by Larissa Ione
“I used to,” Con said. “He quit a while ago.” Quit so he could become an Elder, one of the twelve members of the Sigil who ran The Aegis, but Con didn’t think Valko needed to know that. “Why?”
“Because he left just minutes before you arrived. Did you tell him how to find us?”
Con blinked. “Kynan was here?”
“Yes. Apparently The Aegis is hunting a Feast warg, and he wanted information.”
That caused a stir among the crowd. Originally created thousands of years ago by a freak mating between a demon and a warg, the resulting abominations had been enslaved and bred by demons to kill other wargs. Though they were no longer enslaved, Feasts still possessed an inbred instinct to kill werewolves. They were so despised and feared that they didn’t even have a representative on the Council. Probably because they were killed on sight.
No exceptions.
Ludolf’s lips peeled back from his teeth. “You didn’t tell him anything?”
“Of course not,” Valko snapped, because it was truly a dumb question. No one wanted The Aegis to know about Feast wargs. The fear that the slayers would use Feasts to hunt varcolac and pricolici was too great. “I hinted that any such warg is one-of-a-kind, and told him to kill her. But I’ve dispatched a team to hunt her.”
“I did, too,” Raynor said, and yeah, now there’d be a competition between turneds and borns to see who could get the female’s head first. Too bad for her, but right now the Council had more serious problems.
Con locked gazes with each of the other Council members one by one, seven males and three females, starting with the lowest-ranking turned warg, to Valko. “We’ve learned that the virus only affects varcolac.”
Silence fell like an ax. For a moment, no one so much as breathed. Then, just as suddenly, the room exploded in curses from the turned wargs, and not-so-subtle utters of “Thank the gods” from the born wargs.
Raynor shot to his feet with such violence that his chair flew backward and cracked against the wall. “ ‘Thank the gods’? You racist bastards!”
Valko stood. “Calm down. No one is happy about this turn of events, but it does mean that wargs are not doomed to extinction.”
“No,” Raynor snarled. “Only we second-class citizens are, but who cares about that, right?”
“Enough!” Con barked. “Arguing isn’t going to solve anything. What’s important is that we now know who is at risk.”
“And that helps us how, damnedpire?”
Con hated that insult, only tolerated it from Luc because they had an antagonistic relationship anyway. His temper flared, and he bared his fangs at the turned female who’d flung the barb at him. Sonya returned the display of aggression, her teeth glaringly white against rich, dark skin he’d felt under his hands one night not so long ago.
“It means born wargs no longer need to isolate themselves,” Ludolf said loudly, drawing everyone’s attention back to him. “We can round up the varcolacs—”
“And give you ‘purebreds’ an excuse to treat us even worse? You going to put us in some kind of camp?” Raynor scoffed. “I wouldn’t put it past the pricolici to have started this plague in the first place as a way to get rid of us.”
Valko stepped around the table, the bitter stench of menace preceding him. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it?” Raynor moved to meet the larger male, a plan that could end with his throat ripped out.
“This was no plot to exterminate turned wargs.” Conall put himself between the two males. If they wanted to shed blood, he couldn’t care less, but a battle right now would require his participation, and if he bled, he might put the turneds in the room at risk from the virus he carried. “But one thing is certain; we can’t let this get out. If members of the Council, people who should have level heads, believe there’s a conspiracy, think about the general public. We could have a civil war on our hands.”
“So you’re suggesting that we continue to let pricolici citizens live in fear unnecessarily?” Ludolf’s disgusted tone made clear what he thought of the idea.
“Oh, yes, we wouldn’t want the precious purebloods to suffer along with the mutts, would we?” Yasashiku said.
Shit. This meeting was going to end up in a full-on dog-fight in a minute. Every person in the room was an alpha, and though there was a pecking order within each of the pricolici, varcolac, and dhampire societies, rank meant nothing outside an individual’s society. And with the way aggression was winging through the tension-thick air, this wasn’t going to be a minor scuffle. Fur was going to fly.
