by Wren Weston
“Do you really mean that?” Tristan asked.
“Maybe, maybe not, but others of my kind think it. I’ve tried to be the voice of reason. Life is so very different these days. We’ve not been a collection of tribes for quite some time, but the prime minister pokes his head into our affairs too often for me to be comfortable, and my sisters are angry and worried. The sleeping empire is waking once more. It grows impatient.”
“You believe war is coming.”
“I know it is,” the oracle said. “We’ll investigate this on our own. We’ll tell the prime minister what we want, when we’re ready to tell it, and say it came from our visions. We have access to truth serum, and the immunity to use it. These men’s lives are forfeit.”
“So you’re asking me to keep my mouth shut?” Lila asked.
“I should think you’d want to. Both of us benefit from this arrangement. Isn’t that what the Randolphs are all about? Mutual benefit?”
Lila said nothing as two delivery trucks backed up to the warehouse. The drivers hopped out and reentered the structure. People streamed from the building, carrying bodies to the trucks. They put the dead in one, and the sleeping in another.
“Tristan, I need a moment alone with your friend. Could you make sure my people have begun cleaning the blood from the warehouse floor?”
Tristan nodded, and the truck rocked again as he stood up. “I’ll load the computers into your car while I’m at it, madam. Lila is good with that sort of thing. You might consider asking for her assistance when you begin your investigation.”
Lila watched him drift away, surprised he’d followed her orders.
Perhaps he’d begun to believe. Perhaps she’d begun to believe a little as well. The oracle had gotten to the warehouse far too quickly. She’d been in the neighborhood. Waiting.
“What would have happened if I hadn’t stopped Tristan? He had a plan.”
“He didn’t have a plan,” the oracle replied. “He had intentions. I told you before, he’s making decisions. He knows what he’ll fight for. He’ll fight against those who would threaten his home, and he’ll fight for those he considers his family. You have other concerns, other priorities. Luckily, yours prevailed today.”
“Only because you warned me.”
“You didn’t need me to warn you about this.”
Lila stared at a clump of dirt, unsure if she believed the oracle.
“You don’t fight, chief. You never do. You don’t attack. You defend. It’s why you refuse your birthright, and why you wouldn’t have agreed with Tristan’s plan even if I hadn’t said a word.” The oracle pursed her lips. “In some of my earliest visions, not all the children made it out. In others, none of them did because you weren’t here. Things would have been far worse if you hadn’t come along and stopped your friend.”
“Worse enough to spark the war?”
“As I said before, it will spark regardless.”
For the first time in an hour, Lila felt something stir in her belly, a feeling that she could not name.
Fear? Worry?
“I’ve had the same vision over and over for some time. We all have, and I fear that all paths will lead to it eventually. It’s only a question of degree. There are some among us who are more hopeful. I am hopeful.” The oracle sighed heavily. “But you don’t care about any of that right now, do you?”
Lila looked down at her hands, both folded in her lap. She followed the stitches that crisscrossed her palms. One stitch leading to another like a little chain.
The oracle picked up the German guns and slid them into her coat pockets.
Lila let her.
She didn’t want to see the instruments of death ever again.
“What would make you feel better, chief? If I said the gods aimed your weapons or that you did it of your own free will?”
“I don’t know.”
“Good, because I don’t know the answer. But let me assure you, the people in those trucks weren’t good people. They were monsters, long before they ever took our daughters, and they would have done worse things than kidnap them if they knew our visions were real. I’ve seen it, over and over. I have no sympathy for any of them.”
Lila poked at her stitches.
“Come see me tomorrow.”
She shook her head.
“Then stay with him tonight,” the oracle said gently.
Lila hopped off the tailgate and strode to the warehouse toward Maria, not sure how to answer, not wanting to answer.
The oracle followed, her boots muddy in the wet grass.
They rested their elbows on the truck bed, watching the dozing Oskar. Maria turned her head briefly, then resumed her watch over her brother.
“If you want to thank us for letting you handle this, then take them with you,” Lila said. “They have nowhere else to go.”
Maria’s head snapped up.
“You won’t give the oracle any trouble, will you? No more stealing weapons and threatening people?”
The oracle stared at Maria’s face, at her hair, and at her slumped shoulders. “You’re Peter Kruger’s daughter, aren’t you?”
Maria bit her lip, refusing to retreat.
She nodded.
A warm touch landed on Lila’s back. “You beat me to it.” Tristan rested his chin upon her uninjured shoulder and wrapped an arm around her waist. Lila didn’t know whether to sink into him for comfort or pull away. “I had planned to ask the oracle the very same thing.”
“Yes, your people told me as much last week. Stop trying to slip a spy in amongst the oracle children. It won’t work. I have too many people amongst yours, and they like me better.”
Tristan stared at the tires.
