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“Is she even a caretaker for Talin, or are you taking privileges?” Lencontinued.
My stomach ached. What if Talin had turned, and we’d lost him? Regret chewed me because I should have taken him too, but I’d gone for Raze, as he’d shown symptoms first, and my head hadspun.
A faint menacing chuckle echoed in my head, and the earlier dread fisted mylungs.
“Where did Talin go?” Raze’s voiceclimbed.
Len huffed. “You boys need a lesson in etiquette and manners. No bringing whores to a royal family home,no—”
“Enough,” I bellowed, and Len shuddered to a halt. When he faced me, his glare sucked the confidence out of me as if he’d willed my heart to stopbeating.
“How dare you addressme—?”
“Talin’s in danger. Where did he go?” I moved to Len’s side and grabbed his arm. “Did you see him?Quick.”
Raze had already thundered out of the manor and vanishedoutside.
“And this is why the princes are not suited to rule White Peak.” He pulled out of my grasp, his nose wrinkled, as if I were mud on his shoes. “They need to step aside. They’re impulsive and rash, and they have norespect.”
I faced the shifter. “From what I’ve seen, if following the rules means leaving a poor mistress at the mercy of childbirth and angering a wife, then you don’t know what being a true leader means.” Not to mention sacrificing servants to gainpower.
Rage pushed against me, throttling me at the core, and my mind kept swaying between the present and falling into a pit of darkness. I whirled toward the door to head after Raze when Len seized my hand, his fat fingers constricting the blood from flowing down myarm.
“Go back to your human world. White Peak is too much for grubby girls.” His voice was brutal and angry. “There’s only one use for someone like you.” He licked his lips, and Igagged.
“Ew!” Coldness flooded me, and my rational thinking vanished. I yanked free from hisgrip.
Bee.Lilita’s thin voice echoed in the recesses of my mind like rusty hingescreaking.
My mind swayed in so many directions, and with no sign of Raze or Talin, would she explode out of me like a hurricane and destroy the manor with everyone init?
“What is wrong with you?” Len asked, his eyebrow pinching together. “Why are you shaking that way? You better not have brought any human diseases into ourhome.”
I was desperate and maybe kissing Len would do the trick? Too many reasons for why that would be a bad idea flooded me, but I didn’t listen, and I lunged at him, my hands gripping his shoulders. Despite my stomach turning over, I kissed him, hard, holding myself against him. Not a singlespark.
His hands shoved into my chest, throwing me backward, and I stumbled a few feet, wiping my mouth of his disgustingtaste.
“Disgustingwhore!”
I gasped but pushed the angry words to the back of my mind. He wouldn’t understand, so I bent over, pretending to scratch my leg. Instead, I retrieved the pouch of herbs with my persuasion spell from my boot. “You are what’s wrong with the world,” I said, noting a few servants peering at us from farther down the corridor. When they saw me looking, their eyes widened, and they ranaway.
They must have seen me as a mad woman, but I didn’t care. Not when I had to find my princes, and the thorny pain indicating Lilita’s presence crawled through mychest.
She pressed on the forefront of my mind,chuckling.
“What’s in your hand?” Len’s smug expression fell when I poured a few herbs into my palm. It should wear off in a few days. “You shall never speak ill of anyone again. Never mouth a word about me, and every word you voice will be acompliment.”
He grimaced. With his fat fingers flying toward my face, I blew the contents towardhim.
“Speak no evil and forgetme.”
He stumbled backward, coughing as if something had caught in his throat. “W-Witch!”
His eyes rolled backward, and his body trembled. For good measure, I kicked him in the balls for calling me ‘grubby.’
Len sunk to his knees, then slumped to his side like a sack of potatoes, groaning in pain. “A f-f-f…antastic k…ick.”
“Where did Talin go?” Idemanded.
“Ou…O…” Shaking, he pointed to the front door before curling in on himself,crying.
I turned on my heels, smirked, and ran outside, having wasted enoughtime.
The guard turned my way, his glares promising me torture. “Len is dying. Something happened to him,” I lied. “Please help him—now!”
Without so much as a question, his dartedinside.
The sun hovered over the horizon, painting the skies in bloody streaks, as trees beyond the manor gates shook violently in the winds. There was no sign of Talin orRaze.
A blade might as well have pierced myheart.
