by K. N. Banet
“Why didn’t you stay in the prison?” I asked as I put the glass of water in front of him.
He was silent, taking another bite of yogurt.
“I…It seemed like the thing to do. Leave, follow you home, help you. You hate me, but I have never hated you, Kaliya. When I visited Mahavir and Adhar, they didn’t know what I was doing, but they told me what you were, what you did. I was…proud to see there was once again a naga warrior. And maybe you could make the change that I seemed unable to. So, escaping to help you was my only option. You are my niece.”
“By marriage,” I reminded him. There was no blood relation. Our lines were from two different original nagas. I didn’t know the genetics, but I didn’t consider him blood-related in a close, immediate sense. That was why I didn’t consider his brother, Mahavir, my uncle, and why I was considered eligible to the poor sixteen-year-old boy, who was probably being pressured to believe he needed to be my mate.
“Fine, but I remember the day you were born, and your mother let my mate hold you. Before even your father, those women cooed over you. Then he got to hold you, then your brothers, then me. I was there in the house, helping them. We’re family, so I helped you.”
“How did you find me on that rooftop?”
“I…I don’t know,” he whispered. “Why…How did I know to follow you there?”
I reached out, about to console him and tell him to stop, stopping short and putting my hand carefully down on the counter.
“Stop trying to think about it,” I said softly. “It’s okay. You found me, you helped me, and now, I’m going to help you, okay? Stop thinking about it.”
“No, no, no,” he started to chant. I stepped back as he clasped his head and hissed in pain. I pulled a drawer open behind me and slowly picked up a knife, keeping it under counter level and out of sight.
“No, what, Nakul?” I asked softly.
“No, I don’t want to kill you,” he said, looking up, his eyes crazed. “I don’t want to.”
“Then don’t.”
I can’t be here now, and I need to secure him. I need back up, but fuck, he’s really fragile. Has he been fighting a spell this entire time? If I run out or shout, he could snap.
Nakul’s hands began to shake as he put them on the counter and pushed himself to his feet.
“I really don’t, Kaliya. I would never betray our people that way. You have to believe me.”
“I do. I know. Everything you ever did was to try to help us.” In your own sick way, driven by insanity and grief.
“Make it stop,” he whispered. “Make it stop.”
“Make what stop? I can’t help you unless you tell me what’s wrong.”
His eyes rolled back, and he collapsed like a dead body a moment later. I gasped, dropping the knife on the counter and walked around to see him on the floor, staring but not seeing.
“Oh, gods.” I swallowed a lump in my throat. “Did he just make himself brain dead?” I knelt down. “Nakul, you can’t die on me. I need you right now.” I tentatively reached for him.
His reflexes were just as good as mine. The moment my hand was close, he had it, grabbing it faster than I could comprehend, just like my own reflexes when I needed them—a lightning-fast strike.
I hissed aggressively, my fangs going down at the threat, using my free hand to hit him, causing his grasp to free while he hissed in pain. I got to my feet just a little faster, but he didn’t try to tower over me. He launched himself at me and sent me into the counter, where the ledge hit me square in the center of my back. I couldn’t hold back a scream as it brought to life all of my injuries.
I fell on my ass with Nakul over me, his mouth open and fangs exposed, his hands on my throat. As he darted in for a killing bite, I grabbed his neck and squeezed, holding him back. With my free hand, I rained down punches on his ribs. He smartly straddled my torso, not my legs, leaving them flailing as I tried to buck him off. He ignored the punishing blows I delivered and continued to squeeze my already bruised and aching neck, trying to break my hold and bite me.
One solid buck knocked his weight up enough for me to pull a leg in and knee him where it hurt. That one he felt, releasing me and falling to the side into the lower cabinets next to us. I shoved him off completely and looked for a weapon. I still didn’t want to kill him. I groped around, realizing my impact with the counter knocked the knife off, but I couldn’t see it.
I ended up pulling open a cabinet and grabbed a pan, but he hit me hard and knocked it from my hands, sending it across the slick kitchen tile. I once again stopped his mouth from getting to me. I was just grateful he was so unused to being in his snake form, he went for the more humane kill. Over the years, he had gotten into trouble at the prison for killing southern cell block inmates just like this when they tried to test their mettle against him as one of the northern cell block inmates. When I had originally sent him there, he had misbehaved a lot.
One of his hands had my neck again while he tried to hold me for a fatal bite.
I didn’t see his other hand until it was too late. The knife caught the light and began to stab down into my stomach. He skimmed my ribs once before I realized what he was doing. He got four hits on me before I was able to use one of my hands to grab his wrist.
I knew this kill. This was how he killed his victims. He butchered them with a hundred knife wounds, just like his wife and son had been killed. I would not allow someone to use a naga to butcher me like this. I wouldn’t kill him either. I wouldn’t destroy my own species like that—not this time. The kitchen knife slowly sank into me as he overpowered me. I watched it go in slowly.
Before I could do any more, a savior finally came.
The pan swung over me and hit him, sending him flying and knocking him unconscious.