“So what do you say, Maria?” the oracle asked, tugging Oskar’s blanket higher upon his shoulder. “From what Tristan has told me, you were instrumental in rescuing Rebecca. The old ways are still nurtured among the oracles. Rebecca’s mother and her family are indebted to you for the rest of your life. Have you ever seen pictures of Sioux Falls?”
“No, but one place is as good as another.”
“Ah, that’s not true. Sioux Falls might be cold in the winter, but it’s extremely beautiful and it doesn’t get nearly so hot in the summers. Few places are as nice.”
Maria shrugged.
“Well, in any case, it will be a safe place for you to stay while your brother recovers. You wouldn’t be a prisoner or a slave there, though it would be best for you to stay within the compound walls. You’re old enough and shrewd enough to understand that. If you decide that you don’t like it, I’m sure we could find somewhere else to suit your tastes. An oracle lives in every city in the commonwealth. You’d have your pick of compounds.”
Maria played with her brother’s collar.
“They can keep you far safer than I can,” Tristan said. “Perhaps one day your father can join you there. I’ll get him a message. I’ll let him know that you are safe.”
Maria nodded. “All right, but just for now. Just until my father comes back.”
“For as long as you want,” the oracle said.
Chapter 31
Lila hopped out of the shower. Wet and shivering, she stared at her reflection in a steamed mirror. Purple and green bruises still marred her skin from the fight at LeBeau’s, from Alex’s outburst, from too many tumbles in the gym, and from the fight in the warehouse. They coated her as though she were a rotten piece of fruit, dropped and bumped and stepped upon.
Her insides were just as bruised. She’d become a killer, and no one knew.
No one but Tristan and a few of his people. She thought of going to see him at the shop, but she’d worked so hard to get away after they returned from the warehouse.
Besides, she didn’t have the energy to figure things out. She needed time to think.
Or pe
rhaps time to sleep.
Turning away from the mirror, she dressed in a militia t-shirt and workout pants. She then transferred one hundred thousand credits into her blackmailer’s account and slipped under the sheets.
Her head had barely touched the pillow before Isabel knocked upon her door. “Your father and Chief Shaw are downstairs,” she said, peeking inside. “I’m sorry, madam, but they insisted.”
Lila didn’t even bother changing clothes; she merely slipped on her boots and her blackcoat and trudged downstairs. She’d worn worse when training, and she was too tired and too irate to care how she looked.
Lemaire and Chief Shaw stood as she shuffled into the parlor. She flopped into a sofa chair next to the white couch they sat upon, her damp hair wet against her arm as she tiredly propped up her head. “I’m on vacation,” she said, imbuing the last word with a growl, adding more force than necessary. “A vacation you’re interrupting. I’d almost managed to fall asleep.”
Shaw shifted in his chair. “Rebecca has been returned.”
“Good work.”
Her father drummed his fingers upon his knee. “You already knew about Rebecca, just as I thought. I suppose you also know about the other two girls taken in New Bristol?”
Lila raised an eyebrow.
A lying eyebrow, and her father knew it.
“Damn it, Lila, this is an official investigation. When were you going to inform Chief Shaw and Chief Vance that you’d found a break in the case?”
Lila looked at her father and Shaw for quite a long while, then sat up with a great deal of effort. “You were right about one thing this morning, Father. I’m tired. I’m tired of this. I’m tired of bending over backwards trying to help you, only to have you go behind my back and negotiate with members of my own militia as though I’m a child.”
She glanced at Shaw. “I’m tired of both of you, expecting me to be at your beck and call, then meeting me with suspicion anytime I answer. For gods’ sake, do you think I enjoy your inquiries every time something’s been hacked? Do you think I enjoy having to defend the people I’ve chosen to help us? Do you think I enjoy anything about these little chats?”
The two men eyed one another and said nothing.
“I’m done. I’m done with both of you for a while. You were missing children. The children have been returned. Case solved. Good night.”
Shaw turned his gaze back and forth between them. After a quick study of their faces, he stood and straightened his coat. “I think I’ll take a walk among the maples. The trees are lovely here in the autumn.”
Lila watched him go, all too happy to see the back of him.
Her father leaned back into the couch. “You’re angry because I talked to Commander Sutton and took you off the oracle case.”
“Oh please, like you could take me off anything.”
“Lila, where were the girls?”
“They aren’t your concern any longer. Neither am I for the next two weeks.”
The pendulum swung back to mistrust. Her father peered at her as if trying to read her, trying to figure out if she’d become such a skilled liar that he couldn’t tell anymore or if he’d become so paranoid that he couldn’t even trust his own daughter.
Lila didn’t know which one she wanted him to pick.
One thing was certain. He no longer trusted his own judgment about her.
“Elizabeth, where were the girls?” he asked again, threading his fingers in his lap.
“I told you they’re safe. Don’t ask for more.”
“You’re playing in an official investigation. If you’ve—”
“An official investigation!” she whispered. “You don’t hire me for anything official. The oracles aren’t your playthings, Father. Don’t prod where you don’t belong.”
