Filed To Story: Spit or Swallow: Kiss Of The Basilisk
Tem nodded. Something else occurred to her. “You can’t tell him I’m showing you this.”
Now Leo hesitated. The curiosity she’d sensed earlier reared its head again. She knew he understood that she was asking him to choose between her and his own father.
Leo made his choice:
“I will not tell him. You have my word.”
It was enough for Tem.
They navigated the halls of the castle together, winding down staircase after staircase until Tem was once more standing before the door to the dungeon. She paused, turning to Leo. This was an unprecedented moment for them. A moment of truth.
At her hesitation, Leo asked, “Shall I do the honors?” He raised his slender fingers to the door handle.
Tem could only nod.
Leo waited just a moment longer before turning the handle and stepping through the door. Tem followed, her throat tightening as the cloying smell of decay invaded her nostrils. The cells were just as she remembered them, row after row disappearing into the darkness.
Leo took a few steps forward, then stopped. His head turned to the side, and Tem watched as his gray eyes fell on the occupant of the first cell.
“Tem…” he whispered. “What is this?”
In reply, Tem took his hand, guiding him closer to the cell.
Leo stiffened as they approached the bars. He stared at the basilisk slumped against the cell wall, taking in the tangle of golden wires fused to her fingertips.
“What’s happening to it?”
It.
The basilisk was clearly a woman, yet Leo referred to her as an object.
Tem tried not to take this as a bad sign. “Basilisk blood has magical properties,” Tem began, realizing she had no idea how to explain the bloodletting.
Leo stared at the wires. Tem had never seen him stand so still. “What kind of properties?”
Tem took a deep breath. “It can be alchemized into gold.”
“Gold,” he murmured.
“Yes,” said Tem. “Gold.”
For a moment, Leo simply stood there. Then he turned to face her, and Tem raised her hand.
“These,” she whispered, brushing her finger over his lips, right where his incisors were. Her fingers fell to the golden cuff on his wrist. “This.”
Leo shook his head. “No,” he said.
“Yes.”
His gaze returned to the cell. “This is barbaric.”
The same thing she’d said about the ritual. “Says the son of the man who allows it.”
Leo opened his mouth, then closed it. Disbelief flashed across his face, followed quickly by deep shame. He looked utterly devastated; Tem might as well have plunged a knife into his chest. Yet underneath his pain, she saw reluctant comprehension dawning in his eyes. He might find it hard to believe what was happening in the dungeon, but it certainly wasn’t hard to believe that his father would allow it.
“I am not my father, Tem,” Leo whispered.
She wanted to comfort him. Instead, she forged onward. “Then prove it. Put a stop to this.”
“How?”
“Do what you’ve always wanted to do. Wield your power.”
Leo closed his eyes as if he could block out her words.
Tem stepped closer, clenching his hand even tighter in hers. “If you want things to change, you have to be the one to change them, Leo.”
His eyes were still closed.
Tem barreled onward. “Is this what you want your legacy to be? Greed? Torture?”
Leo opened his eyes. “Of course not,” he whispered.
“Do you think it’s right?”
He was silent.
She couldn’t tell whether she was getting through to him-whether he was coming over to her side.
“Tem…” Leo said slowly. “This is…”
“Wrong,” she insisted. “It’s wrong, Leo.”
He took a deep breath. “But they’re…snakes, Tem. They aren’t… We don’t consider them to be…”
“People?”
He pursed his lips.
Tem knew it would be nearly impossible to unravel twenty years of prejudice in one fell swoop. There was only one thing she could do that might fully convince Leo of the atrocities that were happening here: one single thing that might sway him.
“What if it were me in that cell?”
Leo frowned. “It wouldn’t be.”
“If your father had his way, it would.”
“I don’t understand.”
Rather than respond, Tem led him down the long row of cells, her heart growing heavier with each step. When they reached the very end, Tem steeled herself for what was to come.
Her father was in the same position as before: slumped over, gaunt and weak. But even in the darkness, Tem could see he had worsened. His eyes were closed, his breathing ragged. More wires had been fused to his fingers; his hands looked like they were bleeding gold. Tem didn’t bother trying to speak to him using her mind. Even if she were still able to do it, she very much doubted he would answer.
Tem turned to Leo. There was simply no other way to say it.
“Meet my father.”
Leo blinked.
“His name is Kronos.”
New Book: Returned To Make Them Pay
On her wedding anniversary, Alicia is drugged and stumbles into the wrong room—straight into the arms of the powerful Caden Ward, a man rumored never to touch women. Their night of passion shocks even him, especially when he discovers she’s still a virgin after two years of marriage to Joshua Yates.