I fell back against the cabinets, looking down at the pain in my abdomen, seeing the damage clearly as the blood began to soak through my shirt and hit the floor. The knife was buried a good three inches in the lower right quadrant of my abdomen. There were four other holes, one of which had skidded my ribs. I tried to put my hands over it, wondering if there was really any way I could slow the bleeding.
“Kaliya!” I was picked up roughly and put on the countertop. I saw Raphael over me, his hands covering mine over my stomach.
“He was spelled,” I said weakly. “He tried not to. He didn’t know…” I winced. “Shit. This might be the fucking end of me.”
“No, no, Kaliya, you aren’t dying,” Raphael promised frantically. “What can we do?”
My vision swimming, I could barely focus on his words. All I could really focus on was his warm chocolate eyes and the black creeping into them. I really didn’t want to die before I had a chance with this good guy, and he was so good. He had a goodness to him that made him risk his life when he really didn’t have to. He was a fucking guy who could have hidden, but instead, he helped me at every turn. Through all of this, I knew if I looked over my shoulder, he would be there watching my back.
“I always want the good guys like you,” I admitted, blood loss quickly making me dizzy.
Raphael’s hand was still pressing down as Leith ran over with more fabric of some sort to stop the bleeding.
“We’ll...talk about that later, Kaliya. Please focus.”
I looked down and nodded slowly, the sight of all my blood making my head spin, and black spots began creeping in.
“Yeah, that…Um. Need a healer.”
“The witches! Can we take you to the witches?” He was leaning so close to me now.
I tried to nod before everything went black.
25
Chapter Twenty-Five
Suddenly wide awake, it felt like someone set my abdomen on fire. I tried to sit up, screaming and ready to fight.
“Hold her down!” someone screamed the harsh military-like order. “Keep her fucking down so we can finish!”
I caught a flash of blonde hair in the low candlelight. I was surrounded by people. Someone put t
heir hands on my head, grabbing both sides, and pushed me down where my head found a pillow. I screamed louder as the fire intensified.
“Stay down, Kaliya!” a woman’s voice ordered. “We’re almost done. You weren’t supposed to rise until this was over. I’m sorry.” Her voice, even with steel in it, was compassionate. I needed that. It penetrated the pain and made me realize where I was.
A piece of leather was shoved into my mouth, and I used it, sinking my teeth and snake fangs into it. No venom came out, something I was grateful for. Whenever I was healed like this, wide awake for the event, it was a fifty-fifty chance of me nearly giving myself an aphrodisiac high from my own venom. While that was inconvenient, it was even worse when I was with the witches. Naga venom was too unique to just hand out or make readily available to anyone. Not that this coven would try, but I always had to be careful. They knew I would kill every one of them if they stole something that belonged on or in my body.
It wasn’t an idle threat. At least one witch in Phoenix was already dead because of that very type of crime, though that one hadn’t been in the coven.
I screamed with a closed mouth, holding onto the leather, glad they thought of it so quickly, so I didn’t bite my tongue open or nail it with a fang.
“We’re almost done, Kaliya. I need to clarify something since you’re awake. The healing is free, but the scars aren’t. Choose now, so we don’t have to do this again in a few weeks when it’ll be harder.”
“She has a couple, one might form under her jawline,” the brunette said in the professional, hurried way a nurse would in an emergency surgery.
“Kaliya? Can you pay?”
I nodded rapidly. If they wanted to do the scars now, I was more than willing to pay the bill and get it over with. I didn’t really want to be scarred to hell by the time I was two hundred. I paid a pretty fucking penny to get done, but I would not live with a thousand scars.
The fiery pain turned into an ice-cold pain, meaning they had finished closing the wounds and were now making sure nothing scarred. My screams only grew, bouncing off the walls even with the leather strap helping to muffle it. My back arched.
Then it was done, leaving me sweaty, panting, and sagging on the table where they had laid me out.
I looked at the ceiling, my eyesight blurry, but I knew it would clear up. The witches did nothing halfway. They would have healed everything they could. They would have made sure nothing was wrong with my head after repeated blows and made sure the bruising subsided. They were more efficient than fae healers, but it came at the cost of the pain.
“You can sit up now,” a matronly woman ordered. I tried, and the brunette at my head helped me, easing me up and helping me swing my legs off the side of the table. I was naked, but I didn’t let that faze me, and I knew it didn’t faze any of the witches in the room.
Before me stood a blonde woman who looked like she walked out of a porn shoot set in the suburbs. She knew the impression she gave, looking the way she did, but I knew she didn’t care. She didn’t like what she called “witch aesthetic” because it made her obvious to human governments, something she had to worry about, and I did not. It was also just too cliché.
She was smoking hot. With ice blonde hair and bright blue eyes, she was the perfect white woman who needed a husband, two point five kids, and a yellow lab. She had magically enhanced breasts; she was the type who loved the silicone look but didn’t want the surgery. The secret to her look, though, was the corset she always wore under her tops to give an hourglass shape that made heads turn and jaws drop. Men everywhere fell for Monica, but she was unobtainable at best and deadly to toy with at worst.
Monica was married to the equally hot brunette, Piper, who was holding me up. Men’s hearts broke every time they learned dick didn’t do it for either of them.
