56
Chapter
Ink scratched across paper. Isaak found the sound relaxing. He liked to get his thoughts out in the physical world. It gave them weight and form and he could do what he needed once that caveat was observed. A thing is immortal until it has been tied to the physical. Then it is fair game.
A polite knock dragged him out of the fog of his thoughts. Rosen? No. Rousten. “Come.” Isaak bayed sitting back in his chair.
He was slight in stature for a man as if being born folk wasn’t a big enough wound to his manhood. Soft hands, and big eyes, he held a hat out in front of him. Shoulders hunched, he looked like a beggar from a Dicken’s novel.
To the Kin, Folk were little more than peasants. They forget it is the folk that prepare their meals, who rear their children. The keystone of Kin society was held by the Folk. We all love our families; some kin will even die for them. But used as a political force they weren’t worth much. Generally, they just get in the way.
That’s precisely why Isaak used them. He took the refuse and debris the Kin left in their wake and fashioned them into a weapon. They were also the easiest swayed. Generations of hero-worship weaves true believers his grandfather foolishly took for granted.
Isaak indulged them. He catered to them. He used them. A battle like this would herald bloodshed. The Metri were a tornado, uncontrollable and elemental as any force of nature. They would unleash hell and leave his army to clean up the mess. An army he peopled with Folk.
“I don’t aim to be a bother, sir. I just wanted to tell you what it means to be a part of this revolution. We are bringing peace. That I get to be part of that, sir…” he stopped for lack of words to describe the honor.
Isaak’s smile widened into something beatific. “None of this is possible without the backbone of the Folk. You know that, Rousten.” He got up out of his chair and laid his hand over Rousten’s shoulder. “This,” he said, gesturing with one hand at the swept warehouse, “Is all for you.”
Rousten’s beady eyes looked reproachful. “Sir, not many of the others like them,” he said.
He glanced up at the immense cage in the middle of the room. Thirty feet on a side. Two men toiled in the corner tack welding the bars together for extra strength. Every day they got closer to the moon the stronger and more aggressive they got. Fifteen of them lounged about the cage so far. Rousten averted his eyes just as quickly.
Isaak’s mouth fell open to make the case for why he decided to use the Metri, but Rousten beat him to it.
“Not me, though. I get it. I see!” He said pointing at his temple. “It’s the only way. I know I don’t deserve it, sir. But I would be…” he paused searching for the right words. “I would be honored to bear your bite. To strike a blow against your enemies.”
“Don’t you see,” Rousten cried. His voice rising with the passion of his speech. “This is the way it was always supposed to be. The Folk are born ready to receive these gifts. It shouldn’t be humans. Only a Folk could hold on where all others fall away!”
Isaak cocked a brow genuinely curious as to his reasoning. He made an interesting point. Only one man throughout the stories deigned to use Metri as a force against the enemies arrayed against him. The stories say he cursed all his bannermen and waged wars. It is told that his house fell to ruin. But not what happened. The legend sparked the idea to do this in the first place.
Isaak never considered the Metri beyond a chaos causing eruption. But what if the folk had a chance to control it. What if it could be taught? Maybe Lorelei was right. Abel’s brother spent a decade cut off from their people, but he was alive, and they kept him from wreaking damage every full moon.
Loyal Folk with a bit of hardiness to them could prove quite useful. They were easy enough to keep hidden. A Folk or a Metri they assault the senses like any lycanthrope. He would look into this.
Isaak turned to face him and grabbed both of Rousten’s shoulders. “You’ve given me something to think about. I make you this vow should I choose to do this you will be among the first to receive it.”
Rousten lit up like a candle. “Thank you, sir. You won’t regret this.”
“You are a credit to your people,” Isaak slathered it on. Not only was he grateful for the notion. It tickled him to know there were people out there who didn’t spit on his name and call him usurper. There were people out there who understood he was their rightful king.
His cell phone rang. Rousten happy as could be gestured his exit and walked out. Isaak pulled it free and swiped.
“Go ahead.”
“You’re sister is alive.”
Isaak breathed a sigh of relief. Nora was pissed at him, and for some of it rightly so. But this wouldn’t cost him the twins. Not if he could help it. He loved them. In truth, he loved his grandfather. He didn’t want this fight. He simply stood to meet it.
“What happened”
“Mathew Ellis was on her tail to New York. No one has seen him since. She showed up with bumps and bruises but alive,” the informant relayed.
“Mathew Ellis?” Isaak growled.
In a way, that man set all this into motion. His cruelty and malice toward Folk women and his obsession with his baby sister lit the spark that would burn their clan down to nothing. Isaak was no fool. He knew the degradation he was about to unleash on his home. But sometimes you have to break a bone to heal it.
Isaak and Abel’s investigation into the rape and vile murder of one of Ellis’ victims led them to Lorelei, the victim’s best friend. Her love tore them apart. Her inability to choose. He hated her for that.
He missed her. God, he missed her! Missed the secret smiles, and clandestine touches. How she would steal away to come visit him while Abel stood by guarding one of the families. If only she’d left him sooner. So much of this could have been avoided.
He never meant to hurt her.
