by Becca Andre
A slight smile curled one corner of Solon’s mouth. “And you love my little brother.”
Her cheeks warmed and she lifted her chin. There was no need to deny anything, not when he’d just seen her soul.
“You would do anything to save him,” Solon continued, his tone growing more serious. “And that is why you cannot be our savior.”
“That makes no sense. I can’t help because I care?”
“Because you care too much.”
She was about to demand he explain when she suddenly understood. “Ah, I see,” she said. “I’m not a callous monster like you.” She wasn’t willing to sacrifice Grayson to save the rest of them.
“Precisely.” He looked up at Grayson. “This isn’t going to work.”
“Touch her, and you deal with me,” Grayson said, his words as cool as Solon’s gaze.
“Spare me the threats, Drake. I don’t need to share your soul to see where you stand. There is nothing more shameful than falling for your captor.”
“Speaking from experience, Solon?” she asked before Grayson could reply—or punch him.
“Of course,” Solon answered easily. “Most of us do. You can’t help but feel affection for the one who frees you from your cage, even for just a short time.”
She frowned. She’d witnessed Solon’s reaction to Esme’s death. He’d loved her, even if that love had begun as gratitude while in captivity.
“And now it seems the theme continues.” A muscle flexed in Solon’s jaw. “I have fought my entire life to bring my brothers salvation, only to find my fate and theirs, once again in the hands of some starry-eyed girl who thinks she holds our leashes.”
“That is not true. I hold no one’s leash.”
“Do not attempt to argue with me. I’ve seen your soul.”
“So you say, but clearly you didn’t look.”
He held up a hand, silencing her. “I have much to think about.” Without another word, he left the room.
Briar looked up at Grayson. “I knew that was a bad idea.”
“It’ll be fine. Solon just doesn’t like it when he isn’t in control.”
She wasn’t too sure but kept her opinion to herself.
Chapter 7
Andrew had intentionally given Briar the smallest room that could be considered a guest room, but she didn’t mind. For someone whose bedroom was little more than a closet, it was spacious by comparison.
She located her travel trunk near the closet door and dug out Esme’s journals. Retreating to the bed, she climbed up atop the comforter, and set the well-used texts before her. Perhaps, when this was all over, she should give the journals to Tristan. Even if he had no interest in the notes contained inside, it was his mother’s. He might like it as a sort of memento.
Briar opened the cover of the nearest journal and began to read. Better this than spending more time with Solon. She didn’t know how she and Grayson were going to keep their tempers in check long enough to deal with the guy.
She made it through about two pages of unintelligible scientific explanations before her eyelids grew too heavy to hold open. Vowing to only close her eyes for a moment, she slumped against the pillows behind her. It was the last thing she remembered.
If she dreamed, she was too exhausted to notice. Her next conscious thought was the awareness of a hand on her shoulder.
“Briar?”
She sat up with a gasp, surprised to find Grayson sitting on the side of the bed.
“What are you doing here? Is something wrong?”
“Everything’s fine.”
She frowned. “I don’t guess I need to question myself about locking the door.”
“I did knock.” A mischievous twinkle lit his blue-gray eyes.
“It’s rather scandalous, you sneaking into my bedchamber,” she reprimanded him. Yes, she had been intimate with him in a secluded country pond on a moonlit night, but this was a bit more brazen than that.
“For all intents and purposes, this is a ferromancer household. You hold my construct. Among my kind, we are as good as mated.”
She frowned, not certain what she thought of that.
Grayson rose to his feet. “I’m sorry. I wanted to ask you to come downstairs and meet some of the others before dinner.”
“There are ferromancers other than Solon and Tristan staying here?”
“Those who arrived early and cannot blend in with the humans at a hotel or inn, yes.”
In other words, the badly devolved. Did Grayson want her to meet them so she would be over her shock before dinner?
“All right,” she said. “Give me a few minutes, and I’ll be right down.”
He agreed, his eyes holding hers. She had the impression that he was considering kissing her but seemed to think better of it after her reprimand. She was about to relent, but he headed for the door before she could speak, and let himself out. An instant later, the lock snapped into place.
Shaking her head, she got to her feet. Locks were rather pointless around here. Considering her housemates, that was a disturbing thought.
Briar left the stairs and started down the hall toward the parlor. The sound of male voices carried to her. Nervous about meeting these ferromancers, she stopped just outside the door.
Laughter carried out of the parlor, surprising her. Most of the ferromancers she’d met were cold and emotionless, to hear them laughing was strange, but also reassuring. It made them seem… human.
“That’s just the thing,” an unfamiliar deep voice said. “It wasn’t that he was afraid of this ferra. He ran off with her.”
“That’s playing with fire,” another voice said, with what sounded like a Spanish accent.
“It wasn’t like that,” Grayson spoke up. “She was a friend, and we had an arrangement.”
“Is that what they’re calling it these days?” the Spaniard asked, struggling not to laugh.
“All I know is that Solon was pissed,” the deep voice said. “She was supposed to bring on Drake’s final casting, not run off with him.”
