by Bec McMaster
Play your games beneath Tytherion's nose. Blaisé took a deep breath. This was her only chance to save her life - and those of others.
Tall, dark and deadly glared at her. He smelled of Earth magic, of musk and blood and iron. No doubt the Darkkind creature knew how to use all of those bulging muscles too. Mother Night, what was he? The stink of him... Vaguely animalistic. "You need an appointment."
"Then can I make an appointment please?" She ground her teeth together in a polite smile.
"Do I look like a secretary?"
That did it. Blaisé stepped closer, meeting his gaze. She let the dragon inside her rise, a glimpse of it flashing through her eyes as it yawned and unfurled itself within her. Her skin felt tight, the creature inside stretching, pushing at the boundaries she imposed. "No. You look like a meal," she said, and the part that said it was all predator.
He smiled. "That's cute." The arms uncrossed and the smile died. "You think I don't know how to deal with the so-called top-of-the-food chain?"
"I think that I'm desperate," she retorted. "And I said please."
A flash of red gleamed in the pupils of his dark eyes. "And I think that you're arrogant. Go back to the dance floor, princess. Fade's got more important business to handle." His gaze slid over her with a lingering caress. "Besides, you're not to his taste."
She was handling this badly. The dragon inside her pushed, her skin feeling like it rippled at the edges. Too on edge to deal with political bullshit. Blaisé clenched her eyes shut. "Fade is an exile from the draconian clans with little interest in their business. But even he doesn't wish for a draconian clan war on his doorstep, and if you don't let me inside, then you will be responsible for part of the bloodshed that is to come."
There. Blaisé let out her breath, and opened her eyes. "Please."
The man's nostrils flared, and the musky scent filled her nostrils. Definitely one of the Darkkind creature's that dabbled with the Earthen Elements. She herself was a mix of Fire and Air; a dangerous, combustible mix. Few Darkkind creatures were granted dual Elements to control. Only the Thunderbirds rivalled the draconian in this, which made them mortal enemies.
The door behind him jerked open, a rectangle of light highlighting a solid figure. Fade. He was massive. Raven dark hair spilled over his collar, and the shock of his blue eyes meeting hers was enough to still both the guard and her. The look there said predator, and he examined her as though weighing up the costs of tangling with her, versus the temptation of eating her. A dangerous, sleekly muscled terror, disguised in a three-piece gray Armani suit, with gleaming silver cufflinks.
The strobe lights lit aspects of his sharp face, from the hard line of his jaw to the dark slash of his brows. The only hint of softness were a pair of lips that smouldered on the edge of indecency. But she'd be a fool if she thought that hint indicated some sense of mercy within him. This man stood accused of murdering her mother; the cause of his exile. The only reason he was still alive was because the old Loremaster had demanded more proof.
There had been none to find.
"I need to speak to you," she said boldly. "My name is--"
"I know who you are." That gaze was glacial as it raked the dance floor. It caught, and held on something, but she didn't dare look over her shoulder. "You're a fool, to be seen here with me."
"I'm a desperate fool," she blurted. She wouldn't be here otherwise.
Finally he looked at her, the weight of that gaze licking along the edges of her skin. Then he jerked his head at the bodyguard. "Guard the door, Brutus. Don't let anyone else in."
Blaisé staggered after him, into a plush office that looked as though it belonged at Trump Towers, and the door slammed shut behind her, the music cutting off abruptly. All that remained of it was the throbbing thump through the floors.
Fade poured her a glass of something. The air in here felt like it was one second away from a thunderclap, and she stared at the broad planes of his back.
He turned, offering her the glass. Not even a hint of expression on his face as he took up his own glass, and slunk into his chair with exquisite grace.
"You walk in here, you tell me you're desperate... Hardly a great way to start a negotiations, my dear." He tsked. "Just for future reference. Let me guess, you think I'll help you out of the goodness of my heart? Because a part of me suffers the same over-protectiveness the rest of my gender do?"