Dead eyes accused from his memories. There was so much blood. He thought he could save her. It was an accident, a brutal, awful accident. But fate was too cruel to take both of them from him. If only he’d saved the baby.
Abel was delusional if he thought that baby was his. Lorelei loved him.
The phone in his hand cracked with the fury and shame of those memories. Isaak sucked in a deep breath wrestling for control. High emotions were a Kin’s undoing. Hell, high emotions that day were responsible for the worst mistake of his life.
The doors at the back of the building opened wide and Michael Risguard came sashaying through them. Not the best timing.
“What are you doing here?”
Risguard was his prime agent. He could not risk anyone seeing them together. With his cover blown Risguard was no use to him. Isaak dropped what was left of his phone to the ground and turned to face him.
“Abel survived.”
“And the hits just keep on coming today don’t they,” Isaak lamented to the ceiling.
Risguard slowed his gait. The hairs at the back of his neck turned to needles. Isaak paced the cement floor. His shoulders tightened with the aura of agitation radiating from his boss.
“What else happened?” Risguard said. He regretted asking immediately.
Isaak fixed him with a fiery gaze. “Has my sister returned to the square?” he asked knowing full well the answer.
Risguard fell right into his trap. “And she brought Alex with her, just like I warned you she would.”
He tried hard to scrub the tone from his voice. The look on Isaak’s angular features told him he didn’t do a good job. He pressed his lips together into a flat line, tightening them. Isaak nodded slowly.
“How do you think she survived Ellis?” Isaak asked.
Risguard sucked in a sharp breath. It was almost imperceptible. He was that good.
“I don’t-” was as far as he got before Isaak’s booming voice interrupted him.
“Now is not the time to lie to me!”
Risguard regrouped and came at his excuses from a different angle. Isaak told him to
leave Nora alone. He’d always believed it was better to beg forgiveness than to ask for permission. He should have taken that advice.
“If your Grandfather crowns Alex before your attack you will forever be called usurper!”
“So you did it for me, is that what you’re telling me?”
Risguard’s mouth dropped open and his head sagged to one side. He wasn’t sure which defense would shield him from the wroth that had hold of Isaak. Men stopped their work and moved up on their periphery.
Most Kin are all bluster. Big badasses throwing their weight around. Not Isaak. Tall and thin, he was a rail of a man. All he needed to intimidate was his piercing glare. His stillness was unnerving. Risguard tensed, not sure where the attack would come from. But sure it was coming.
“Mathew Ellis!” Isaak barked.
Risguard backed up, his body language tightening. A Kin near the back tapped a large wrench against the palm of his other hand. Several of the Metri watched despondently from their cage.
“He tortured them,” Isaak said pacing a slow circle. “Raped them, cut pieces off of them. And because that wasn’t disturbing enough he ate them. And you sent that monster after my baby sister?”
“I didn’t know.” It spilled from his lips and he grabbed onto the excuse for dear life. “I didn’t know!”
“Mercy? Is that what you ask of me?” His expression painted the question how dare you?
“No! Let me prove to you I won’t be so reckless again,” Risguard begged.
“You want a chance to win your place back, Nora is now your responsibility. You will ingratiate yourself with her. You will guide her, and protect her. And Michael, everything that befalls her, no matter by whose hand. You will suffer the same. Do I make myself clear?”
“She won’t even skin her knee, you have my word.”
“Put in for a sabbatical.”
Risguard raised a questioning brow. “This close to the Culling? But I…”
The little black-haired beauty they’d targeted on the first round-up of Metri didn’t pan out for his original plans. But boy did Abel hand him a victory lap when he tried to hide her among the Kin. She was his favorite pawn so far.
“I have other plans for you, Michael.” Isaak’s smile oozed malice. “Hold him.”
“What? No!”
Risguard moved but he had nowhere to go. Strong hands seized his shoulders, turning him and driving him to his knees.
“You need me, Isaak. I’ve handed you the keys to the kingdom. No one else could have gotten us here this fast and you know it.” He fought and squirmed shrinking back as Isaak leaned in. “She’s alive! Nora is safe, in the square tearing all of your plans apart right now. She is alive god damn it!”
“You’re right. Nora is alive. And I do need you, Michael. You are invaluable to my coronation.”
His calm cadence would have been comforting had his eyeteeth not grown a half an inch. His amber eyes expanded swirling molten gold into his irises. Isaak lunged. Teeth tore at the soft flesh of Michael Risguard’s throat.
Rousten’s idea certainly had potential. If anyone of the Folk under his command had a chance, Risguard’s lineage was the strongest. Nearly every male and quite a few females born of his line carried the genes. What a shock when Bryce Risguard’s only son never made the change. Easy enough a thing to brush aside with stories of the change coming late in life.
Isaak made a promise to help Michael claim his birthright. It was time he paid up.
57
Chapter
“You’re not serious.”
“This is the only way, Conner.”
“How do you even know this is real?” He asked skeptically.
“Do you trust me?”
Conner pulled away. “Low blow.”
“She’ll be here in weeks,” Kye reminded him.
Conner’s gambit with Zoe had less than stellar results. It was bad enough that it would gut John if he found out. Kye’s father didn’t take the bait either. They were back to square one.
