by S. M. Reine
“Your sense of humor sucks,” Deirdre said, clutching her wounded arm. The holes were already closing. The fire seemed to have accelerated her healing.
“Don’t be a sore loser.” Rhiannon snapped her heel into Deirdre’s face, flattening her to the pavement. Ice built over her clenched fists. She made a couple quick gestures, barely more than finger-flicks, and frost splashed over Deirdre’s arms.
A little ice was all it took to destroy Deirdre’s budding flames. She sputtered and lost control.
The pain in her wounds intensified without the fire to numb it.
She rolled onto her back, face screwed up with pain. “Damn,” she groaned. Where was Stark? Having him appear would be the only way that the confrontation could become more humiliating.
“I’m curious,” Rhiannon said. “How did you get Melchior out of the Winter Court without killing him? Not that it matters, since I already had Stark claim the unseelie throne and made him my mate again. I’m just wondering.”
“I didn’t,” Deirdre said.
Stone crashed into the road.
One of Brother Marshall’s gargoyles had landed just a few feet away.
It must have been Dale Junior. The sluagh’s icy fluids had stained stripes into his stone hide. Brother Marshall was mounted between his wings, but he slid to the asphalt as soon as his mount struck.
Rhiannon turned to greet him, arms wide. “Thank the gods. I was worried that I was going to have to deal with this enemy of the Alpha on my own. Arrest her.”
“I’m only here to hold you until Secretary Friederling arrives for your arrest,” Brother Marshall said.
She laughed. “What? Why? Because I shot the phoenix? She killed my former mate. She’s not protected by the oath.”
“No,” he said. “For killing Rylie Gresham’s Beta.”
Deirdre didn’t stick around to see the reaction. She dragged herself to the semi-invisible SUV, pulling herself over the edge into the open door. The metal groaned around her as her weight shifted.
It reeked of quality leather and death within the SUV. Shiny cherry-black blood slicked the seats. The OPA agents defending Niamh were dead—one of them crushed, the other with a slit throat.
Melchior’s body was crushed underneath the roof, only the left shoulder and half of the face visible, eyes shut.
It was a wound that wouldn’t have killed a dragon.
“No,” she whispered.
She gritted her teeth as she pulled the roof apart enough to shift Niamh’s body. She slid her fingers under the mask of the Melchior disguise and peeled it off, the same way that Rylie had peeled off the artificial face masking her features.
Niamh’s eyes were shut underneath. Her hair spilled out from the artificial scalp. White feathers drifted to the ground.
Deirdre shook her head, over and over again, unable to speak.
If this had happened days earlier, she would have been okay. She might have even celebrated.
“What are you doing here?” Rhiannon asked sharply.
Deirdre stood, injured arm shaking as she lifted Niamh from the wreckage of the car. She was limp weight, impossibly heavy, as though death had made the gravity impacting the hollow-boned shifter triple.
The other vehicles in the convoy had returned. They ringed Rhiannon and Dale Junior, cutting off any exit.
Rhiannon turned at the sound of Deirdre rising from the SUV. Her thin smile fell.
Niamh still looked like Melchior from the shoulders down, but her face was her own. Deirdre set her beside the vehicle, sinking to her knees so that she wouldn’t have to bear her weight anymore. Every exposed inch of her skin was glowing. She felt hot, hotter than the sun, like she might ignite every tree in the forest with her grief.
Confusion quickly turned to understanding. Rhiannon wasn’t stupid. She knew when she’d been played.
She had broken the oath. She had killed Rylie’s Beta.
She was done.
Rhiannon looked calm for an instant. And then the anger crashed over her, suffusing every molecule of her body, twisting her muscles into frustrated lines and contorting her face.
“Where are Alona and Calla?” Deirdre asked. She really wanted to ask why Stark wasn’t showing his face, but she couldn’t make herself say his name.
With a roar, Rhiannon thrust her hand toward Deirdre.
Spikes of ice thrust from the road in front of her. She leaped backward to dodge them.
Rhiannon waved again, bringing more ice cresting in a wall behind her.
Deirdre leaped. She flipped, bouncing off her one remaining good hand, landing on her feet again like a gymnast back-springing across the mats.
She moved fast but not quite fast enough. The ice raced along the asphalt and finally connected when she landed a second time.
It tossed her into the air. She hit the trees. Smashed into the ground.
Brother Marshall waved his borrowed staff. Dale Junior thudded across the ground, driving toward Rhiannon with all the speed a stone beast of its size could muster.
Rhiannon screamed her fury as she shoved more ice toward the gargoyle. Frost crusted its face. But it didn’t react. It could survive against the sluagh, and Rhiannon was nothing in comparison to that.
But all her magic was coming from the girls. Wherever they were, she was sucking their power dry.
Deirdre couldn’t let her keep fighting.
“You know you’ve lost,” Deirdre shouted, getting onto her knees. “Tell me where to find the girls!”
“Why? So you can murder my children as you murdered Dr. Landsmore?” Rhiannon clapped her hands together.
Magic snapped.
The trees on either side of Deirdre wrenched from the earth, roots ripped free of the ground. They swung toward her.
She rolled out of the way, and rolled again.
Deirdre’s shoulder bumped into the SUV that was still invisible.
“Worse,” she called over the side of the car. “I’m going to save them. I’ll take care of them. I’ll be better for them than you ever have been—just like I was for Stark.”
