Total pages in book: 194
Estimated words: 187021 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 935(@200wpm)___ 748(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 187021 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 935(@200wpm)___ 748(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
“I’m investigating the company that’s hosting the auction,” he explained. “Including any paperwork I can find regarding the owner.”
“Anything interesting?”
“Frustratingly little. They’ve apparently been around for at least a decade, so they were founded during the war. The owner is so shrouded that I’m unclear who is even hosting it.”
“So a dead end.”
“I’ll keep looking.” He removed his gloves and tossed them onto the desk. “If I’ve learned anything in my pursuit of knowledge, it’s that everything will out if given enough time.”
“Ah, the thing we are short on.”
The corner of his mouth lifted in the hint of a smile. “We’ll get as much as we can and make contingencies for everything else.” His eyes moved to her body, running over where her hip leaned against his desk. She tilted toward him like a flower toward the sun. “I spoke to Edgar last night after you retired about the incident with your parents.”
Kierse stilled. “What did he say?”
“He showed me the memory where he discovered the scene. There were three bodies, including a young girl.”
“What?” she asked. “But that doesn’t make any sense.”
“I’m aware.”
“And you believe him? He couldn’t have altered his memory? Maybe someone else did?”
“There weren’t any indicators of tampering, and I trust him with my life.”
“So…they killed the wrong girl?”
“Or a body was planted on the scene. Or it was an illusion.”
Kierse furrowed her brow. “I don’t know what to make of any of that.”
“We need more information,” he agreed. “We’ll figure it out, okay?”
She nodded. Her mind was swimming with the information.
“Was there a reason that you came to find me?”
Kierse pulled herself out of her thoughts and met his gaze. “Checking to see if you’re actually going to include me in your business.”
He spread his arms wide. “I’m a man of my word.”
She choked on a laugh. “We’ll see.”
“And speaking of that,” he said, picking up his bourbon and swirling it, “I reached out to the Covenant to see Dr. Mafi.”
Kierse’s eyes widened. “I thought we were going to do memory work together here?”
“We are,” he said smoothly. “But I want to exhaust every avenue.”
“Are you saying your knowledge is limited?”
He smirked. “No. We assume that because the spell broke, it triggered your memories. That it is simply a magical problem.”
“You don’t think it is?”
“That’s what I want to find out,” he said, taking a sip. “Memory isn’t just magic. Yes, the spell likely damaged something. But then I started thinking about that damage and how it could also be physical or mental.” His tone softened as he added, “You were very young and encountered a lot of trauma.”
“Oh,” she said as she realized what he meant. “You think that there’s something wrong with my brain.”
His gaze was unguarded when he said, “I think we don’t know if your brain was injured. After all, you told me yourself that you were thrown off of a building to ‘cure’ your fear of heights.”
Kierse winced at the memory of Jason. “Yes, but…”
“So wouldn’t it be better to know? It might be some form of traumatic brain injury, or repression, or just good old fashioned Monster War PTSD. The fact of the matter is that we don’t know, and I don’t like not knowing things.”
“Okay,” she said slowly.
He was right. And more than that…he could have told her it was a magical problem and solved it with his own powers. The fact that he was going to involve someone else, different kinds of magic and science, showed that he would leave no stone unturned. He was looking out for her.
“When do we go?”
“Next week. I wanted to give you time to settle in.”
She tapped her fingers against the desk. “Well, with that, Gen and I are about to leave.”
He tensed. “To see Colette.”
“Yes and then Ethan,” she told him with a shrug.
“And Lorcan?”
She nodded. “We need answers.”
Graves replaced his drink on the table and stood to face her. His body was large and domineering, caging her back against the desk. She stilled under the gaze of a predator, lifting her chin just enough to let him know that she would not back down. But the pounding of her heart betrayed her own bravado.
He rested his hands to either side of her on the desk and leaned her back into it, towering over her. She swallowed as her body came alive. Her core pulsed in response to his nearness. His lips so close. His eyes devouring her whole. She existed nowhere except in this moment.
They weren’t even touching, and all she wanted to do was rip his clothes off and give in to this temptation. Forget the goblin market with its litany of temptations. Hers was directly before her, body so hot that he was an inferno raging in his precious library. And if she gave in, they’d burn the whole place down.