Five times I almost turn around—telling myself this sort of morose curiosity is septic. Self-destructive. But my feet have a mind of their own, leading me down the path sure to ruin me.
Softening my footfalls, I draw closer, hearing the uneven burr of more than one masculine voice.
I pause.
That doesn’t sound like a man and woman locked in the throes of pleasure.
The surge of relief is so abrupt I have to clamp my lips shut to catch my sigh.
I press against the far wall and duck behind a dense, velvet curtain bunched at the side of a closed window. It offers me the perfect vantage point that’s near enough to hear every word being passed back and forth in Rhordyn’s office, and if I peek my head out the far side, I can probably catch a glimpse through the wide-open door, too.
Honestly, if this meeting wasthatprivate, he should have closed the damn thing. If Rhordyn catches me snooping, that’s going to be my exact line of defense. Everyone knows doors are my weakness. Leaving one open during a private meeting? Well, he should know better.
“Nice touch with the Vruk head, Zali. You never cease to surprise me.”
Cainon.
“There was nothingniceabout it,” Zali snips. “I found thatmuttfeasting on a farmer and his son. The four other Vruks from the attack are now flayed and pinned to stakes as a deterrent. They weren’t the first, and they certainly won’t be the last.
Seems Zali just gained my respect.
Cainon clears his throat, and I can almost picture him crossing his arms or inspecting his nails like he’s bored with the conversation. “As much as I enjoy your stories, I need to speak with Rhordyn alone.”
“Fine,” Zali snips, the word prefacing her heavy steps, as if she’s wearing the weight of all her anger in the soles of her shoes.
Steps that are drawing inmydirection ...
Shit.
I hold my breath and close my eyes, pressing myself flat against the wall, hoping she can’t see my bare feet poking out the bottom of the curtain.
Her footsteps draw closer, and my lungs start to burn as I hold ...hold...
She pauses, and seconds pass before the curtain peels back, allowing a slice of dull afternoon light to cleave apart my hiding space ...
I wince, squinting into large, honey eyes fringed with dark lashes, waiting for the verbal blow to land—the one which will likely earn me an armored escort back to Stony Stem.
Instead, she offers me a coy smile, throws me a wink, then lets the curtain fall.
Gaping at the thick material, I listen to her retreating footsteps.
“That dismissal applied to you too, Baze.”
I sidestep to the left, peel the curtain, and peep into the study.
Cain has his back to the door, the wide breadth of his shoulders blocking half my view. Baze is out of the frame of my vision—probably propped against a wall somewhere—but I can see Rhordyn. He’s stretched out in his chair, perched behind his large, sable desk.
“He’s not going anywhere,” Rhordyn booms, and something about the way he’s watching Cainon has the hair on the back of my neck lifting.
Cainon clears his throat and widens his stance. “Very well.”
“Very well,” Rhordyn repeats. Aside from the shift of his lips, everything else about him is stone still.
“You want use of my ships?”
Cainon’sships?
Rhordyn taps a finger on the arm of his chair. “Only a hundred or so,” he says with the slightest lift of a shoulder. “You have five times that. I’m sure you can spare them.”
