by C. S. Wilde
“Elaborate.”
He didn’t. Instead, his silver wings blinked out of thin air, spreading mightily behind him. Giving Mera his hand, he huffed. “Are you coming or not?”
“Winnowing would be more practical,” she pointed out, just to spite him.
Bast rolled his eyes, an impatient sound roaring inside his chest. “Not every Sidhe can winnow, as you well know.”
“Why?”
“You must have a clear goal, and the resilience to get there no matter the cost,” he explained, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “Which means that to winnow for the first time, one has to be desperate.”
“And you’ve never been desperate?”
“I have, but winnowing also consumes a lot of our energy. The rare number of faeries who can do it, can’t winnow more than once or twice in a row. Besides, isn’t flying more fun?” He motioned for her to come closer. “Off we go. No time to waste.”
A happy sensation swirled in her chest.
Bast had a point: flying was amazing. Mera had been yearning to do it again for a while, and she wouldn’t refuse the chance. Stepping closer, she let Bast take her into his arms. He easily lifted her, as if Mera was made of paper.
Holding onto the nape of his neck, she took in the musky scent near the back of his jaw. Desire pooled in her belly, but she quickly snapped out of it. “Let’s roll, partner.”
Bast shot her a mischievous grin before they jolted to the sky.
“Wohoo!” Mera shouted as they went, the wind whipping around her face and making her hair swirl in a thousand different directions.
The drop in her stomach only intensified when Bast looped in the sky, over and over again. A rollercoaster had nothing on this.
So much fun!
On and on they went until he stabilized, moving in a straight line, and giving Mera a moment to catch her breath.
Leaning slightly away, Bast watched her with warm blue eyes, his fingers digging on her skin, keeping her close.
So very close.
“It reminds you of the currents, doesn’t it?” he asked.
She nodded eagerly, not able to hide the giddy smile that cut across her lips. Yet her jealous, petty siren kept poking at the back of Mera’s mind, unwilling to stop until she got a clear answer about Karthana.
“So,” she began carefully. “Your ex is promised to your brother, Corvus. It’s normal to be angry, Bast. You obviously still love her.”
He stared ahead, the loose threads of his bun swinging wildly across his face.
“I do love her,” he finally agreed.
Being impaled by a spear had to feel better than this. Mera swallowed dry, her throat prickling as if walled by nails, but she tried to keep a comforting attitude. “You should tell her how you feel.”
“As I said before, I care about Karthana, just not in the way you’re thinking.” He clicked his tongue in annoyance. “Do you ever listen, akritana?”
“Explain it to me, then.”
“Look, Karthana loved me before I loved her, and even then, I didn’t love her enough. It wasn’t fair, kitten.” He winced as if he’d tasted something bitter. “I hurt her when I left; all I ever did was hurt her, and still, she forgave me. She’s the kindest, most understanding faerie in this world. It’s simply who she is. Karthana can’t help her own nature.”
“That’s really nice,” Mera admitted, knowing that was also why she couldn’t hate Raes’ daughter.
Because Karthana was so damn nice.
“It is,” he agreed. “But she’s with Corvus now, and that scares me. My brother is no good to anyone, especially a sweet fae like her.” He cocked his head to the side. “So yeah, I love her for giving me her body and soul, for loving me when I couldn’t return the feeling, but I could never be with someone as gentle as Karthy. And honestly? Neither could Corvus.”
Funny. Earlier, Raes had told Mera the exact same thing.
“I hear you, but before we bring hell to your brother, how about we prove your father was murdered?” she offered. “Since Raes’ assassins won’t bother us anymore, we can focus on the case.”
“I agree. My family has kept me distracted long enough.” The sky reflected in Bast’s irises, intensifying their blue. “So far, we only have my mother and Master Raes’ assumptions. We need proof, or our case is bust.”
“Hey, your father kept tight records of everything he did, right?”
“He had to. It was part of the agreement with Hollowcliff. Actually, it was one of my forefathers’ ideas during the unification. It showed transparency toward the continent. It’s also one of the reasons why we have so much power in Lunor Insul.”
