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“I thought you loved Vortigern. He made you a king. You love the power.”
I shrugged.
“Aye, it’s the lass. You fell in love, and you think she won’t accept you for who you are. The good and the bad.”
“Not everyone is Evie,” I said bitterly.
“I’ll talk to Navy.”
“If you lay one finger on her,” I threatened.
“Christ, Rhys. I said I would talk to her. I’m not into hurting women,” he said. “We are gentlemen first and foremost.”
“And what if she prints a story on what she saw?”
“I’ll handle it. Let me talk to her. Now I need to go deal with Harry before he begins to unravel,” Keir said, heading outside.
A large mirror hung above the fireplace in the sitting room of the main house. I stared at my reflection, imagining the horror Navy must have felt seeing my dragon face. Calling up Vortigern, I felt my face begin to morph. Red scales covered my skin, my nose disappeared into mere slits, and the white of my eyes glowed red. I was terrifying and hideous. And she had seen it all. No wonder she couldn’t even look at me when I passed her in the hallway at the station.
I was a monster.
And for the first time, I hated what lived inside me. I hated what I had become.
I picked up the bottle of whiskey and threw it at my reflection, watching the glass shatter into a thousand pieces and my life with it.
ChapterTwenty-Two
NAVY
Isat in my small cubicle at work. No one looked or spoke to me when I entered. In fact, all of the head editors were unavailable. They were in a private meeting in the main conference room. I assumed it had to do with Granger’s sudden departure. So, turning in my resignation letter at the present moment wasn’t an option.
The riddle Freya Jenkins told me ran through my mind, and I wrote it down in my field notebook so I wouldn’t forget it.
In shadows cast, treachery breeds.
By serpent’s tongue, betrayal feeds.
A bond of trust, now frayed and torn,
whose end shall come with twilight’s mourn.
What was she trying to tell me?
I pulled my laptop out of my bag and googled her name. Several women in her age range popped up, but none of them were her. It was as if she didn’t exist, at least not on the internet, which seemed strange considering her apparent social status.
Dig deeper, she kept repeating to me.
What was I missing?
The department secretary popped back. “There’s a gentleman here to see you,” Janet said, smiling. “He’s handsome.”
My back stiffened. “Did he give his name?”
“Wilson, I think. I was too busy checking him out.”
I rubbed my forehead. “Um, tell him I’ll be right there.”
She walked off.
