“Well if you stopped lying, that would certainly be a help.” He flicked his fingers, and the lanterns along the walls suddenly blazed to life.
I’d been surprised that Branok didn’t seem angry when he caught up to Lynx and me. But now I can see that fury he carried, in the tension in his shoulders and jaw, the dangerous edge in his eyes.
“You think the absolute worst of me,” I said.
“I think you’re a danger to my family. I’d make you disappear for that, but I’ve stayed my hand… because perhaps there’s more to your story than meets the eye.”
The cool control in his gaze told me that he would’ve ended my life, even without Jaik’s permission, if he thought it would protect Jaik. Even though he was three feet away, my shoulders bumped the hard stone behind me, his body dominating me.
And even though I was furious, another part of me thought it would be nice to be within the circle of Branok’s fierce protection.
Branok was a fucking monster—cold, murderous, terrifying. But he was a monster for the ones he loved.
“I’m losing patience, Honor,” Branok warned. “If you’re not going to tell me the truth about who you are and what you want with my family, you’re not going to like what happens.”
“You know that if you hurt me, Jaik will hurt you,” I shot back coolly. There was a flutter of my pulse that should have been fear, but that crazy reckless side of my personality was strangely aroused.
Being near Branok felt as dangerous and exhilarating as jumping from one rooftop to another.
Maybe something in me was broken.
Maybe my broken parts and his matched up in a twisted way, like two shards that fit together.
“It’s true,” he admitted. “Jaik’s fallen under your spell. And if something happened to you, my best friend would certainly be suspicious. I wouldn’t even be able to tell Lynx, and my twin and I have very few secrets from each other.”
“Very few, but you have some.” I tried to make sense of why he couldn’t tell Lynx. Would Lynx tell Jaik? Would Lynx care? “So how come I’m not allowed to keep any secrets?”
He scoffed, then pointed nearby. “Get down the mortar and pestle; you can grind the thistle for this spell.”
“You are seriously going to threaten my life and then try to use me as a servant.”
“I already know you don’t make a very good servant, Honor, but you can make yourself useful.”
“Maybe you should make yourself useful. I don’t know why you’re condescending to me when you’re a spoiled rich boy who has servants starch and press his panties.” As I’d followed him through the house, I hadn’t seen any servants, but there was evidence of them everywhere in the beautifully kept rooms and the lavish spread of food.
“What’s it like for the servants trapped here? How does that work? Do they have families? Do they get to go home?”
“I don’t know,” Branok said, an edge in his voice as if I were tormenting him with stupid questions. He was gathering items, stopping occasionally as if he were checking a list in his mind. “They’re being well paid.”
“Money isn’t everything, especially if the people you work for are assholes.” I flashed him a too-bright smile. “Ask me about my life experience.”
“Money is everything when you don’t have any.”
“How would you even know that? What have you ever gone without?”
“Do you think my siblings and I are spoiled because we have wealth?”
“I think you’re spoiled because of how you act, not because you have wealth. I assume it’s not the money part that turns people into raging assholes. It’s never having to answer for anything they do because they have the money to get free.”
Branok laughed, though there was a cold, bitter edge to it. Unlike Jaik, he smiled and laughed, but it never felt quite genuine. There was always something hard and brittle underneath. “Do you think I’m free, Honor? A servant has more freedom than I do.”
“Well then, Branok, who holds your leash. Is it your father?”
He shook his head and his lips tightened, but I wasn’t sure it was really a denial.
“Earlier,” I said, “someone told me that Lucien might have lied about what he did to your sister to protect her from your father. But could Lord Joachim really have killed his lab?”
Branok whirled on me, and for a second, there was fury in his face before it was gone, replaced by his usual cool expression. The calculating gleam was back in his eyes, the one that I was so used to right before he hurt me. Whether I was Lucien or Honor, where he was a dragon or a man, that cruel glint in his green eyes were always the same.
“Do you want to believe that all of us have such terrible fathers that we despise, Honor? Perhaps so you can feel better about never knowing your own.”
“I was lucky to be raised by a great man.”
“But you don’t know about the family you come from. You want to know so badly that you protected Alis’s life, even while you were struggling to breathe yourself in the hopes that she could give you the answers. Don’t make the mistake of thinking every family is dysfunctional as yours.”
“You still haven’t answered my question. Do you really think that your father would have had Alina killed?”
No matter how cruel Branok could be, I was sure that he would have intervened to protect Alina.
“I wouldn’t have let him,” he said coldly, and I knew he’d kill Joachim for Alina.
He was terrifying, but I wasn’t afraid of him in that moment. “What would it do to the kingdom? If a lord’s son rebelled against him?”
He took down the mortar and pestle himself from the shelf, glancing at me as if I were a disappointment. “That’s why it’s best when there are two sons. If my father hated me, Lynx could take the throne.”
“How come you and Lynx don’t hate each other, even though you don’t know yet which of you will rule? Jaik and Caldren despise each other.”
“I would like the throne,” he admitted. “It drives me mad not to be the one to command. But I’d rather have my brother than a throne.”
Even though I was never the one on the receiving ending of Branok’s decent moments, they still made me like him a little.
He measured and mixed ingredients, eying them carefully, working from memory. I’d been unfair earlier; it was important to Branok to be viewed as intelligent, but he also truly was.
Then he cupped his hands around the cut-crystal bottle. The murky-colored ingredients inside started to bubble, then turned to a startling bright blue, altered by his magic. The blazing bottle was reflected in his eyes.
I’d grown up attempting small, half-hearted potions, knowing we only carried a little of the pure magic of the Fae beyond our shores. But Branok’s power was deeper and wider than anything I’d dreamt.
“You do magic so easily,” I said.
He glanced at me as if he were going to say something withering, but then his voice came out kinder than expected. “Dragons have far more power than any other. And every year, it grows stronger with practice.”
Teris had a hundred years more practice than me. How was I ever going to beat him?
“Let’s go,” he said, sweeping his arm toward the door. “Time to confront the truth.”