Page 43 of The Lost Art of Revealing Hidden Truths (The Lost Arts #3)

Chapter Nineteen

P erian jerked awake in a panic, not able to remember, for an instant, why he was in a panic, and then it all came back to him in a rush. His head throbbed. He wasn’t near Molun or Brannal. Cormal had confronted him, and Cormal had attacked him because he thought, he thought…

He thought that Perian was a carnalion. And while Perian instinctively rejected the notion, pushed it away with everything he had…

He had a terrible feeling deep in his bones that Cormal might be right.

Not everyone who loved sex was a carnalion, of course; that would just be ridiculous.

(But he loved sex, the build up to sex, the act of sex, the cuddling after sex. All of it. So much.)

Carnalions seduced everyone, didn’t they? Perian had only had sex with Brannal since he’d met him.

(But he really liked those shows that Molun and Arvus put on, when he could… feed off their desire?)

Carnalions killed people.

Perian had never ever done anything like that !

And carnalions knew they were carnalions, surely.

They weren’t raised… on a secluded estate where his father had kept most people away until Perian’s teen years, when he’d brought him to a house of pleasure and had him learn everything there was to know about sex and pleasure before bringing him back and keeping him secluded.

Perian sagged back against the bed. Fire and water.

Could you really be a demon and not know it? Didn’t they come from the demon realm? Could he have forgotten? But no, he remembered growing up on the estate, and he remembered being there since he was very small. Could… could demon babies exist?

It all sounded so unbelievable. Could Cormal simply be spiteful, and Perian was getting swept up in it because his head hurt and it had been a very upsetting few days?

Surely that made more sense than Perian being a demon.

He remembered the feeling of Brannal coming to completion, the blissful satisfaction that rolled over Perian, how good it felt, so filling and warm. A sob caught in his throat. He really had been feeding, hadn’t he?

His mind flashed suddenly to the first time they’d had penetrative sex, to Brannal climaxing and then almost strangling Perian.

It was something Brannal had refused to talk about.

Perian hadn’t really understood, but he’d respected Brannal’s privacy and desire to put it behind him.

But what if it hadn’t ever been about Brannal, not really?

What if a Mage Warrior had suddenly thought that a carnalion was feeding from him?

He must have thought he’d been tricked, just like Cormal said, only then Perian had had no idea what was going on.

Brannal had stormed off, and he hadn’t had sex with Perian for days.

Had he been convincing himself he hadn’t felt what he thought he had?

Had he been overcome by Perian’s apparent charms?

Could he really have believed that Perian meant him no harm?

Cormal had burned Perian with a fireball in training not much later. Weren’t carnalions susceptible to fire? Everyone knew that! Perian had been burned, but no one had acted like it was unusual. Wouldn’t it affect him more ? Hadn’t the doctor said he’d healed well?

Perian had never met a carnalion. How would he know any of this? His head throbbed harder.

But you know who had met carnalions? Who’d met and killed them? Cormal. Brannal. The Mage Warriors, because that was what they did . That was their actual job. If someone was going to know, it was them.

And Perian had heard it out of context when he’d been sleepy and not totally with it, but Brannal had told Arvus that they needed to feed Perian, hadn’t he?

It hadn’t been in quite so many words, but Arvus had jerked off, and Brannal had made Perian come at the same time he did, and Perian…

he’d felt warm again, had felt warm and satisfied, and it had been exactly what he needed, and Brannal had known.

Perian swallowed thickly, his stomach churning. Brannal had figured it out, hadn’t he? He’d made sure Perian was fed, had been making sure they were having plenty of sex the last few days, amidst Perian sneaking back to Molun.

But why had Perian been doing that? Had he intended to feed off Molun? Because he was weaker? He frowned, his stomach lurching.

No, that seemed wrong. Molun hadn’t been coming, at least not when Perian was there. Had Brannal made sure to give the other two time alone, had he carried Perian away to make sure that he didn’t hurt Molun while he was injured?

The thought made Perian feel ill. He would never, never hurt Molun… if he knew that he was doing it. But had he been feeding without even realizing? All this time, had he been feeding from his friends, been eating their life energy without knowing it?

