Chapter 191
Chapter 191
"I don’t think 'mundane’ is a word I’d ever use to describe you," Livia admitted.
Joseph faked a cough. However, Leon frowned. He was breathless with anger and jealousy.
He was wordless with rage, but he tried his best not to show it to the people around him, especially to his alpha.
The alpha man had shockingly electric-blue eyes, a toned, cut physique, and tattoos inked across his bronzed skin. He looked incredibly sexy, and that didn’t include the possessive air about him that curled Livia’s toes and made her pulse beat just a little faster.
Other men would kill for what Rhye had going on, yet he saw himself as mundane?
Wait, was he referring to himself or hers? Well, looking at him now, it made her question what she would look like without the glamour.
As if reading the witch's thoughts, Rhye smiled at Liviam. Somehow, Rhye just knew she’d be even more spectacular, and she was just wrapping his mind around the possibility of things like pointed ears and wings. But he knew Livia was as beautiful as an angel.
Holy shit.
"Wait, wings? Demon had wings?"
He’d definitely said ‘wings.’
"I was wondering when she’d come back to that," Joseph grinned mischievously.
"Many demons have them." Leon shrugged, but she felt like he’d just told her unicorns were real. Who knew, maybe they were. "You mean, I have wings?" Livia asked as she tried to peek behind her back. That made Joseph and Leon chuckle.
"Do you think I have wings?" The question seemed as fantastical as this conversation had been, but she leaned into it, embracing her new reality. If it came with wings, that would be a serious bonus.
"We’re not sure," Leon said honestly, leaning his crossed arms atop the broken table, being careful of the crack he’d placed in the wood the other day. "It’s highly likely."
Livia nodded, feeling equally overwhelmed and greedy for more.
She almost asked if they were kidding her, but didn’t want to deter from the conversation. Seeing them would probably blow her mind, and she needed to focus. There was so much more she wanted answers to, and so much more she wanted to learn.
Head spinning, she leaned back in her chair and let out a long breath, letting her gaze wander. She did a double-take when her eyes passed over one of the strange antiques lying haphazardly around. She abruptly remembered seeing them buy drugs. Knowing what she knew now, the guys buying what had looked like cocaine or heroin made little sense.
Peering at Rhye, she wondered if this was going to be another question he wouldn’t answer, but figured it wouldn’t hurt to try.
"Why don’t human drugs and alcohol affect me much?"
"Supernatural metabolism is much faster and our bodily systems have had millennia longer to learn how to more efficiently eliminate toxins and poisons of all kinds. Especially with you, I mean, with the ancient demon bloodline in you."
Livia nodded nonchalantly but continued to hold his gaze. "So, why were you buying drugs that night at the docks?"
For just a moment, Rhye looked approving, those vibrant blue eyes glittering with a mixture of mirth and appraisal.
"Ask something else, Livia," Rhye directed, those kissable lips ever so slightly raised at the corners.
Huffing, she pretended the expression on his face wasn’t as panty-meltingly sexy as it was infuriating, and continued with her questioning, peppering them with everything she could think of for the next hour.
When they finished, Rhye broke the strained silence that had descended over the room.
"Livia." Rhye waited until she looked up at him. "I have questions for you, but I need to be sure you tell the truth."
She seemed to blink free of the daze she’d fallen into, enough to give him a dry look. "Are you about to pull a polygraph machine out of one of these drawers now?"
Joseph and Leon both chuckled. Even Rhye couldn’t stop smiling.
"No, Smartass. We’re not human, if you recall," he drawled. "We have other ways of discerning the truth."
Wariness flickered through her gaze, and fairly so. His little witch was smart. To have survived this long on her own in the human community with the amount of power that lived within her, alone and unaware of what she was.
"How?" she questioned.
"Magic, of course."
Her brows rose, her expression impressed, "Is that one of your abilities?"
"No. I’ll need to use conjured magic, but I know the invocation, and I’ll take the cost."
"Cost?"
Rhye started to wave away her question, but Joseph cut him off. "If someone doesn't have enough power, or the right kind of power, to do something, they can conjure magic. But, it'll cost 'em."
"Cost them what?"
"As for us, werewolves It varies. For demons, it was as easy as pie. However, the price it extracts is always equal to what it's asked for. So, if I wanted to magic myself a stack of human cash, I'd probably have a headache for an hour. But, if I wanted to magic myself a dragon, it may cost me three years of my life," he finished, throwing a taunting look at Leon, who just snorted in return.
"It’d cost you more than that," Leon fired back.
"That's terrifying," she breathed.
Rhye gave them both a look for interrupting, then caught her gaze. "Yes or no?"
He frowned worriedly at Rhye as she blinked free of whatever imagining she was lost in. "Will it hurt you?"
