by S King
Calling in backup had never been one of my talents and I knew I was going to have to do a lot of ass kissing towards Karina to convince her to be a part of my little recovery team. She wasn’t going to come easily—even with Dristan’s help. Still, I had to try.
My feet slowed before stopping altogether. With a deep breath I stared at the wall behind my desk. For a moment I could see a window overlooking Castlehedge’s nightlife. Luminous standing close enough for the glass to reflect her perfect face. The shadows dancing around those slate eyes that would haunt me the rest of my days should I fail to save her before it was too late.
I was losing my damn mind, I knew it too. But I didn’t make any type of a move to stop it. Seeing Luminous, perfectly healthy and happy was more important than me being considered sane whatever the definition of that was.
A knock on my office door made the image fade away to reveal the plain black wall. And the utter silence I hadn’t wanted to find comfort in for so long.
“Come on,” I stood still, facing the wall and just waited. With any luck the person behind the door would be Sadvidge and I could just go ahead and kill her now. Then again, I didn’t want to take the chance away from Luminous when I saved her.
That would be the first thing she wanted to do and who was I to stand in her way? The thought brought a small smile to my face, but as the door opened softly I knew it wasn’t Sadvidge standing at my back.
“Demir,” Alexi.
I closed my eyes for a moment, replacing my mask of boredom. Walking around the desk, I glanced his way before sitting in my chair. From the outside, I looked completely normal. Perfectly fine. But on the inside? A thousand storms were raging through my veins and without my dedicated concentration, my hands would’ve revealed as much to the older man.
“What can I do for you?” I asked, blindly going over several orders that I had already signed off on.
I felt his eyes on me. Taking in the way my shoulders were being forced back. The pinch in my brow as I stared at the gold and black papers with my signature already on the bottom, left hand corners. He saw the toll the sentence had taken on me and it wouldn’t surprise me if he made some sort of comment on it.
Instead however, he leaned against the chair sitting in front of my desk and sighed.
“Sadvidge wants to move the Midnight Mask Marque up,” he considered the multi-colored crystal…thing Karina had given me after I brought Luminous home. “In her words this is supposed to be a celebration and all guard members—past and present should be present.”
I slowly raised my eyes to his and sighed, “and why is that of any importance to me?”
He shrugged, still staring at the crystal burning red before fading to orange. “One might think you need to clear your head and find comfort in something warm.”
“I have whiskey, it does the same thing after a bottle or two.” I went back to studying the orders.
“Ture, but does it offer you an ally when you need it the most?”
I froze. Staring at the words that had become something of an anomaly to my mind. I couldn’t understand what was written on the pages and didn’t want to either. What the hell was he playing at? More importantly, what did he know that I didn’t?
It wasn’t like either Alexi or Heaton had stood up when Sadvidge forced my hand to give Luminous her sentence. Hell the two men wouldn’t even look in the direction of the snake like judge. So where in the hell was his nerve coming from?
I clenched my teeth for a second, thankful my hair was long enough to cover my jaw and tried to count back from ten before speaking.
“What do you mean?” I looked at Alexi. Truly looked at him. A hundred different stories past through his eyes and danced across his face.
The way his white eyes nearly glowed of excitement and the determination etched within the faint lines marring his once smooth face. There was something different about the way he was looking at me tonight. Something almost hellbent hiding beneath the surface. Like he had been denied of the simplicities of being with someone tucked away in the safety of his heart. Almost…as if he were strictly giving me the opportunity to save my one true love. The opportunity he and his own woman had been denied.
Slowly, a smirk appeared on his face as he looked away from the crystal and he leveled his gaze on me.
“I mean, Losett, you need to get out and forget about Luminous River. Everything you two shared? Forget it all and move on.” He went to stand when I shot out of my chair and glared at him.
I opened my mouth ready to ruin his soul when he narrowed his eyes on me. His eyes shifted to the side toward my bookcase and a subtle shake of his head told me, Sadvidge was listening on the other side of the door. Or worse, she had planted wires in my office when I was out looking for Luminous.
Clamping my mouth shut, I simply nodded at him and didn’t try to argue with him. For whatever reason, Alexi couldn’t tell me what he truly meant by his coming to my office and telling me to prepare for, yet another meaningless ball was nothing more than a simple cover story.
When he left I fell back into my chair and tried raking my brain for the hidden message. I had never been good at riddles and tended to get more pissed off than enlightened as time passed. But maybe Alexi had already handled my biggest problem for me. Confronting Shang and talking him into helping me with getting Luminous out of the labs before anything major could actually happen.
I could only be so lucky, I thought to myself before standing up. Grabbing my jacket from the back of my chair, I left my office and headed for Dristan’s house. With him being the sect leader of Gold and Karina of Silver, there was no time like the present to break the news to both of them.
§§§§§
“You self-righteous, arrogant, two-timing son of a bitch,” Karina glared at me with narrowed eyes and didn’t even launch herself toward my throat. Instead, she was eerily calm. A dangerous thing for Karina.
