Page 22 of Enchantra (Wicked Games #2)

21

LITTLE GAME

“Well, well, well, look who lasted the first four hours, after all—” Genevieve began to boast at the sound of the bells, but before she could finish, Rowin was hauling her out of the room by her upper arm.

“First rule of catching a bear in a trap—don’t continue to fucking poke it,” he told her as he pulled her toward the ballroom while Grave disappeared out of the front door to go find the blade. “When it eventually gets out, it’ll be twice as pissed.”

His tone was hard, admonishing, but she saw the glint of amusement in his eyes.

“He almost killed me!” she reasoned with an exaggerated huff as they continued toward the grand staircase, her pace barely able to keep up with his impossibly long strides. “Am I not allowed to gloat?”

“Not until we’re the Hunters,” he told her.

Halfway up the steps, a sudden flush of heat came over her and made her pause.

“It’s just the magic of the game making sure everyone’s switched rooms,” he assured her from the step below. “If we hadn’t left the bedroom or the dining room, it would have felt like your skin was boiling off.”

“Oh, phenomenal,” she said, tone dripping with sarcasm, “something else to look forward to.”

When they made it to the hallway upstairs, Genevieve was surprised to run into Ellin. Ellin, who could barely breathe as she bent over to place her hands on her knees.

“Fuck.” Inhale. “Knox.” Inhale. “And his games.”

“What was it this time?” Rowin asked, apparently completely unconcerned by the state his sister was in.

“Desert oasis,” Ellin told him as she straightened back up, brushing away the short strands of her white hair that were sticking to her face with sweat. “With about a million scorpions. And snakes. It was disgusting.”

Genevieve gave a nervous giggle.

Rowin flicked his eyes over to the doors on their right. “Want to hide with us this round?”

Ellin shot him a dirty look. “So you can use me as bait during the next switch of rooms? Fuck off, Rowington Silver.”

Rowin gave a rueful smirk.

“Where is he?” Ellin asked.

“Outside,” Rowin answered. “Though I doubt for much longer.”

Ellin nodded and disappeared.

“Desert? Scorpions? Snakes? ” Genevieve questioned.

“Knox is heralded for his creativity even in Hell,” he muttered, as if that offered any sort of clarification.

He strode toward one of the doors and threw it open, and Genevieve gaped in awe.

“Every spare room in the house is enchanted to transform into a different landscape. Knox comes up with new designs every season. It gives us more interesting places to hide than each other’s bedrooms. Not to mention, each of the enchanted rooms contains a token that gives immunity from one round of the Hunt—if you can manage to find and retrieve it.”

Genevieve barely registered his words as she took a step toward the doorway. The Devils that had run Phantasma’s trials had created similar illusions in the haunted manor. But those illusions had been terrifying and bloody. This…this was like stepping into a dream.

The room, if it could even be called that, was an expansive, lush green meadow. A babbling brook snaked through the clearing in the distance, a silver bridge made of swirling filigree bent over it. As far as her eyes could see were species of colorful flowers completely foreign to her. Birds soared overhead, and fluffy white clouds rolled through the blue sky. She moved to step inside, but Rowin stopped her.

“Are we not going in?” she asked. “It seems like a wonderful place to hide.”

“There’s only one exit in and out of the enchanted rooms, and it’s too risky when we need to switch,” he told her. “Those rooms are deadly games all on their own. It might look beautiful and serene in there, but everything Knox creates is dangerous. Didn’t you see the state of Ellin? She’s lucky we left Grave preoccupied downstairs instead of waiting for her here.”

“Why would Ellin risk it, then?”

“Because she figured the two of us would be Grave’s focus, I imagine. And she was right.”

He waved for her to follow him toward the set of double doors at the end of the hall. When Rowin pulled them open to reveal a library, she instantly got the unnerving feeling that they were being watched. But the ring remained cold. There was only a single mirror in the entire room—above the stone fireplace in the center of the back wall—but somehow she didn’t think it had anything to do with the eerie feeling.

“Covin’s on this floor somewhere,” Rowin murmured as if he’d heard her thoughts.