Conner hoped that if he showed himself fawning over Zoe around the square, Kye’s father would back off his threats. Even among the Kin, there hadn’t been a forced marriage like this in centuries. Not to unite two houses. Not even to cover up deviants in the bloodlines. Conner even thought the word deviant in quotes. Instead, the man doubled down.
Fury bubbled beneath his rocky surface thick and viscous as lava. The idea of legacy had the elders scrambling to cover any perceived defect great and small. Their jones for another generation to subjugate wasn’t much better. Kye had every reason to run far and fast from this place and never look back.
Isaak just wasn’t the way.
And Conner didn’t want to lose him.
“I can’t, Kye.” Conner took his hand lacing his fingers between Kye’s knuckles. He pressed his forehead to Kye’s savoring the warmth of his Roman body. “Running to Isaak is going to get us both killed.”
“I won’t marry her.”
“I don’t think that was ever part of the plan,” Conner said in scathing whispers.
Kye frowned. “I’m done playing by their rules.”
Conner’s phone went off. He pulled it free and dismissed the alarm. “I have to go play handmaid for the Old Man tonight. Meet me out by the tree past midnight. We’ll think of something that isn’t Isaak.”
“You severely overestimate our options here,” Kye warned.
“And you underestimate my determination,” Conner said cracking a smile. He reached forward cupping his hands around Kye’s face. They kissed. Passionate and wet, Conner drank him in. He would need every distraction he could find to make it through tonight.
***
“You loved him once,” Nora whispered.
She could see it in his eyes. Alex was afraid of him. She took his hand. A gesture that felt strange all the way up until their skin touched and she remembered playing in the fort as kids. She always ended up king. They were inseparable once. Alex was the one person on this earth she could never hide from.
“You were thick as thieves. He’s the same man,” Nora said.
“No.” Alex wiped at his nose. “That is not the same man I used to know.”
Nora sucked in a breath to argue but thought better of it. She spotted Deklan and her nerves turned tight as violin strings. Vic moved through the room like she owned it. Her dress was little more than a swag and spaghetti straps. Her flawless skin shimmered in the golden lights. She had balls hard as brass to walk through the Worthington’s manor so brazenly. Deklan kept her secrets so far.
This dinner was Alex’s test. Not only would he have to stand before the heads of the families as their heir apparent. He would only do this with Vic at his side. An utter impossibility had it not been for Deklan’s quick hands. Having sparrow allies was starting to work in her favor. That’s one.
“Everything… all right?” Nora asked making a funny face. She worked at keeping her voice low and looked around surreptitiously.
Deklan snickered at her. “I got this charm from a necromancer buddy in Louisiana. They’ll never know the difference. She is as human as they come.”
“You’re my hero. Seriously. I cannot tell you how you’re saving my life right this very moment.”
“Sounds dashing.”
“You have no idea,” Nora said with a flirtatious smile.
Something about this man charmed her down to her bones. He had all the makings of a Hallmark romance, with the added benefit of a few strategically placed tattoos and knowledge of the occult she found utterly fascinating. Sequins studded the grey silk of her sheath skirt. Black was not a color he imagined her in but she donned it like a shark. Nora was a different person here. With these people, she played at seeming meek. But anyone paying attention saw a bee who only needed to sup on the royal jelly, then she would change this world.
Deklan was curious to see it.
She was lovely and formidable. He enjoyed spending time with her, getting to know her
. She wore vulnerability like shiny armor. The way these people treated her he understood how that became a survival skill.
Nothing in her manner even acknowledged the sleights and digs they lobbed at her from polite conversation. Especially the Old Man. He spent the first twenty minutes begging forgiveness of his guests for her clumsiness. Derrick saw nothing but grace under pressure and a determined chin he found rather sexy. Worthington mentioned twice that she was just a Folk. Deklan wondered why.
Izobel had certainly stepped in quite the pile of an entire culture she would never know. Being around these Kin he understood why she was so worried about her little sister. Vic and Alex cuddled in the corner the picture of young love. The fight that sparked the night he met them had long been extinguished. But their relationship was rocky at best, and in Deklan’s opinion would eventually backfire for Nora.
Risguard glided toward them. His charcoal-colored suit buttoned and tucked. Nora blinked at him curiously.
“You’re wearing a tie?”
“Quite the occasion, the long lost heir returns,” Michael smirked.
“I’ve never seen you wear a tie,” Nora mentioned.
Her manner was suspicious. Not that it was anything new. Still, it hammered home just how difficult this would be. He wouldn’t go against Isaak a second time. At least, not yet. No, he would bide his time and look for the right opening.
Risguard touched his chest uncomfortably, the skin tightened around his eyes. Pain ate its way up the side of his neck. A spreading fire radiated from the bite mark Isaak left in his shoulder.
“Occasion or no, you don’t look comfortable,” Nora noted taking a perverse kind of pleasure in the observation.
Every time she saw him, he wore that smug smirk. She took delight in seeing him sweat. From his sassy insults to the days when he managed to back her into a corner he was always perfectly polished.
Aching Silver (House of Wolves Book 1) Page 20
