“Agreed, nothing bad happens when you touch it,” I muttered, my unease growing as I watched the toss of the stone. “But this thing is supposed to tune itself to me, and I’m not exactly believing everything will be fine and dandy when it does.”
“Oh, for the love of . . . Nothing is going happen.” Exasperation rode Lauren’s voice. “Lucian would not allow it, even if I had wished you harm.”
I glanced at her sharply. “Since when does a dark sorceress take orders from someone she barely knows?”
Lauren’s smile was thin and unamused. “Come now, Risa. You saw us arguing and you are no fool. Please do not take me for one.”
“So you are lovers?” My gaze went to Lucian. “Why didn’t you say that up front?”
“Because it wasn’t pertinent.”
I snorted softly. How could the fact that he was fucking a dark sorceress not be pertinent information? “And just how did you come to that conclusion?”
“Who I spend my time with is nobody’s business but my own.” The comment was decidedly barbed, and I couldn’t help glancing at Lauren. If his words annoyed her, she wasn’t showing it. This time. “The only reason Lauren is here now is because she is powerful.”
“Maybe, but it does make me wonder what else you’re not telling me, Lucian.”
“It’s no secret that my life revolves around the need for revenge—”
“Yeah,” I interrupted, “and it’s what you’ll do to get it that has me worried.”
“You have nothing to fear—”
“Meaning you’re not behind the compulsion spell that’s been placed on me?”
My voice was matter-of-fact, and his sudden grin was warm and unrepentant. “I feared my Aedh charms might not have been enough to hold you, so I stacked the odds in my favor. But the spell is harmless, Risa.”
“Maybe this one is, but the next one might not be.”
He held up his right hand. “I promise, I will place no more spells on you.”
And you can trust every word out of a liar’s mouth, Azriel commented.
Have you ever heard the saying “If you can’t say something nice, say nothing?”
I do not believe so. Nor can I help commenting when he makes such blatantly unbelievable statements.
It was pointless saying anything further when I was never going to convince him that Lucian was remotely trustworthy, so I didn’t bother. Especially since I wasn’t one hundred percent sure of it myself.
I crossed my arms and said, “And what about getting other people to place spells on me?”
“I promise I won’t do that, either.”
“Does that mean there’s no other spells on me?”
“I did not need more than one.”
Which wasn’t actually confirmation that there were no other spells, just that he hadn’t actually needed them. I eyed him for a moment, then sighed softly and waved a hand. “Fine. Give me a closer look at the ward.”
He pushed it toward me. I studied it dubiously for several minutes, then gathered together the threads of my courage and reached for it.
No touch! Amaya screamed, the sound so high-pitched it made my eyes water.
At the same time, the Dušan swiveled around in my flesh, its head near my knuckles as it snarled at the ward.
I snatched my fingers away.
“I can’t,” I said, and stepped away from the counter.
Anger exploded around me, the force of it so fierce it stole my breath. My gaze snapped to Lucian’s. There was no anger to be seen in his expression, not even the merest hint, but it had come from him nevertheless. “Why the hell not?” he said, his voice as flat as his eyes.
I might as well have been looking into the eyes of death. A shiver that was part fear, part foreboding, rolled through me. “What do you mean? Didn’t you see that?”
“See what? What the hell are you talking about?”
I frowned, my gaze searching his. “The Dušan. It reacted to the ward.”
He glanced at my wrist sharply. Now that I’d stepped away, the Dušan had resumed her normal position on my arm. Amaya, however, was still eager to bite into whatever darkness Lauren had employed to make the ward, and she was letting me know it. Banshees had nothing on the noise she was currently making inside my head.
“Impossible,” he said.
“Not in this case.” I crossed my arms. “I can’t use the ward, Lucian. I won’t.”
He contemplated me, his expression still remote, then turned and faced Lauren. “It would appear you have wasted your time and energy. I’m sorry.”
Lauren rose and moved toward us, her long dress flowing around her legs like the gray tendrils of a web. Definitely a dangerous, dark spider, I thought with another shiver.