Shoot the Messenger: A Reverse Harem Space Fantasy (Messenger Chronicles Book 1) by DaCosta Pippa

Author:DaCosta, Pippa [DaCosta, Pippa]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Crazy Ace Publishing
Published: 2018-02-22T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

My basement was wrapped in illusion. I’d suspected as much, but now that I knew what he was capable of, I also knew he could make me see and believe almost anything. Bizarrely, the collar nullified both my magic and the worst of his. He could manipulate what I saw and heard, but not my thoughts. Suddenly, I was in no hurry for him to remove the collar.

After he’d set the woman at her desk and given her dreams of fantastical things, Larsen had escorted me back to the basement, his stern fae face rigid, his body perfectly controlled. He shut me inside without meeting my eye and left. I waited a few minutes and then reapplied the comms and set about walking the corridors, speaking Kellee’s name, hoping there was one spot where the signal would get through. I had assumed I was below Arcon, but I could have been on the top floor. I might not even have been in Arcon. That worked in my favor. I’d assumed the comms would never work and given up trying. Now I had hope.

“Kesh!” Kellee said. The signal crackled, but I’d heard him.

I pressed my hands to the walls of one of the nondescript rooms and bowed my head, hoping the signal held. “Kellee?” Please hold. Please be there.

“Yes, Kesh…”

Relief flooded through me. I hadn’t realized how much I’d needed this to work. An odd exhaustion rolled over me, tiredness like that of a thousand lifetimes. I wasn’t alone.

“Finally,” Kellee grumbled, audibly relieved. His voice sounded gravelly and monumentally pissed off. With no other distractions, I heard all the tiny nuances, including the touch of a growl. “Where have you been?”

I smiled. “I’ve been busy.”

“I saw. Sharing canapés with Larsen.” The comment was meant to sound light, but he didn’t quite pull it off.

I’d missed him. How long had I been stuck in Arcon? Hearing him now, it seemed like forever. I wanted to see his secret smile when he believed I wasn’t looking or he thought he knew something I didn’t. I wanted to rouse that beast in him and study its movements. It was irrational—this want—but I needed it to cling on to. Like hope. Hope was always irrational, wasn’t it?

“Kesh?”

“Yes, I’m still here. I was just thinking…”

“It’s about time you started.”

I closed my eyes and imagined the marshal here with me. In my head, he stood behind me, half smiling like he knew I would come around to his thinking eventually. I’d been so alone. I hated how I ached for company—a fault left over from Faerie.

“This is so much worse than we thought,” I said, softly. What if Larsen knew I was talking with Kellee? It didn’t matter. I needed this or else I would lose my mind in this maze of illusions. “He’s insane but in a way that makes him dangerous. And he knows, Kellee. He knows who I am.”

A pause. “Has he hurt you?”

Something in my chest hurt. Not my heart. Guilt? “No. Not really.

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