Page 24 of Venomous Lies (Greywood Conservatory for the Arcane #2)

Isla

UNKNOWN

T he light was gone.

Wait, no… There was the moon.

Wait… I could see?!

I blinked a few times, rubbing my eyes, but sure enough, my sight was back.

Confusion filled me as a look around revealed that I was in a forest I didn’t recognize. What threw me off more than anything was the fact that the trees didn’t know what to make of me either.

When I looked down, my bruises and blood were still there, but the pain was gone.

Definitely a dream .

Hopefully just a dream.

‘Cas?’ I called out, but there was no answer.

That’s definitely not good.

Worry gathered in the pit of my stomach as I searched my surroundings for anything familiar and found nothing.

It was odd, but this whole place felt like more than a dream. I couldn’t put my finger on why I felt that way, but there was just something too real about the feel of the forest. That sensation tried to convince me that it couldn’t be pretend.

It was as if every tree was listening and watching me curiously as I tried to navigate through the dense brush. But no matter how much I walked or pushed through the barbed leaves, I couldn’t find a way out.

Just as I was about to give up, the pain hit.

It started with my right ankle.

Tingles slowly morphed into a burning sensation that spread up and out until I felt like I was an old woman bent over in pain. There wasn’t one inch of me that didn’t throb with a dull or sharp ache.

A whimper escaped my lips as I tried to catch my breath, willing my racing heart to slow down. But nothing could have prepared me for what those pains would transform into.

My screams of agony ripped the silent forest apart.

Too bad I couldn’t move. Metallic blood coated my tongue as the eerie screams became laughter.

It was haunting.

Frightening.

What was even worse was that I just now registered that the noises were coming from me yet somehow not me at the same time.

What the actual fuck is going on right now? How do I get it to stop?

The pain didn’t subside, but it was almost like my body settled into it. The pain was a familiar sensation.

What an odd thought.

The snapping of a branch behind me brought my focus back to my surroundings again.

“Have you come to kill me or just play with me?” I asked with false bravado, or at least I thought I did .

Whatever was there didn’t move again, though I could still feel the weight of their gaze on me. I slowly turned, hoping to locate whatever had caused the sound, but the movement made me cry out in pain.

More blood spilled over my lips as I fell onto my knees, but instead of soft grass or leaves, I landed on a hard, cold floor.

Ouch.

“Beastie?! How the fuck— How are you here?”

CASSIUS

Isla started to laugh, but it broke off into a small cry as she collapsed onto the stone floor of the small workroom that had become my home for the last nineteen years or so.

I rushed around the solid wood workbench, knocking off a few papers and books as I went, to check on Isla. She was unconscious but breathing, which gave me only a brief moment of relief. Even though she was breathing, she was obviously not okay.

With only a few moments of hesitation, I picked her up and carried her over to my small bed so I could really check her over.

A blue liquid of some kind covered her chin and the front of her shirt. From the looks of it, it was fresh. I opened her mouth, fearing it could be some type of poison, but there was nothing.

Where had all that come from? And what was it?

I kept expecting Isla to wake up as I assessed her, but there was no movement .

How the fuck did she end up here? Most importantly, when was she going to leave?

There was no way she could stay here. Had they put some type of undetectable magick on her during the attack? I leaned back, studying her, but nothing stood out in my memory.

Though the attack had been so brutal that there was a lot to keep me distracted.

A deep sigh escaped me as I rubbed my face and closed my eyes. My magick was not meant to detect things, but I knew Isla as well as I knew myself. If there was something other affecting her, I should be able to tell.

Taking a few deep breaths, I calmed myself, focusing on the witch in front of me and around me. The lush wildness of her usual self was instantly there, taunting and beckoning me closer.

As I went deeper, though, I sensed changes.

Power and a sense of cold, though neither were threatening.

The bone fae.

A hint of a glow confirmed it was the connection to her first mate.

The connection between the two of them was still intact, so why couldn’t she feel it? I had lied earlier, trying to calm her in the aftermath of the attack, but now I was worried.

Sending my awareness out further, I detected another lingering presence. It felt alien, foreign… Powerful.

