“If we want to get to him, we need to do it before any of his guards notices us and lets him know we’re here,” I whisper.
He nods, eyes fixed purposefully on the entrance that’s now within sight. We’ve managed to make our way through the bushes and shrubbery so quietly that no one even caught a whiff of us, following Nazarean’s lead, who’s a master at camouflage and sleek infiltration.
“Let’s go,” Xerxes breathes.
His starts to emerge from our hideout, but I stop him. His eyes find mine, which he usually tries to avoid as much as I do.
“Wait. Promise me you won’t attack the Grand Mage. Think about it. We can find out what the he’s been up to, his secrets, we can discover things we can leverage against him if we use the time wisely. It’s much better than we’re in and out without anyone knowing we were ever here.”
I would give anything to know what goes through Xerxes’ mind as he ponders. He stares down at me with eyes that exude secret, and that don’t betray any of his feelings.
When he breaks eye contact with me he looks back up to the mansion spires. “The way to go about this is simple. We catch the Grand Mage, we tie him up, and I torture the information out of him. If we find anything useful information before he lands in my hands, fine. If we don’t....” He trails off, and I swallow hard. I know for a fact there’s no way to persuade him to do things differently, but if I could at least delay him, we might come across important information before the poor Grand Mage lands in his hands.
“I think I know what room we should start with,” I manage, though I barely keep from trembling.
“Let me guess. The library.”
I stare up at the top spire.
“His study.”
We follow Nazarean through the garden, keeping in the shadows of ancient trees with heavy crowns and old shrubs. The closer we get to the mansion, the harder it is to keep my glowing white skin hidden. But also, the closer we get, the harder it is to advance through the thicket. At a certain point, it seems to be closing in on us like soldiers.
“This thicket is enchanted,” I screech as leaves and twigs knot around my ankles and my arms. “We won’t get in there without the protection spell that guards the mansion.”
“Oh, we will get in there.” Xerxes sounds calm, as if he’s done this a million times before. He pulls two hunting daggers from his vest, and slices through the twigs. After he cuts me loose, he wraps an iron arm around me and pulls me out of the shrubbery that threatened to eat me alive.
I breathe hard as he puts me back down on my feet close to the mansion’s terrace, but before I can catch my breath he pulls me after him again. I notice from the corner of my eye that one of the old wooden terrace doors was now open. With his superior senses, Xerxes must have picked up movement before I even noticed. He slinks expertly along the outer wall to the back of the mansion, and I can’t help admiring how aptly he’s doing it. It’s fascinating to observe. What’s also fascinating is how trusting I feel of him.
“We can get in through here,” he says, motioning with his chin to a heavily guarded back door.
“Are you crazy? And how do you suppose we do that?”
He cocks an eyebrow at me like he doesn’t understand the question, and flips the daggers in his hands. They glint in the moonlight, sharp and deadly. High realms, he’s going to take them all down. I hang on his arm.
“If you attack, it will alarm everyone in this mansion. You might have another dozen of those guards coming at you before we even get to enter this place, let alone find what we’re looking for. We need the peace and quiet to sniff around.”
“First of all, I wasn’t going to attack them.” He jerks his chin towards the side of the spire, with no windows for the first few stories, and which no one is guarding. “I meant that.”
I blush to the tips of my ears, my hand falling off his arm. We sneak over to the spire, Xerxes ramming a knife between two blocks of stone in the wall.
“Climb up my back, and hold on tight.”
After a few tries, I manage to wrap my legs around his waist, knotting my arms around his shoulders, making sure I don’t choke him by holding on too closely to his neck. But he puts the other dagger between his teeth, and takes my hand in his, and then my other hand, arranging them around his powerful neck.
“You won’t hurt me,” he says after he takes the dagger from his mouth and rams it into the wall. Nazarean nestles in his usual spot at the curve of my neck, under my braided ponytail, holding with his paws to my hair.
Xerxes stabs our way up the wall. He does it so expertly that, if anyone on the ground were to notice us, I’m sure we’d seem no more than a shadow slinking up the wall. That is, if it weren’t for my skin that’s so bright it would reflect against a freaking pocket mirror. My face must glow like a beacon, even though I hope that the negative energy I’ve been getting these past twenty-four hours in the dungeons under the Edinburgh castle managed to tone it down.
At least I’ve traded my white robe for the black outfit of an assassin, pretty much a black catsuit that sticks close to my skin, and stays true to the shape of my body in the most uncomfortable way, but it helps with camouflage—or at least that was the idea when Xerxes’ people gave it to me.
My heart slams against Xerxes’ back as I keep myself plastered to him, looking down, not taking my eyes off of the guards standing around by the tower entrance.
This place is a freaking fortress, but Xerxes clearly has quite a bit of experience with getting into such bastions, because he takes us up dagger by dagger with barely any effort, his arm muscles moving elegantly under his silken bronze skin. I can feel the sinews of his back move under his leather vest, and my heart beats harder. Luckily, I can blame it all on the adrenaline if he asks, but there’s no fooling myself—being pressed against his body is making me feel things that I shouldn’t.
We reach the first window of the tower, but Xerxes moves past it as soon as he’s peeked inside.
“Not safe,” he throws over his shoulder, and as he climbs further up I catch a glimpse of a gathering of mages inside. The Grand Mage must be hosting some kind of event. Good, that gives us more freedom to explore the higher levels.
Xerxes moves further up the spire. Here the wind is harsher, whipping through my hair and against my cheeks. I hide my face in Xerxes’ hair, helping Nazarean to clamber between us and shelter between my chest and his back. I find myself wondering how aware Xerxes has been of my breasts crushed against his leather-clad back, because I sure have been sharply aware of how they feel against his iron body.
“Here,” he grunts, and smashes his elbow into a window at the top, clambering inside. I let go of his neck and fall to the floor.
It’s warm in here, the heat stinging my cheeks, or maybe it’s just the brusque change of temperature. Nazarean licks my temple, the way he always does when he worries I might be sick. I smile with my eyes still cobwebbed from the wind. I stroke him under his soft, furry chin.
“I’m fine,” I breathe in his small ear.
My entire body aches as if I’ve done the climbing myself instead of Xerxes, and I’m exhausted. It’s an effort even to tell myself I should get off the floor.
“Are you all right?” Xerxes inquires, looming tall above me. I sit up, slowly, my entire body protesting.