Page 45 of Shattered Jewel
Elara purses her lips at Kaspian’s non-answers to her questions. I can’t blame her. We’re three predators in one room, and she’s the delicate deer caught in between.
She asks, “Could it be the same person who killed my brother?”
I catch her chin gently between my fingers. She looks up at me with those fearfully innocent eyes; so poignant and irresistible. I also see the hope burning there.
It’s then I know I’ll rip this library to shreds if it means finding her brother’s killer for her.
I have to rein in the surprising emotion by blinking it back. There’s no room for softness in this body.
Squeezing her jaw tighter, I grin. “Only one way to find out.”
Elara sucks in a breath when I release her as fast as I caught her, snatching up a large square of yellowed parchment from the table and filled with symbols and diagrams, ignoring Kaspian’s hiss of protest. Dust billows as I shake it out, ancient grit raining down.
I pull it closer, scrutinizing the faded lines. Something clicks in my mind. “That’s the original sigil of the Cimmerian Court.”
Elara, recovering faster than I gave her credit for, peers around my arm. “A flower?”
“A nightshade, specifically.”
Elara’s brows come together at the same time Axe pockets his phone, joining us at the table. He says, “Cav’s family helped start this society. It was small then, limited to four original families of Titan Falls. When it grew, gaining power, influence, and reach outside this town, the founding families lost their iron grip on the Court and its rules. The sigil was changed to what it is now—the profile of a skull facing left with a celestial crown formed by two crescent moons—in the 1950s.”
“To Nightshade’s credit, they held on to it like a lady clutching her pearls for a good hundred years,” I add.
Elara thinks this over, her nose scrunching and bringing her freckles closer together as she thinks. “Are you saying the Cimmerian Court started out … nice?”
Kaspian barks out a laugh, jarring in such a stifled room, but no less disturbing. “No. We were always ruthless and chose violence over friendly negotiation. It just became more brutal.”
“That’s what happens when you breed your own manner of beasts,” Axe murmurs.
We fall into contemplative silence.
I flatten the map on the table, redirecting everyone’s attention to our very pressing issue in the present, not the past. “Look at these markings. I think this is the layout of the library itself.”
Kaspian is the first to snap to attention. He races a fingertip over a series of interconnected circles. “Then this must represent hidden chambers. Rooms we haven’t found yet. Interesting, considering the last person rifling through these maps was Maverick, and he left this on top.”
Excitement sizzles through my veins, hot and electric. The promise of more answers to uncover, of lost knowledge waiting to be rediscovered. My fingers twitch with the urge to pick this place apart stone by stone.
Axe shakes his head. “Either Maverick or whoever else uses this place. Kaspian is right. We can’t assume we’re the only ones who have access.”
Elara glances up at me, her eyes almost golden in the gloom. “Then we have to find the other half of the Heart first. Maverick could’ve put it in one of these rooms and left this as a clue.”
“Or a trap,” Kaspian points out.
I shrug. “Does it matter? We’re trampling through, anyway.” Jerking my chin at a towering bookcase along the far wall, I add, “According to this map, one entrance is behind that bookshelf. Help me move it.”
Axe and I throw our weight against the shelf, muscles straining as we inch it aside. Stone grinds against stone, a teeth-rattling screech that pierces through my skin and ricochets off my bones.
As the bookcase scrapes out of the way, stale air gusts out of a person-sized hole in the wall, reeking of mold and decay.
Kaspian produces a flashlight and aims it into the opening. The beam illuminates a narrow passageway, the walls glistening with moisture and crawling with pale roots.
I shoot Elara a shameless grin over my shoulder. “Ladies first.”
She pulls her lips in, gnawing on them before she squeezes past me, her hips grazing mine in a way that sends fire licking at my dick. I bite back a groan at the same time Axe sends me a damning look.
Fuck.
I was too distracted by her ass to realize?—