Heart's Price (MxM)

Chapter 60

"I wondered if you'd thrown your mother to the wolves, after all."

"What's he talking about?" I ask over my shoulder as Penelope, visibly shivering, steps forward and looks up him.

"You haven't hurt her, have you?" she asks.

"No more than I promised that I would—and I do keep my promises, you may be sure," he replies.

Beginning to descend the stairs, he addresses the rest of us, an easy smile on his lips.

"Dear Penelope may not have much of a conscience, but even monsters love their mothers. Isn't that so, Nellie dear?"

I look at her, a sinking feeling in my heart, and see that her mouth trembles and her eyes are filled with tears.

"Please... You promised," she whispers.

He nods. "And what did I promise, Nel, eh? Tell your new 'friends,' why don't you."

She turns to me with a tortured expression and wrings her hands. "He... He promised he would let us live, and keep our Gifts, if only I brought you here."

"Not 'only,'" Aengus says, still smiling. "Bringing you here was but half the bargain."

"Penelope... What is he talking about?" I ask, still trying to shake the dizziness that had come over me. Maybe I'd hit my head harder than I thought.

Aengus grins, answering for her. "I'm sure each of you remembers, at some point, Penelope touching you: shaking your hand, taking something you offered, brushing against you as if by accident. It was no accident—rest assured. Penelope's something of a savant when it comes to poisons, aren't you, Nel?"

Ambrose looks at her, aghast. "Penelope... you didn't..."

"I am so sorry, cousin!" she gasps, and clamps her hands over her mouth to stifle her own sobs. "He promised!"

"You little fool!" he snarls, moving to put me at his back. "He can't get what he wants and let you keep your Gift—how can you not know as much?!"

"Oh, cousin! It is you who does not know!" Penelope cries, falling rather dramatically to her knees.

At least I think she's being dramatic until my own knees go weak, and I catch myself against Ambrose's back.

Aengus laughs. "An ingenious bit of chemistry, indeed. One compound, inert on its own but easily absorbed through the skin, reacts with a second when inhaled through the lungs. Nonlethal, but quite effective as a sedative, and most helpful to have on hand. Who knew having a murderess in the family would prove so convenient?"

I recall the strange odor I'd detected when we'd arrived, and the onset of my dizziness. Penelope seems not immune herself, having handled whatever the first ingredient might have been, and being the smallest, she'd feel the effects first.

Followed by me.

Dane, as the largest, would be last, and if the poison works slow enough, he might still get away, get to Shanti, or get some other help, if only—

The sound of a double thud makes me turn, and my hopes plummet. Dane has collapsed against the wall, head hanging forward, while Freya lies stretched on the floor. Ambrose, too, slumps against me, and as I'm barely standing myself, we both fall. Oddly, only Julian seems unaffected, kneeling by Dane with his eyes wide and lit with a fierce amethyst light.

"Penelope adjusted the dosage for size, of course," Aengus remarks, frowning at me. "Appears she underestimated you, though. Perhaps you are less weak than you look. As for the Fae, well—" Aengus laughs again, nodding at Julian, "—it is to him I owe the changes in my plans. I couldn't believe my luck, to come across such a creature—here, in Spring Lakes, of all places!"