Black Rook by Kelly Meade

them.
    “Four times the money,” Butch announced over the mike. “Two left, folks.”
    Knight returned to the front of the house so they could start over for the final two, and he took that opportunity to glance up at Father’s office. In the wide window, Rook grabbed Brynn by the shoulders and gave her a firm shake.
    Alarmed—and now certain Rook was the source of the agitation—Knight made a fast decision. He peered down the line of waiting runners to the last person—his best friend, Devlin. He jerked his head; Devlin understood immediately. He came forward without question and took the tray from Knight.
    Knight ignored Bishop’s curious look and prickle of concern as he slipped past, too concerned about what was happening upstairs with his younger brother to pause and explain, and hurried toward Father’s office.
    ***
    No, no, no, please, no.
    Time seemed to slow down, drawing every second out for the length of an eternity. Each ragged breath Brynn took rattled in her ears, and her blood pounded in her temples like mallets on a gong. She’d brought the ring as a last resort—a protective measure, a hidden weapon, and Rook had poisoned himself with it. She couldn’t move, couldn’t answer his questions. Nothing seemed to matter beyond her sudden awareness that she’d just signed her own death warrant.
    Rook grabbed her shoulders and the touch sent a shockwave of awareness through her body unlike she’d ever felt before. It lasted only a split second, because he shook her hard, and Brynn’s head snapped painfully forward. She blinked at him, horrified by the anger and fear she saw in his face.
    “What. Did. You. Do?” he asked, each word a verbal assault that broke down the haze around her mind.
    “I didn’t want to.” The words tumbled out like a burst dam now that she was talking. “I had it for protection, but then I met you and you convinced me, and I know you probably don’t believe me, but it’s true. I don’t want to hurt you, I swear, it was an accident—”
    “Brynn.” He shook her again, more gently than the first time, but enough to shut her up. His copper-flecked eyes caught her with their intensity, and she couldn’t look away. “Tell me what was in that ring.”
    “Poison.”
    A muscle beneath his left eye twitched. “Go on.”
    Her insides twisted painfully, and she swallowed down the intense need to vomit. “It’s engineered to attack the loup garou nervous system and cause status epilepticus.”
    “Which is what?”
    “A type of persistent seizure that, in loup garou, will cause death within minutes of onset.”
    He released her and stumbled backward several steps, his face a mask of surprise and confusion. He looked at his infected hand, then back at her. Brynn didn’t move, too afraid of startling him into attacking her, even though she knew she deserved it. She had created a complete and utter disaster. One of his brothers would burst in at any moment and kill her.
    The only sounds in the room came from the auction floor—the faint bass of a voice over the microphone, the murmur of conversation from various parts of the building. Brynn wanted desperately to break the spell, to force Rook to say or do something—anything—to end her agonizing anticipation of his reaction. And of her own death. The loup garou were animals. They wouldn’t forgive this.
    Face pale and shoulders shaking, Rook inhaled a deep breath, held it a moment, then blew out hard through his nose. “How long?”
    Assuming he meant the poison’s reaction time, she forced air into her lungs and replied, “It’s slow acting. From first exposure, it takes about thirty minutes before the seizures begin.” She’d chosen this particular poison because of the lag time between exposure and death. If she’d believed Rook a murderer, she would have needed the time to shake his hand, and then get far away before he died.
    “I’m going to assume that, at this point, washing my hands won’t