Garden of Serpents (The Demon Queen Trials #3)(24)

Maybe he was just trying to keep his enemy close. But that worked both ways, didn’t it?

Living in his house, I’d get a firsthand look at what my rival was up to. I wrapped my arms around his broad shoulders.

“I hope you realize,” I said, “that I’ll need my own room. You can’t be around me when I’m planning for the next trial. And I don’t want your spies watching me, either.”

“Rowan.” He looked at me evenly and pulled me in close to whisper in my ear. “I promise to play fair,” he said in a velvety tone that I didn’t trust at all.





14





ROWAN





Orion’s house was surprisingly small—and surprisingly close by. A two-story stone cottage, it looked more like a gatehouse than a palace. He had no soldiers protecting the exterior, but as we crossed through a wrought iron gate, the sizzle of magic over my skin told me that it had been protected with charms.

Inside, two black dogs followed us up dark wooden stairs.

As he carried me up to the second story, my gaze flicked up to meet Orion’s eyes. I felt a strange flutter in my belly. I shouldn’t be here, of course, and yet, I felt safe with him. My insane animal instincts trusted him and told me he’d protect me, even if the rational side of me knew better.

“I didn’t order that to happen.” His silver hair was rustled and sticking up, and he seemed unusually rattled.

“I don’t really know what I believe anymore,” I admitted.

“Rowan.” His voice sounded rougher than usual. “I was here with Amon. He can tell you that. I’ll find out who was behind that attack.”

Upstairs, he carried me into a tidy bedroom, then into a second bedroom that connected to it, one in the corner of the cottage. Dark beams scored the ceiling. Like Orion’s apartment, this place was neat and tidy, and sparsely decorated—just white walls and elegant mahogany furniture. A cream-colored cashmere blanket covered the bed. The only color in the place came from the spines of books on a large bookshelf, and a few stacked on a desk by the window. Another door was open to a small bathroom with a shower.

Orion set me down on the hardwood floors and pointed back to the first bedroom—just slightly larger than this one, with a four-poster bed and darker walls. “If you need anything, I’ll be in there.”

“Cozy.” I crossed to a large mullioned window and peered out at the moonlit garden below. “So if I’m going in and out of the house, I’ll be walking past you?”

“More importantly, if anyone tries to come in the house, they’ll be going past me.”

For a moment, I indulged in a fantasy—one where Orion and I were two normal people in a cottage like this, with two black dogs. We had no marks of Lucifer, no murdered moms, no horrific memories, or centuries of imprisonment. In this phantom world, we were two normal people who could wake up tangled in each other’s limbs and wander out to have morning coffee in the garden. We could live surrounded by books and quiet…

But it was stupid to let myself indulge in that fantasy.

I turned to find Orion watching me. Studying me closely, he crossed to me. “He left a bruise on your throat.” He cocked his head. “That makes me wish I’d killed him more slowly.”

“I don’t even feel it anymore.”

His eyes had darkened to black. “Rowan, I returned to the dungeon today. Do you remember that cell I kept you in the first night we met?”

“Being imprisoned by the Lord of Chaos isn’t the type of thing a person forgets, Orion.”

“That cell was the exact cell where my mother and I were first kept. Right before she was killed, the guards moved me to a different cell by myself. But when I looked in the first cell, I saw that she’d carved something in the wall.“

“Lucifer urbem spinarum libarabit,” I said, finishing his thought. “The Lightbringer will set free the City of Thorns.”

His dark eyebrows drew together. “That’s what I’d thought, too, when I first saw it. But some of the lines were worn, and ivy was covering part of it. When I was mulling everything over, trying to understand my destiny, I went back to read her carving. I pulled the vines away. It says Luciferi urbem spinarum liberabunt.”

I swallowed. “It’s plural. The Lightbringers will set us free.”

“We’re meant to do this together. It just took me a long time to see it.”

I ran through my promise to myself, all the reasons that I wouldn’t let him sway me. “You told me you didn’t even respect me enough to hate me. You called me neurotic, dull, and unskilled at everything. ‘Apart from our one little tryst,’” I said, mimicking his British accent, “‘I find you tedious and pathetic.’ And then I died, and I learned I’m a lot stronger than I ever realized. I should be ruling here, not you, Orion.”

His jaw flexed. “None of those things I said were true. I was trying to keep you away from me. I didn’t think I had the strength to resist you, so I was trying to keep you at arm’s length, because I’m terrified of what could happen…”

My fingers tightened. “What, exactly?”

“That it could happen again!”

I stared at him, not understanding. “That what could happen again? What are you talking about? There are no more Lilu left to murder.”