Page 55 of By the Horns (Royal Artifactual Guild #2)

Forty

Raptor

You’re a what ?”

“I’m a mancer.” Gwenna immediately bursts into tears. “A necromancer. But I don’t want to be! I’m not even trying!”

I don’t think I’ve ever been as baffled as I am now.

I was expecting some big confession, some admission that she’d been blackmailed by an old lover or maybe an old coworker into doing nefarious things.

Hearing that she thinks she’s a mancer is beyond comprehension.

“What do you mean, you’re a mancer? How can you be a mancer? ”

She pulls away and wrings her hands, an agitated expression on her face as she paces back and forth in front of me.

“It started when we came here to Vastwarren. The first time I went in the tunnels, I picked up a dowsing rod. You know they’re not supposed to actually work, right?

That it’s just some silly joke that some masters play on their students?

Except this one worked, and it led me right to a dead man holding an artifact.

I thought I had done something right. That I’d somehow managed to find an artifact.

And then I stole that one and gave it to Aspeth, but that’s the only thing I’ve stolen, I swear. ”

I grunt, because I’ve heard the story of this one. Aspeth had one half of a link-ring pair in her possession, and Magpie’s students had found the companion to it. The pairing was considered a Greater Artifact find and was confiscated by the guild and sold off.

“But then when I used a dowsing rod again, it led me to another dead person, and I worried that I was doing something wrong.” She paces faster, as if moving quickly can somehow straighten her thoughts. “And then I started to hear them.”

“Hear who?”

“The dead.” She wrings her hands again, staring at the floor as she paces.

“At first I thought I was imagining things, that the voices that whispered whenever I passed the graveyard were in my mind. That I was imagining someone calling my name when I was cleaning, only to find out that they’d died yesterday. ”

Gwenna turns and faces me.

“A few weeks before recruitment day, I found a dead man in the alley. Or rather…I didn’t find him.

He led me to him. I heard him talking. He was frantic.

Nothing he said made sense, but he was babbling on and on, and I could hear him no matter where I went in the building, but I couldn’t find him inside.

I concentrated, and I got an image of the alley behind the house, where the well was located.

I followed the voice and I found…the body.

A young man. A repeater.” She bites her lip. “That was the first body.”

“First body,” I echo, not sure what to think of this barrage of information.

She twists her hands frantically and pauses in her pacing to gaze at me. “The second body was the day I pretended to be Sarya.”

I inhale sharply.

“My mother had always said that if you were in pain from a burn on the hand, you should hit your knee with a wooden spoon. It sounds silly, but it distracts you from the other pain. And when I was cleaning windows in the hospital, this dead man kept babbling at me and making my skin crawl. I knew he was in the alley, but I also knew I couldn’t say anything.

How would that look if I just up and kept pointing out men with their throats cut?

They’d suspect me. So I tried to work through it, to no avail. I told myself I needed a distraction.”

I rub my mouth. “And so you fucked me?”

“Sex is wonderfully distracting,” Gwenna says in a wistful tone.

“And it helped me focus enough that I could finish work. And you were nice and attractive, and I thought, What harm could it do? And I had fun. So aye, I fucked you to distract myself and then ran away as fast as I could to escape the dead man’s thoughts.

That’s how I knew about the artifact in the tunnel.

The dead pointed me there. And that’s how I felt… Hemmen.”

Her hand goes to her throat, and she rubs it.

“So that’s everything,” she says in a faint voice. “Sparrow did some research, and she says she thinks I’m what was called a necromancer. They were mancers that spoke to the dead.”

Her gaze rests on me, and it’s obvious she’s waiting for me to react.

I rub my muzzle, thinking. I don’t know what to make of the story she’s just told me. “You mean to tell me that you’ve been feeling the dead talking to you? That’s your secret?” When she nods, I add, “And that’s why you wanted me to touch you down in the tunnels?”

“I needed a distraction. There’s so many dead down there, it gets overwhelming.” She hugs her arms around herself.