She was the very definition of an explosive personality and acted on any impulse given to her. But now? It was as if I was looking at a completely different person. Half of me wanted to bolt from the house and just take my chances with finding Luminous alone. But even I knew that would be the dumbest thing on the face of this earth.
Granted, I was making the assumption Karina wasn’t going to kill me right here in the living room. She looked about as ready to swim in my blood as a fish needing water. But like with Shang, I needed to try to convince her to help me. Afterall, this hairbrained idea wouldn’t work out if she weren’t on board.
“Karina, let me—”
“What’s there to explain, Demir? You sentenced her to death.” She didn’t move, didn’t make a face. Just simply stared at me like I would evaporate and be gone from this world to the next in a matter of seconds.
In truth, if I were expected to be completely honest with myself—and my friends, I wished that were the case. Seeing Luminous resolved, composed and not fighting her fate made me want to disappear.
“You at least intercepted the transport, right?” Dristan asked, searching my eyes just so I wouldn’t have to verbalize the truth.
Karina scoffed softly and smirked, “of course he didn’t.” She got up from the couch and raked her fingers through her plum hair. “You must’ve found your niche, Demir Losett.”
“Karina—”
“Don’t bother,” her tone was calm, unforgiving and utterly disappointed. “We all knew this was coming sooner rather than later. I just find it interesting you still had the audacity to tell her you loved her in the end.” She smirked but didn’t say anything else as she left the living room and went somewhere deeper in the house.
I buried my face in my hands as I tried to come up with a logical explanation to what had happened only an hour ago. But no matter how I spun the words or flipped over the story in my mind. Every explanation just pointed out the fact I was too weak to die beside Luminous.
Had things been completely different, I’d have told Sadvidge off before kill
ing her. Then I’d have gotten off my high horse, walked past Roxy and stood by Luminous. Together we’d die a—not so painless death, but at least we’d go together, and nobody would ever be able to say I didn’t do everything I could to be with her in the end.
“Hey Demir,” Dristan’s voice broke through my mental beratement and slowed the torture I was putting myself through. “Hey man,” his hand came down on my shoulder.
“I looked her dead in the face and told her what was about to happen to her.” My voice sounded hollow to my own ears and I didn’t know how to dig up the strength I had used in that fucking black courtroom.
He sighed, dropping his hand, “she knows you’re going to come for her.”
I shook my head, staring at the floor, “if she does then you couldn’t tell it. She had come in with all of the confidence in the world, but she left…broken.”
“You don’t…” he allowed the unfinished question to hang in the air.
I nodded, “I know she doesn’t trust me. And why would she?” A sarcastic laugh left me as I glanced at him, “I told her the sentence and showed her nothing. When she was silently pleading me to save her, interject, refuse to hand down the order. Something! I didn’t do anything except stare at her like she was the one who had lost her damn mind.”
“Demir, it couldn’t be as bad as you’re making it out—”
“Do you know what she asked Sadvidge right before I said those words?” I asked, cutting out his simple explanation of something he hadn’t seen for himself.
“What?”
“Do you know the difference between a rattle snake and razor wire?” I looked at him. Begging for an answer to come from my best friend.
Slade had essentially asked the same thing and still, I had no idea what it had meant. When I had the opportunity to ask Luminous about the riddle, what’d I do? I blew it by telling her Slade had paid for his crimes.
Dristan fell silent, obviously he didn’t know the answer any more than I did. Opting to not bother with the sugar coating routine. For once he didn’t have any other words of advice for the fucked up situation I had found all of us in.
“And on top of that,” I pushed my hair from my face and sighed on a laugh as I remembered the added insult of the night. “The fucking annual ball has been moved up.”
Dristan rolled his eyes and leaned back in the couch, staring at the flames of the fireplace. “When is it now?”
“Tonight.”
He jerked forward, frowning at me, “what?”
“Yeah, you can think Sadvidge for that bullshit.”
“Why?”
I raised a brow at him, “she’s excited about Luminous’s capture why else.” I grabbed the beer he had given me when I stepped through the door and downed half the thing.
Drinking wouldn’t solve anything, it never had. But right now, I needed something that was going to help take some of the pain away from me. Knowing Luminous was in the labs getting prepped for a life of hell made me want to claw my own eyes out and pour acid down my throat.
Finally, Dristan looked at me with a raised brow.
“You’re joking right?”
“Does it look like I’m laughing?” I didn’t bother looking in his direction. I had too much on my mind and Alexi’s words weren’t making the situation any better.
“Fuck,” he breathed. Resting his elbows on his knees, he let his eyes roam around the room, “ok, let’s—where the hell are you going dressed like that?”
I turned around to see why he was snapping at Karina and quickly found my answer.
