Promises to Keep - By Amelia Atwater-Rhodes Page 0,47
him this time. His hair was softer than she had expected. She started to contemplate what colors she would need to re-create its silky shades and highlights, and then her mind reeled back in.
“I know about the Shantel,” she said. Her stomach grumbled in a most unladylike way, making her blush and realize that she was hugging this man while wearing nothing but her shift. “I would appreciate it if you could assist me in dressing. Then we can share what knowledge we have. That is a good place to begin.”
The witch nodded. She shied back from the light of gratitude in his eyes, and tried to conceal the uncomfortable moment as she returned to her room and gathered up the gown she had removed earlier. She pulled it over her head and settled the skirt into place, by which time the witch had come up behind her.
“This seems pretty tight,” he said as he started to fasten the two dozen mother-of-pearl buttons that ran down the back of the dress. “Warn me if you have trouble breathing.”
She nodded.
“Though I never met her before she was Pet, I knew of the sakkri,” Brina said as Jay worked. He was right that the dress was snug, but she seemed to be able to draw enough air to sustain herself and continue speaking. “The Shantel did not like visitors, and attempting to trespass on their land was problematic, but they allowed us to pass through in exchange for certain trade agreements. It was an acceptable arrangement.”
“Do you know much about how their magic works?” Jay asked.
She chewed her lip and considered. “The heart of their active magic is illusion,” she said. “If you walk in the Shantel woods, they seem to change around you. Shantel hunters know exactly where you are, but you never see them until they wish it. No matter what compass you use, you end up where the magic wants you, whether that means outside their territory or at the Family Courtyard, which is what they call their palace.”
“If Shantel magic is so strong,” Jay asked as Brina began to finger-comb her hair into some semblance of presentable, “how did Midnight get its hands on the sakkri?”
The accusation in his tone was sharp enough to cut, but she raised her gaze, unflinching. “The same way all shapeshifters came to us. She was sold by her own kind. Humans used to send their criminals to Australia, or the Americas. Under Midnight, the shapeshifter nations used us for the same purpose. I do not know what crime a sakkri could perform that would merit such a punishment, but I assure you it was her people who made the choice—not mine.”
Brina couldn’t deny the many atrocities intrinsic to Midnight; they were why she had rarely gone to the main building unless she had needed to. The trainers were vicious animals whose only instinct was to destroy, and Mistress Jeshickah herself had the emotional depth of a jackal. But Midnight was the only game in town, and everyone played by its rules.
At least the Shantel elemental had one thing right: Mistress Jeshickah and her trainers were not the only ones responsible for everything the Shantel had suffered.
CHAPTER 20
NOW IS PROBABLY not the time to argue, Jay thought, biting back a retort. Maybe the Shantel had sold their sakkri into Midnight, and maybe they hadn’t. Jay didn’t know for sure.
“They sold her to Daryl?”
Idiot! You weren’t going to discuss it—or him!
Brina flinched from her brother’s name but approached the question. “A Shantel witch is too valuable to go to anyone but Jeshickah’s chosen. If we could find the trainer who worked with her, he would know more about her magic. He would have studied it before accepting her.”
He. Brina said he with more distaste and slightly less fear, but she was speaking of the same he Pet was terrified of. “Even if one of them was willing to help us, I’m not sure they could,” Jay replied. “Rikai said Xeke was violent, with an insatiable need to feed, and he’s a good guy. I don’t want to know what—”
“He’s not human?” Brina broke in. “Like me?” Before Jay could respond, she said, “Then the trainers aren’t human. Or Jeshickah. It’s just me?” She had barely been able to manage them when she was a vampire, with Daryl breathing down the neck of anyone who dared offend her, and Kaleo defending her simply because she was his. Now she would have no such protection.
“Lovely world