Page 44 of The Demon’s Collar (The Bard’s Demon #1)

I looked up. I felt oddly liminal—one foot in his world, one foot in hers. And, fuck. B?k saw my tears. His eyes blazed with a curiosity that I knew would quickly become demand. If I didn’t give him something, he would take everything.

I wanted to trust him.

But I didn’t.

“It wasn’t a traitor,” I said, nudging the first letter—a plan forming as quickly as the words to enact it. “It was a baby. She was pregnant when she wrote this.”

B?k’s brow furrowed.

Even a demon couldn’t imagine a mother hating her child that much. Why did that tear a new rift in my long-dormant wound?

The heat in the room suddenly turned oppressive. A hollow ache pulsed in my chest. I let the pages fall to the bed.

“What’s wrong?” B?k asked.

I shook my head. “Where did the Huntress get these?”

I looked down at the pile, trying to make that part make sense. These had gone all over the continent—to powerful friends far and wide. Who had cared enough to gather them?

“Tavish believes they were found together in Finchton,” B?k said. “Never sent. A spy in the Huntress’s inner circle brought news of their existence, and they all turned up at once. Why?”

He knew something was wrong. Any fool could have seen that. I was nearly hyperventilating. But he didn’t know what was wrong. And that was good.

“The queen wanted to get rid of her child,” I said, trying to sound steady. “It’s— I just don’t?—”

I swallowed. I needed him to believe I was overcome with emotion for that.

For some faceless princess I’d known from a distance.

But even as I fought to keep the last shred of this new angle to myself, another realization slammed into me.

B?k would find out. One conversation with either Brü—who’d deduced from a few disconnected details that I was the weapon the Huntress wanted, or Tavish—who knew what I wanted to find in those books, who had watched me focus on entries about the queen when I’d told him I was looking for my father.

They were all going to put it together. It was only a question of when.

“I need air,” I said—knowing I was fucked. B?k wouldn’t let me leave. He couldn’t. He couldn’t possibly avoid using the collar now.

I lurched for the door. As expected, he came after me. But his hand closed around empty air. He was slow, still fighting off the mead. I listened for his inevitable command behind me—but I didn’t stop moving in the meantime, and the command never came.

I ran. His footsteps thundered behind me.

“Ero, stop!” he called.

Still no compulsion.

I moved faster, turning into a busy part of the camp. It looked like a town center. Semi-permanent structures made of wood and stone lined the streets. There were few people out this early, but the ones who were there paid us no mind.

B?k paused to retch. The moment I saw him distracted, I dove between two buildings. I crouched in the shadows—wondering if it was a fool’s errand. He’d found me so easily in the woods. I should have kept moving. I should still?—

A sound startled me from my tortured debate.

A meow?

I looked back toward the street. A snow-white cat sat just outside the alleyway shadow staring right at me. Its glassy blue eyes glittered in the morning light. Its long fur swayed gently in the breeze. Stunningly pretty, but also eerily ghostlike.

Slowly, the cat’s ears went flat. A low guttural yowl stilled my tendrils.

This was no alley cat. Was it a shifter? A familiar? An intelligent beast in its own right? I moved one hand slowly toward my belt, searching for my knife.

The cat’s growl deepened, threatening, and it crouched.

“Pax!” called an unfamiliar masculine voice with a lilt of polished command.

The cat sat up immediately, giving me one last withering glare before it darted away.

B?k skidded into the spot the cat had just vacated, looking more furious than I’d ever seen him. Sparks dripped from his fingertips. Dark promises danced in his eyes.

And somehow, he still didn’t compel me.

The voice boomed again. “B?k?”

Several sets of hooves clopped on the cobblestone. B?k looked over his shoulder. I stood slowly, flattening myself against the building. There was no way out of the alley in the back. It was a stone wall with a steep cliff face behind it. I would have to dart past B?k to flee again.

The party of riders stopped behind B?k, making my single path out more complicated.

And there, I finally caught sight of the esteemed Lord Austvix.

He was as tall a man as I’d ever seen. Even though he wasn’t standing, I could tell by the way he dwarfed his horse and the others around him.

I was accustomed to seeing warriors—even great ones—so I didn’t understand the immediate flare of fear that lit in my middle.

The way my whole body went rigid like spotted prey at the sight of him.

My tendrils went mad. Scrabbling at the stone behind me, stretching for the back of the alley. Urging me to run.

When B?k turned to Lord Austvix, I tried to follow my gut. I darted out of the alley, planning to pivot back toward the camp with B?k distracted.

But while he was looking at Lord Austvix, his shadows were not. One caught my ankle, sending me reeling. I fell hard, and the shadow yanked me back, depositing me on my hands and knees at B?k’s feet.

I chanced a look up, expecting Lord Austvix to be somewhat bemused by our squabble, perhaps—but the fury on his face stopped my heart. His cat sat behind him on the saddle, still as a statue, matching his glare.

Lord Austvix spoke to B?k, but his eyes never left mine. “Is this some sort of coup attempt, demon?”

I breathed. Once, twice. Waiting for B?k to answer the nonsensical question.

Finally, he did. He sounded every bit as perplexed as I felt. He drew out the words, like someone audibly holding up their hands in surrender. “No, my lord?”

“Then take that fucking collar off my sister.”