do the same to him.”
“You’re worthless.”
