I gaped at her. “Do you really think Ryder is going to hunt humans for sport?”
Beryl laughed. “Not in the least, darling. But it would be nice to have it in writing. I cannot give up anything without a promise in return. That’s the way of the fae. Did you come in here thinking that I wouldn’t ask either of you to give up something?”
No, we didn’t. We knew what we were getting into when we came here. There was no one we could turn to who didn’t slap a price on information or assistance. We’d tried to visit the witch, but she’d made a break for it while we’d been distracted.
That left us with Beryl.
I stepped forward. A pen had appeared beside the contract at some point. When I picked it up, Ryder grabbed my wrist. I gave him a sharp look that I hoped conveyed everything I felt in that moment.
His expression pleaded softly with me, but his fingers finally fell away from my wrist. His touch trailed along my skin reassuringly. He wasn’t far. He was right beside me, his presence a promise that he would support me if this was the decision I wanted to make.
It wasn’t, but we needed help. I marched over to Beryl’s lounge chair and dragged it closer to the table before plopping into it so I could read the terms of her contract. She raised both brows, her lips pursed in obvious annoyance.
I flashed her a cheeky, tight-lipped smile, then turned my attention to the contract. It was relatively normal. If anything, the terms laid out were all rules that both parties should have already been abiding by. This contract revealed just how turbulent Lakesedge had been with Alvin in control.
All Beryl wanted was a sense of normalcy for her court again.
Signing this contract was the easiest thing I’d done in a long time. With a real smile, I handed it up to the towering queen. Her hand darted out like she might snatch it from me, but her movement slowed and became gentler as she watched me.
Honestly, I think I surprised her.
Ryder tried to catch my eye. When I turned to him, I gave him a reassuring nod. We’d made the right decision.
“If you need to contact the pack,” I said, “you go through me. Our Alpha has a lot of work on his hands. I’ll be your emissary from now on.”
I knew she wanted a direct connection to Ryder because he was more powerful than me. Beryl would have to settle for me, which didn’t seem like the biggest problem to her. Beryl knew what I was now, and I had a feeling she saw some value in me because of it.
“Back to my question,” I said as I placed my elbows on the table and tented my fingers together. “I died. Alvin Combs broke my neck.”
Across from me, Ryder stiffened. I could see the light of his beast in his eyes. Ryder’s control amazed me. The storm seemed to rage on inside him, but he barely let it reach his face. Only his eyes betrayed the battle between his control and his beast.
There was nothing Ryder could do about it now, though. It’d happened in the past. I was here, alive and well, now.
Beryl dipped her head in recognition. “That is a slippery aspect of your being that I haven’t yet figured out. I apologize.”
Brow flat, I gave Beryl the most unimpressed glare ever. I hoped she could feel the weight of my ever-growing animosity. If I was lucky, it might smother her.
I wasn’t so lucky, though. Beryl was an immortal. While I had come back from death, I wasn’t like her. She was a force of nature while I was just a freak of nature.
“However,” Beryl added. “I will endeavor to find out more about your situation. Clearly, you weren’t meant to die then. You have something you need to do here, since you are fate’s tool, after all. Perhaps you cannot die until you have served your purpose. It keeps fate from having to send more like you.”
“She’s not a tool,” Ryder growled.
I stood, pushing the lounge chair back so that it made an awful screech against the stone floor. Beryl’s grimace gave me a shallow sort of satisfaction. I shouldn’t be petty, but sometimes I just couldn’t help it.
“It’s cute the way you two have latched onto each other,” Beryl crooned.
Her voice sent a shiver up my spine. I paused and narrowed my eyes at the unseelie queen. She grinned, but the way her gaze pierced through me left me unsettled. Could she see the ritual arcana writhing inside me?
Or was it something else that she’d noticed?
“Every time I dismiss shifters, your kind finds a new way to impress me. Your bond is broken, and yet it’s as if nothing has changed between either of you. How sweet.”
I opened my mouth to ask what Beryl was talking about, but Ryder took me by the arm and tugged me towards the staircase at the far end of the court. I turned and hissed at him because I had questions. Ryder didn’t seem to care.
“She’s just going to ask more of you,” Ryder said. “Do you want to become her lapdog?”
“Beryl might be manipulative, but that’s not what she wants.”