by Gaja J. Kos
I took an involuntary step back—which could be taken as a weakness, though I was grateful for the natural response. Getting puked on was the last damn thing I needed right now.
But Ephemy’s disdain overpowered the sickness.
“Two fucking amulets,” he seethed. “And not the cheap shit knockoffs, either. This was a high-stakes game. Whatever Hieraven had to offer wouldn’t get your father off the hook.”
Hieraven.
A low-ranking demon from Raya’s court I knew only because he moved in about the same shitty circles as my father.
It was a universal rule that every demon was constantly out for their gain. Some, unfortunately, were less smart about it than others.
Like Vuyasin, Hieraven fell into the less-smart category.
I looked at Ephemy—all hungover and grumpy, hogging the hole-infested blanket. I could let him stay here, face whatever shit would come flying his way if Yelena or one of her lackeys made a repeat appearance, but…
“Listen, I’ll give you a heads-up when my father shows his face. If he owes, he should pay.”
“Damn right.” His dark brown eyes focused, then lost their sharpness again.
“Go home, Ephemy. You know you’re just wasting your time, and I’m sure there’s a game somewhere out there that can ease the blow while you wait for Vuyasin’s amulets.”
For a moment there, the demon looked like he was about to argue. Then he grumbled under his breath and shuffled off the couch. I did my best not to inhale the rank, stale scent of him as he hobbled past me and out the door. I sighed.
My sympathy was going to be the end of me one day. But at least I had a name now.
It was clear my father wasn’t in his quarters. Ephemy would have flushed him out had he been, and since I couldn’t access Vuyasin’s actual lair, there was no point in lingering.
I strode outside and took particle form, hightailing it to the border.
The shadows became a blur as I cut across the landscape, the presence of demons mere flickers that were here one moment then gone the next. I didn’t ease off the internal pedal until the veil of darkness separating the two courts came into sight.
When the wall of night, a neutral zone crafted of both Yelena and Raya’s essence, swallowed me, my chameleon atoms had already started to adjust. They hid the markers spelling out my court and shifted the structure until what was embedded in my particles wouldn’t raise a red flag once I passed through the ethereal boundary. Actually, it would raise no flags at all.
The same nature that had concealed me from Yelena at the prison made it impossible for the elaborately crafted wards to pick anything up.
Still, I progressed with care, checking every step of the way that the truth I believed in still held.
It did.
The veil accepted my passage without a single ripple spreading through its structure. As did the net of power glued to the outer wall.
With the checkpoints at my back, I made a beeline towards Hieraven’s residence.
I wasn’t entirely sure whether I should have been grateful or disgusted that I knew precisely where the dickhead lived. Though the memory of dragging a shitfaced Vuyasin back to our court when he’d overstayed his visit made me lean towards the latter.
I scrunched up my currently nonexistent nose.
Even the shadows in this part of the land seemed a little unkempt, although not for lack of trying. Raya was what I liked to call one of the more traditional demons, believing in strict order and maintenance of her little slice of the world.
To have a dilapidated quarter like this staining the otherwise pristine landscape must rub her the wrong way.
I crept closer until tongues of darkness morphed into a solid building. A one-story affair with only three rooms—and packed to capacity.
Hieraven, I spotted immediately. His fiery red hair shone like a beacon where he stood in the middle of the living room, throwing back a beer. I slipped inside.
“How long do you think the Blade will be occupied up there?” Fyllan, a demon I remembered from the last time I was snooping around these lands, asked.
His tattooed arms bulged as he dropped in a series of pushups, not at all fazed that two of his cronies nearly brought down a shelf, trying to scurry out of his way. Hierarchy in the flesh.
“From what I heard,” the third from what I guessed was the inner circle of their party drawled, “it isn’t just business keeping the Blade in the mortal realm, if you know what I mean.”
He flicked his index and middle finger apart so they formed a V, then proceeded to lick the air between them.
Fortunately, I didn’t have time to dwell on his horrifying lack of technique as the words registered.
The Blade referred to Afanasiy, the so-called Blade of Raya—her second-in-command. He rarely left his liege’s side, ever the obedient guard dog.
Takes one to know one, a mean voice crooned in my head.
I shoved it back into its little box with a scowl.
If what the scrawny demon with peach-colored hair, who apparently had zero clue how to orally please someone with a vagina, was saying were true—if Afanasiy was personally invested—then that would mean a massive free-for-all party for the scumbags. Sure, Raya had other enforcers at her beck and call. But it was the Blade who kept demons in check most of the time. Him, whom they actually feared.
Maybe Afanasiy’s dip into pussy was what made my father gravitate towards Hieraven and his entourage? He’d never been one to waste a lucrative opportunity when it presented itself on a platter.
And this one wasn’t silver. For someone like him, it was diamond-fucking-encrusted gold.
I started to move towards the adjacent chamber when I heard Fyllan speak. “We’ll proceed with the syphoning tomorrow. The conduit behind the palace is the least protected now that the Blade is gone and the other guards stretched thin. I have it on good authority there’s going to be a riot at Polunoch Park. We should have about fifteen minutes to work before anyone comes looking.”