“What do you think, Conall?” Valko asked. “Since your breed isn’t affected by any of this, what’s your take?”
“I’ve already told you what I think. We need to keep it quiet for now. We can’t afford to let hysteria tear us apart more than we already are.” He would also keep quiet about the fact that his breed apparently was affected.
“We?” Raynor sneered. “No one persecutes you dhampires. You are born that way. Not made against your will.”
“For the love of Sirius, stop your whining!” Ludolf shouted.
Sonya rounded on Ludolf. “Do you blame us?”
It was true. The turned wargs were looked down on as inferior beings. Varcolac were underrepresented on the Council, their words and opinions weighed less than those of born wargs, and their issues were treated as trivial. They’d been given voting rights only two years ago, which still grated on most of the pricolici council members. Only Feast wargs were looked down on with more disdain.
“We’ll put this to a vote.” Con clenched his fists to keep from knocking some heads together if anyone disagreed. A diplomat, he was not. “Those in favor of keeping this under wraps for now?”
All but two members, both pricolici, raised their hands, sealing the decision.
“It’s settled, then.” Con yanked his leather jacket off the back of his chair. “We can meet again in a week, or earlier if Eidolon has a breakthrough.”
“Hold up, dhampire,” Valko said. “There’s still the matter of what to do with Sin.”
Con bristled. “What do you mean, ‘what to do with Sin’?”
“She must be held responsible. You will bring her to us.”
Con schooled his expression to hide his surprise. That Valko would demand justice for something that was a turned-warg issue was extremely unusual. “Sin didn’t start this epidemic intentionally.”
“A drunk driver doesn’t set out to cause an accident, but in a human court, he’s held responsible.”
“Since when do you care about human issues?” Con asked. “Human laws don’t apply to her, and because Sin is a Seminus demon, she’s not subject to warg law, either.”
Valko steepled his fingers, his expression unusually neutral. “We will present her to the Seminus Council for punishment.”
Whoa. Okay, it was strange enough that Valko wanted justice, but to have it come through official channels, rather than having Sin killed, was almost unbelievable. Something was up. “And if they decide she’s done nothing wrong?”
“Then we’ll involve the Justice Dealers and the Maleconcieo.”
Ah, okay. Lightbulb moment. Eidolon had been raised by the Judicia, demons whose entire purpose was to mete out demon justice, and for years he’d served as they had, as a Justice Dealer. If Dealers and the Maleconcieo, the highest demonic authority that presided over all demon Councils, were involved, Eidolon would be brought into the mix, and he might very well be forced to carry out Sin’s punishment—probably in the form of death.
Valko had despised Eidolon for years, since the day the doctor had failed to save Valko’s son after he’d been shot by an Aegi’s silver bullet. That Eidolon had later mated with an Aegi had only fueled Valko’s hatred. Valko would love to see Eidolon forced to kill his own sister.
Con scanned the room. Anticipation glittered in every warg’s eyes, as though they already smelled blood in the air. “Eidolon needs her to find a cure or to develop a vaccine.”<
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“Then perhaps we should involve the Justice Dealers now,” Raynor said. “If she’s held in prison, she will have no choice but to submit to Eidolon’s tests and treatments.”
“You’re suggesting she’ll run?” Con asked. “She won’t. She’s committed to ending this epidemic.”
Skepticism laced Valko’s voice. “You have one week.”
“One week is not enough—”
Valko shoved to his feet. “You will stick to her like glue for the week, and after that, you will bring her in. If Eidolon is still seeking a cure, we’ll let the Seminus Council decide what to do with her. But she will face justice for this.”
Cursing, Con headed for the door, refusing to stay in that room for one more minute. Those two societies were ticking time bombs. And with a disease spreading faster than the Black Death had, the last thing the world needed was a werewolf civil war.
