Page 49 of Hateful Prince

Realizing he was only going to continue to follow me until he got his answers, I sighed. “Listen, the reason I didn’t abscond, as you say, with Dahlia is the same reason you haven’t. There’s more at play here. Why else would all of us end up in this exact place at this exact moment in time? It’s not easy to get one over on a demigod, let alone a full god. And there’s no way Dahlia isn’t at the heart of this. And I cannot in good conscience allow a threat against her to remain. So in short, there’s a puzzle to solve. I don’t know about you, but I like a good puzzle.”

He considered my words and released a breath of his own, returning to that in-between state he’d existed in since the last petal fell. Not quite a man, but not a beast either.

“Fine, I'm coming with you.”

“Why would you do that?”

“If there’s one thing I learned growing up a twin, it’s that two heads are better than one. And I still don’t trust you.”

“That’s fine. I can’t stand you either.”

He growled at me. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes.

“Oh, please. You know that posturing shit doesn’t work on me. If you’re going to insist on tagging along, just stay out of my way.”

Tor cracked his knuckles and grinned. “Excellent. Where do we start?”

“Temperance’s room.”

“You really think he’s behind this?”

“I think he was there when I got captured, and that means he’s as good a place as any to start.”

“Works for me. Lead the way.”

Chapter

Sixteen

TOR

Where had my little mate run off to this time? I’d hoped to find her naked and waiting for me when I returned from my unscheduled adventure with Hades last night. But she’d begged off, asking for time to finish up her latest chapter. It went against every instinct to agree, but I comforted myself with the promise that I would find her first thing this morning and that I’d wake her up with my face buried between her legs. Instead her room was empty, the bed neatly made, and she was nowhere to be found.

Had she gone to breakfast without me? No matter. I could wait. Her laptop sat on her desk, the broken pieces of what looked like her phone sitting next to it. She wouldn’t be gone long, not without those. At least I hoped not.

Unable to sit still without making myself useful to my mate, I picked up the pieces of her phone and held them between my palms, tapping into the rarely used power my mother had passed down to all of her children. As usual, there was no discernible moment of knowing the magic had taken hold. One second the phone was broken, and the next it was the same as the last time I’d seen it. Complete with a couple of chips in the paint and a small crack in the screen. I could have easily made it shiny and new, but Dahlia seemed to have a soft spot for familiar things.

I understood.

Having small creature comforts after being separated from the people I loved was the only way I held on to my humanity. A ring my father had given me, the knife Alek and I both received for our first hunt, and the thin black elastic band Dahlia’d been wearing around her wrist the first time I saw her.

Touchstones, all of them. They kept me grounded, and if I could bring back something important to her, I would. Seeing to her needs, both spoken and unspoken, was my privilege as her mate. In this, I would not fail.

That matter handled, I sat back down on the edge of her mattress, my fingers drumming a rapid tattoo against my thighs. Without an obvious task to focus on, my mind was left to wander back to what Cain and I had discovered the night before. He’d been on to something with his suspicions of Temperance.

We’d gone to his room intent on confronting the man, but he hadn’t been there. Not wanting to waste the opportunity, we performed a quick investigation, not that he’d tried very hard to hide anything. There was an entire folder of notes on all of us, but none thicker than the one about Cain. More alarming to me, however, was that Dahlia’s was nearly as thick and contained a series of Polaroids from her time before Blackwood. Almost like he’d been keeping tabs on her.

Which didn’t make sense if he hadn’t known of her existence prior to her ending up in that hospital. What was he playing at?

A rattling from the chest at the foot of the bed startled me out of my thoughts, sending my already tense muscles coiling tighter. That fucking doll. Someone needed to get rid of it, and it wouldn’t be me.

I knew my twin would be rolling around in fits of laughter if he could see me right now. Ever since he played that prank on me when we were younger, I hadn’t been able to look at a doll the same way. Lucky for me, I hadn’t come across any until now. The arse had promised one of the village girls a kiss if she’d give voice to my little sister’s dolly. When I thought the toy had come alive, I’d been so scared I’d pissed myself and had yet to live the humiliation of it down. But I still maintained that being stalked by a creepy porcelain doll was the most terrifying experience I’d yet to have.

The rattling came again, this time more insistent, and I positioned myself in a defensive pose as I stared down at the chest.

I’d burn this whole castle to the ground before opening that damned chest. Perhaps I could dispose of it without anyone knowing? Chains wrapped around the wood, some hefty weight attached to them, and a solid throw into the nearby lake should do the trick. As faðir always said, the best kind of kill is overkill.

For good measure, I could set it ablaze as well. Hades could assist.