He recoiled at the remark, his own daughter biting back. Lila realized she’d stepped over a line. She might have disagreed with his choices occasionally, but she’d never told him no. She’d always supported him, always agreed to help him, always caved to his every whim.
She felt lonely sitting before him now. Like she’d lost something.
He seemed to as well. As though he’d shot himself with his own gun.
“They’re hiding their own children,” he reasoned. “It’s the only reason why you’d tell me to back off. Why? Why are you helping them?”
“I cleaned up your mistake with Rebecca. She’s been found and returned to her parents, and the other two girls are safe. There were never any kidnappers, just clever girls who didn’t want their futures. Surely you have some sympathy.”
“It’s not the same as with you.”
“Why not?”
“It just isn’t.”
“I never realized you were such a believer.”
He looked away.
“Leave it alone, Father. You’ve swiped at the oracles for long enough. Find some other way to make a legacy or learn to be content with the one you have.”
With that, Lila stood and trudged back upstairs. She opened the door just in time to catch her palm as its vibrations sent it skittering over the edge of her bedside table.
Snatching it up, she tapped the screen. Thanks, her blackmailer had written, including an attachment. After scanning it with her snoop programs, she opened the file. A news story with a very familiar heading appeared on her palm.
The same heading she’d read a week before on Reaper’s server.
Her eyes wandered to the top of the message. She drew in such a sharp breath that she nearly dropped the device.
The asshole had sent it to her mother.
She felt like a whore who’d been forced into an act she hadn’t agreed to and then been kicked downstairs in lieu of payment.
Her head snapped up, and she looked toward her mother’s room. They might have been transported to Max’s home, for she could almost see through the walls and watch her mother opening her palm, reading the article, wondering if it was true.
Knowing it was.
It would only be a matter of minutes before she’d summon Lila to explain herself, before she’d kick her out of the militia, out of the family, off the estate. Perhaps the chairwoman might even turn her in to Chief Shaw if she was angry enough, if he still wandered around the maples.
Perhaps she’d even call for the family’s blood squad.
The thought of her mother being angry at such a little thing she’d done weeks ago seemed funny in comparison to what had happened that afternoon.
She’d killed people.
She was a killer, a murderer.
A little parade of regrets marched through her consciousness. Regrets that she’d been too busy planning Oskar’s escape from LeBeau’s to search for her blackmailer. That she’d wasted too many hours in Tristan’s arms when she had other matters in need of her attention. That she hadn’t gone to Max’s house, just for an hour or two, to track her blackmailer down.
Regrets that she’d slept instead of working.
Regrets that she’d paid.
All her regrets slipped through her mind, one by one by one, her chest tightening until she could barely breathe. It was like a little death, and she had no more time to spare, not when she’d reached the point where they crashed into consequence.
Footsteps echoed down the hallway.
Her doorknob turned.
Keep reading for a preview of the next book in the series: Barren Vows!
Chapter 1
Lila hoped it would be one of those mornings.
She yawned under the covers in the dim room, lit by a neon-blue Vacancy sign several buildings over. The chill of mid-November coursed over her bare shoulders. The whirl of the space heater hung in the air, far too loud for the meager heat it offered. Glints of steel twinkled around her like stars, the light reflecting off a dozen knives, a tranq gun, and a mace pegged to
the wall. A string of bottle caps hung silently in the window.
She turned to her companion and snuggled deeper in his arms.
“Stay,” Tristan mumbled sleepily, his grip tightening around her. His brown eyes opened, and his long eyelashes fluttered against her cheek, tickling her skin.
“I am. I have no intention of getting out bed. Ever.”
“Oh, really?” Tristan offered a deep, satisfied mmm and rolled atop her, his purring growl transferring from his chest to hers. Soft fingers brushed a few stray brown locks from her face while his arm snaked under her back. Closing his eyes, he dipped his head. His mouth worked at hers, lazily sucking upon her lips as his hand drifted southward.
She tasted whiskey.
He probably tasted her wine.
She breathed in the scent of his shampoo and thumbed his cheek, exploring his mouth. Stubble brushed her palm, a palm broken by pink, healing scars.
Velvet tongues tangled.
Tristan broke away first.
He moved to her neck and nibbled the spot that made her jump and giggle, chuckling when she did. “I claim this spot for Tristonia.”
“Last night, it was Tristopolis.”
“It was?” he asked, pulling away. “Damn the natives. They’re too fickle.”
He tugged her closer, grasping her thigh firmly, sparking an ache and an itch for more. “I like another spot, too. I like it so much that I’ll have to visit it again.”
The bed shook under his shifting weight. Feather kisses brushed her skin, their trail snaking lower and lower across her belly.
Oh, thank the gods!
It would be one of those mornings.
She needed it after the dream she’d just had. She needed his arms, his promises, his closeness.
She needed to forget.