Blaisé sipped the drink - shit, it burned all the way down - and dragged out her own chair. Some of his words were correct. She wasn't thinking straight, especially when she needed to. It was the damned dragon inside, the press of the Quickening. Her head was a mess of hormones, violent desires, and the pounding, driving crave for sex. She was holding onto the leash so damned tightly it was all she could do to walk and talk at the moment.
"I don't think you have a heart," she said bluntly.
Fade gave her a raw smile, as if he approved, but she wasn't finished.
"But I also don't think you killed my mother."
That made him freeze. Sitting there, with the glass to his lips, his eyes locking on hers with frightful intensity over the rim of the glass. "Oh?”
Blaisé drained the vodka, then set the glass down. It should have made her eyes water, but there was too much dragon inside her tonight. Vodka was merely fuel for the creature's fiery breath. "They say you were her lover, but I don't think she was. She never looked at you the way she looked at my father. I remember that, even though, as her bodyguard, you had the means to see her in private if you willed it."
Interest died in his hard-eyed gaze. Disappointed in her. He drained his glass. "You were five when she died. What would a child know? And as interesting as this is–"
"That's not what convinces me of your innocence," she hurried on.
"Then what does?"
"You," she said bluntly. "The very fact that you're alive."
"Trapped here at the club," he said, gesturing around him. "Unable to fly. Unable to shift form - or not allowed perhaps. But alive. Some would say that's punishment enough."
"Not for killing her. If my father truly thought you the murderer, he would have made you suffer. I know what the dungeon of the Chateau looks like. And then, after he'd glutted himself on your blood, he would have killed you." Tytherion didn't understand the meaning of mercy. Nor would he have allowed such a challenge to his rule to live. "He would have cut the wings from your back, not just forced you here. I know some whisper that there wasn't enough proof - but I know my father. If he truly believed your hand held that knife, then he wouldn't have worried about law or proof, or a guilty verdict." Blaisé took a deep breath. "Which makes me wonder what he's hiding - just how much he knows about the death. For if you didn't kill her, if father knows that... then he was remarkably content to sit back, and let you bear the brunt of that burden. He never hunted for any other suspects. He simply sat back, grieved in public, and then–" This was the most damning bit of all. "Then, he stepped up onto my mother's throne."
Silence.
"Aren't you a clever little thing." Fade rested his jaw on his hand, danger sparking in his cattish gaze. His voice was suddenly as blunt and cold as the blade of a knife. "If you ever repeat a word of what you've just told me... you'll be dead by the next morning."
"I'm already next," she said bravely, knowing that she'd won him to her side. There has a hard lump in her throat. He hadn't denied it. Which meant everything she'd started piecing together over the last few years could be true.
It's not true. It can't be true, cried the small, desperate little girl inside her. The same little girl who remembered her father tucking her into bed at night, and reading fairy tales to her.
You know it's true, said the cynic. The new Blaise. The one who had watched as her father tore apart every threat he'd encountered over the years.
It was one thing to suspect. Quite another to see the truth of it in someone else's eyes.
Her own father. Had he held the knife himself? Or ordered
one of the members of his Claw to do it?
Would he hold the knife when he came for her? Of course not. That was far too dangerous - two females dying in the same way. He'd have other plans to neutralise her. An accident, no doubt.
"There's more." She tugged a piece of paper out of her bra, and slid it across the table toward him.
Her heart thundered in her ears as he picked it up, glacial eyes scanning the words there, his expression tightening with each letter. Then he looked up. "You know what this says."
"Every word of it."
* * *
'Fade never killed your mother. If you want to find the culprit, look closer to home. But be warned: the moment you Quicken, you're in danger. You need to get out now. Go to Fade. He will help you.'
* * *
"I found it under my pillow two days ago." Time to pull herself together. Blaisé met his gaze. "It doesn't say 'you can.' It says 'you will help me'."
