Page 107 of Taste of Thorns

For now, it’s better if I nurse this information close to my chest and wait. Dray isn’t going to like that. I doubt Thorne will either. I don’t see a way around it at the present time.

I comb my fingers through my wet hair, pushing it away from my face and then I pad out of the bathroom, into my bedroom and towards the landing.

I’m in need of coffee. Lots of coffee. In fact, I’d be prepared to inject the stuff directly into my veins.

I rub at my tired eyes. Henrietta Smyte is fucking exhausting.

I step out into the hallway, cold air hitting my still-wet skin and there I halt.

Briony is there. One foot on the bottom stair, the other on the step just above, her hand on the banister. Her face is one of shock and it makes me jolt in place.

“Briony,” I say, all that disgust and revulsion, all the stress and strain, rushing away at the sight of her.

I take several hurried steps towards her. It’s early morning and I wasn’t expecting to find her here. But here she is, and isn’t that a blessed relief.

However, the girl lifts her hand, signaling for me to stop and shakes her head vigorously. The usual irritation she seems to reserve especially for me is absent. Instead, there’s a sadness I see lingering in her green eyes.

“What’s wrong?” I say, with concern.

If something bad had happened while I was away, my bond brothers would have messaged me. I left strict instructions for them to do so.

“Where have you been, Beaufort?” she asks me.

“Didn’t Dray tell you? Onyx.”

“With her?” she says, the words strangled in her throat and her usually steely countenance cracking. Immediately, I understand.

I ignore the raised hand and stroll right up to her. She’s still hovering on that step and it makes our faces almost level.

“I don’t know what you heard, I don’t know what they told you, but it isn’t true.”

“You kissed her, though. That isn’t a lie, right? People saw you together.”

“Shekissedme, Briony.”

“Because you’re so damn irresistible.” She purses her lips together and snaps her head away from me.

Is she serious? The girl must know how fucking obsessed with her I am. She must know I haven’t looked at another girl, noticed one, thought about one, acknowledged one, in weeks and weeks.

As for Henny? I want as little to do with the drugged-up psychopath as is humanly possible. The only reason I have spent time with her is to get to the bottom of what has been going on. And the reason I’ve done that is to keep Briony safe.

“Briony,” I snap in irritation. But my emotions soften when I see the way her bottom lip trembles like she’s fighting to hold back tears. My girl. My fighter. And I remember why she is a fighter, because for so long her life has been shit. The people who were meant to love her, to care about her, to protect her, either left or abused her in the cruelest possible ways instead. It’s what she knows. Has she been waiting all along for it to happen withthe three of us? Does she believe deep in her heart that we’re going to hurt her or worse, leave her?

Gently, I cup her chin and turn her face towards me. Her green eyes swim with water.

“Briony, sweetheart,” I say softly. “I love you. I’m with you. I have the marks on my wrists to prove I am your fated mate. I’m never going to leave you. I’m never going to hurt you. I’m never going to want anyone but you.”

“But I don’t have those marks,” she says. “Maybe I’m not the one.”

“You are,” I say. “There’s no doubt in my mind.”

She holds my gaze, searching my eyes and I don’t look away, refusing to blink, wanting her to read right down into the depths of my soul, to see it’s stamped through with her name over and over again.

“Then why did you go? And why did you go with her? Without even telling me?”

“I didn’t have a choice. Henrietta had information. I thought it would lead me to the usurpers who are behind the attacks on you, Briony.”

“And why did that mean you had to go to Onyx? With her?”