As if it sensed my probing, it lashed out, striking me hard enough that I slammed back into my body, my breath stolen from me. A sting on my face had me reaching up to touch my face. Warmth covered my fingers, and I realized I had been cut. The novelty of it made me let out a small, dark chuckle.

“I see you,” I said out loud, directing my promise to that unknown magick. “And I’ll remember you.”

A shiver of awareness then taunting amusement filled the air.

I’ll kill them.

“Cas?” Isla groaned as she stirred beside me. “Shit, that fucking hurts.”

A hint of amusement and relief filled me as she started to sit up.

“Here, beastie,” I reassured her. I grabbed her hand, savoring the sensation of her skin against mine.

It had been so long since I'd felt physical touch, but the real reason I relished it was that it came from her.

“And yes, between the fight earlier and whatever else has happened to you after the healing started, I bet it does hurt.”

“I can taste that. Whatever that is.” Her face screwed up, then she shuddered, though I couldn’t tell if it was purely in distaste. “Wait… You’re here and in a body! What kind of drugs am I on?”

“None yet,” I answered with growing concern. I let go of her hand as I stood up, forcing myself to put distance between us. “But yes, I have a body here in your mind. That’s a conversation for another time though.”

“It’s always a conversation for another time,” she muttered, her hands patting around her like she was trying to figure out her surroundings. Apparently, even here she was blind.

“Do you remember what happened before you dropped in here, beastie?” I asked as I started to pick up the papers and things I had knocked off while getting to her.

“There was a forest,” Isla answered as she slowly stood up on her own.

“It was weird… The trees didn’t feel like any I’d ever encountered, and all my injuries were gone.

I could see! Definitely something I’m not taking for granted when it comes back.

Though, it’s weird… I can’t see here. Wherever here is. ”

“What do you mean by the trees didn’t feel right?” I tried to steer the conversation before she could ramble off in another direction.

“Just that.” Isla shrugged before she took baby steps toward the work bench, her hands held out to keep herself from running into something.

She stopped when she was right across from me.

“It was as if the entire place was watching me. Most forests, I can feel them sensing me, welcoming me in. This place… It was wary. And then there was something else… They wouldn’t come out of the trees, but they were stalking me. ”

That must have been the power I sensed.

“It didn’t feel like a dream.” Her head turned back and forth like she was trying to figure out where I was standing. “It felt real, and it was… The pain was awful. It turned small aches into burning pain until something was pouring out of me. When I collapsed, I ended up here.”

“There’s blood on your face along with the bruises that were all there from before,” I told her gently. “And a dried blue substance from whatever came out of your mouth. Besides those things, though, I don’t see any new injuries… at least for what you’re manifesting here.”

“But where is here ?”

“The room that I live in inside your mind,” I replied, watching her closely.

I looked around the small room constructed of soft-gray stone, trying to see it with new eyes.

We stood in the middle where a long, solid, darkwood work bench stood, covered in all manner of books, papers, flasks, and plants.

On the other side were bookshelves filled to the brim with old leatherbound books.

More books were piled up on the floor beside a small chair close to the bed Isla had just laid on.

“It’s not much to look at, so don’t worry. You aren’t missing much,” I told her with forced humor.

“Good to know my mind is a hovel just like my room,” she joked.

“You have to get back, Isla,” I told her seriously, making sure to impress the urgency of the matter in my tone. “You can’t stay this far inside of your mind without consequences.”

“I don’t know how I got here! How am I supposed to leave?”

“You need to wake up,” I told her firmly, projecting way more confidence than I actually felt.

“And how am I supposed to do that?” she asked exasperatedly. “Just snap my fingers and appear back on the couch?”

“You could try reaching out for your mate again,” I told her calmly. “That might be enough to pull you out.”

“When I’m injured and have zero idea where he might be? The others said they would get him, but?—”

“But you could wake up,” I shot back.

“Are you guys always like this?”

My head snapped to the side, shock filling me. The incubus was standing there, every line of his body tense. His gaze was what captured my attention first. His gold and green eyes were filled with concern, confusion, and sharp jealousy as he carefully studied us.

