Almost immediately, I feel the press of magic; it coats my tongue like syrup, and as it makes its way down my throat, I feel it tug on my vocal cords. I grimace as the aftertaste lingers on my tongue.
Vincent steps forward and takes the empty container from me. I see him flinch a little as he catches a whiff of the stuff.
“Thank you,” he says quietly. Louder, he says, “Can you tell us everything you remember about the night you saved Cara?”
I squeeze my hands together and take a deep breath. “It began because I needed a job…”
I tell the lycanthropes the entire story as best as I can. And the truth serum must be strong, because even though they only asked about the night itself, I fill them in on everything—my memory loss, how I was approached by Kasey, and why I needed the money so bad.
I mention the clay creature that brought Cara in and the dark rites that I interrupted when I broke the circle and snatched the shifter away. I go into the minutiae of our escape through the persecution tunnels and out across the forest. I even admit my worry that I killed someone in the cross fire.
It’s a shameful confession, but no one in the room looks horrified. If anything, I see a level of respect from the faces I look at. I guess to lycans, who value pack loyalty and whose wolves drive them to kill creatures all the time, taking a life to protect another is the ultimate show of devotion.
I end with the dim recollection of the lycanthrope who collected Cara from me as I wove in and out of consciousness.
When I finish speaking, the room is quiet. My own magic sifts out through my palms, curling protectively around my midsection and over my shoulders. I feel split open in the worst way.
Finally, a soft, feminine voice says, “We thank you.”
Another, gruffer voice adds, “We thank you.”
Then another voice and another and another, until the whole room seems to be thanking me.
I glance at Cara, whose cheeks are wet. She gives me a soft smile, and I see her lips move. We thank you.
I bow my head as my own eyes prick. I’ve done so many things wrong and earned so much ire along the way that the compliments are unexpected and deeply moving.
Once it grows quiet again, someone else speaks up.
“You carried Cara the entire way,” a female shifter says, sounding impressed. Her eyes slide over me. “And you did this without the strength of a shifter.”
“I did use magic,” I say.
“You must be very powerful.”
I cringe at the word. “I had help,” I deflect.
“Help?” someone else from the crowd says. There’s a note of skepticism there.
Shit.
There was one single thing I hadn’t mentioned during my conversation. Memnon. Trying to explain the ancient warlord would only complicate things, so I omitted him.
Or I tried to at least.
“I…have a soul mate,” I confess. “We can share power through a bond we were born with. The night I fled with Cara he sensed I was in danger, and he gave me some of his magic.”
The room is deathly quiet.
“Who is this man?” a deep, rumbling voice questions, and they sound distrustful.
I guess I get it. The Marin Pack extended friendship to me, but if I have a soul mate, that relationship could affect this friendship pact.
“He’s…” Ah. How to put this without freaking everyone out? “A sorcerer.”
All at once, murmuring breaks out. Sorcerers aren’t exactly known for their shiny reputations. There are whole dynasties of them scattered throughout the world, and the more powerful they are, the more dangerous they tend to be.
“He’s the one who came and took care of me after I delivered Cara to your pack.” I don’t know why I’m trying to defend the man. He’s smeared his own good name. But I also don’t think of him the same way I do most other sorcerers.
Maybe because villain or not, he’s mine. And maybe because once upon a time, he gave me the whole world.
“Do you trust him?” someone else asks.
He had my absolute loyalty when I was Roxilana, but as Selene, he’s fucked me over a few times.
I don’t know what the truth potion is going to pull from my lips until I speak. “He’s loyal to no one but me.”
Kane’s voice cuts through the room. “Tell them how.”
I glance sharply at the shifter. At my friend.
His expression is stern and unbending. “Tell them how you’ve made him loyal to you. They deserve to know what you confessed to me last night.”
Again, there are a few scattered murmurs from around the room.
Kane set me up for this.
My heart pounds harder as the truth serum is pulling at my windpipe, readying its own sort of answer.
The forged bond between Memnon and me is the one thing I really, really don’t want to share. The more people who know about it, the more people might exploit it.
I will have to butcher a lot more people to keep them from coming after you.
My hands begin to tremble. “He is bound by magic to serve me.”
There are a few scattered gasps, and I hear a low growl start up, one that seems to catch and spread across the room.
“The same way Cara was nearly bound to another?” someone asks.
“No.” The serum permits the answer because the context matters. “Memnon offered to bind himself to me to earn back my trust. It is not a forced bond between us but a forged one.”
“Why would a man who is already your mate do such a thing?”
At the word mate, I see Kane glance down.
I assess the rest of the room, wondering if the truth serum will be enough for them to believe my next words.
“Memnon isn’t just any sorcerer.” The words come out tentatively. “He’s an ancient one who happens to be my long-lost soul mate. There’s lots of complicated details that I could overshare about that situation, but basically for the last couple months, he believed I betrayed him, so as revenge, he framed me for the murders of the witches found on Henbane’s campus. When he discovered I didn’t betray him, he offered the bond as a type of”—I search for the right word—“restitution.”
Silence. Absolute fucking silence.
“If your mate really did what you said he did,” a shifter finally asks, “how do we know he didn’t kill those women?”
I squeeze my hands together. “He confessed his innocence to me while under a truth spell of his own.”
More murmuring.
“Why isn’t he here?” a woman calls out. “We should hear this from him as well.”
This evening feels like it’s spun wildly off course. I knew I’d be retelling the events that unfolded with Cara, but I didn’t expect the truth potion or the informal inquisition I’m now getting. And I definitely didn’t expect to get Memnon involved. The thought of him in this room, politely answering questions for the lycans, is laughable. He’d sooner gut them all.
“Even if you wanted him here,” I say, “he answers to no one.”
Vincent gives me an intense look. “No one—except you.”
CHAPTER 21
I spend another thirty minutes answering more follow-up questions, and my tongue trips over itself as I try to explain various aspects of the same few topics—the night of the spell circle, the witch murders, and Memnon.