The Puppeteer and The Poisoned Pawn by Brandi Elise Szeker EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: Brandi Elise Szeker
- Language: English
- Genre: Dystopian Science Fiction
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
Aurick Demechnef
IT ISN’T EXACTLY THE NAME that hits me first.
It’s the proud glint in his glacier-blue eyes. The tilting of his head. The
upward curve of his thin lips. He’s absorbing my shock with a sense of
achievement, exhilarated in his deception, anticipating every reaction I will
have. Because he managed to fool me. He managed to play me at my
weakest.
Aurick Demechnef.
Our country’s leader.
The man who saved me from the cold. The friend who cared for me
after Scarlett died. He plucked me from the snow, gave me a home, a job, a
support system that came crumbling down when he first hit me.
And it was all a trick.
Why?
Betrayal sinks into the pit of my gut. Sharp and jagged, like a rusted
nail. I open and close my mouth. Words rushing to the surface, then
sputtering out before they reach my lips.
A large hand grazes my shoulder, and even though it’s Dessin, I jerk
away like I’ve just been slapped. My wide-eyed stare rips from Aurick’s
face to Dessin’s cautious mahogany eyes.
How could he keep this from me?
Pathetic, glossy tears coat my eyes and blur my vision. I’m a scared,
cornered animal. Thoughts slam against the inside of my skull. Aurick
Demechnef. A trick. Liar. Everyone lied.
“Skylenna,” Dessin says softly.
“No.” The small word comes out in a gasp. A puff of breath from a
collapsed lung.
“Wait,” someone says from behind me. “This is Aurick?”
I focus on the flickering candle sconce to my left, the smooth
cherrywood walls, avoiding the faces turned to me, avoiding my name
being called, avoiding the urge to take off in a sprint.
This entire time I was building a friendship with Dessin in the asylum
and he never told me. The moments he would hint at his contempt for
Aurick. But what about the time Aurick struck me down? Left a mark? He
didn’t think I deserved to know then?
A few men remain behind Aurick’s desk, waiting for orders, leaning
back into the shadows until they’re needed.
“How—” My question falls off the face of the earth. I’m looking into
those cold, glassy eyes and wonder how I didn’t see it? The money. The
power. The questions about Dessin. The consistent curiosity about the
asylum.
Is that what happened to Sern? Dessin said Demechnef found her, tried
to use her family against her, which is why he broke her spine.
“He used me to get to you,” I finally say to Dessin. But Aurick makes a
sound that is close to a laugh. As if I’m so deep in the dark he wouldn’t
know where to begin with me.
I turn my head to him, cut into his silhouette with a glare of fire and
blood. “You were my friend.” And this time, I don’t look away. I let the
tears spill over my bottom lashes, dripping from my chin to the floor.
Aurick’s shoulders droop, but he holds my gaze as if looking away
would admit defeat.
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