Page 39 of A Taste For Lies (The Apex Kingdom #1)
Chapter 39
TARAN
R hegar stands outside the old throne room.
I don’t scent his lord, and I can’t tell exactly what he’s doing in that particular corridor since I’m staying out of sight around the corner. But odds are, he’s been tasked with guarding the entrance. The wild, unique scent of the amulet—faint but unmistakable—winds around me. It must be in there.
After a moment of internal fuming, I’m forced to admit that just because Rhegar is guarding the entrance doesn’t mean that the key master has given us up. This might be a regular guard rotation for the Apex. Not that I would know, given I never come down here. Which means I still have no excuse to kill him. Pity.
I’m contemplating my options for approaching the throne room without completely destroying my cover, when Carter appears out of thin air at my side. I rein in my yelp and hold a finger to my lips, tilting my head towards the throne room. Rhegar , I mouth.
My friend’s lips turn down. He tilts his head in the opposite direction of the corridor, indicating I should follow him. Bemused, I obey, wondering what in Valenrae he’s doing here in the palace with me. Is the hunt already over? No, certainly not. The luncheon revelry would last hours on its own. Was it cancelled and he’s coming to bring me back before the other Elite return?
He dips into a servants’ stairwell, and we clatter down the steps, bursting through a door out into the stableyard.
“What’s going on?” I demand.
“Sorry, I don’t know Rhegar’s range. Didn’t want to risk him overhearing.” He’s breathing hard from using his gift, followed by our mad dash out of the palace.
“Why are you here? Was the hunt cancelled?”
He winces. “Don’t get upset…”
I take one menacing step towards him. “Is she out there alone?”
He raises both hands. “Lord Winters disappeared into the castle as soon as he saw you weren’t attending. She told me to go after him! What if he was going for the amulet and caught you?”
“And was he?” I grit out. “Going for the amulet?” Maybe Simon was in the throne room and I couldn’t sense him around the dampening wards. I could sense the amulet, though. Faintly, but it was there.
“Um, no. He’s in his lair. Doing Faunera knows what. Writing notes, thinking up evil plans, I don’t know.”
My eyes shift to burning ash, the familiar heat surging behind them. “You left her?”
“Astrid’s with her,” he assures me.
I relax a fraction. “You left her with Astrid.”
“Well, not exactly, but—”
I’m stalking towards the stables before he can finish his excuses. A strider waits to be unsaddled, a wide-eyed boy holding her reins. Presumably this is the animal Carter was meant to ride. Without a word, I swing up onto her back.
“Tare, I’ll go. It doesn’t make sense—”
But suddenly, I feel something I can’t explain. Something I’ve never felt before. A tickle of my consciousness, a subtle tug on my power. I taste the unmistakable scent of wild jasmine. My creature roars to the surface, and my head snaps to the forest.
Without a word, I urge the strider into the woods. The animal easily breaks into a canter, flying through the trees, hooved feet nimble as a deer. In the corner of my eye, I catch a blur winking in and out of sight. Carter, using his gift to jump alongside me.
Then a faint sound breaks through the forest that freezes my blood. A scream. Her scream filled with fright. Followed by Onyx’s frenzied neighing.
I urge the strider faster, Carter nearly disappearing as he follows, my eyes shifting with the force of my emotion.
Another scream, worse than the first, far worse. This one is soaked in raw, agonizing pain.
The bellow that roars from my chest in response is more beast than human.
I burst into the clearing, launching myself from the strider before it fully comes to a stop. A massive boar, as big as a wolf and twice as wide, swings around from where it has Alora treed across the clearing. My canines lengthen on their own, and a menacing snarl rips from my throat, challenging the creature.
The boar lowers its head, showing pointed tusks that could maul a grown stallion. The thought of their pointed tips sinking into Alora’s flesh pulls another roar from my lips. Pawing at the ground, the boar sprints across the clearing towards me, the bigger threat.
A slow smile curves my lips as I spread my arms wide in welcome. My fingers lengthen, nails hardening into black stone claws. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch the curve of a dark, sharp horn.
That’s new.
Too late, the boar realizes it has more than met its match, but its eyes are bloodshot, its sanity long departed. I relish every swipe of my hardened claws, every bloody puncture of my horns. But most of all, I cherish the moment I sink my canines into the animal’s neck and with a violent rip, tear out its throat, drenching my beastly body in its lifeblood.