A hint of amusement flowed through me, though I carefully kept that hidden. No need to set off the loose canon that had somehow joined us. I’d seen him during the rut, not to mention the people he had killed.

Becoming blood splatter on the wall wasn’t on my to do list for the day.

“Echo?!” Isla’s voice cracked.

“So far, I’ve gathered that I’m in your head,” Echo said, “and that somehow this… person lives in it as well.”

“It’s complicated—” I started.

“That’s a pretty good summary actually,” Isla said at the same time.

I rolled my eyes as she grinned widely, likely knowing my reaction.

“How did you get here?” Isla asked, her head tilted to the side.

“Dreamwalking is one of my brother’s abilities, not mine, so I have no idea,” Echo replied with a shrug. “But if we could refocus… Who the hell are you , and why have I seen you before?”

“Wait… What?” Isla asked, her head moving to search the space for both of us.

Well, that was certainly curious. When, exactly, he had seen me? Had it been in a reflective surface around Isla, or did he recall more of the rut than I thought? Gods, that had been intoxicating.

It had been centuries since I’d had a release like that.

“You’ve seen me?” I rumbled, my curiosity getting the best of me.

“I saw him at the greenhouse. The magick took over, then you collapsed. He was watching over you, and he completely ignored me and Wells,” he replied darkly as he finally pushed off the wall and started to walk toward us.

“What makes you think that was me? ”

“With those tattoos?” he replied as he arched his brow. “Who else could it be?”

My gaze immediately swept him from head to toe, registering for the first time that he was standing there in just sweatpants and nothing else. And given the look of things, he doesn’t have boxers on underneath either.

My attention immediately snapped back to the incubus. He had come to a stop beside Isla, though he was staring at me, a challenge in his gaze.

But I didn’t care about that right now. No, at the moment, the only thing I could focus on was him having seen me before.

How could he see me? Why could he?

A wave of power slammed into the room.

Books, plants, glass flew everywhere, and we all hit the ground, trying to protect ourselves.

Echo and I reached for Isla at the same time, dragging her under the heavy table as she cried out.

Flashes of purple sparks ignited, and I instinctively knew that Isla’s mate was searching for her.

That reunion will not be happening here.

Whatever issues she was having with reaching him, it was evident that the bone fae was having no such struggle.

“You have to leave. Now,” I said hoarsely, my urgency clear as my volume increased. “And I’m very sorry, but this is going to hurt.”

Without giving them a chance to think about what I was saying, I focused on the feel of the room, shoving aside the power building, and used every bit of mental control to shut them out. At the end of the day, I might be in Isla’s mind, but this space…

This space was mine —a declaration I thundered into the void before the power fell away .

In its wake… silence.

The room as a whole looked as if it had never been touched, though their presence lingered in the spots of blood on my bed and the hint of sex in the air.

Bricriu was formidable.

It was a truly fearsome mate that my beastie had bound herself to. Hopefully, the others that found their way to her side were equally as gifted because my witch would need all the help she could get.

A problem for another time.

Laughter escaped me, but there was no humor in it. Now, I was back to solitude, and the silence had never felt so jarring.

The first time I had touched Isla’s skin, if this counted, was when she was injured and out of it. I flexed my hands, remembering the softness of her as I lifted her—a fleeting moment that I could only hope she’d remember.

Those few seconds would probably have to last me a lifetime.

With a roar, I whirled around and swept an arm out, knocking all the books and papers off the table in a fit of rage.

She’ll never know the self-restraint it took for me to not magickally lock her here so that I could keep her to myself. Or better yet take over her body so she was locked up inside like I had been for the past nineteen years.

But as much as I wanted to taste freedom again, I couldn’t imagine looking in the mirror to see her glaring back at me.

The moment she hit puberty, my awareness of her had shifted, my inner magick lighting up in a way that had only happened once before.

Mate .

She was my fated mate, but there was no way I’d burden her with that knowledge. I’d take it with me to my second grave before I bound her to the ghost of me.

Stumbling over to my bed, I sat down, rummaging around for a small portrait that I kept close by. The edges of it were worn and faded, though the subject of the painting had withstood the test of time. Staring back at me was a face I remembered better than my own.

Julian Hellsing.

Protect her.

Please.