Page 10 of A Taste For Lies (The Apex Kingdom #1)

Chapter 10

ALORA

T aran never wakes me for last watch. Instead, I awake at the time I’ve trained myself to, just before daybreak. Usually at this point, I would go back to sleep. Like the rest of the guild, I tend towards nocturnal and prefer to sleep away the day when not on a job.

But when I open my eyes, they immediately meet the prince’s luminescent silver-gray ones, shining like a creature’s in the pre-dawn light. We stay like that, gazes locked, for a long moment, still in the quiet morning.

Carter groans, and I’m the first to look away.

“I can’t wait to get back to my bed at the palace,” he complains, stretching his arms with a grimace.

Taran snorts from his position on watch, leaning against a nearby tree. “For the Apex guardian to the Apex prince, your inability to sleep in nature always confounds me.”

“My creature likes to nest,” Carter sniffs.

I shake Eleni awake gently, and she blinks up at me with heavy-lidded eyes.

Maeve lets out her own disgruntled noise from within her bedroll. “Must we start so early ?”

“We must,” Carter answers in his signature cheerful tone. “Ravenscrest waits for no man. Er, woman. Males and females. Humans. Apex. In any case, we’ve got to get back.”

My stiff muscles scream in protest as I drop into an abbreviated version of my daily stretching routine to warm them up. The stretching eases the ache somewhat, but I’m still not looking forward to today’s ride. After sleeping on that rooftop for almost a month, then the cold ground last night, I’m nearly desperate for a soft bed myself.

Twice, I catch Taran’s eyes trained on me like Carter’s creature. Both times, it sends goosebumps prickling up my arms.

As we pack up our camp and make a quick breakfast of hard cheese and bread unearthed from the royal saddlebags, I wonder again why they are forcing Maeve to rough it. This type of travel has to be way outside her comfort zone.

“Why didn’t you stay in Shanterra and make your way back as an official entourage?” I finally ask the group.

Maeve spears me with another one of her sharp-eyed glares. A look I am becoming intimately familiar with. “Well, that was the plan. But then somebody chose to let you make off with the pearls instead of returning them as would have been appropriate. And then Carter thought it better to make the journey incognito.”

I scoff. “Like you could have stopped me.”

“Oh, I could have stopped you, Lady Lynx.” Taran’s low purr is like fingernails trailing down my spine. I ruthlessly tamp down a shiver. “Make no mistake about that. But it would have drawn more attention than I wanted.”

I’ve always been extremely cautious of Apex, which is a logical response to a stronger species. So I can’t explain why this Apex seems to provoke the exact opposite reaction. If I was going to cower from any of them, it should be him. Yet just like the night of the pearls heist, my natural instinct is to challenge him right back. The words spring from my lips without thought. “You go ahead and believe that if it helps you sleep better at night, Your Highness . ”

His response is the same beautiful smile that stunned me in the count’s study, all white teeth and hewn cheekbones. I’m a little dazzled, but not enough that I don’t notice his hand slipping into his pocket, clutching something there. Interesting.

He removes his hand quickly, as if he doesn’t want me to notice. Too bad for him. I may not have Apex sight, but I do know Rule Number Eight: Stay silent and observe.

I’m aces at the observe part. Less at the stay silent part. To Xinlei’s perpetual frustration.

Gods, I miss him. Mostly I miss not having to constantly be on my guard with my companions, afraid to even sleep through the night. Though I guess I ended up doing just that anyway. I wonder again why Taran didn’t wake me for the watch.

“Speaking of the pearls,” the prince says, drawing my attention back to the confounding present. “I assume you were just trying to find the right moment to give them to me?”

I have precious little leverage for this impending conversation with the Veridian Guild. To win the waiver, I’m going to need absolutely everything in my arsenal, including the priceless necklace hidden in the bottom of my pack.

Rule Number Three: The best lies are mostly true.

I widen my eyes in mock innocence. “Astrid told the guild you didn’t expect me to come back with the pearls. That the commission was a down payment on the amulet job.” A low growl slips from Astrid’s lips, and it’s terrifying. But I’m committed now. “I left the pearls with the guild.”

The prince’s silver eyes leap straight to my strider and the pack resting on it. Shit. Can he smell them? They’re only a bunch of stones, not a human or an Apex or a living creature.

But I remember how those stones lit up Lady Zhao’s face the night of the ball. The way my fingers vibrated every time they touched them. The prince’s gift is sensing Apex power. Maybe that extends to magical artifacts as well .

Yet his eyes leave my pack and come back to rest on mine, his expression inscrutable. My pulse hammers in the silence, every second dragging out. Until all he says is, “Let’s go.”