When the others chipped in, voices clashing, I made my way into the next room. If these dickheads were foolish enough to attempt syphoning magic from one of the focal points powering the Shadow World, it wasn’t my job to stop them. Not when they were more likely to kill themselves in the process than cause any damage to the realm.
Although the unexpected insight did make me consider if this was the precise ploy my father planned to be a part of. I hoped the answer was no, but somehow, I felt it in my bones that Vuyasin was just the right amount of asshole to be drawn to the idea of pure power.
Whatever.
He wouldn’t be syphoning anything once I tracked him down. And if he made an appearance at the conduit tomorrow, I’d be there to snatch him.
With that news, I returned to Yelena’s court. The lead was solid, and I really wanted to get back to my life.
I’d come back to monitor Hieraven after a night of—uninterrupted, I hoped—sleep. If that didn’t pan out, then I’d just…well, search blindly until something else popped up. It was the best I could wish for.
My return trip through the shadowscape passed by in a blink. The throne room—to no one’s surprise—still buzzed with demons in particle form eager to suck ass, although the space before Yelena was cleared as if an invisible barrier cordoned off the area. A mock stage put together for my arrival.
Obviously, Yelena hadn’t lost her touch for theatrics while I’d been away.
I landed on my feet and dipped my head in the smallest of bows.
The air sizzled as Yelena’s gaze fixed on me. A corner of her lips twitched.
Then nothing but a torrent of demon fire, barreling straight at me.
Chapter 8
The blazing heat threatened to melt the flesh off my bones.
I hurtled myself to the side, a blast of searing pain exploding across my thigh where Yelena’s demon fire skimmed me. I kept rolling to douse off the flames that stuck to my leather pants, ready to shift i
nto particle form and get the fuck out of here, when an ominous still descended upon the chamber.
Ensnared by it, I stopped and pulled myself into a crouch, one hand flat against the now-warm marble ground, the other cradling flames of my own. Tongues of electric blue hissed—the only disturbance in the utter quiet aside from my rasping breaths.
Yelena stared at me, not a flicker of her power visible any longer. I halted my attack.
Though I definitely didn’t drop my guard.
“Three days.” Her voice sliced through the coiled tension. “You have three days to find Vuyasin and contain him. Kill him yourself, if necessary.”
Despite so many warning alarms going off in my body that it was a miracle I wasn’t vibrating, I straightened and challenged her gaze. “And if I don’t?”
A smile sharpened her red-painted lips. The demons at my back retreated farther towards the walls, more than likely sensing that Yelena was a bomb just waiting to go off.
Contrary to what we all expected, the Queen Bitch let out one of her honeyed laughs with a core of pure poison resting at its center.
“If you don’t, darling Crina, then surely you understand what that means for you. I have no use for an assassin who is unable to control one pitiful demon.” She leaned back in her throne, ever the epitome of regal grace. “Should you fail, your father’s punishment will fall on you.”
We all knew what that was.
Death by demon fire.
I inclined my head with surety and calmness I didn’t feel. As Yelena nodded her dismissal—I wasn’t as suicidal as to piss her off further with yet another premature departure—I shifted into my alternate form and left the shithole that was the Shadow World behind. My anger, however, remained a firm presence vibrating through every damn part of my essence.
Even the freedom of the mortal realm proved to be a weak-ass balm at best as I floated through Ljubljana’s traffic-tinted air.
The afternoon was in full swing, indicating I’d lost more time than I cared for among the shadows. I dropped by Crina’s Cache, but it was too late to open it now. A twinge of regret whipped through me.
I tried to stick to my far-from-regular schedule whenever circumstances made it possible. An hour or two less here and there was a lot better than losing customers by having the doors closed for days at a time. But with it being a Saturday and my working hours only until five, the forty minutes of normalcy within my grasp just wasn’t worth it.
Great.
Yelena’s shenanigans and whims weren’t only threatening my life, but my livelihood, too. I should probably get my priorities in order. Only right now, I was far more pissed at her for taking chunks of time away from the shop and the case than the three-day deadline before she singed the fuck out of me.
I squeezed myself through one of the small, warded cracks at the top right corner of the shop’s front window, then regained corporeal form for the few seconds it took me to retrieve the folder on the amulet. Never a bad idea to go through the facts one more time while I was waiting for Simon to come through with his tech skills.
Once I had the file secured under my armpit, I took to the air again. The Chinese restaurant I passed on my way home engulfed me in the delicious aroma of Mongolian beef and reminded me I hadn’t eaten anything since morning. With the lovely hole gaping in my pants that exposed blistered, although healing, skin, I was in no shape to pop in for a quick meal.
Takeout it was.
The closer I got to my apartment, the more exhaustion crept up on me. When the partially renovated eggshell-colored building came into view at last, I was just about ready to drop facedown on the couch.
For that precise reason, I decided against trudging up the stairs like a regular joe, but floated to my kitchen window instead. The less distance that separated me from my desperately needed dose of Irish coffee, the better. I skirted around the budding widespread branches of the sunburst trees lining the sidewalk and rose higher.
