Page 9 of A Taste For Lies (The Apex Kingdom #1)

Chapter 9

TARAN

“ Y ou’re not waking her for watch?” Carter indicates the little thief with an incline of his head. She’s fast asleep among strangers, the softened lines of her face limned by firelight.

“Did you see the bags under her eyes? I need the Lynx sharp when we get to Ravenscrest.”

Instead of heading for his own bedroll, my best friend drops back down and sits beside me. I glance at him sidelong. “I need you sharp, too, Captain.”

He ignores me. “Is that the real reason? Or is her scent still bothering you?”

Bothering me is an understatement. Even out here in the woods, with plenty of fresh air to dilute it, the Lynx’s jasmine fragrance wraps around me like a vise. And underneath the jasmine is something distinctly—wild. Something that makes my mouth water. I don’t know what I was thinking, putting her on watch duty with me. Pure hubris. There’s no way I could sit right next to that until dawn.

“Her scent is…an unexpected complication.”

Carter snorts. “I’ll say. How are you going to link with her? Didn’t you say your olfactory sense gets amplified when you connect with your creature? ”

“Don’t you think I’ve already thought of that?” I lean my head back against the tree and squeeze my eyes shut. “I’m dreading even being in the same room with her, much less attempting linking.”

“But you’re sure she’s not Apex?”

“Of course I’m sure. I’d be able to scent her creature, her power. There’s nothing.” Even I can hear the gruffness of my tone. The stress is getting to me.

But Carter doesn’t let up. It’s not in him. “So then what happens when you scent her? Is it like the lilies in the ballroom?”

It’s nothing like the lilies in the ballroom. The opposite, actually. Whatever the opposite of nauseated is. I open my eyes, unsure how to describe it. “It’s like my creature is closer to the surface. Like everything is heightened.”

He leans back on his hands. “That sounds like a good thing. A good sign for the power sharing at least.”

I make the monumental mistake of pulling in a deep breath and regret it immediately. “My creature being close to the surface is never a good thing.”

The tightness in my voice is enough to make Carter pause. I can tell he’s going to tread carefully now, recognizing he’s close to pushing me too far. His next words are placating. “Maybe we could find another—”

I cut off my friend’s half-formed thought. “I’ve already considered that. Believe me, if there was any other way, I’d take it in a heartbeat. But we need to get that amulet away from my father and Lord Winters as soon as possible. Every day they have it is another day Veridians are at risk. That we’re all at risk. Maeve’s already laid the groundwork with the ridiculous rumor about the announcement, so the Lynx will blend in at court. And Samhain is the only night there’s a glimmer of a chance we can pull it off.”

A familiar feeling of self-hatred bubbles up again as I lay out the precarious position I’ve landed us all in. “There’s no time to engage another thief, even if we could find one as good as her, which we can’t. She’s the one, Carter.”

Both our eyes rest on the sleeping human, the object of all our hope—and my own personal torment. She shifts in her sleep, a loose chestnut curl sliding across her face. My fingers twitch with the inexplicable urge to brush it back .

“At least she’s beautiful,” Carter remarks. My head snaps to my guardian’s, and a warning rumble begins to build in my chest before he continues, “So that’ll piss off Victoria.”

The growl morphs into a low laugh as I envision my former betrothed’s impending reaction to the little thief. But just as quickly, I sober. “We’ll have to keep an eye on her. Victoria is as dangerous as my creature when she’s riled.”

Carter hums in agreement. “Too bad the Lynx didn’t turn out to be an Apex after all.”

“Why?” I ask warily.

“When she called you Your Highness and told you you’d have to catch her first, I thought we’d finally found you a suitable match.”

I fucking did, too. Never mind that she was already torturing me with the most tantalizing scent in the realm. When she practically dared me to chase her—I have to adjust myself at the memory. With the exception of Maeve, no females act like that in my presence. They’re all either fawning or frightened. To have one boldly taunt me was…exhilarating.

But she is a human. And a thief. Which is exactly why I won’t be letting my creature or my cock do the thinking. “Even if she were Apex, I can’t afford the distraction. This is too important. I need her help to steal the amulet. That’s it.” That’s all it can be , I mentally add.

Although it shouldn’t, the blinding rage from my stoneclaw catches me unawares. I brace a hand on the ground, fingers curling into the dirt, and pant through the storm as it splinters through me. Since that luscious scent first erupted into our consciousness, my creature has been more than clear. The Lynx is ours .

But I know what happens when my stoneclaw gets its way. If anything, its territorial insistence is only more confirmation that the beguiling woman is off-limits. My creature lashes out harder at the thought, and I grunt through the mental strain.

Carter is watching me with a pitying expression. “It’s alright to want things, Tare. ”

“Not for me.” My eyes find the sleeping thief again, drawn to her like a moth to a flame. “Not for me.”