“And seducing me is your best way to get distracted,” I say flatly.

Gwenna flinches. “You don’t believe me.”

“I just wonder at the convenience of it all.”

“Oh yes, highly convenient,” she says sarcastically. “Let me panic every time I step into the Everbelow, that’ll really advance my career as an artificer. Oh, and while I’m at it, why don’t I find the most fertile bull I can and demand that he have sex with me. That’ll sure show him.”

My mouth twitches despite myself. “Excellent point.”

“Did it ever occur to you that maybe I just mucking like you, you bloody idiot?”

I smile even broader. “Maybe you do. Maybe it makes us both fools.”

“So do you believe me now?” Her expression is worried but hopeful. “Or do you really think I’m some murdering mastermind that could truly have had Hemmen killed?”

“I don’t know what to think. Is there any way to prove what you’re claiming?”

She throws her hands up, exasperated. “Want to murder someone and have me quiz them?”

I think of poor, unfortunate Hemmen, dead in the alley. “There’s been enough death, I think.”

“On that, we both agree.” Her face crumples. She moves to the table and sits at one of the chairs, covering her face with her hands. “Just…tell me what you’re going to do with me, all right? All I ask is that if I’m killed for being a mancer, make it quick.”

She’s serious. She truly thinks that she’s going to be killed for claiming to be a mancer of some kind. One that talks to the dead. I eye her small, sad form as she sits at the table, and mentally go through all the things she’s told me.

How she’d known the dead man was in the training tunnel even though no one else had for decades.

How she’d clutched her throat and blurted out Hemmen’s name even as she was on my knot.

It explains why she had me touch her in the tunnels.

Granted, she could have known that whoever was responsible for the killings was going to cut his throat…

but that doesn’t explain why she gleefully jumped into bed with me that day in the hospital.

She had no reason to touch me if she was simply some criminal mastermind hiding her tracks.

And if she was, why would she claim something so terrible? A criminal gets a trial. The last mancer in the kingdom was burned at the stake, no trial at all.

Am I just inclined to believe her because I’m in love with her?

If what she’s saying is the truth…I don’t know what direction we go from here. She was the closest lead we had to finding the thief, and now we’ve got nothing. If we tell the guild that she’s a mancer, what happens if they decide she should be put to death?

The thought enrages me. I won’t let that happen.

I move to Gwenna’s side and squat beside the table. She’s crying again, tears falling silently down her cheeks, and I realize just how much stress she’s been under. What would I do if I thought I was a mancer? I wouldn’t tell a soul, either. I’d protect myself, just as she’s been doing.

And here I’ve made the situation worse, assuming she was the thief I’ve been looking for. I’m just as much to blame for this situation.

“Hey.” I reach for her hand. “What do they call a Taurian who falls for a mancer?”

“A fool.” She sniffs and won’t look me in the eye. “Mancers are outlawed.”

“Lots of things are outlawed. Doesn’t mean people don’t do them. I know a potion broker in the city, and they aren’t supposed to be creating them, but that’s never stopped anyone before.”

“I don’t know what to do,” Gwenna confesses, her fingers trembling in my grip.

Her other hand covers her eyes. “All I ever wanted was a job that could afford me enough money to not have to worry about going hungry. To be able to send some home to my mother and help her out. I never wanted any of this.”

I’m a monster for making her so worried. All this time, I should have been telling her how I feel about her. How my day is instantly better when she smiles. How it ties me up in knots when she’s stressed. “I’m sorry I accused you.”

“I guess I have been acting a mite suspiciously.” She manages a small smile. “But I’d rather be a thief than a mancer. A thief is just seen as desperate. A mancer is seen as evil.”

“You’re not evil,” I reassure her. “You’re the least evil person I’ve ever met. You’re just differently endowed.”

She peeks out at me from under her fingers. “Like you?”

I bark a laugh. “Exactly like. And just like me, we’ll figure out a way to keep things under control.”