The reinforced wards rippled like water against my particles when I pushed through them, and I managed a rather shaky landing on my feet just between the sink and table. I flung out my free hand to steady myself against the chair while clutching the folder in the other when it hit me.
No one had messed with my wards while I’d been away.
But that didn’t mean no one had waltzed past them.
“Breccan,” I snarled.
His amusement swirled through the air, a fucking tangible thing, as I stomped into the living room to find him sprawled on the couch, haloed by the afternoon light.
Of course he’d chosen my fucking spot.
Whether he heard how my teeth ground together or not, Breccan revealed nothing. Only his gaze briefly fell to my shredded pants before he tapped his lean fingers against the backrest and cocked his head to the side, an elegant, lazy move that was unnerving and hot at the same time.
It only pissed me off that much more.
I’d had more than enough run-ins with royalty for one day.
“Get. The. Fuck. Out.”
My every word was a dagger, but Breccan didn’t seem fazed.
His mismatched eyes locked on me, and he brushed a casual hand down his classic demonic garb. “No.”
That was it.
The last straw.
I vaulted diagonally over the table, taking Breccan—and the couch—to the ground.
We landed with a crash that would surely send my downstairs neighbors pounding at my door. Breccan lifted his arm to block my fist, then bucked, throwing me over him in a vicious arc. My legs slammed against the wall and messed up the trajectory of my fall. My elbow was the first thing to collide with the floor.
Pain ruptured at the impact and reverberated up my arm, but I was already moving, pushing myself onto all fours as the demon lord lunged. For all the regal clothes, the fucker moved easily.
I ducked, then took a stand. My fingers twitched when it struck me that there was something about his appearance I could use to my advantage.
But even as we danced another round, I couldn’t bring myself to snag a fistful of his shimmering, white-blond hair.
Pathetic, that’s what I was.
With a frustrated groan, I tackled him low and hard, aiming for his unprotected midsection. Breccan’s fists rained upon my back as he lost his footing, then stumbled in earnest over the overthrown couch.
The low club table didn’t stand a chance.
I cringed as it split in half right down the middle, but didn’t hesitate to straddle the asshole amidst the debris—only to find him reversing our positions before I could even blink. Strong, unyielding fingers wrapped around my wrists, pinning them to the rubble-filled ground.
Right on cue, the pounding sounded at my door.
Breccan ignored it, his entire attention on me. His hair fell around us like a silken curtain, separating us from the rest of the world, as he brought his face closer to mine. Sunlight filtered through the strands, bathing his classical features in a diffused burnt-orange hue and highlighting the curve of his scar. Even as pissed as I was, I couldn’t deny the demon was fucking gorgeous.
I didn’t know how long we stayed locked like that, though obviously long enough for my neighbors to give up. Only the low hum of traffic continued to twine with our breaths—surprisingly a lot steadier than I expected.
Breccan wasn’t working any magic on me—not that I could sense, at least—and yet the tight ball of frustration and fury that had buzzed inside me was now absent.
Somewhat reluctantly, I admitted my defeat with a nod.
I lay among the pieces of my table as Breccan lifted himself off me. A fitting image, given the turn my life had taken recently.
But before I could descend into useless self-pity, Breccan offered me his hand and hoisted me to my feet.
Mindful of the destruction our fight had left in its wake, I zigzagged to the kitchen with the demon lord trailing on my heels. Gods, this was ridiculous. I shook my head and moved over to the counter
.
A few stray drops of blood clattered onto the dishes, but when I inspected the wound on my arm, it had already knit shut.
I washed away the remaining blood, then filled the electric kettle with water. Breccan didn’t join me.
Then again, I probably hadn’t even bled the fucker.
“Had a shit time with your liege?”
My fingers paused on the kettle’s switch. Had he been spying on me?
Tension crept back into my muscles, though I kept my movements steady as I flicked down the lever, then leaned against the counter, facing him. Yeah, no blood in sight. Just a knowledgeable—sympathetic, even?—light in his mismatched eyes that I didn’t like one bit.
Anyone who kept tabs on me quickly found themselves on my shitlist.
“You don’t have to give me that look, Crina,” Breccan went on. “I don’t need informants to connect the dots.”
“Yeah?” I crossed my arms just as the kettle beside me gave off a whine.
“Yelena has been in a snit for months now.”
He took one of the empty chairs and tossed his luscious hair over a muscular shoulder. I hid my scowl when I realized in which direction my thoughts were headed. Again.
Yes, Breccan was hotter than sin, but he was still a pain in my ass I really didn’t need to occupy myself with on top of the mountain of crap I already had to climb.
“She’s been growing worse each day.” His gaze bore into mine. “And no amount of theatrics can hide it. Not from me.”
I took two clean cups from the wall-mounted cabinet and placed a spoonful of instant coffee into each one. I wasn’t about to give Breccan my good stash. Besides, brewing the quality stuff required effort my worn and impatient state had burned through about five times now.
I looked at him over my shoulder. “So?”
“So,” he said with a half smile that nearly destroyed me, “I figured there isn’t a whole lot of people who could put you in such a violent mood.”
“You might want to think again.” I narrowed my eyes at him, then poured the coffee.
