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Gwendolyn's expression was pure thunder.
I was just uncomfortable. If he was Dex, Bain, or Knox—okay, or Devlin—my knees would be jelly and my panties damp. Seth made my skin crawl. Getting revenge was one thing. I didn't want it at the cost of giving myself to him. I barely knew the man, for one thing.
"No argument from me," I said. "I'm a pacifist. There's enough violence in the world without me adding to it."
"Yes, indeed," Seth said. "No need for further violence." He looked at me, then over at Gwendolyn as if he'd like nothing more than to watch us fight naked in mud.
Not. Gonna. Happen. Not fighting. Not naked. Definitely not mud. He could dream though, he was free to do that.
His finger stretched to stroke the inside of my leg.
"As long as she is loyal tous," Gwendolyn said.
Neither Seth nor I missed the inflection. I saw a flash of annoyance on his face, as though he didn't want to share the leadership with her. What did that mean though?
I decided I didn’t care.
After I got revenge on the witches, and if I could, I would live my life with my guys, somewhere quiet, out of trouble. If there was such a place.
And if Bain ever forgave me.
The look on his face when they led him away to the cells made my heart twist. I hoped he'd come to understand that was necessary. He was safer out of the line of sight of Seth and Gwendolyn, even if that meant he was locked away. They hadn't killed Dex and Devlin, so I had to hope they wouldn’t kill Bain, as long as he cooperated. Okay, I couldn't assume he would cooperate, but I held onto the shreds of hope I had.
Seth's hand wandered up my thigh.
"Of course she's loyal," he said easily. "Viva wants what we want. WhatIwant."
Don't count on that, I thought. I wanted to shove his hand away and punch him in the face. I suspected I wouldn't live much past that, no matter how much he needed me. Or said he did.
"Revenge for how the witches treated us," I said. "Yes, that's exactly what I want. It's past time they paid for treating us like outcasts."
Seth sucked in the air through his nose like he was inhaling my anger. Breathing it in and turning it into power. He savoured it, drank it in like a supervillain from a movie who was about to destroy a planet.
"Well past time," he said, his voice strange. Drunk with power. Was it possible he fed off my emotions? If that was the case, I needed to keep them in check a lot better. I thought I had, but when I thought about the witches, a bubble of fury climbed up inside me and made thinking that much more difficult.
I pushed it down. Fury would get me nowhere. Fury, I was almost certain, had never gotten anyone anywhere good. It got plenty of people dead, but I wasn't going to let that happen to me.
I focused instead on the sound of Dex's voice. Bain's cool, calm face. Knox's steady manner. Devlin’s arrogance. I needed all of them to help push the anger down, then away.
By the time I was cool again, the side of Seth’s hand was pressed against the crotch of my jeans.
From the expression on Gwendolyn's face, he'd have plenty of anger from her to feed off. Let her. I wanted no part of that.
"Sir." A man stood at the door, nerves written in every centimetre of his face. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but there's been a small incident."
Seth scowled. The anger was all his now. It almost rolled off in waves. Nothing I could use, but I could see it. It passed a moment later.
Seth smiled as though nothing had happened at all. He removed his hand, but patted my knee before he stood. "We'll continue this discussion shortly, ladies."
"I can't wait," I said nicely. "Gwendolyn and I will talk amongst ourselves in the meantime, won't we, Gwendolyn?"
She surprised me by smiling back. "Yes, we will. We have plenty to talk about."
I'll bet we do, I thought. I didn't think I'd want to hear any of it though.
"Excellent," Seth said. "I need you both to get along. You each have a unique place in this bold, new Vault we're building. A uniqueposition, you might say."
He winked at me, then stalked off to talk to the servant.