“Where? How do you know?” she wondered as he strode toward one of the many bookcases on the left.

As far as in-home libraries went, the design was, surprisingly, rather boring. It was the one room that lacked the opulence of the rest of the villa. Here, the gilded, baroque details had been traded for something much warmer—mahogany shelves, plush couches, and a surprising lack of dust compared to other rooms in the house.

Genevieve perused the titles of the tomes on the shelves next to the fireplace as Rowin scanned the ones on his side of the room. She pulled out a thick hardcover that said The Matter of Souls on its spine and thumbed through the yellowed pages. There were chapters on how to harvest souls, where souls went after they were extracted, how to turn them into currency for Devils…she shuddered and clapped it shut.

“Satan is sleeping on one of the shelves up top,” Rowin said, and it took her a moment to recall what her question had been. “Covin’s probably in one of the other rooms.”

“ Satan? ” she repeated in concern while she took a closer look at the title of a half-read, splayed-out novel on one of the couch’s arms.

The Devil’s Darkest Desires . Genevieve giggled, wondering which of the Silver siblings the bodice ripper belonged to. It reminded her of similar tattered copies that her sister used to hide from their mother.

“Satan is Covin’s Familiar,” Rowin clarified as he finally pulled out the book he’d been searching for.

Genevieve watched as one of the bookshelves began to spin—because what sort of enchanted estate would it really be without such a feature—and Rowin waved her over. She squeezed past the wingback chair of the sitting area in front of the fireplace and strutted over to the far wall, allowing him to pull her into his body atop the turning platform just before it finished spinning into a new hidden room.

The room they were now standing in was possibly the drabbest place Genevieve had ever seen. Bare stone walls. Creaky wooden floorboards. A couch that looked like it would give her tetanus if she sat on it. There was not a single comforting detail—no rug, or splash of color, or even the warmth of candlelight. Just, next to the couch, a gas lamp that Rowin lit with a match.

The only positive thing Genevieve could comment on about this particular hiding spot was the fact that there wasn’t a mirror in sight.

“Want a drink?” Rowin asked as he made his way over to the corner and a fully stocked bar cart that she hadn’t noticed.

She tilted her head. “What do you have?”

“Whiskey…or what I’m pretty sure is Sevin’s piss from the last Hunt.”

She nearly choked on her horror.

He smirked. “When the others get stuck in here for too long, sometimes they?—”

“I get the picture,” she interrupted. “That is disgusting .”

“After seeing the state of my bedroom, I’m not sure you’re allowed to judge,” he told her.

“Excuse me, I am messy . Not gross . There’s a difference between leaving dresses strewn about and leaving a bottle of urine to ferment for a year.”

“That’s fair,” he allowed. “But you never answered my question.”

“What—? Oh. The drink.” She felt her mouth twist in disgust. “No, thanks. I don’t drink whiskey. Nor do I trust the rest of those bottles to not have been…contaminated.”

He shrugged.

“What happens if someone else tries to hide in here? Or if the Hunter finds us and blocks our way out?” she asked.

“Once someone is inside, the door cannot be opened again from the outside unless it is reset. Plus, there’s the trap door,” he said before walking over to a spot in the middle of the room and reaching down to search for a groove in the floorboards. When he found it, he pried up the nearly invisible door in demonstration. “These stairs lead to a tunnel that can get you to and from the kitchen downstairs. It’s one of the better hiding spots to be in.” He lowered the door back down. “You might as well settle in, because we have a couple more hours to wait out before we move again.”

This is Hell.

It took Rowin almost the entire decanter of whiskey before he decided he was tired of the silence.

“Why not?”

Genevieve was situated on one end of the couch, a spring biting into her hip from the cushion and her head pillowed on its armrest. At some point her eyes had drooped closed.

“Why not, what?” she murmured.

“Why don’t you drink whiskey?”

She blinked her eyes open. “I don’t like the flavor.”

“Liar. If you didn’t like the taste, you would’ve said that. You said you don’t drink it.”

“I thought you didn’t want to share truths anymore,” she countered.

