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“I think so—I found it under my pillow.”
“Your pillow,” he repeated neutrally.
I raised my chin. “That’s right. One night it was just there.”
“Really,” said Cain.
Brien’s face hardened. “Tell us the truth, damn it. I can’t help you if you lie to us.”
“But I’m not lying! One night I came back to my room—that first night, after we all went to the Bite Club—and found the switchblade under my pillow along with a note. You said yourself you can read me. Well, do it, then. You’ll see I’m telling the truth.”
Cain sneered. “You’re a slayer. You think we don’t know that you’re trained to dampen your ANS responses?”
“Look, I’m not saying I didn’t stake the primus. But if I were you, I’d at least check out my story. Because if I’m telling the truth, that means someone in the castle slipped me a switchblade. The Quebec Syndicate took everything from me—you know I didn’t have anything but a change of clothes. And I also received two notes. One on the flight from Quebec, and one with the switchblade.”
Brien folded his arms over his chest. “Start with the notes. When and where did you find them? And what did they say?”
“The first one was in my dress pocket. I have no idea how it got there, but there was no note, just a drawing—a dagger through the wordPerfect. But I knew they meant you, not your father.”
“And the second?”
“It was a photo of my grandmother—a picture of her coming out of her condo. A recent picture.”
“So she really is in danger?”
“Yes! I swear it.”
Brien’s eyes flickered. I could tell he was remembering all the other things I’d told him that hadn’t turned out to be true.
Despair welled up in me. I rolled my lips in, willing myself not to surrender to it.
“At least look into it,” I said. “Not for me—for my halmoni. Now that you know why I’m here, he’ll go after her.”
Brien heaved a breath and exchanged a glance with Cain.
I held my breath. Maybe he was starting to believe me?
Footsteps sounded in the hall outside the cell, and Lieutenant Prosper strode inside, followed by Talon.
“Who released her?” he snapped at Brien.
“Me.” Brien met him stare for stare. “As I’m sure you know.”
“She’s a slayer, damn it. She was undercover at that auction. She knew you’d buy her and bring her here.”
“I know,” Brien said.
Prosper’s thick brows lifted. “Do you, now?” he murmured.
Something about his tone stirred the fine hairs on my nape. I glanced uneasily from him to Brien as three more men crowded into the cell: Jasper, my sometime guard; Matthew Smith, the enforcer I’d met in the Bite Club; and a vampire I’d never seen before. Matthew and the other vampire scrutinized me with a cold curiosity, like I’d already been tried and convicted and the only thing that remained was to sentence me.
I pulled back my shoulders. I was Twilight, daughter of Shade, granddaughter of Ghost. If I was going to die, I’d do it with my head high.
“I didn’t come here to slay Primus Leclerc, and the only reason I staked him was in self-defense. He attacked me first. And if you’re implying that Brien brought me here to slay his father, then you’re wrong. My orders were to slay Brien, not his father.”
Prosper’s heavy-lidded gaze swung to me. “Did I give you permission to talk, woman?”
I shivered despite myself. I squared my shoulders. “It’s the truth.”
