Beneath the Dust (Force of Nature #4) - Amber Lynn Natusch Page 0,36
don’t like secrets,” he said.
I laughed out loud. “Okay…Uncle.”
“That was different.”
“Maybe it’s not. You don’t know what I’m withholding—”
“I know that your mates returned to the mansion with a prisoner of sorts.”
Oh shit. “Really? How do you—”
“Is that what you went to retrieve?” he continued, ignoring me. “A prisoner?”
“Maybe.”
“And who exactly is this captive?”
“How do you know that they returned with someone, anyway? Are you spying on us?”
“Me? Not at all…”
The way he emphasized the word ‘me’ made me anxious.
“Well someone is.”
He smiled a wicked smile. “Maybe.”
I let out a sigh of exasperation. “Will you promise not to freak out if I tell you?”
“No—”
“Because you’re going to want to freak out—and possibly disown me. Maybe punch me—”
“I will not punch you, Piper—“
“You’ll want to—”
“Just tell me who it is!”
His anger was bleeding through. So not a great mental space for him to be in when I dropped the Kingston bomb.
Grizz appeared out of nowhere in bear form to put himself between the warlock and me. The low rumble escaping him helped calm Drake to an acceptable level of irritation.
“Remember who gave you your human form, Guardian. I can easily take it away…”
Grizz didn’t falter under Drake’s threat.
“I’ll make you a deal. You tell me how you knew, and I’ll tell you who the prisoner is.”
Right on cue, a raven flew overhead, his caw cutting through the air. Drake’s gaze drifted to the bird and then back to me, a smug smile on his face.
“I probably should have guessed that,” I muttered to myself. Grizz let out a condescending snort in reply. I turned to glare at him. “Where were you on that one, huh?”
“Your turn,” Drake said, ignoring our little argument.
“Remember the whole not-freaking-out thing?”
“Piper!”
“Okay, okay! It’s Kingston, all right? We had to get him because the queen came calling with a choice between killing the fey king and bringing her something she wanted, and I chose the unknown, which, as it turns out, was Kingston. And now we’re trying to figure out who the lock to his key is before she comes to claim him—again. I might have refused to turn him over the first time…”
Drake couldn’t have looked more shell-shocked. Whether it was the information I’d just dropped on him in the longest run-on sentence ever, the delivery of it, or both, I didn’t know. What I did know was that horror, then anger, then cold, calculated indifference flashed through his expression like a montage of pictures, each lasting just long enough to take in before it disappeared, leaving a blank canvas behind.
“Reckless girl,” he seethed.
“It was that or go back to Faerie, and we barely got out alive last time. It seemed a lot like certain death. We weighed the options as a group, then decided to choose door number two.”
“And your mates agreed to this fool’s errand?”
“They did.”
“And what of this lock and key business?”
“Kingston is part of the process that can reverse the magic keeping me from killing the fey queen—and keeping her from killing me.”
“Lie.”
“Uh, not according to Knox, it isn’t.”
He cursed under his breath. “He cannot be trusted.”
“Knox?”
“No! Kingston.” The way he said his name looked painful—like he was chewing on glass.
“Oh. Well be that as it may, we need him and so does the fey queen, so we’re keeping him, plain and simple.”
Drake seethed for a moment before he turned and stormed off into the woods. The raven swooped down to land on his shoulder.
“Drake! Wait!” I shouted after him. “We have to talk about the lock!”
“Do not say my name again, do you understand? Not here. Not anywhere…” he said, whirling around to face me. Grizz roared at Drake’s aggression and lunged for the warlock, but he sent the bear flying with a flick of his wrist. I barely had a second to summon the air to break his fall. By the time I turned around to yell at Drake, he was in my face. “What you have done…it endangers everything!”
“My inability to kill the fey queen endangers everything, so what would you have me do? Balk at the chance to possibly change that?”
“He’s lying—”
“And if he isn’t? Wouldn’t it be better to risk that than squander this opportunity?” He stood silent, as if actually contemplating my words. “Liam supports Kingston’s claim, too. If we can somehow use him to find the other person needed to break the spell, then we can end her, Uncle. Would you really throw that away because you don’t trust Kingston? Because you hate him for