“Hmm,” he hummed as his amber eyes scrutinized her. “It’s either because you overindulged once and got sick or…it’s because of someone you don’t like to think about.”

“You’re guessing,” she said. But he was right on both accounts.

“What was his name?” Rowin asked.

Genevieve gave a heavy sigh. “Why are you so interested? Are you drunk? Or bored? If it’s just out of boredom, I’m sure we can make up another game to play.”

“I think it would take a damn distillery’s worth of whiskey to get me drunk at this point,” he muttered. “And you’re my wife. I think it’s reasonable to want to know you.”

She knew immortals had an extraordinary tolerance to inebriation, but she wasn’t sure she believed him. And she certainly didn’t buy the you’re my wife bit.

He sighed at her pointed look. “Maybe it’s boredom.”

“Alright, then how about a modification to our previous little game?” she proposed. “We each get to ask the other person three questions. Two of our answers have to be absolute truths, but we can choose whichever one to lie about.”

“Deal.”

She didn’t bother to let him go first this time.

“I remember Grave mentioning something about a cure for your mother. He said he didn’t believe it existed. And you do, right?”

Rowin was silent for a long moment. As if he was deciding whether he was still bored enough to play.

“Yes,” he finally said. “The cure is the reason I’ve been so adamant about winning every year. I’m doing…research about it. I wouldn’t be able to do that in Hell. Knox would have me doing his dirty work all the time. And I don’t trust any of the others to do it.”

“Since they don’t believe in the cure, you mean?” she assumed.

“Partially. Even if we found a cure, Knox would probably find another way to keep us under his control. We’re too valuable to his empire. Grave thinks that if we try to play Knox at his own game, he’ll find a way to make things even worse. The game is bearable for him, so long as it’s keeping our mother alive. But I…”

He pressed his lips together now, and Genevieve sat up straighter at the sight of the guilt coloring his expression.

“It’s okay,” she told him. “I promise I’m the last person who would ever judge you for having complicated feelings about your family.”

He looked at her then. Really looked at her. And whatever he found must have been enough.

“I’d rather keep hope that the cure exists. That if my mother can be saved with it, if she’s out of danger, then the rest of us could fight back against Knox.” He shoved a hand through his hair as he spoke the hushed confession. “I know wanting to save her only as a means to save myself is not exactly the purest of intentions…”

“Some people would call that selfish,” Genevieve agreed.

She could have sworn he flinched, but he only muttered, “You’ve called me worse.”

“Oh, I’m not some people,” she rushed to assure. “I’ve been here only a couple of days, and I would rather be anywhere else in the world. If you’ve decided you can’t endure this for the rest of eternity …I think maybe you’ve earned the right to be a little selfish.”

He snorted and then fell silent, and she tried to leave it, truly, but after a while she couldn’t help herself.

“Is this why you’ve stopped visiting them, then? Because you’re spending all of your time looking for this cure?”

“That and the guilt,” he told her. “Facing my mother when I haven’t been able to find a true lead in fifteen years …” He shook his head as his words trailed off.

“If we win, and you don’t ever have to play this game again, would you still search for it?” she wondered.

“No,” he said with a pointed look.

“You’re not supposed to give your lie away so easily,” she sighed. “It defeats the purpose of the game.”

He shrugged. And then, barely loud enough for her to hear, “I wouldn’t rest until I freed them all.”

She tilted her head. “Whatever version of selfish anyone considers you, Rowin Silver, is one I very much admire.”

He flicked his eyes away from her, and she couldn’t help but smile. Watching him squirm when she praised him was even better than pissing him off.

“Now for my next question—” she began.

He shook his head. “You asked all your questions. It’s my turn.”

She pouted. “Wait, most of those were simply to clarify?—”

“You’re cheating,” he drawled, all traces of vulnerability already tucked neatly away.

She gave an exasperated sigh. “ Fine. You go.”

“Why don’t you drink whiskey? Why did you write my father letters pretending to be your mother? Who is Farrow?”

At the mention of Farrow’s name, she froze.