“Apparently, she did both,” the Spaniard said.
“Esme did neither,” Grayson answered, a hint of annoyance in his voice. “Solon brought on my final casting by throwing me in a vat of molten iron.”
One of the men released a low whistle.
“It nearly killed me,” Grayson continued. “And I don’t mean the molten metal.”
Briar stepped into the doorway and saw two unfamiliar men standing with Grayson beside the fireplace.
“How did you survive without a ferra?” the smaller man asked. He was the one with the Spanish accent.
Grayson looked up, his eyes meeting hers. “I did have help, but she wasn’t exactly ferra.”
Both men turned to face her, and Briar schooled her expression. The Spaniard’s forehead and the area around his right eye was no longer covered in flesh. Silver metal had taken its place. The other man had a metal jaw.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” she spoke into the silence. Neither ferromancer looked pleased to see her.
“You’re not interrupting.” Grayson smiled warmly as he walked over to her. “Let me introduce you.” He guided her back to the others, his hand settling on her lower back as she stopped before them.
“Briar, this is Felipe and Orson.” Grayson nodded first to the Spaniard, then to the larger man with the iron jaw.
“Nice to meet you,” she said, though she wasn’t so certain about that when their frowns didn’t lift.
“So, this is the girl,” Orson said. His deep voice held a metallic resonance that seemed to come from within rather than as a result of his jaw. “The one who isn’t ferra, yet has taken your construct just the same.”
“I gave him to her,” Grayson answered.
“Him?” Orson demanded, catching Grayson’s u
se of the pronoun.
“I do not understand this,” Felipe spoke up. “Solon said she was a soul singer. How can she not be ferra?”
“Her father was human and her mother was Scourge,” Grayson answered. “Yes, I am aware that such a thing isn’t possible, but as I am expected to do the impossible, it seemed a fitting match.”
Felipe’s eyebrows lifted, one dark and one made of metal. He glanced at Orson. “Ever hear of such a thing?”
“No, never.” Orson continued to watch her through narrowed eyes. “Why do we need a soul singer?”
“What I did for Solon, I did not do alone,” Grayson said. “Though she did not realize it at the time, it was the soul singer Lucrezia Bandoni who gave my immature power the ability to slow Solon’s devolvement.”
“And that,” Solon said, stepping into the room, “is why I invited Miss Rose to join us, and why I didn’t simply kill her.”
“Careful,” Grayson said softly.
Solon held his gaze a moment, then turned to the others. “We will recreate the situation as it was with Lucrezia.”
“What was the situation exactly?” Orson asked.
“She had taken me, then Drake did…something to remove her hold.”
“I tried to take you back,” Grayson said.
“How is that possible?” Felipe asked.
“Who is to say what he can and can’t do?” Solon answered. “All I know is that I have kept my skin for seventeen years.”
“I don’t see the correlation between the current situation and Drake slowing your devolvement,” Orson said to Solon.
“I think, in my attempt to force her out,” Grayson said, “I recast his soul.”
That pronouncement was met with stunned silence, and even Briar stared at Grayson in shock. All this time, she’d been considering this problem as a physical one. Did it run deeper than that?
Orson abruptly started to laugh. “Bullshit.”
“It makes sense,” Grayson insisted, clearly angry. “She had taken him with her soul, so I changed the properties of his so that she could no longer… bond to it.”
Orson frowned and his gaze shifted to Solon. “You believe this?”
“I will tell you that Grayson did something that changed me, but the change wasn’t physical. The visible metal,”—Solon lifted his metal hand in illustration—“did not change. And since then, it has only gotten slightly worse.”
“I volunteer,” Felipe spoke up. “At the rate I’m going, I’ll be a recluse in another year.” He stepped up to Grayson. “What do you need me to do?”
Grayson folded his hands before him, but the whiteness of his knuckles suggested that it wasn’t a gesture of confidence. “I can’t promise this will work.”
“Then I’ll be no worse off than I am now.” Felipe shrugged.
Grayson turned, and his eyes met Briar’s. “Make him yours?”
Felipe flinched. “You mean I have to give her my construct?”
“She’s a soul singer. She doesn’t need to take your construct. Besides, she can only take one, and she already has mine.”
“But the effect is temporary,” Briar reassured him. I assume, she shared with Grayson. I’ve never tried this on a ferromancer. She had only mesmerized Scourge and ferra.
When Lucrezia took me, it was only temporary—until she had my construct.
Briar remembered that all too well.
Grayson turned to Felipe. “Do you still want to do this?”
Felipe glanced between them, then nodded. “Like I said, I’ve got nothing to lose.”
Briar walked to the side table where her instrument still lay and took it from its case. Be careful, she said to Grayson, then brought her fiddle to her chin. Hopefully, this wouldn’t cause him to devolve.
He dipped his head, and his Adam’s apple bobbed with an exaggerated swallow. Though he tried to hide it, he was nervous as well. He turned to Felipe. “You may begin, Briar.”
She ran the bow across the strings and launched into a song of confidence and compulsion, directing it at Felipe.
