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I lifted each to my nose, smelling the bite of strong whiskey in each, but nothing else. I swirled them, angling the chalices to the light to check for swirls of a liquid that might have a different viscosity, or powder residue on the bottom. Both seemed clean.
Maybe there was no poison at all.
Maybe it was just a test of obedience and all I needed to do was drink to pass.
Too many maybes. Too little time.
I sighed, deciding on the chalice to my left, the one furthest from Diesel. I held it up, the cold silver damp with condensation. “To your health,” I said with a wry smile, and he smiled back, all teeth as he lifted the other chalice and knocked it against mine.
I swallowed down the drink in two burning gulps and swiped the back of my hand over my lips, knocking the heavy metal chalice back onto the table.
“Boys,” Diesel called loudly, giving me a knowing grin as he made his way back down the length of the table to his seat at the opposite end. With him gone from my side, I tucked my blade back into its sheath.
The guys came back in a second later, their faces shadowed as they took in the empty chalices in front of me.
A sharp pain lanced through my stomach, and I fought the urge to double over, clutching the underside of the table.Fuck.
“Go on, boys. Get her out of here. I don’t want her making a mess on my floor.”
Ava Jade didn’t makea mess anywhere as Diesel suggested she might. We brought her straight home, all of us tense with nerves as we waited for the inevitable pain.
But it never came. Nothing more than the knot between her brows to prove she was in any discomfort at all. I didn’t know what the fuck to make of it.
I remembered the night after my poison trial and I wouldn’t have wished it on anyone. Except maybe the motherfucker stalking her. The cramping had been bad, but it was nothing compared to the pounding headache that lasted days, or my stomach expelling every ounce of its contents and then some. And don’t get me started on how badly I destroyed the bathroom.
I shuddered, hefting the massive water bottle onto my shoulder to trudge it up the stairs to the loft to replace the one Ava Jade and Becca had emptied.
I rapped twice on the door and Becca answered, stepping aside for me to enter. She’d hardly left the loft at all since they moved in, and I was curious if she was too afraid to. I wouldn’t blame her. Fear was a powerful form of natural self-preservation, that’s what Diesel was always trying to remind me, anyway.
“Ghost?” I asked as I placed the jug onto the cooler, popping the seal so the water could flow down into the chamber.
“Bathroom,” she replied with a sigh, and my stomach tightened. Had it finally started? Ava Jade went straight up to the loft when we got back last night, and we hadn’t heard from or seen her since. We all agreed to stay clear of the upstairs bathroom to give her some privacy while she was sick, but I never heard a peep.
Even with my bedroom the closest. There were no vomiting sounds. No pained cries. I would have brought her water. A cold towel.
“How long has she been in there?” I asked, staring at the closed door across the room.
Becca lifted one of her dark brows at my question, hesitating before her reply. “Um, why?” she asked, like it was the most ridiculous question and she couldn’t for the life of her figure out why I’d want to know.
I considered that. “Is she not sick?”
“Sick?”
The door opened, and Ava Jade stepped back into the loft, fixing her hair with a pin. My cock jumped in my jeans at the sight of her, my mouth going dry.
She definitely wasn’t sick.
Looking more like a wraith than a ghost in all black with a leather skirt and a tight black shirt with little cutouts running up both sides from her waist to her underarms, exposing more than a little side boob. Dark makeup on her eyelids with wicked slashes of black liner making them look winged.
“Rook?” she asked, and I realized I was still staring.
I gave her all black outfit one last go over before reining in my expression. “Whose funeral is it?” I asked, my lips pulling upward on one side.
“I haven’t decided yet,” she quipped, smiling back with a wink.
She really wasn’t sick. Had Diesel not poisoned her? That didn’t seem fucking likely. He always poisoned both chalices. He’d done that trial in some capacity or other on every member of the Saints. He was used to the poison, had built up a tolerance to it over the years that allowed him to get by without too much discomfort. Plus, there was the antidote always at the ready just in case he should need it.
The antidote…