“How do you know that name?” she hissed.

He lifted a brow at her reaction. “From you. Umbra found you, passed out from the demonberries, and when I was taking you back outside the gates, you asked if I was someone named Farrow.”

“Is that all I said?” she pressed, stomach churning with the idea that words had been exchanged between them that she couldn’t remember.

His expression stayed smooth as he said, “You were hardly coherent. I only remembered the name because it was so odd. My magic removed as much of the demonberries from your system as it could—Ellin’s healing abilities are much more substantial than any of the rest of ours—but you were still a bit dazed.”

She tucked away the information about their healing abilities in the back of her mind to revisit later, and begrudgingly told him, “I don’t drink whiskey because of Farrow. I wrote the letters because my mother kept my sister in the dark about so much of her life and I couldn’t stand it any longer. When I found out your father existed, I thought that perhaps he was also a Necromancer. That maybe someone in his family would know what it was like to be the spare sibling.” She took a deep breath. “If I had known it would lead to all of this, obviously I would’ve left it alone.”

He barked a laugh. “No, you wouldn’t have.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “And how the Hell would you know?”

“In the last two days you have not once left anything well enough alone.”

“The last two days bear no resemblance to the rest of my life. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“There. You have to argue about everything,” he pointed out with a smirk.

“I do not argue about everything ?—”

“Is this supposed to be you not arguing?” he interrupted. “If so, you’re horrendous at it.”

She pressed her lips together, indignant, but his eyes were suddenly shining with mischief, and something about the sight of it made her blood warm.

“Well?” he eventually said.

“Well what ?”

His lips twitched. “You owe me an answer to my last question. Who is Farrow?”

And this was the question she’d been trying to avoid answering.

“He isn’t anyone significant,” she stated. A beat.

“That’s your lie.”

She made a face. “I didn’t think you were considering the rules so carefully. And why do you think that?”

“Because you wear all of your emotions on your face,” he stated. “You don’t seem like the type that would let some man get under your skin. So deep that you’re letting him ruin pristinely aged liquor.”

“Yeah, well,” she said, looking down to pick at her nails as her voice grew quiet, “some people are poisonous that way. They touch you once and somehow infect every little thing you do thereafter.”

Hell, she’d nearly lost all her friends because of that bastard. She’d nearly lost her spirit. Her sense of self. Thankfully, she’d found spite along the way.

“I sure as fuck hope he wasn’t who you were referring to when you claimed to have experience .”

She squeaked in surprise, her gaze shifting back to his. “And if he was?”

“Then you desperately need a different experience,” he decided.

“Just because someone’s a bastard doesn’t mean they don’t know how to fuck well,” she snipped right back, thinking of the fact that she’d had the opportunity to have a different experience just a few hours ago, and he’d stopped it.

“That is very true,” he murmured.

Before she could blink, Rowin had shifted forward, his hands bracing his weight on either side of her hips, caging her back into the couch as their faces hovered only inches apart. Close enough that if she reached out with the tip of her tongue, she could flick it against the golden hoop in his bottom lip.

Enough with the damned lip piercing , she chastised herself.

The look in Rowin’s eyes, meanwhile, was absolutely sinful. “With how strongly the passion fruit affected you, I’m inclined to believe that no one has made you come, properly, in quite a while.”

There was no way in Hell that she was about to admit how correct he was, but the smirk unfurling on his face told her he already knew. With him this close, it was hard for her to think properly. The smell of him was too intoxicating. The warmth of his body too inviting.

The only thing she could think to say was, “And? Are you offering to rectify that mistake? To finish what we started at the masquerade?”

“In your dreams, trouble,” he murmured, but she didn’t miss the way his eyes flicked down to her mouth just before he backed off and stood.

“Then why are you flirting with me?” she accused.

“Am I?” The curl of his lips was arrogant now. “I think you just find me very attractive, and we happen to be talking about sex.”

“When the fuck is the next switch?” she grumbled as she pushed herself off the couch. “I think I’ve reached my limit of you for the night.”

A moment later the bells announced it was time to move.