“Thanks,” I said hoarsely, then coughed. A drink was shoved in front of me, and I took it quickly, powering it down before anyone could tell me how it was supposed to be taken.
The potion hit me like a lightning strike, sending a shock through my system, making my eyes widen as my heart rate began to accelerate. It faded quickly, but it was a rush I had never experienced before.
“We figured you would need to get back on your feet quickly,” Monica said, smirking. “How was it? We haven’t tested it.”
“You gave me an untested potion?” I said, holding the glass away from me. “Gods, you could have killed me!”
“It was just a potion we made more potent with a different ingredient. I’m sure you don’t want the list. You know how these things work.” Piper took the glass from me. “You’re not dead yet, so it won’t kill you. You might notice you feel wide awake, and your throat doesn’t hurt.”
“Both true,” I admitted. “But I’m not a lab rat. Let’s not do that again, please.”
“Of course. I’ll knock a million off your bill since it wasn’t the most professional thing to do.” Monica’s smirk turned into a smile. “It’s good they got you here in time. I would have been sad to see you die, Kaliya Sahni.”
“Yeah, me too,” I said, smiling back at her. I slid off the table and looked down at myself, seeing how only faint red lines were left. Not scars but places where the skin was still fresh. “Who got me here?”
“Raphael, that…Well, I’ve never seen anything like him, I’ll say,” Monica said, sighing. “Leith is also here. A werewolf dropped off…” She trailed off, giving me something between a motherly look of concern and a glare. “Another naga.”
“Nakul,” I confirmed. “Yeah, my uncle. He’s been following me around since the breakout.”
“He nearly killed you,” she snapped. “And he’s the one you want us to help. He’s been in and out of consciousness since his arrival. Something is obviously very wrong with him.”
I slid off the table and was glad to have my feet hold me.
“I can’t really tell you much because it’s being investigated. You know that. When this is all wrapped up—”
“You might want to tell me more than you think,” she said softly, her bold blue eyes bearing down on me. She pointed to a pile of clothing on a side table in their little medical room. “Cassius’ butler brought clothing for you. Put them on, then come with me. Love, tell Kaliya’s friends she’s up and will be out in a moment. I’m taking her to our holding cell.”
That made me wary, but I followed the bombshell witch out of the healing room and down a small hall. Not many in Phoenix had basements, most homes built on slab foundations, but the coven had this house built specifically for their needs. It was worth a couple of million, and at any time, nearly half the coven lived and worked in the building. They also trained young witches to either join the coven or do magic-related work one day. Depending on the latent talent, they subtly maneuvered the kid where they wanted, whether it be in a certain industry or just making potions with and for the coven. It didn’t always work—everyone knew teenagers were going to do whatever they wanted to do—but there was something honorable about what the Phoenix coven was doing. They didn’t abuse the kids, who were given lots of options, and most of them were off the streets or from impoverished areas. Rich witches went to schools across the world, focusing on different specialties. The Phoenix coven found everyone else, at least in Arizona and New Mexico, where there wasn’t a coven in the entire state.
We went to a dark back hallway, and she opened the last door, revealing a room with bars running through the center. Inside the cell was a man I was wondering if I would find during this party.
“Kartane,” I greeted, a hiss punctuating the end.
He looked up, and I took stock—he seemed healthy, still had eyes, and he was very scared.
“Monica, you promised,” Kartane said quickly, standing up. “You promised not to give me away until you knew the truth, and I promise you, I am telling the truth.”
“We’re going to find out soon enough,” she replied, then turned to me. “He showed up before dawn. We’ve kept
him down here because we’re under orders to kill him on sight, but I submit to the Tribunal, I do not kill for them. I intended to call you if I couldn’t find the truth myself or bring myself to do it. I don’t like people, you see.”
“I know,” I said, keeping my eyes on the traitor.
“Well, he had such a story to tell, I’ve decided you need to hear it.”
I thought about it. Kartane could tell me anything, whether it was true or not. I had a more reliable source to get to first.
“Nakul’s memories first,” I decided. “Then I’ll interview Kartane. If what he says holds any truth, I’ll hold off and keep him alive for trial.” I didn’t know if he could be exonerated.
“Where’re Eliphas’ eyes?” I asked him, crossing my arms. That was the only thing I wanted to know.
“I don’t have them.”
My eyebrows went up as I turned fully on Monica. She shrugged.
“Don’t give me that look. I didn’t take them. I don’t need Eliphas’ power. He’s a solitary creature, I like the community. I draw strength from them when they offer it. I don’t steal. He didn’t have them when we had him searched upon showing up on our doorstep. If he doesn’t have them, and Eliphas doesn’t have them, I don’t know what to tell you.”
“Thanks. Kartane, I’ll be back to deal with you. Monica, take me to my group, and let’s get Nakul ready for his appointment.”
“Of course.”
We walked out, leaving Kartane, who seemed to accept his fate, not moving to call us back. He knew who I was and knew not to push me. I would get to him when I got to him and not a moment sooner.
“You know…” Monica sighed. “You can’t go running out into battle right now. That potion gave you energy to get on your feet and help the fog lift from your mind, but you aren’t in a good place to go out and fight.”
