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An overwhelming sense of remorse and regret coated Kallie’s tongue. And the only way to release it was through the truth. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to say it out loud, for so many secrets lived between Kallie and Myra now.

Kallie opened her eyes and stared at the back of her friend’s head in the mirror, watching Myra’s soft hand rub the back of Kallie’s head.

Before, Kallie never bore the weight of her missions for too long, and the secrets Kallie held growing up never felt this large. They never forced Kallie to keep Myra at arm’s length, but now Kallie felt suffocated by Myra’s perfume. The sweet scent of lavender and mint in Myra’s hair was a noose around Kallie’s neck.

A good friend would confess.

A good friend wouldn’t keep so many secrets.

A good friend would bebetter.

Was Kallie a terrible friend then for keeping her gift a secret, too? If Kallie told Myra, wouldn’t she worry that Kallie was manipulating her too? How would Myra know truth from fiction?

Even if Kallie had promised herself long ago that she would never use her gift on Myra, that didn’t mean Myra would believe that to be true.

So, despite the growing divide between them, Kallie kept her mouth shut.

Chapter27

GRAESON

“What is that?”Moris asked, his words barely audible as he crouched beside Graeson.

They hid behind a thick, overgrown bush in the darkness of the Thornwood Forest just past the Frenzian border, watching a group of men in light hunting armor and cloaks.

They were two days away from the castle. While Graeson and the others had been looking for a place to camp for the night, Dani spotted a small encampment a couple of miles away. Unwilling to take the risk, Graeson, Armen, Moris, and Dani went to check it out while the others remained at their campsite.

The men were gathered in front of an iron crate. Graeson tried to see what was hidden in the crate, but a tarp covered it. Something growled as a chain scraped against the floor.

Graeson looked at Dani and then Armen. Both shook their heads, unable to identify it.

One man stepped toward the crate and opened the front of the tarp. As he did, nails clawed the metal floor of the crate. Fear tainted the night air—the soldiers’ or the creature’s, Graeson couldn’t be too sure.

With narrowed eyes, Graeson leaned forward, peering beyond the trees and foliage. Even with exceptional vision, he struggled to identify the creature before them. All he could see in the shadows of the crate were large, glowing red eyes peering out, wide and alert. Whatever creature cowered in the back of the large metal cage, only one man was brave enough to step close. The others gave the cage a wide berth.

The man closest to the stranger, the wrangler Graeson presumed based on his confident gait, reached for the bundle of locks on the cage.

Were the thick iron bars not enough to keep the animal caged? Were the twisted chains truly a necessity?

Graeson’s teeth ground against each other. At the edge of his vision, red began to seep in. The leather-wrapped hilt bit into the flesh of his palm as his knuckles turned white around it.

The cage’s final lock landed on the ground with a thud, and the creature hissed.

The wrangler fiddled with something at his side, but Graeson couldn’t identify the object in the darkness. The creature, however, could.

Metal screeched, and chains rattled as the man pried the heavy door open, his heels digging into the ground. The man shifted, and then acrackripped through the air. Graeson jerked back as the snap of the wrangler’s whip rang in his ears.

The wrangler took a step forward, whip in hand. The creature crawled further back into the shadows of its cage, its eyes no longer visible in the dim light of the flickering torches.

The wrangler only took one step, only far enough inside to squat down, lean forward, and pick up a chain lying on the ground. The chain rattled and scraped against the metal flooring, followed by a piercing screech from the animal. A noise so sharp that Armen almost fell to the floor, his head falling into his lap.

As Graeson tightened his grip around his throwing knife, a hand fell on his shoulder. When he looked over his shoulder, Dani stared at him, shaking her head no.

Lip curling, Graeson forced his attention away from her.

As the tension in the air grew strained, so did Graeson’s hold on the beast within him.

Nothing good ever came from men standing around a caged, scared animal.