I frowned at him and then at Cyprus. This was beginning to feel very real. None of my dreams had ever ventured in this direction before. And it seemed to be focused on Grigory, not me.
“Because it’s real,” Grigory growled at me over his shoulder, his mind plowing into mine as he forced a series of images to flash behind my eyes.
I gasped at both the intrusion and the horrendous vision of me in that cell, covered in filth. Then I warmed at the thought of him bathing me. And blushed upon realizing I’d kissed him. Really kissed him.
“Sir,” Cyprus interjected, an urgent note in his voice. “They’ll be here any minute.”
“Right.” Grigory pulled out of my head, leaving me shaking on the bed with the realization that this was all happening right now. Not a dream. Not a trick of my imagination. But a true moment in time.
I kissed him.
And his mother believes I’m hypnotizing him.
What. The. Fuck?
“Sorry, Cyprus.” Grigory’s fist flew through the air so fast I barely caught the movement, and then Cyprus crumpled to the ground.
I gaped at the large man on the floor, then up at Grigory. We’d fought a thousand times, and never had he displayed that kind of strength. I knew he was powerful, but not that powerful.
He glanced at me. “I’m a royal Noxia demon, Zaya. Heir to the throne. That was nothing.” He grabbed his phone from the nightstand and started typing rapidly.
“You’re reading my mind,” I said, frowning. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. In any other situation, I’d be furious, but I was too bewildered to feel much at the moment. “Have you always read my mind?” I wondered out loud.
“No.” He didn’t look at me, his focus still on his phone. “Tonight was the first time.”
“But you’ve always been able to?” I asked. It had seemed almost simple to him to do it.
“Yes.”
“That’s how you compelled me,” I realized aloud. Of course, I already knew that. Noxia demons had the ability to compel, but I never imagined it was linked to the mental cognizance of others. That… made him all the more terrifying.
“Yes,” he repeated, not sounding the least bit contrite.
“Yet you’ve stayed out of my mind otherwise.” Not a question, but a statement. Because I believed him when he said tonight was the first time. His intrusion a few moments ago had been unlike anything I’d ever experienced with him. I studied his profile as he read something on the screen of his mobile. “Why haven’t you penetrated my thoughts before?”
“Because I respect your privacy,” he replied, setting down his phone. “But tonight, I needed answers. And the important one I found is that you have no memory of killing Yakariah. Which is odd since you cut his heart out.”
I grimaced, the image of all that gore making me sick to my stomach.
“And that reaction is why I know something isn’t right,” he said, heading for his bathroom. “Come on, Zay. We need to get out of here.”
“What?” My brow furrowed. “And go where?”
“I know a place,” he said before disappearing through the door.
I wasn’t any less confused when he returned in a pair of jeans, boots, and a fitted sweater.
“We don’t have time for you to change,” he continued as he secured a gun to his belt. “But I’ll find you something when we arrive.”
“Why are we running?”
He keyed a code into a cabinet secured to his wall over the nightstand and pulled out a series of knives.
“My mother ordered your execution without even talking to me. She’s done a lot of crazy things in my life, but she’s not completely insane. Something isn’t right, and I intend to get to the bottom of it. However, I can’t do that with you here. Once you’re somewhere safe, I’ll figure it out.” He handed me two blades. “Don’t use those unless you have to.”
I had nowhere to put them, so I just held the daggers in my palms while he guided a necklace over my head. He donned a matching one, both of them equipped with portal pendants. And both of which I recognized as ones I’d stolen previously.
“So they were in your room,” I mused, finding humor in the most inappropriate revelation of tonight. Because who the hell cared? I was being accused of manipulating his mind. And he’d just given me a token to flee.