He stared blindly ahead of him, mind flying over all of their interactions.

Was that why Brannal had proposed that he be intimate with Molun and Arvus?

His lip curled up, no amusement in it. Fire and water, it was, wasn’t it?

Because Brannal hadn’t actually been comfortable with them being together, but he’d insisted , had pushed Perian to do it…

because he was worried about what he might come back to if Perian were left on his own without a ready food source?

Because he’d wanted to spread out the feeding to ensure that Perian didn’t take too much from him, didn’t accidentally suck him dry ?

Perian’s stomach tumbled anxiously, and he jerked upright and leaned over the edge of the bed, vomiting all over the floor.

And it was at this point that Perian realized there were a lot more things for him to worry about than just the fact that his very existence had been rewritten and he was a danger to everyone he cared about.

There were shackles around his wrists, shackles looped through the headboard and tying him to the bed. How had he not noticed that before this moment? Where even was he?

The bed was narrow and uncomfortable. He peered around himself, head still throbbing.

The room was… not made of stone. It was sm all and ill-lit.

Cormal had said he was going to prevent Perian from hurting Brannal.

Cormal thought Perian was a carnalion who was going to hurt everyone, and he’d knocked Perian out and brought him…

wherever here was. It looked nothing like the castle.

The room was narrow with a small amount of plain furnishings.

There was a tiny window, high up, with a curtain drawn across it.

Perian wasn’t sure what time it was, but he thought daylight was peeking in.

Had he been missed at the castle yet? What was everyone thinking?

How long would it take them to realize that he wasn’t there?

It was a pretty big place, and it would take a long time to search.

Even if he’d been spending the last days going nowhere but Brannal’s room and Molun and Arvus’s, there were so many other places he could be.

When would they start to really worry? Would they really worry?

Would Cormal tell them that Perian was gone? Would anyone believe that?

What was the plan? Cormal had brought him to wherever here was, and Perian was shackled to the bed, but what happened after this? He couldn’t just be kept locked up forever, right? That didn’t make any sense at all.

Or had Cormal panicked? Had he confronted him, lost his temper, and done something impulsive? Perian would definitely believe that , but he shivered. The last thing Cormal would want was for Perian to return to the castle and accuse him of doing this.

And there was really only one way to make certain he didn’t do that, wasn’t there?

Perian swallowed and started tugging at his arm restraints in earnest. Why would someone even have metal restraints?

And then the door opened, and people Perian recognized walked in.

His blood ran cold.

A cruel, vicious smile twisted the lips of a man that Perian had been confident he wasn’t going to ever see again—because Venoran had been transported, hadn’t he?

He’d been found guilty of terrible crimes, and he was going to prison…

except that he was right here, and he was completely free, and he was looking at Perian with an expression that made his skin crawl.

Perian had still doubted that he was a carnalion, but he was overwhelmed with the sick, crawling feeling of dark and twisted desire that he didn’t want to have anything to do with, that actually made him squish himself further back in the bed because he wanted to get away from it, and—

—how had he ever thought he was normal? Had he really believed he was getting so much from facial expressions and body language?

He hadn’t used to be able to feel so much, had he?

Not like this. But maybe he’d been getting stronger or he’d just been exposed to more and more people.

His powers had become more evident, but Perian hadn’t known to look .

Because normal people couldn’t feel other people’s desires. They didn’t recoil at the greasy touch of a desire for pain and hurt and fear.

To make matters worse—well, maybe not worse, but certainly not better—the second man who’d walked into the room was Fomadin, who’d attacked Perian with a knife during training and then been thrown out and banished from the city.

Did this mean they were outside the city, or did everyone just not do what they’d been ordered to do by the Queen?

Both of them looked happy to see him in a way that told Perian this was very, very bad. Given that one of them had tried to badly injure him and one of them liked to hurt people for fun, Perian couldn’t immediately think of a way this could be worse.

He swallowed heavily, and he saw the way Venoran’s smirk grew wider, how he raked his eyes up and down Perian’s half-naked body (because of course he’d to be kidnapped when he was only wearing sleep trousers).