Valko and Ludolf remained behind in the conference room after everyone else had left. Valko trusted all the pricolici members of the Council, but he’d been raised with Ludolf in the Botev pack, and there was no one he trusted more than the ruthless bastard who had killed their clan leader and then handed control as pack alpha over to Valko.
Ludolf sat back in his leather chair, his heavy-lidded gaze sweeping between the closed door and Valko. “You think they fell for it?”
“Fell for what, Dolf?” Valko asked innocently.
Ludolf snorted. “Don’t play that way with me. I know you too well, and you’re too cunning. Once you heard that only the varcolac were affected by the plague, your wheels started spinning.” He kicked his feet up on the tabletop. “So? Did they fall for it?”
There was a long silence while Valko considered the intelligence level of each member. Most turneds were half-wits with pathetic instincts, but one couldn’t underestimate them, especially not Raynor. And Con, as a dhampire, definitely wasn’t stupid. “The varcolac don’t want to believe that we possibly care about their plight, but yes, I think they believe my proposal was genuine. They’re aware that I do want Eidolon put down, after all.” Oh, yes, Valko’s hatred for Eidolon was well known, so no one would suspect that his suggestion to involve the Justice Dealers and Sem Council was about far more than punishing Eidolon and his sister.
“And Sin?”
Valko had nothing against Sin. Not now, anyway. In fact, he’d like to thank her for starting the epidemic that was killing the varcolac. But he had a plan for her.
“Are you still in contact with your brother?”
A slow smile stretched Dolf’s thin lips. His half brother had been in hiding for three decades for crimes against other wargs, but they wouldn’t have lost complete contact. “I can be.”
“Good. Tell him that if he sends Sin’s head to Eidolon without anyone discovering who was responsible for her death, the Warg Council will forgive his past transgressions and give him a place on the council. If Con is caught in the cross fire, even better.”
“You are devious. The turneds will be blamed for taking revenge.”
“And we will sit back and watch them be destroyed, if not by the virus, then by us, with the full cooperation of the Seminus Council.” Valko couldn’t contain the hum of anticipation in his voice.
“You truly believe the Sems would go to war over the death of one female half-breed?”
“Of course not. But they’ll be angry enough to side with us when the war starts.”
“And why will a war start?”
“Because,” Valko said, “we’re going to leak the fact that the disease affects only varcolac, and once the lowlife turneds start up with their conspiracy theories and assume that we are responsible for the disease—”
“They’ll attack us.”
Dolf grinned. “And we will finally have the excuse we’ve needed for centuries to destroy those abominations.”
“And,” Valko added, “depending on which side the dhampires fall on, we might be able to take them out, as well. The canine were-world will finally be cleansed.”
As he exited the rear of the Warg Council building, Con sensed the presence of another dhampire. The parklike grounds spread over half an acre, the copse of trees near the far wall of the property concealing the only Harrowgate in a two-mile radius. The scent of warg was strong around the gate; any species with a halfway decent sense of smell would hightail it back into the Harrowgate or away from the Council building immediately.
Unless they were there for a reason, and as Bran emerged from the forest shadows, Con knew this wasn’t going to be pleasant.
Bran was, as many dhampires liked to say, a scary motherfucker.
Standing seven feet tall and built like a bull, the guy didn’t have to do anything to get people to move out of his way. But it was his missing right eye and the scar that ran from his right temple to the left side of his chin that sealed the deal. Well, that and the full tank of crazy that gleamed in his good eye.
He kept his long, silver mane pulled back in a ponytail so none of it obscured the mess that was his face.
“Conall.” Bran’s rough voice vibrated deep into Con’s chest. “We need to talk.”
Con crossed his arms over his chest. “I didn’t think you came all the way to Moscow because the vodka is so good.” Probably not the smartest way to talk to a senior Dhampire Councilmember, but Con hadn’t bowed and scraped to anyone in a long time.
“Aisling has gone to the night.”
