Garden of Serpents (The Demon Queen Trials #3)(4)

She smirked. “Please tell me you’re going to joust.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna pass on that one. But I’m not committing to anything yet. I want to see what it’s like to fight Orion first.”

“I do want to be besties with a queen.” Shai took the old book from me and began paging through it. “I can totally lend a hand with the spells. But I also have two friends who can help. Legion and his friend Kas have been teaching me magic. They’re, like, the best professors in the history of the demon world.”

I narrowed my eyes. “I’ve only been gone two weeks, and you have a whole new friend group. Do I need to be jealous?”

“Absolutely not, because you’re going to love them, too. They’re very easy on the eyes. And they helped me discover my hidden demon powers.”

I arched an eyebrow. “Okay. Can I get a demonstration?”

She stood and crossed the creaking floor to one of the windows overlooking the sea, then turned to face me, her brown eyes glinting. “Watch and be amazed.” She faced the window again and lifted her hands toward the glass, then started to mutter under her breath.

At first, nothing happened, and I just drank my coffee, waiting. But after a few minutes, an electrical rush rippled through the room, raising the hair on the back of my arms. Magic hummed along my arms and legs. Around her body, the air glowed silver, and her curls rose higher off her shoulders.

A chill ran up my spine. Outside, shadows began to creep across the clouds. The air thinned and grew darker.

Outside, the ocean waves churned against the rocky shore. Just like in my nightmare, storm clouds unleashed fat drops of rain. Within moments, they were hammering against the window, sliding down in rivulets.

Stunned, I held my breath.

Slowly, Shai lowered her hands. When she turned to look at me, her eyes shone with a certain wildness.

“Holy shit, Shai.”

“I’ve been trying to summon lightning, but it’s not happening for me yet.” She dropped into the velvet armchair once more. “Cool, though, right? I’m not just an ordinary mortal student anymore.”

“You were never ordinary.”

She leaned over to pick up her coffee. “I wish I could help you in the trials. I could just hit Orion with lightning.” Rays of sunlight peeked through the clouds, gilding Shai’s brown skin and rose-gold cheekbones. “Exactly how broken and bloodthirsty is he?”

My breath quickened. “I mean, he spent centuries in prison thinking of nothing but avenging the Lilu. He feels like he died in that dungeon. Where his soul used to be, there’s now only lust for revenge.”

“Shit.”

“And that’s where you have to keep me on track, Shai. Because if I win this trial, he’s going to use every trick in the incubus playbook to throw me off. An incubus is seductive and charming, and he’s going to use all that to try to get me to quit. Not because he cares, or because he likes me. An incubus uses his beauty and magic as a weapon to control other people, and that’s exactly what he’ll do with me. An unrelenting, seductive charm offensive of sensual magic and pretty words.”

Shai arched an eyebrow. “Unsettling. But also weirdly hot at the same time?”

“The Lord of Chaos is all about mind games, but I absolutely cannot fall for it. If I seem like I’m going soft on him, please remind me that he shoved me out of the City as soon as he no longer needed me. He killed the man I’d been hunting, even though he knew it was my life’s goal. Remind me that he said I’m boring and that he doesn’t respect me.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Okay, he might be broken, but he doesn’t think you’re boring. Like, it’s obvious—he’s kind of obsessed with you, I think. Otherwise a king wouldn’t let his rival live. But yes, he’s all messed up, or he wouldn’t have said something so insane in the first place.”

He’d sort of taken it back in a moment of passion, but that wasn’t exactly trustworthy, was it? “That’s because we’re both Lilu. We feed off lust, and we’re the only two left. Our feelings aren’t real, just the deceit of magic.”

“Absolutely. Forget about Orion, because I really think you’ll like Kas. He’s got these huge muscles and these tattoos—“

“I’m all done with men, Shai,” I said, interrupting. “You know Queen Elizabeth I, the redheaded queen who never married? That’s going to be me. She was the best monarch England ever had because she didn’t have a man around getting in her head and trying to take over. She was married to her kingdom. That’s gonna be me.”

“Cool, but get back to me after you hear Kas’s voice. It’s deep and rough. You can’t have Legion, though. Legion is mine.”

“Really? You have something with the duke?”

Her lips curved. “I will. And if you go out with Kas, he might help you melt away this whole ‘bitter, sad woman’ vibe.”

“I’m not bitter,” I protested. “I just think most romance is bullshit. It’s cotton candy. It looks nice, and it tastes kind of good at first, but ultimately, it just makes you want to puke.”

“That’s a lot of rage you have for cotton candy.”

Our feelings for each other were an illusion, the product of Lilu lust magic. They were spun sugar that dissolved at the first sign of a storm.