Fade held the slip of paper up, and power shivered over his skin. Fire licked at the edges of the paper, turning the words to ash, and he held it until the flames licked at his own fingers. His emotions were locked so tight, she had no idea what was going on behind that devastatingly handsome face. "So you came here, to see if this was true."
"I came here, because I have nowhere else to go." A painful truth. Who else could she trust in the clan? Who else was powerful enough to dare go against her father? "I don't know who sent this. It has to be one of the older males in the Clan, who was there when... when mom was murdered. But they're all dangerously loyal to my father. Or I thought they were. Some of the younger males are too. I don't know who my allies are - or who I can trust. And... father wouldn't have dared hold that knife himself. So someone else in the clan killed my mother. Someone, whose identity I don't know."
"Bane?" Fade named her father's First Claw.
Blaisé shook her head. "I've been doing some reading over the case notes. All four members of his Claw had watertight alibis. Father couldn't afford to have any potential suspect linked back to him if things went wrong. And Bane's a lethal, brutal warrior, but he's not the one you send when you want things taken care of quietly, and without any traces."
"You've thought this through."
"You must have," she challenged. "Over the years. You must have wondered."
A derisive flick of his brow. "Of course I did. But I don't have access to the case files." He was staring at the ashes on the table. "Who knew you were coming here tonight?"
"Only Serena and Ambyr," she replied, naming her draconian friend - and the female bodyguard who trailed her everywhere. "I didn't tell them why. Nobody knows about that message. Why?"
Those unearthly blue eyes lifted to hers. "What if your father sent it?"
Fuck. Blaisé froze.
"And here you are, running straight to me, proving the theory that you suspect him," he said.
"It could have been anyone."
"Yes."
But it also could have been her father. Tytherion played games within games. If he wanted to test her loyalties, then this was exactly the sort of thing he might do. Oh gods... Her stomach gave a twist, all of the blood rushing out of her face.
Fade moved before she saw him coming, one hand curling protectively around the back of her neck as he pushed her head between her knees. "Breathe," he told her. "It's a theory, that is all. If it's true... then you have to learn the game, and very, very quickly."
"I can't think," Blaisé admitted, with a groan. The dragon twisted inside her, baring its teeth. It didn't like the doubt, the fear. A dragon wasn't meant to be caged. It simply wanted to fight. "Or, I'm not thinking as clearly as I should be. I should have seen this."
"If you went to him with the letter, proving your loyalty, then it would have sparked a manhunt either way. If your father knew nothing of the letter, he'd have some poor bastard rounded up for writing it. An easy way to remove an enemy, or a threat, and to make any sympathisers wary. If he sent it himself, then he would still have his manhunt."
"And either way he'd know the seeds of doubt were planted in my mind." Blaise lifted her head, taking a steady breath. This was what she needed. She forced the dragon down, locked it up with iron bars. Her father knew she was Quickening - what better time to attack her ?
Standing up, he moved with dangerous grace around the desk. Stalking her.
Blaisé's heart hammered, but she'd grown up around males like this. The draconian were ruthless and deadly - and would protect a female with their lives, by instinct.
He leaned closer, resting his knuckles on the desk on either side of her hips. The blatant threat of his sensuality was dangerously tempting. No other male dared get this close to her, not with her father watching. Only Xavian had dared. Once.
That blew all of the wretched heat out of her body.
Why in all the hells would that bastard spring to mind right now?
She put a hand against Fade's chest, the heat of his body blazing beneath her touch. "It's the Quickening," she admitted, swallowing a little as her gaze dropped to that wicked mouth. He can't help it. It's you. The pheromones you're emitting.
"You're going into heat," he whispered, "I can scent it."
Focus, buddy. "It's more than that. Think of it like PMS - of the murderous kind." The dragon inside her was going crazy, pushing at its boundaries, and threatening to take over. All she wanted was sex at the moment. Sex and violence. A dangerous combination.
He actually smiled, and it even touched his eyes. "In that case, maybe I can help?" he breathed, tracing fingers across the small of her back, through the sweat-dampened silk of her strappy white tank.