He was watching her with a worried wrinkle on his brow, but it smoothed out almost immediately. His gaze became one of wonder as he watched her play. He was hers.
After a few minutes, Grayson reached out and placed a hand on the bare skin of his neck. Felipe didn’t even seem to notice. Briar marveled at how easy he had been to take. Was she getting better at this, or were ferromancers easier to make hers than she realized? Maybe they were drawn to her humanity, craving what they were losing. That was disturbing.
Grayson closed his eyes, and for several long minutes, stood that way.
Briar continued to play. Grayson? she prompted after more time passed. She sensed no change but didn’t know if she even would.
Grayson took his hand from Felipe’s skin. “Nothing.”
She lowered her fiddle, stopping in mid note. “It didn’t work?”
He raked a hand back through his dark hair. “I don’t remember the exchange with Lucrezia well, but I remember taking Solon from her. This time, it was like I couldn’t sense Felipe at all.”
“Is it me?” Briar asked. “Maybe I’m not doing this right.”
“There is one other difference,” Solon spoke up. “I was merged with my construct at the time.”
Grayson faced him. “That’s right. You were.”
“But aren’t ferromancers supposed to avoid that?” Briar asked. “If this doesn’t work, wouldn’t it make him devolve faster?”
“Yes, it would,” Orson answered. “And judging by that dazed look in his eyes, Felipe is in no condition to be making this decision.”
“Perhaps we can try it later,” she suggested. “After the beguilement wears off.”
“We could,” Orson agreed. “Or you could try it on me, now.”
Briar stared at him. “You would allow me to play for you?” After all his harsh words, that was the last thing she expected from him.
“I too am willing to make sacrifices, and have.” He sounded angry, but she didn’t know if it was directed at her or something else.
“Continue,” Solon commanded. Like Orson, he also sounded annoyed, though it was probably with the delay.
Orson reached into his pocket and pulled out a large silver disk. He released it, and the disk morphed as it fell, growing rapidly before it thumped against the carpet on four large paws.
Briar stared at the silver bear standing before them. It was the size of a small black bear, intricately made, though nothing compared to Lock. As she had observed before, Lock was in a class of his own—and not because he was a mythical beast.
“To me,” Orson said.
The bear sprang at him, but as it hit, it melted. Liquid metal splashed across Orson’s chest, rolling down his torso, and outward over his limbs. In the blink of an eye, he was covered in silver armor. The helmet left his lower face bare, but the texture of the metal looked like fur, and the impression of rounded ears on the helmet made it look like a bear’s head.
“Go ahead, Briar,” Grayson encouraged her, no doubt realizing how overcome she was by all of this.
She returned the fiddle to her chin and started to play. As she had with Felipe, she soon had Orson’s full attention, though the gray eyes that stared at her from the holes in his helmet were ferromancer’s eyes, the irises stretching from lid to lid.
Grayson reached up and laid a hand on Orson’s armored shoulder. Apparently, skin-to-skin contact wasn’t necessary.
She continued to play, subjecting Orson’s will to hers and telling him that he belonged to her.
Suddenly, something changed. She sensed Grayson, but it wasn’t in a way she had felt him before. Then, between one breath and the next, Orson turned away from her, his attention now on Grayson.
She debated whether to keep playing, whe
n the sound of ripping fabric filled the room. With Grayson’s side to her, she was able to see the dorsal spines slide from the back of his coat, followed a moment later by the unfolding of his silver wings.
“Grayson.” She took the fiddle from her chin and took a step toward him.
Solon caught her arm. “Wait.”
“No, we can’t let him do this. He’ll devolve.”
“You already knew that.”
She looked up, stunned by his complete lack of empathy. “And I thought Owens was the monster,” she whispered.
Solon’s hand tightened on her shoulder. “This is the whole reason the drake exists, Miss Rose.”
“No, it isn’t.” Too furious to come up with something more sensible, she spun toward him, bringing up her knee.
Unfortunately, Solon had anticipated the move and smacked her knee aside, striking her leg so hard that she might have fallen if he hadn’t had such a tight grip on her shoulder.
“Haven’t I warned you not to try that again?”
She recovered her balance, but instead of answering, she glanced at Felipe who still stared at her with a happy smile.
“Felipe, get him off me,” she commanded.
Since she was no longer playing—and couldn’t with Solon’s hand on her shoulder—this was her only recourse.
Felipe lunged at Solon, giving him no choice but to release her and face this threat.
She jumped aside as the two men faced off, but she didn’t intend to let Felipe do her dirty work. With her fiddle still in hand, it was easy to begin a new song.
Reaching out, she quieted them both before any punches were thrown, mesmerizing Solon and Felipe with the power of her song.
Satisfied, she turned her attention to Grayson and Orson, but she didn’t have to do anything. Grayson had released him, and Orson stepped back. The silver armor rolled off his body, and a moment later, his construct stood before him.
With wide eyes, Orson reached up and ran his hands along his silver jaw. It wasn’t any better, but it wasn’t any worse, either. Briar suspected that was what had left him speechless. Merging with his construct should have caused him to devolve.