Glancing at his brother, Joseph saw the surprise flash over Rhye’s face before he hid it.
"I’ll be fine, Livia."
"Will it hurt me?"
"No," Rhye assured, looking encouragingly perturbed at the thought of her in pain.
Joseph smirked. That’s right, big brother. Fall a little further. He thought.
"Okay. Do it," she murmured.
For just a moment, Rhye’s face showed surprise at the trust she was putting in him, and then his eyes brightened as he whispered the incantation under his breath. They changed until they were no longer a dull, human blue but a vivid cerulean with a sunburst of fiery orange encircling the pupil, a mark of his pureblood lineage and proof he was the first-born of the Moonlight pack.
Leon pushed back the familiar surge of envy at seeing them. His own eyes were yellow, a sign of his warrior blood, proof that he was a tyrant, and a reminder of the atrocities his ancestors had committed against his elders. He pushed that old rage aside, locked it back in the box with the rest of his demons, when he felt the magic settle over Livia like a blanket.
It wouldn’t hurt her, wouldn’t even make her say things she didn’t want to. It would only prevent her from lying. Rhye, however, would have a wicked headache for the next couple of hours.
"Are you here to gather information about us?"
"Partially."
Leon saw Rhye stiffen slightly from the corner of his eye, but he kept his gaze on Livia, knowing she didn’t mean that the way Rhye was thinking.
"For whom?"
"Myself."
"And who else?"
"No one else."
Leon raised a brow.
His brother went very, very still. Joseph could feel him tasting the magic, prodding and testing it, but he knew she was telling the truth.
"You said ‘partially.’ Why else are you here?"
"Because I want to know what I am. Aside from being a bastard witch."
"Is that the only reason?" Rhye pressed.
Livia’s voice dropped to a soft murmur and the faintest blush colored her cheeks. "No."
Joseph grinned widely, feeling his scar crease with the motion but not caring. "She’s here because she likes you. Isn’t that right, little sis?"
"Yes," she admitted, cutting him a slitted look, but he just waggled his brows at her, entirely unrepentant.
Rhye cleared his throat, bringing their attention back to him. "Are you a spy?"
"No," she said again, her eyes steady and open.
"Are you working with the demon or for Francisco?"
"No."
"Are you working with the council?"
"No."
"Dimitri?"
"No."
"Almera?"
"No. I don’t even know who that is."
"Told you so!" Joseph crowed.
Rhye rudely didn’t acknowledge his victory; he just leaned back in his chair and gazed at her thoughtfully for a long, quiet minute. Joseph and Leon leaned back in their chairs too, Leon stretching his legs out and lacing his fingers behind his head, feeling smug as fuck.
That changed to impatience quickly when Rhye continued to just sit there, but he contained it, making himself sit equally as still, pretending it was a competition in his head.
"Will you tell me about your life?" Rhye coaxed, his voice surprisingly gentle.
"I—" She blinked, appearing a little thrown by the change of topic. "It’s not a pretty story."
Rhye nodded. "None of ours are. You won’t be judged or pitied here. The pain you’ve survived is yours alone, but we all know horror. If you’re willing, I’d like to know your past."
"Before I found the witch’s coven?"
"Yes, Livia. Before that."
"Well, all I remember was, when I was a child, I was with an elf. Elfy is his name. He was a jerk, but he helped me through tough times before I was given to humans. I was moved from one foster home to another.Then, the coven leader found me. I never knew I was a witch before that."
Joseph sighed as he saw the shadows pass through her eyes, saw that same haunted look he’d recognized before. She was quiet for so long, he didn’t think she was going to answer, but then she did.
She paused to clear her throat, her lips tightening, her eyes still focused on nothing. And then, she retold the story she’d relayed to him, but in greater detail.
They listened to how her foster parents had changed, pulled her out of school, and eventually lost their jobs because they refused to leave her alone when she was a teenager. When she spoke of how her froster father used to sneak into her room to watch her sleep, Rhye felt his stomach twist because he knew, he fucking knew what was coming. Leon and Joseph growled.
Rhye could see the fear in her eyes, the pain and betrayal. And the guilt.
It was the last that had him clenching his teeth so tightly that his jaw ached.
"And then, one night, my foster father didn’t just watch. He didn’t manage to-I fought. I think I broke a couple of his ribs." Livia inhaled slowly. "I ran away that night. I lived on the streets for a while, but I didn’t know... the witches found me. I hadn’t realised, yet, that it wasn’t just my parents. It was me. Everyone I was around too often changed. They became obsessed." She huffed a mirthless laugh, her eyes hollow. "You’d think people would be kind to the person they’re so fixated on, but most weren’t."