Blood Promise Page 0,126

she and Mark admitted was invasive and wrong if you weren't bonded to someone.

Carefully, I replayed what had just happened with Lissa. Once again, I saw those last few moments. Blue-gray eyes staring at me-me, not Lissa.

Lissa hadn't pushed me out of her head.

Avery had.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Avery was a spirit user.

"Oh shit."

I sat back down on the bed, my mind reeling. I'd never seen it coming. Hell, no one had. Avery had made a good show of being an air user. Each Moroi had a very low level of control in each element. She'd just barely done enough with air to make it seem like that was her specialization. No one had questioned her further because honestly, who would have ever expected another spirit user around? And since she was out of school, she had no reason to be tested anymore or forced to demonstrate her ability. No one was there to call her on it.

The more I thought about it, the more the little signs were there. The charming personality, the way she could talk people into anything. How many of her interactions were spirit controlled? And was it possible... was it possible that Adrian's attraction had been compulsion on her part? I had no reason to feel happy about that, but... well, I did.

More to the point, what did Avery want with Lissa? Avery compelling Adrian into liking her wasn't too out there. He was good-looking and came from an important family. He was the queen's great-nephew, and although family members of the current monarch could never inherit the throne immediately afterward, he'd have a good future, one that would always keep him in the highest circles of society.

But Lissa? What was Avery's game there? What did she have to gain? Lissa's behavior all made sense now-the uncharacteristic partying, weird moods, jealousy, fights with Christian... Avery was pushing Lissa over the edge, causing her to make horrible choices. Avery was using some sort of compulsion to spin Lissa out of control, alienating her and putting her life in danger. Why? What did Avery want?

It didn't matter. The why wasn't important. The how was, as in how I was going to get out of here and back to my best friend.

I looked down at myself, at the delicate silk dress I wore. Suddenly, I hated it. It was a sign of how I'd been, weak and useless. I hastily took it off and ransacked my closet. They'd taken away my jeans and T-shirt, but I'd at least been allowed to keep my hoodie. I put on the green sweater dress, seeing as it was the sturdiest thing I had, feeling moderately more capable. I slipped the hoodie on over it. It hardly made me feel like a badass warrior, but I did feel more competent. Sufficiently dressed for action, I returned to the living room and started that pacing that tended to help me think better-not that I had any reason to believe I was going to come up with new ideas. I'd been trying to for days and days with no luck. Nothing was going to change.

"Damn it!" I yelled, feeling better with the outburst. Angry, I flounced into the desk chair, amazed that I hadn't simply thrown it against the wall in my frustration.

The chair wobbled, ever so slightly.

Frowning, I stood up and looked at it. Everything else in this place was state-of-the-art. Odd that I'd have a faulty chair. I knelt down and examined it more closely. There, on one of the legs, was a crack near where the leg joined with the seat. I stared. All of the furniture here was industrial strength, with no obvious joints. I should know, seeing how long I'd beat this chair against the wall when I first arrived. I hadn't even dented it.

Where had this crack come from? Slamming it over and over had done nothing.

But I hadn't been the only one to hit it.

That very first day, I'd fought with Dimitri and come after him with the chair. He'd taken it from me and thrown it against the wall. I'd never paid attention to it again, having given up on breaking it. When I'd later tried cracking the window, I'd used an end table because it was heavier. My strength hadn't been able to damage the chair-but his had.

I picked up the chair and immediately slammed it into that diamond-hard window, half-hoping I might kill two birds with one stone. Nope. Both remained intact. So I did it