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“What’s your name?” she asked.
The shifter stared at her with stony silence. One of the shifters guarding the room said, “It’s Silas, ma’am.”
“Thank you.” Holly smiled briefly at him.
“Silas, how did you meet Roland? I thought wolves and cats didn’t mix. Present company excluded, of course.”
This got a reaction out of him, and he scoffed. She couldn’t tell if the scoff was because he thought Sadara’s and Bryson’s groups should or shouldn’t mix, but it was a reaction, although not one that told them anything. Holly chewed the inside of her cheek as she thought. If she used her Empath magic to force helpfulness, it could drain her more than she could handle. Using it at the gathering had already been pushing her limits. But this was just one shifter, and she didn’t have to have complete control of his feelings, just influence one. But which one?
Not helpfulness. From the set of his jaw, he was not inclined to be helpful. Anger would only trigger a shift. No, it had to be something else. Maybe… pride? She let her Empath magic out in a trickle, just enough to get a gauge of the shifter’s feelings. She let it flow through him, wrapping around his magical essence before calling it back to herself. Mmm… There. A thread of smugness and pride she could use. She had to be careful about how she did it, though. She thought back to Sadara’s words. Silas was the second son of a prominent family. He was used to being overlooked and discarded. She could use that.
‘“I’m curious,” she continued, “about how the two of you met. I mean, you’re the second son—it wasn’t like you ran in the same circles as the Councilman. What about you was so interesting to him that he had to have you in his circle?”
The shifter’s lips curled into a smirk, and Holly carefully kept her expression neutral. Got him.
The key to this was feeding that little thread of smugness and pride just a bit, but not so much he suspected something was up. She pulled it to the front a little more as his mouth opened.
“Even as a cat,” Silas said with derision, “Roland was smart. He recognized the importance of having strong allies, even if their own families didn’t see it.” He stared contemptuously at the other shifters, and Holly willed them to remain silent so he would keep talking. “I had a leading role in his group early on,” Silas continued.
“Would you say you were his right-hand man?” Holly asked, pulling on that thread of smugness.
“No,” Silas snorted. “Although I could have been. Their right hand was a shady figure. Never knew his name. No one did. He hid in the shadows, but Roland and Vanya went to him for fucking everything.”
“That sounds pretty cowardly,” Holly said. “Hiding in the shadows like that.” Her thoughts flitted back to her papa.A good right-hand man stays in the shadows but influences all decisions in the light.She took in the darkness of the cell. Was that what she was doing right now?
“It is cowardly,” Silas agreed with her. He paused, and Holly risked feeding his pride with just a bit more Empath magic. Her stomach shifted uneasily, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to stand right now without her legs shaking.
Luckily, it worked—Silas kept talking. “Yeah, he always hid in the shadows like a coward. Some people think whoever it was wasn’t a shifter because what shifter in their right mind would hide like that.”
“Interesting.” Holly leaned forward, feigning interest as she placed a hand on her stomach. “You sound like you figured out a lot about them,” she said, playing to his ego.
Silas snorted. “Even though he was a shifter, Roland still looked down on us. He and Vanya viewed us as foot soldiers, able to move around to their whim. But shifters also have excellent hearing and are good at getting in and out of places.”
“Then why go to the Dragons?” Holly asked. “For Maxios, I mean. If they had all the support they needed from the shifters, what did they need from the dragons?”
Silas shifted in his chair, his face beginning to lose its smirk. Black spots danced across Holly’s vision as she fed more Empath magic into him, influencing his pride but this time also plucking at his feelings of helpfulness too. She had a feeling they needed to know whatever it was he was about to say.
“In the beginning, after Maxios stole the Fae Metallicum, the dragons provided some key safety measure. Maxios promised it to them, and he must have delivered…”
Silas’s voice faded in her ears as black dots filled Holly’s vision. She had pushed herself too far. She fought to stay conscious but drifted sideways. Shouts filled the room, and strong arms caught her. Just before the blackness consumed her, she heard Kallan’s voice rumble from his chest, vibrating against where he held her. “That’s it. We go to the Fae lands tomorrow.”
CHAPTER8
Holly was suspended in a lake of blackness. As hard as she fought, she couldn’t reach the surface any faster. This lake was familiar. Well, as familiar as something could be from years ago. The last time she had swum in this lake, she had told her father the following week that she couldn’t do it anymore. Couldn’t use her Empath magic the way he wanted her to. If she did, she feared she would be lost to the lake forever, and she hadn’t used it since. Not till she met Claire, and Claire needed her to. Then Holly was falling back into the role she used to play. Except, this time, she wanted to play it.
Back in her lake of blackness, the surface was getting closer. Holly could feel awareness returning to her body. She was lying on something soft, likely a bed. There were no sounds that she could distinguish around her, but a woodsy scent filled her nostrils, and a warm weight across her stomach told her someone was in the bed with her. She knew that scent. It was familiar and safe, but her brain struggled to reach for it. Knowing she wasn’t in danger, she relaxed into the blackness.
She slowly rose toward the surface, gradually gaining more and more awareness of her surroundings. Synora was at her back, her lean arm thrown across Holly’s waist. Holly couldn’t remember the last time she had been cuddled by anyone. Maybe her mama when she was a small child? She took a few breaths to soak in the moment before blinking her eyes open.
Kieran sat in a chair next to the bed. His bright blue eyes met hers and softened with relief. He looked exhausted, and Holly felt a pang of guilt that she was responsible for it. She was supposed to make people’s lives easier, not harder.
“There you are,” he said softly. “How are you feeling?”
Holly assessed her body, wiggling her toes and fingers. Other than the normal aches and pains that came after she overextended her Empath magic, she felt fine. Synora’s arm tightened briefly around her waist before she lifted it, rolling to a sitting position so she could look down at Holly.
“Okay,” Holly said softly. “What happened?”
“You fainted.” Kallan’s disapproving tone came from the corner, and Holly lifted her head to see him leaning against the wall. “You pushed too hard.”
