Dark Champion (Flirting with Monsters #4) - Eva Chase Page 0,47

open so I could dip my hand inside in an instant.

Omen ambled forward with an unusually casual air—but then, he was supposed to be convincing Tempest that he was here to make friends. He tipped his head toward the sphinx’s mortal lackeys. “You brought company. I thought we were meeting alone.”

“You have your semi-human toy, so I figured I was allowed two that are fully human.” Tempest gave her mortal underlings a disdainfully amused glance. “Not that they serve much use here, but it does delight me to have them assist what they hate so much.”

Did they know what she was, then? How could any member of the Company of Light tolerate being ordered around by a shadowkind?

The same way we’d managed it in the past, no doubt. “You’ve got them under some kind of spell,” I couldn’t help saying, even though I’d been meant to keep my mouth shut. Omen should know by now to allow a little leeway whenever that rule was part of a plan that involved me.

Tempest let out a lilting chuckle. “Oh, hardly. I asked a riddle, and they couldn’t answer it, and that bound them to protect me until the effect wears off, unless they die serving that purpose in the meantime.” She gazed through her eyelashes at the man she’d patted. “If it wasn’t for that, you’d want to murder me just like you do all shadowkind, wouldn’t you?”

“You’re a monster,” the guy said stiffly. “All our work goes toward ridding this world of you and those like you. As soon as I’m out from under this magic—”

Tempest waved her hand in a bored gesture to stop him. “Yes, yes. We’ll see about that.” Her gaze slid back to me. “Does it bother you, semi-mortal that you are, to hear how viciously your own kind hates the monstrous side you’ve uncovered?”

I managed to speak with an impressive amount of calm. “Not as much now that I know they’ve all had someone magically pulling the strings behind the scenes.”

The broken-glass laugh I remembered from Versailles tinkled out of her. “Do you think I conjured their hatred? I only gave them a purpose to put it toward, one they leapt to pursue oh so easily. I have no supernatural power that allows me to change the contents of men’s minds or produce motivation where there is none—Omen can attest to that.”

The hellhound shifter’s expression was all the confirmation I needed. “I’d imagine you talked a good game leading them down the garden path, though,” he said lightly. “You are a master of words.”

“Hmm,” Tempest purred. “To some extent. They certainly have no idea everything they’re in for, but that’s only in regards to how their goal will affect them, not us.” She nudged the man beside her. “Why do you want to slaughter all shadowkind?”

“Why call them that?” he said immediately, with a disgusted curl of his mouth as he glared at her. “We all know they’re monsters, like you are. They lurk in the shadows and steal from us, stalk us—we’ll never be safe until they’re gone from this world.”

“And who told you all that about these monsters?”

“No one needed to tell me. The first Company hunter I worked under showed me. The one we trapped would have slashed us all to pieces if we hadn’t acted quickly enough.”

The sphinx arched her eyebrows. “And what makes you so sure we’re all like that?”

“Look at what you’re doing to us right now,” the man shot back. “Forcing us to be here against our will, to help you, over a stupid question I couldn’t answer. As soon as that magic wears off, I’m going to—”

“You know what, I can see now that bringing two of you may have been overkill. I won’t force you to endure this apparent misery any longer.” Tempest swung back her hand, flicked a row of knife-like claws from her fingers, and drove them straight into the side of the guy’s head.

I bit back a cry, biting my tongue at the same time. The metallic flavor of blood seeped through my mouth as the same liquid seeped across the young man’s head.

His eyes rolled up, and he collapsed to the ground the second the sphinx retracted her claws. She wiped her hand nonchalantly on the other man’s shirt, ignoring his flinch. “There. Am I not merciful?”

They weren’t wrong to call her a monster, in every meaning of that word. But at the same time, she’d made their human monstrousness all too clear.