Page 79 of Heart of Thieves

“What?” I snap, hackles rising.

He shakes his head. “Unbelievable.”

“Say it,” I bark.

He glares as though something is boiling over inside him. “Why do you trust her?”

There it is.

“If you shared a heart with her,” I say coolly, “and if you’d been through what the two of us have together, you would, too.”

Soren’s nostrils flare. “Always with the heart.”

“I can understand you feeling betrayed that I did not tell anyone about her until four months ago.”

“That’s not what—”

“And I don’t blame you,” I forge on, “for being wary, considering who her father is. I honestly expected it. After all, it was Magnus St. James who had Ithlo killed.”

Soren hisses at the mention of the Tentacle St. James had assassinated in my place, but he doesn’t remark on it. “None of that is what worries me. She’s keeping secrets.”

“Everyone has secrets.”

“What is she doing when she sneaks out?” Soren’s voice is sharp.

“Her father,” I say, trying to keep my voice measured even though I feel like barking the words through my teeth, “kept her imprisoned her entire life. So forgive me for wanting her to stretch her wings some.”

“How do you know she’s not using those wings to fly back to that father? Whisper our secrets into his ear?”

“She isn’t. I would know.”

His eyes flick down to the pendant pulsing purple against my chest, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “Would you?”

“Yes.”

“Magnus St. James didn’t get to be as powerful as he is by being careless,” Soren replies, voice measured. Jade keeps her own gaze on her shoes, as though trying to disappear entirely.

Isla speaks up. “Soren’s right. What if St. James planted her for you to find? What if she’s as cunning as he is, manipulating her emotions to make you believe what he wants you to?”

“She’s a spy,” Soren says.

Anger flares in my blood, and I step closer so we’re eye to eye, nose to nose. “Do you trust me, Soren Wolfe?”

Soren’s glare blisters, and his hands clench into fists once, then twice, before he gives a single nod. “Of course I do, Enzo. You know I do.”

“What about you, Isla? Jade?”

They glance at each other, then nod.

“I’m not asking you to trust her,” I reply, cool and calm in spite of the heat blazing through me. “I’m asking you to trust me. I would never let my Tentacles down.”

“But—” Soren begins.

“That’s an order.”

He blinks, and a flicker of guilt tinges the fire in me. I don’t talk to my Tentacles like this, not ever. I run this team like I’m on equal footing with them. I don’t require their deference, and I certainly don’t give them orders.

But I don’t take back the words, and I do not apologize.