Betrayed by Magic (The Baine Chronicles #5)(62)

“Dammit!” he cried, backing out of the shower stall as he rubbed his head. His eyes were wide as he turned to face us, and the sweaty stench emanating from his body turned sour with fear. “Couldn’t you knock first? You scared the hell out of me!”

“Is that so?” I smiled, my fingers grazing the crescent knives strapped to my right thigh as I walked toward him. “And what exactly is it that you have to be scared of?”

“Nothing,” he said quickly, his meaty hand drifting to his tool belt. “You just startled me.”

“I would think you’d know it’s stupid to lie to a shifter,” I began, and the man let out a battle cry. He charged me with surprising speed for his bulk, pulling a silver knife from his tool belt, and I moved into a fighting stance, ready to take him.

“Oh no, you don’t!” Rylan pushed me back, then twisted around to Zuric’s side and slammed him against the wall. Several of the blue tiles cracked beneath the force of their bodies, and Zuric cried out as Rylan grabbed his knife arm and twisted it behind his back. The knife clattered to the ground, and Rylan kicked it away as he hiked the spy’s arm up higher.

“Fuck!” the man screamed as his shoulder popped from his socket.

“I can do worse if you keep struggling,” Rylan said calmly. “Or you can give up, and let me restrain you.”

“Never!” Zuric hissed, then screamed louder as Rylan pulled again.

The sound of heavy footsteps outside the hall drew my attention, and I turned to see three more guards burst through the door. “Is everything all right, Miss?” the first one asked me, his sword already drawn.

“We’re good,” I said, gesturing to Rylan and Zuric. The spy had stopped struggling. He was sagging against the wall, tears of pain streaming down his ruddy face. “As you can see, my bodyguard has things under control.” I was slightly annoyed that Rylan had gotten to the bastard before I did, but I couldn’t fault him for it—he was my bodyguard. And his reaction time had always been a shade faster than mine. I was going to have to enlist him as my sparring partner—it had been too long since I’d done physical training with any real dedication.

“Actually, I would appreciate a hand from one or two of you gentlemen,” Rylan said as he restrained Zuric. “This man is a spy and would-be assassin who tried to kill Miss Baine with that bomb just a few days ago.”

“This is the spy?” one of the guards asked incredulously, looking Zuric up and down. “I never would have guessed.”

“Well, that’s why I’m her bodyguard and you’re not,” Rylan said with a grin as he spun Zuric around and shoved him into the guards’ waiting hands. “Now, let’s get this fat bastard out of here.”

“This isn’t over!” Zuric shouted as they led him from the room. “You may have won the battle, but the war is far from over!”

As we followed him out, listening to his shouted protests all the way, I couldn’t help but fear he might be right.





26





Iannis insisted on holding Zuric in the Palace dungeon rather than taking him to the Enforcer’s Guild, intending to interrogate the spy himself. Since Warin Danrian, the bank manager who’d been running the Shifter Royale, had been assassinated in his cell, it seemed better not to send high-risk prisoners there.

Iannis and I didn’t have another lesson scheduled until dinner, and Fenris had cancelled our Loranian lesson for today. So, with some free time on my hands, I rushed over to the library to see if Janta had made any progress with her investigation into my family tree.

“Are you nervous about finding out who your father is?” Rylan asked as he lengthened his stride to keep up with me. I’d hurriedly filled him in on the basic details via mindspeak, so no one would overhear, and he looked intrigued. “And what will you do once you know his identity?”

“Yes, and I don’t know,” I replied as we stopped outside the tall, wooden doors that closed the library off from the rest of the Palace. “I probably won’t be able to make any kind of decision until I do know who he is, and why he abandoned me.”

“Makes sense,” Rylan said as he pushed open the door, going ahead to make sure there were no assassins lurking on the other side. Despite my suggestion that he do so, Iannis wouldn’t dismiss Rylan as my bodyguard even though we’d captured the spy. He claimed we couldn’t be certain there weren’t more like him skulking about inside the Palace walls, and he wanted Rylan to stick close to me for now.

I asked the young librarian at the reception desk for Janta, and was told she was meeting with someone but would be available soon. Rylan and I settled down at one of the tables to wait, me with my spellbook primer and Rylan with a history text he’d snagged from one of the shelves. It didn’t take very long at all for Janta to show up.

“Good afternoon, Miss Baine,” Janta said, giving me a small, but friendly smile. She wore lavender robes today, her silver hair rolled up into a high bun, and a smile lit her eyes. “Thank you for the box of chocolates. They were a most welcome surprise.”

“Oh, it was the least I could do after all you’ve done to help me. And please, call me Sunaya,” I added with a smile. “Anyway, I was hoping you had some news for me?”