Magic Forged (Hall of Blood and Mercy #1)(55)

“I’m not,” I said, doing my best to keep my voice calm. “But I am a wizard.”

The angles of Killian’s face seemed less severe as he straightened in his chair. “And?”

“As a wizard I can detect all magic,” I reminded him. “I mean, even though I don’t have much access to magic, I can totally feel it when someone uses magic. I might not know who it is and where they are, but believe me—you can’t miss it. It’s like someone electrifies the air.”

I was rambling. No—not only was I rambling, I was schooling Killian Drake on magic 101. There was no way he didn’t know this—I glanced at the Eminence, who was staring at me, this time with both of his eyebrows raised.

They hovered at an angle I wasn’t wholly familiar with—which made me panic a little. What did it mean?

“Can you discern between fae magic and wizard magic?” Killian asked.

“Yeah. Fae magic has a sort of floral feel to it. Wizard magic is tangier and more electric.”

I had thought about the killer a lot while I’d been wasting time the previous night.

Since I hadn’t felt even a spark of fae magic throughout the evening of the murder—there wasn’t even a faint whiff of it in the room—it had occurred to me that my wild guess of an inside job maybe wasn’t so far off.

How else could the murderer stalk through Drake Hall and disappear so easily without the help of magic?

I was still pretty reluctant to trot this idea past Killian—I wanted more information first, particularly about Rupert.

He was adopted, and he made it plain he didn’t respect most of the Drake vampires—including the Second Knight—or humans, so the slaughter didn’t seem out of character for him. But besides a general gut feeling I didn’t have much to go by.

Killian stood in a liquid movement that was unnaturally graceful, jostling me from my suspicions. He turned his back to me and rested a forearm against one of his bookshelves as he broodingly leaned against it.

I had what I wanted—the update on the murderer—so I peered over my shoulder to start plotting out my exit strategy.

But I was blocked when Killian crossed his office in the blink of an eye and set his hand on my shoulder.

I didn’t scream as I might have a month ago, but I did jump a little—mostly because he got right up in my face, and his hand was delightfully cool. (I was pretty hot since I had opted to wear my stuffy suit in an effort to placate Killian so he’d be more likely to share information.)

He was bent over so he could stare into my eyes. This close I could see the deep red of his iris. Not to get all poetic, but his eyes strangely reminded me of red stars set in the black velvet of the night sky.

“I don’t trust you,” Killian announced.

His closeness was really upping the ‘danger-danger, this is a predator,’ factor, so I had no choice but to resort to humor. “How shocking. You always seem so gullible.”

One corner of his lips turned up in the hint of a smug, satisfied smirk. “We’ll draw the murderer out.”

I waited for him to continue, but he didn’t, so I had to ask, “How?”

He finally took a step out of my personal space and stood upright again. “You and I will leave Drake lands, unescorted,” he said. “If the murderer has a political motive, they won’t be able to miss the opportunity.”

“Did you say ‘you and I’?” I asked. “And ‘unescorted’?”

Killian’s voice was silken with his self-satisfaction, but I think I preferred his frustration to it because he sounded equally dangerous but now focused on me. “You’re the ideal target: weak, fragile, and defenseless.”

Mulishly, I put my hands on my hips. “Well, when you put it that way.”

“The murderer won’t be aware of your training. And in your current state, compared to a vampire you are easy to kill.”

I stretched my arms above my head as I tried to think.

I wanted to figure out who was behind the murders, and I’d already decided to get myself involved. The danger didn’t bother me so much—though if anyone from House Medeis heard about it, they’d undoubtedly throw a fit. (The House comes first and all of that, but humans were dying, so I’d put our entire society before the House for this occasion.)

But the idea of wandering around with Killian without any other Drake vampires? Yeah, that part didn’t thrill me.

“Do we need to go out together?” I asked. “Can’t you just send Celestina and me out for a girls’ day or something?”

“Not if we want the murderer to take the bait before they kill someone else,” Killian said. “Eventually they will attack you—you are too tempting of a target to pass. But it will take time for them to decide that killing you would negatively affect us if you are only seen with the Family and not me personally.”

“You want the murderer to think that in getting me, it will be a direct attack on you?” I wrinkled my brow as I stared at the Eminence of the Midwest. “Do you really think you can be that convincing and get this sicko to attack me on one outing? Because everyone knows you only care about vampires.”

Killian’s entire demeanor transformed. He went from standing tall and smirking to prowling closer to me. There was that odd gleam in his eyes again. “Oh?” His voice dropped to a rumbling purr. “I don’t think it will be that difficult.” He tenderly brushed my cheek, which made me shiver. “All we have to do is make it seem that there’s…something between us.”