A chill shivered over Con’s skin. What happened to dhampires when they died was a strongly held secret among his people—the biggest secret, in fact. Speaking about it was forbidden, even within their own species. Outside their own kind, they were compelled to silence.
Compelled, in the mystical sense of the word. Every dhampire possessed an inborn inability to speak in specifics about “going to the night.” The words simply would not come, and no amount of torture could force a dhampire to discuss it.
“Aisling was so young,” Con murmured. He’d been fond of his three-century-old second cousin, a strong voice in the shrinking dhampire community who had borne two babes and was carrying a third. “The baby—”
“Dead.”
“How did it happen?”
“Human road rage.” The vicious curl of Bran’s upper lip said that the driver had gotten a taste of dhampire justice. “We were fortunate to have retrieved her body—her car went over a cliff and into the ocean.”
“I’m sorry about Aisling, but why deliver the news in person?”
“Because I wanted to be the one to tell you that you’re taking her seat on the Council, and that you will participate in the upcoming breeding season.”
Con’s curse dragged out on a long breath, and damn, he wished he still smoked. But smoking had gotten boring, no matter what he’d put in the pipe or rolled in the papers.
How long had he wanted this very thing? To take on the duties of his father, to lead the clan to prosperity and good hunts? But not this way. Not because they had a seat to fill and he was the last adult in his father’s royal line. They were supposed to ask him to come back because they wanted his input, his experience. Not because they needed his genes.
His stomach did a few somersaults as he leveled his gaze at Bran. “No.”
Bran’s fist snapped out, catching Con in the jaw. It was a light blow, a punishing nip by wolf standards, but it stung. “Whelp! You do not tell your alpha no.”
Very slowly, so as not to provoke Bran, Con dropped his arms to his sides and widened his stance. “I have a seat on the Warg Council, a job at Underworld General—”
“You’ll give them up,” Bran barked. “Yordan will take your seat on the Warg Council, and I doubt the demon hospital will miss you.” The big male crowded close, so close that if Con breathed deeply, their chests would touch. “You will come home and take your place in dhampire society. We have been patient with you, letting slide your absences during the breeding seasons, letting you run loose outside our range, but it’s time for you to
settle down and fulfill your duties as dhampire royalty.”
Letting him run loose? Settle down? “I think, old man, you mistake me for a youngling pup. You expelled me from the clan. It was only Aisling’s pleading that convinced the Council to allow me back during the full moon tides. Now you suddenly want me to return and never leave again, except to conduct business and feed?”
And since male dhampires were prone to blood addiction if they fed off the same individual too many times, they definitely had to leave the dhampire sanctuary to find their meals. Not that a male couldn’t get addicted outside the sanctuary, as well.
Con had more than enough experience with that to know.
Bran snarled, and Con braced himself. A verbal battle was something he could win. But if Bran lashed out—
Con found himself on the ground, laid flat by a meaty fist. Pain spiderwebbed across this face, bells rang, and honest-to-God stars swirled in his vision. Bran stomped Con in the ribs, and son of a bitch, that hurt.
Rolling to avoid another strike, he kicked out, catching Bran in the back of the knees and knocking him to the ground. As the other dhampire hit the grass, Con threw a punch that sent Bran skidding on his ass for several feet. Con dove, landing another punch, the crack ringing out in the crisp evening air.
Ultimately, Con would lose this fight. Oh, he could take the three-thousand-year-old dhampire, but winning would be interpreted as an overthrow of an alpha, and Con would find himself not only back in the clan but in charge of it.
Fury lit his fuse at the lose-lose of the situation, and after he got in a few more well-placed punches, he rolled onto his back and allowed Bran, whose mouth filled with his own blood, to pin him. Bran clamped his hand around Con’s throat and squeezed, cutting off his breath.
“You insolent cur,” he hissed. “You are a spoiled wretch who should have been brought to heel centuries ago. We took pity on you after your mother’s death, but you didn’t learn from that, did you?”
Fuck you, Con mouthed, even as his lungs began to burn from lack of oxygen.