Gwenna clutches my fingers tightly. “What do we do now?”

I consider this. Gwenna’s secret will only be secret for so long. She’s already under scrutiny for the thieving ring, so I need to get her name cleared in some fashion, but that means letting more people know what she’s capable of. “We need allies.”

“Who?”

“Hawk for sure.” I hesitate over the next name. “Possibly Head Guild Master Rooster, since he’s in charge, but we’ll need to see if Hawk thinks that’s wise.”

“We can’t tell the guild leader! He’ll kick me out of the fledglings, and I’ll never pass my tests.”

“Little bantam, we’re down to four,” I tell her gently. “There’s no way we’d pass this year regardless.”

I hate the crushed expression on her face. There must be a way we can fix this somehow. “I’ll keep you safe,” I reassure her. “You don’t have to worry.”

“I can’t help but worry.” She twines her fingers with mine.

“Who else knows about your power? The fewer the better.”

She winces, thinking, and rubs her fingertips over my knuckles. “Sparrow has known all this time. Mereden and Lark guessed it from my experiences with the dowsing rod. And you.”

As far as I’m concerned, that’s three too many people. “No one else.”

“Gods, you think I would tell anyone if I could help it? It took me this long just to confess to you.” Gwenna shakes her head. “You have my life in your hands, and you didn’t trust me until five minutes ago.”

“If I could reassure you somehow, I would.”

She arches a brow at me. “Give me one of your secrets, then. We’ll be even.”

I smile at that. “I’m in love with you.”

“Wh-what?” Her eyes go wide, and for once, she seems to be speechless.

Her reaction makes me tense inside. I’ve surprised her that much? “Is it that bad? For me to be in love with you?”

Her expression immediately changes to defensive. “I didn’t say it was bad . Don’t tell me what I’m thinking.”

“Then what are you thinking?” I ask, deciding to be blunt about it. “Because I’d really mucking love to know.”

She swallows hard, avoiding meeting my gaze.

I tip a finger under her chin, forcing her to look into my eyes. “Well?”

“I’m not good with saying what I’m feeling,” Gwenna confesses, her voice small. “All my life, I’ve been taught to put on a smile and hide what I’m really thinking. So it’s hard for me to be vulnerable. To tell you what I feel.”

In a strange way, I understand. She’s never had the freedom to wear her emotions as plainly as Sparrow. “Try? For me?”

Gwenna gives me a tiny smile. “I love you, too. It’s impossible not to love you, Raptor. You’re the best male I’ve ever met, and you’ve had my back always. Of course I love you. Even saying that sounds weak.” She pauses, frustrated.

“Go on.” Mostly because my ego is loving hearing all this from her. What male wouldn’t love to hear his woman gushing about how great he is?

She pulls my hand from her chin and tangles her fingers with mine once more.

Her gaze stays on our joined hands, so different in size but so perfect together.

“It feels like…you know the chalice at the King’s Onion?

How it’s constantly dropping one onion after another?

I imagine that in the morning they have to pick up a massive basket of onions, all the ones that dropped overnight.

And just when you think it’s got nothing more in there, another onion rolls out.

I’m not good with flowery words, Raptor, but what I feel for you feels like that cup.

That no matter how deep I dig, I won’t hit the bottom of how I feel for you.

That there’ll always be another onion ready to drop. It’s a terrible comparison, I know.”

It’s a remarkably touching comparison, actually.

She lifts her head and narrows her eyes at me. “Laugh at me, and I’ll bloody kill you.”

“I would never. Not when you’ve given me the greatest gift.” I lift our joined hands to my muzzle and kiss them.

“I thought me bouncing on your knot was the greatest gift?” She arches a brow, falling back on her playful banter. There’s bright red in her round cheeks that tells me she’s still feeling vulnerable, though, and I vow that I’m never going to make her feel like less.

“Second-greatest gift,” I amend, and smile down at her. “I adore you, woman. You know that, right?”

Her cheeks grow even pinker. It seems she does know that.