One that was oddly familiar.
Tempest froze.
She turned her face away from Mal’s, breaking the kiss as the cogs of her brain turned wildly. It can’t be.
He twisted his fingers through her hair and began planting gentle but desperate kisses down her neck once again. It wasn’t just that his lips had felt familiar.
They were exactly the same.
Tempest began to shake uncontrollably—from anger, from disbelief. Mal lifted his head, icy eyes warm for the first time. His love-drunk expression faded, and a frown formed between his brows.
It couldn’t be true.
Using his temporary distraction to her advantage, she wriggled free, leapt to her feet, and ran a shaking hand through her hair. How had she not seen it before? Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that Nyx had disappeared. Her gaze darted back to the man in question who stood and brushed out the wrinkles in his clothing like he’d not been minutes away from tumbling her.
“You deceitful liar!” she whispered.
Mal’s frown deepened. “What’s wrong with you now?”
“Don’t talk down to me like that! Just stop pretending! I’m so sick of the games. Aren’t you exhausted from all the lies?” She was.
In an instant, Mal’s entire demeanor cooled, until his expression was as icy as his eyes. “Calm down, Tempest. You’re imagining—”
“Don’t you dare say that to me!” She took a step backward toward the door. “I’m done being the butt of your jokes.” Another step. “I’m done.” To her embarrassment, heat filled her eyes. Oh god, she was going to cry. “You’re the most despicable man I’ve—”
“I’m quite tired of this,” Mal bit out, grabbing Tempest and throwing her over his shoulder.
“Let me go!” she demanded, slamming her fists into Mal’s back. But he didn’t respond. He jogged swiftly through a series of twisting corridors until he reached a black, wooden door, kicked it open, and then shut behind them. It was completely dark. He jostled her around and somehow lit a lantern without letting her go.
“Put me down,” she said flatly. He didn’t. Tempest twisted and writhed until she slithered out of his grasp, landing heavily on her knees. Pain ran down her shins, but it was better than being manhandled by the double-crossing psychopath.
Mal cursed and bent to help her up, but she kicked him in the chest and pulled out her knives instead.
“What the bloody hell?” he snarled.
“I should have seen the signs,” she gasped, chest heaving. “I’ve been so stupid. You’ve been lying to me all this time!”
Mal rolled his eyes. “Why so mad, my lady? You were the one who kissed me. It seems as if your love life is getting a little busy. You’re going to have to pick a man… me, Pyre and King Destin seem like a bit much.”
Tempest saw nothing but red. She lunged for Mal, every cell in her body intent on forcing the truth out of him.
There weren’t three men.
There were only two.
Destin and the Jester.
Eighteen
Tempest
When Mal met her attack, Tempest angrily grappled with him.
“Just shift!” she yelled. “I know who you are, so damn well shift!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” He gnashed his teeth together, as he tried to pin her. He grabbed at her arm with claw-tipped fingers, the razor edges slashing across her upper arm. She recoiled, and his blue eyes widened. He took a step in her direction. “Tempest, I’m sorry. Let—”
“Don’t touch me,” she uttered, wanting to cry as she cradled her arm. Blood seeped from the wound into her shirt, staining it crimson. “You just can’t help it, can you? Everything you touch, you ruin.” His jaw flexed, and he looked away. That’s right. Feel ashamed. “I’m so sick of the lies. You asked me to help you, not the other way around. Just—stop lying,” she begged. “Stop it. Be honest with me for once. I’ve earned that much by now.”
He pursed his lips and opened his mouth before closing it. That was a first. The question was if he was debating telling her the truth or was currently thinking up another lie? He rubbed the back of his neck and sighed, a very unlike Mal thing to do. Goosebumps ran down her arm as Mal’s face contorted, and he groaned, his whole body rippling. She’d never seen a shapeshifter fulling shift in front of her. She clung to the post at the end of her bed as Mal dropped to the floor—white hair deepening to a red wine.
He slowly lifted his head, and Pyre’s amber eyes locked on her.
Heart racing, she was rooted to the spot. Even if she’d wanted to run, there was nowhere to go. The kitsune stood, his lips pressed firmly together.
“Ta da,” he muttered.
Tempest gasped and rubbed at her eyes, struggling to accept what she’d witnessed. “I—you—” she stuttered. She took a deep breath, her emotions all over the place. Feelings could be sort through later. “I’ve never heard of a shapeshifter having two human forms.” It was the stuff of myths.
Pyre’s fox ears twitched, and a cocky smile flitted across his face. “It is not a common ability. But it is not impossible, either; I am proof. It takes lots of practice and a will of iron. Plus, you have to be able to deal with the pain.”
“The pain?” she murmured.
“Our cells literally reform the foundation of our body. Don’t you think that would be painful?”
Tempest nodded slowly. It wasn’t something she’d really thought about. He brushed his hair from his face, the stark, white highlight in the front of his hair pulling her attention. She’d always assumed that it was a fashion statement, another ostentatious quirk of the Jester. But the clue to who he was had been in front of her the entire time.
Her stupidity knew no bounds.
“So which persona is the real you?” She rubbed her right temple. “Pyre the fox—the man I met in the woods who is gentle to children and loves his people? Or Mal—a hateful white-haired demon who savagely tortures his own men in the name of justice… and enjoys it and who deals in death, drugs, slaves, poisons, and weapons?” Tempest eyed Pyre carefully, looking for any sign of remorse from him. When he didn’t flinch, she continued, “You told me that the Jester was just a name, a mantle taken up by one person after another to keep up the ruse that the figure is immortal—someone to be forever feared—but it seems as if you’ve taken your position as the dark leader of the underworld far too close to heart.”
“No person is all good or all bad, Temp,” Pyre said tiredly, running a hand through his sweat-soaked red hair to push it away from his face.
But Tempest did not believe that one bit. “That’s a load of rubbish. That’s the kind of thing a bad person tells themselves to justify falling even deeper into evil. That’s the kind of thing you tell yourself to deal with how far from good you really are.”
“Oh, get off your high horse,” he shot back, ire dripping from his voice. He pointed a finger at her chest. “You’ve lied, killed, and stolen, same as me. The only difference is that yours was sanctioned by real evil. Stop thinking you’re better just because you believe your justifications are better than mine. War is ugly, Tempest. Sometimes you have to do ugly things to change the future for the innocent. And if you can’t accept that then you’ll never get anywhere; you’ll remain stuck to one spot, too terrified to dirty your hands to save those who need saving. And they will die, and then at whose feet will their deaths lie?”