Blaisé almost laughed. Of course he could. The draconian males were all the same. Let me take a bit of the edge off, sweetheart. You know it will feel better...
Fuck that. She was in control of her own body. If she took a mate - if she Quickened - then it would be on her own terms. And she certainly wasn't rushing into it, despite the tempting flux of power. Once she Quickened, she'd be a force to be reckoned with, the very threat that her father foresaw. The draconian were a matriarchal race, and the Storm Shadow Clan had been without a Queen for too long. Even those males loyal to her father were starting to get snappy around her. It was only natural instinct that dictated their desire for a queen; instinct that made them so unbearably protective.
The problem was, Blaisé didn't want power. She didn't want to be a draconian clan Queen. She didn't want to push her father off his throne. She just wanted to be safe.
"I've got a better idea," she said, turning so that he was no longer at her back. The dragon stretched out its claws inside her in warning. It wanted a mate, and Fade was powerful, dangerous and infinitely tempting. Fighting her own instinct to let the Quickening overtake her, was almost as exhausting as being on her guard every second she was in her father's home. A tremble started in her clenched fists, but she forced herself to stand strong. "Get me out of New York. Once I'm out, I'm not a threat. Storm Shadow - and my father - can breathe a sigh of relief. Nobody dies, including me. It's a win-win situation."
"What's in it for me?"
Typical. "You're the only draconian male in New York unbound to my father, or the clan, but war is still risky. You think it won't hit Exile?"
"Exile's out of bounds," he replied. "Your father's word on it."
"Yeah, right. How much of my father's word will hold up when every male draconian in the city realises I'm on heat? And then, once I mate? It's going to shift the loyalty of the males in the clan. Some will side with my father, some with me. They won't be able to help themselves. A Quickened female is always Queen. You think he'll sit back, and let me step up onto the throne - whether I want it or not?"
Fade leaned his hip against the desk, arms crossed. His eyes were hooded.
"Let's be honest," she said. "I'm more trouble than I'm worth, right now, and if you set one foot out of this place, you're dead. That takes you out of the running as my mate. You don't get
anything out of seducing me–"
His lips curled up in a very dangerous smile. "I like how naive you are. What makes you think I wouldn't enjoy every single second of seducing you?"
"You're a businessman."
He stepped forward, caging her with the brutal, overwhelming crush of his body. The suit only hid the coiled power inside him. Blaisé let one of her claws spring free, and pressed it against his chest in a warning.
"You don't know me at all, darlin'." His whisper was rough and raw. It tightened everything inside her. "So don't go making assumptions about what I am - and what I might want with you." His gaze dropped, like a smooth caress between her breasts. Something shadowed his eyes for a second - a longing so deep, it seemed an ocean within him. "All that fire," he whispered, tracing a finger against her shoulder. "Burning up inside this skin. You can feel it, can't you? I can. I can see the dragon in you, threatening to get out. You want this so badly it hurts. Why fight it? It would feel so good."
Blaisé couldn't breathe. He was right. It hurt so much to hold herself back from that edge - to stop herself from Quickening. He pressed closer, the stubble of his jaw rasping against her cheek.
"I could take the hurt away." A whisper in her ear. "It would be worth it, for just one night between those sheets with you. You don't even understand your own worth, what it feels like to never touch a woman of your own kind... To never feel that fire, always watching... Looking on from a distance, but never touching." His finger broke its path at her elbow. "Your father would kill me. All of the males of your clan would kill me." His gaze lifted to hers, full of temptation. "And it would be worth every second of the risk."
Blaisé ducked out from beneath his arm, and scrambled to put the desk between them. Her nipples ached, the dragon stirring dangerously within her. Yes, it whispered. No, she told it firmly. She was tired of being nothing more than a play toy to the males that surrounded her. Time to make her own decisions. "You want a female draconian in your bed? Well, Ambyr's downstairs. She's draconian. I don't see you sniffing around her."