Transparency built trust.
Not a bad strategy at all.
“If we find out what your father did during his last weeks, we might find out how he was killed.”
Bast nodded. “Poison. Master Raes believes the killer used blue ivy. It fakes cardiac arrest, and it’s untraceable once ingested. It takes time to work, though, usually one or two days, and it has a strong and bitter taste. I can’t imagine how—”
“Something sweet,” Mera blurted, the idea coming to her quicker than a breath. “It would have masked the taste. We need to find out what your father ate two days before he died. Especially the desserts.”
“Would you look at that. Charles Grey was right.” Bast’s eyes shone with something wild and untamed. “We will be seeing him around.”
Bast didn’t bother to knock.
When he spread his hand on the wooden door, a cloud of darkness that resembled the night sky unfurled on the surface. Once it retreated, it left a big hole in its place.
Just like that, his magic ate a chunk of the door.
“Your night consumes stuff,” Mera noted, analyzing the round gap the size of a grown man. “Where does it go to?”
“Beats me.”
“Can your brothers do the same?”
“They wish.” He chortled. “Their magic looks similar to mine, but it isn’t the same.”
She waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t. Mera wanted to prod further, and yet, she knew Bast. Pushing for an answer would get her nowhere.
He flicked the door open⸺what was left of it⸺and the hinges creaked shyly. As they went inside, the young assassin’s words rang in her mind.
“This is his gift. To consume, corrode, and destroy. He is death.”
Yeah, but he was also her partner.
Fresh air ventured through as they walked in, but Charles Grey’s home still smelled stuffy, reeking of rotting blood and sweat. Pulled down curtains engulfed the place in an eerie dusk, which battled against the light that came from the opening behind them.
Poseidon in the trenches, the entire place was a mess.
Stacks of papers lay thrown around everywhere—the floor, the table, the sofa, and even near the kitchen sink. A crowd of glasses and cutlery lay strewn atop the dining room table. On the kitchen countertop, too.
If Charles Grey was the government’s overseeing eye in Lunor Insul, then he must have gone freaking blind.
A groan came from the far left, behind a wall, where two forms reclined over a big futon, their limbs intertwined.
Bast and Mera approached to find the diplomat lying beside a dark-skinned male Sidhe with white hair, and green freckles glowing dimly on his skin.
Bast kicked Charles’ shin, not harshly but not gently, either.
“Piss off,” the vampire grumbled, burying his head in the nape of his partner’s neck.
“Faerie blood can be addictive to vamps, and Charles has developed a particular taste for nightlings,” Bast explained to her quietly. “Lucky us, there aren’t many night fae back in the mainland, so my court basically controls his supply.”
Mera nodded. “Control the supply, control the addict.”
He tapped the side of his nose knowingly. “Charles has been in service for decades, but he never gave us a headache, even when the Night King’s decisions went against Tagradia
n law. Such as ordering Stella killed.”
“You’re wrong,” Charles slurred from the futon. “Diplomacy is about concessions. Finding a middle ground. So, thank you kindly, but I do my job just fine.” Rubbing his eyes, the vamp begrudgingly sat up. “What do you want, Sebastian?”
“My father’s registry from the week before he died, please. Also, a record of everything that was delivered to his room, and all daily menus prepared for him.”
Yawning, the vamp pointed to a cupboard on the living room. “Third drawer on the left. Now, let me be.” Dropping back on the futon, he curled up with the half-naked faerie.
Bast and Mera shrugged before going to the cupboard. Opening the drawer, her partner snatched three black notebooks as thick as bricks.
“Why don’t Sidhe embrace technology?” she asked. “Even lower faeries, who could benefit a lot from it, keep being skeptical. I’m not saying you all should join social media and have phones, but using the basics would be nice.”
“I’ve heard of high-fae becoming ‘influencers’ on your networks,” he argued as he dropped the notebooks atop the kitchen’s countertop.