The woman was curvy on a good day but in the outfit she had chosen tonight, I could see why Dristan was concerned. Prepared to walk out of the house with the attitude of a reining drag queen, Karina stood at the front door. A royal purple strapless dress—more like a slashed bedsheet. Covered her chest just enough to hide away her nipples with a slit just below her ribs to show off her toned abs from years of fighting. While a bathing suit wrap style skirt had a dangerously high slit to show off her defined legs stopped right above her hip. The dress was completed with matching royal purple heels with tiny daggers around the ankle strap.
“I’m going to see what I can find out about Luminous and where she is,” she nailed me with a hard stare. “You can either come or stay, but I’m leaving now.”
“The hell if you are!” Dristan bolted from the couch and stormed to block the front door, “go change.”
“You’re not my damn daddy!” She fired back before bitch slapping him. Stabbing a manicured nail in his shocked face, she warned, “you’re either going to get out of my way or I’m going to remove you from my path. Because right now as I see it, you and him are in the same fucking boat and I don’t want any part of it.”
I couldn’t argue with her reasoning there. Dristan had tried to come up with a logical understanding as to why I had done what I did in order to get to where I was. Well, where Luminous was at the moment.
“You just slapped me?” He accused, still lost on the fact Karina wasn’t playing around with him. She was a lot of things, but she wasn’t someone to mess with when it came to her sister. Hell, even I knew that much.
“Move, Dristan,” she ignored the ignorant question and clenched her fist. Probably about to slug him with a cold cock shot.
The situation needed to deescalate as fast as it had escalated and right now, the only thing I could do was join her on the crazy train. If anyone could get information before the night was out, it would be Karina. Hell, the woman had a talent for making sure everyone who helped her was helped in return.
Deciding to push my pride aside, I got up from the couch. Grabbing Dristan’s arm, I pulled him away from her path but directed my question to her.
“Do you know where it is?”
Naturally, the earlier venom lacing her anger only amplified when I asked the question. But still, she answered.
“Yes, Judge Losett, I know where the fucking ball is. I don’t need a damned escort either,” she hissed at Dristan.
In the blink of an eye, Karina Rizzo was out of the house and heading into the lion’s den without so much as a backwards glance to either of us standing in the doorway. In the back of my mind, I wondered just what Karina was going to do in order to get her answers. Sure, I had some type of indication as to how she’d forcibly get the answers if push came to shove.
Yet and still, I didn’t know how Karina worked without the threat of violence being her best friend. I’d admit that was a sight I wanted to see and judging from the way Dristan was tilting his head, I could tell he was thinking the same thing.
“How mad do you think she is right now?” Dristan whispered, watching Karina slip into a waiting car.
“Your face is turning red,” I pointed out and grabbed my coat. “Let’s go. I’ve got masks in the car and we can switch ties when we get there.”
“You’re dragging me along for this mess?”
“Do you want another bitch slap?” I snapped, half-way out the door toward my Hummer.
He grumbled something I didn’t have the patience to decipher before following me.
As long as we could find Shang and some other people that wanted Luminous out of the scientists clutches, everything was going to be ok. Besides, we were racing against a tight clock and didn’t have time to play the game of what if. I didn’t know what was going to happen to Luminous once she was handed off to the scientists, but I did know she would undergo some not so pleasant tests, trials and rituals of some sort before they started the process.
The thought alone made me want to throw up and eat a bullet at the same time. But I couldn’t let my emotions get the better of me. She needed me to save her, whether she wanted to admit it or not.
“Demir,” Dristan looked at me through the console light as I pressed the accelerator further to the floor.
“What?”
“Do you really think they’re going to do that to Luminous?”
“Why wouldn’t they?”<
br />
“I mean, she’s the Silver Angel she’s like a rare porcelain doll.”
“Exactly,” I glanced him, “if you were a scientist hell-bent on creating someone that is essentially the definition of perfection. Wouldn’t you want to create a dozen and twenty copies?”
He fell silent as we raced through the sleepy streets toward the hidden field that always held the ball. Impending thoughts about what was actually happening to her floating through the car. We all knew the courts were reaching their breaking points before I stabbed Luminous. With Karina ruining the first location and essentially throwing up a middle finger to all of the judges. It was just a matter of time before they declared war against us.
“Well, this looks promising.” Dristan grumbled as the white hall came into view.
Thanks to the hidden location being so far away from civilization, Sadvidge and her band of flunkies managed to capture the same splendor as every other ball.
From the building looking like a miniature version of The White House. Floor to ceiling windows draped in sheer champagne gold drapes. Accent candelabras on each pillar to cast a faint, golden glow toward the entrance. A three-hundred foot catwalk leading to the double doored foyer. Everything about the scene hid what was done earlier tonight and the court’s malicious methods in handling everything.
“What’s the plan?” He asked pulling me away from memorizing every exit and possible entrance.
Narrowing my eyes on the vehicles within the parking lot, I took a deep breath. “We need to find Shang.”
“Why?” He looked at the entrance, obviously trying to find Karina in the mass of people walking into the venue.
“Because he’s either going to help us rescue her or he’s going to try to kill us in the process.”