True.
Bella Vina, a Spring Court Sidhe who resembled a living doll, earned crazy money for posting pictures on her Gartram profile.
Daring faeries like her, however, were the exception.
“Back in Tir Na Nog, we use laptops to file reports in the Tagradian mainframe,” Bast added as he skimmed through the first notebook. “See? Not all is lost. Oh!” He snapped his fingers. “Sewage systems! We invented those, didn’t we?”
Damn, he was right again.
Alfons Theodon, a banshee who worked as a city planner in Clifftown centuries ago, had patented his idea to the human borough for one dollar, as a thank you for welcoming him after being banished from Tir Na Nog—for stealing a locket from a rich Sidhe so he could feed his family.
“Those aren’t the basics; they’re downright necessities.” Mera nodded to the notebooks. “Case in point, an electronic register would be soooo much easier to check.”
“Give us time.” Giving her a wink, he kept leafing through the pages.
For practically immortal creatures, faeries had plenty of time, though many humans used potions to prolong their lives nowadays. Ruth herself was two hundred going on fifty.
Mera suspected Professor Currenter had done this on a much bigger scale, since he was the only waterbreaker alive who’d witnessed the great war. Not even faeries lived for that long. Some said he was cursed with living forever; others, that it went a lot deeper than what the living could understand.
Snatching the second notebook, she brought it closer to the destroyed door⸻the only source of light in that hellhole⸻and scanned through it. After a long while, Mera found the records she’d been searching.
“Your father had no dessert the week before his death, and he always ate at the palace. He was more of a wine and cheese guy.” She snapped the notebook shut. “Great. Just… great.”
“Hmm.” Bast raised his book toward the sunlight so he could have a better look. “Father received a box of chocolates from ‘an old friend’ on the thirteenth. He died on the fifteenth.” He grinned to himself, which was odd considering this was about his father’s murder. “It matches with how blue ivy works.”
For the first time since they’d stepped on this island, Mera felt they were moving forward. “Bingo, partner.”
“Did you bring the forensic kit your captain gave us?”
Oh, boy. This would not end well.
That vital diplomacy Charles raved about might come in handy very soon. “Are we doing what I think we’re doing?” she asked.
Closing the notebook, he headed for the door. “Absolutely.”
Chapter 7
Somewhere in the past…
* * *
Keeping his back slammed against the building’s brick façade, Bast balanced on the ledge. He glanced down at the steep fall beneath his feet, but for someone with wings, heights weren’t exactly a problem.
Contrary to Tir Na Nog and Lunor Insul, shifter and human boroughs were concrete jungles.
Literally.
Their buildings resembled never-ending stone trees without crowns. Bast wasn’t a fan of those high constructions that reached for the sky, but he couldn’t change them, so why bother?
Right next to him, the window to his target’s apartment reflected the full moon on the dark sky.
Halle, Bast hated when his target was a shifter, specially a wolfman—and not only because his sister was half-wolf. With their keen sense of hearing and smell, they could sense him coming from a mile away. It was why he could never surprise Stella, which annoyed him immensely.
As an assassin for the League, Bast had been everywhere in the continent, and Lycannie, the shifter’s borough, was no exception.
For the past three days, he had used an amulet to mask his appearance while planning his target’s death—a detective, and a damn good one, apparently. Not that it mattered, in the end.
Bast was the executioner, not the judge.
He had studied the wolf’s habits, his favorite places and foods. Funny how Bast had gotten to know every borough in Hollowcliff while planning someone’s demise. And yet, that was his favorite part of working for the League—meeting Hollowcliff’s different citizens, eating their foods, hearing their music. A cultural melting pot, this land never ceased to amaze him. Enjoying what it had to offer made the unpleasant part of his job easier somehow.
Chilly wind blasted against him, and Bast cursed under his breath. He should’ve taken his sleeved fighting leathers, but his naked biceps turned Karthana into a horny beast, and he planned on meeting her after he was done here.
That should teach him to stop thinking with his dick.
From inside the apartment, a lock clicked, announcing the door had opened. Shouting and rumbling followed.
Maybe, just maybe…
“Hide, Michael!” a male suddenly yelled.
The wolf had caught his scent.
Shocker.
Bast threw himself against the window, cracking the glass into a million shards as he rolled into the place. Quickly jumping to his feet, he unsheathed his sword and pointed it at the wolfman who didn’t resemble a wolf at all. Yet.
“I’ll let you shift, Bruce,” Bast offered.
It was the honorable thing to do. He’d followed the wolf earlier that night, and watched when his boss took his gun and badge. Yes, his target was unarmed, but luckily for him, Bast hated unfair fights.
“I can take you with these,” the detective raised his fists, “pixie.”
With a chuckle, Bast shook his head. “You have to up your cursing game, mate.”
Bruce winced as if he’d been branded by a hot iron. “Witches say ‘mate’. In Lycannie we say ‘pal’.”
“Ah, thanks for that, pal.” Hesitating for a moment, Bast frowned. “What do humans say?”
“Beats me. I guess something silly, like ‘dude’ or ‘man’.”
Bast raised his shoulders but kept his blade aimed at the wolf. “Maybe let’s stick with Bruce for today, what do you say?”
“I’d rather not. You don’t know me.”
“But I do, Bruce. Detective extraordinaire, wolfman of justice.” Bast strolled forward, observing his tacky beige suit and green tie. “By the way, you have terrible taste in fashion. Been meaning to tell you that for a while.”
Bruce raised his brow. “Coming from the asshole dressed like a gothic condom, that’s a compliment.”
Bast couldn’t hold the busty laugh that escaped his lips.
“Oh, you’re funny, Bruce, and you’ve got balls. That’s why you’re in trouble in the first place, isn’t it?”
“Life’s about what we do before death comes calling.” He dropped his fists. “You are with the League, so there’s no point in fighting you. I’m tired, pixie. Real fucking tired of fighting the system and getting nowhere.”
The ‘s
ystem’ had broken Bruce, that much was clear.
He’d lost his gun and badge today, and now he would lose his life. Yet neither of those things were why Bruce made this easy for Bast.
The wolf wanted him to get the job done and leave for a very specific reason. A reason that broke Bast’s usually freezing cold heart.
“Come on,” Bast pushed, jumping from one foot to the other. “I skipped the gym today. I need the exercise.”
The wolfman raised one dark, bushy eyebrow at him. With his caramel skin and onyx hair, he reminded Bast of Idillia a bit too much.
His chest ached at the memory of Stella’s mom. It had been twenty years, and the wound still hadn’t healed. Bast doubted it ever would.
“Is being snarky how you cope with what you do?” Bruce asked flat-out. “Is that your defense mechanism?”
Spinning his sword in circles, Bast shrugged. “Whatever gets the job done, right?”
“The leopard shifter who hired you is a cancer to Hollowcliff. A commissioner who murdered and stole from good people.” Bruce’s lips pursed in a bitter way. “You shouldn’t be doing his bidding.”
“I’m not. I stand with no one but the bounty. Those are the rules.”
“It doesn’t matter. If you do his dirty work, you’re with him, pal.”
Bast couldn’t say why being called that stung. Pal.
Friend.
“Tagrad is a mighty nation, and Hollowcliff is its heart,” Bruce continued. “A nightling of your skills should fight for it, not against it.”
The words pierced Bast’s flesh and bone, clinging to his chest like tar.
Fight for Hollowcliff.
“If I don’t seal the bounty, I’ll pay the price with my life.” Bast’s tone rang awfully similar to an apology. Spinning in a circle, he ran his free hand through his hair. “Okay, look. The people who ordered your bounty asked that you suffer, but I can make you sleep before doing the deed. You won’t feel a thing.” Lifting his hand, tentacles of night bloomed from his palm.
Bruce’s fists closed, but instead of fighting, he swallowed and nodded. “Will you get rid of my body?”