Ice shrieked against metal.
She launched herself out of the way, tucking her wounded arm against her chest.
The SUV exploded.
Hands snapped shut on Deirdre’s ankles. The breath rushed from her lungs as she was dragged away from Rhiannon’s attack, tossed behind a tree. Shards of metal pounded into the bark on the other side. A fragment of bumper speared a rock beside her.
If she hadn’t moved that quickly, she would have been dead.
Deirdre twisted to see Vidya standing between her and Rhiannon. Not just Vidya, but January Lazar—the reporter herself, camera shouldered so she could film it all.
For once, Deirdre didn’t mind having the camera on her. She wanted everyone to see that she was fighting against Rhiannon on Rylie’s side. This was the first time that she’d be seen doing the right thing. Trying to uphold the election, even though it meant giving control back to Rylie.
“Rhiannon cheated on the election,” she told January’s camera. “And she’s killed Rylie Gresham’s Beta. She has no respect for the political process, no integrity, and no right to the powers she’s trying to seize. The OPA is going to arrest her. She’s going to trial. Justice will be served.”
On the last word, flames leaped down her body.
January stepped back with a gasp.
She pushed past Vidya’s protective wings to find that Rhiannon was trying to defend herself against Dale Junior with tides of ice. The gargoyle smashed through every one, but even though he could keep up with her, he couldn’t seem to break through. Every blast she tossed into the air just made Deirdre flame stronger, fueled by righteous anger. Not just over Niamh, but over Calla and Alona. Over Everton Stark himself.
Deirdre broke into a run.
Rhiannon heard her coming. She turned, lifting a hand. But she wasn’t fast enough. When Deirdre drew just feet away, she launched into the air, kicking high
.
Her foot whipped into the side of Rhiannon’s head.
It was so satisfying to feel the crack of bone and see the witch collapse on the ground.
After all the politics and magic, the lies and deceit, Deirdre got to dispense good old-fashioned justice with a boot to the face.
It felt so right.
The impact kept Rhiannon from casting another wave of magic. Dale Junior rushed in to pin her down, and Deirdre helped him, taking Rhiannon’s arms while the gargoyle stepped on her legs. The OPA body armor wasn’t enough to protect her bones from the crushing weight of the statue. She cried out, face reddening.
“Where are the kids?” Deirdre dropped her voice to a hiss, quiet enough that only Rhiannon would hear her. “Where is Stark?”
Rhiannon spit in her face.
Deirdre reared back, wiping her hand down her cheek.
As soon as she shifted her weight, the OPA moved in. An agent rolled her onto her stomach. They clapped handcuffs on her wrists. Magic sighed around them as the runes crawled up Rhiannon’s arms, coating her skin in enough wards to keep an entire coven from casting.
Secretary Friederling limped up, leaning heavily on his cane. He looked so much more triumphant than Deirdre would have expected.
For all that he had acted impartial to preternatural politics, he seemed very satisfied to arrest the witch who had caused so much trouble these past weeks.
“Rhiannon Stark, you’re under arrest for the murder of Rylie Gresham’s Beta, among numerous other fiddly little crimes,” he said. “Anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of law. I highly recommend remaining silent. I don’t think anything you say could help yourself right now.”
“You can’t hold me forever,” Rhiannon said.
Secretary Friederling laughed. “I don’t need to hold you forever to keep you out of my hair. Only until you die.” He waved to the SUV. “Take her away, agents.”
Deirdre could tell that January Lazar’s footage had been broadcast successfully back at the sanctuary as soon as she returned to the stage. She knew long before she actually traversed the long road back: she could hear the audience screaming.
But it wasn’t until she stepped onto the stage, hidden behind the drapes, that she realized they were cries of victory.
The shifters were celebrating Rhiannon’s defeat.
Deirdre’s knees went weak with relief. There weren’t going to be riots in the sanctuary. The place she’d burned had seen enough damage for one week—and for once, she was going to be heralded as the hero.
There might be riots elsewhere, instigated by the many supporters that the Starks had gathered. But a lot of those would be quelled by the footage that showed Deirdre cooperating with Rylie. After all, she’d worked in Stark’s stead for so long that she was almost as popular as he was. Popular enough to get six percent of the vote.
Rylie was surrounded by so many aides preparing her for the inauguration that Deirdre couldn’t approach her. But the Alpha caught her eye over the crowd, and Deirdre managed to smile. Rylie smiled back.
It was time.
The curtains on the stage dropped, exposing the sanctuary filled with an audience waiting to watch the inauguration.
Streamers drifted through the air. Balloons in the sanctuary colors bounced over the audience.
Marion stood on the stage, disguised to look like an older woman who nobody would recognize. When she spoke, her voice boomed throughout the valley, amplified a thousand times by the speakers. Deirdre didn’t hear the actual words that she was saying. All she heard was the feeling behind it—the relief that told Deirdre that even Marion hadn’t been certain their ruse would work to defeat Rhiannon.
Rylie seemed to move in slow motion as she got on stage. Her white-blond hair flowed behind her, softening her features even though she was dressed in the matronly pantsuits she always wore while making political appearances. She radiated when she smiled.
Rylie stepped into the center of the circle. Marion met her with hands lifted, drawing haloes of magic through the air.
Magic passed through them all, binding shifters to their Alpha once more.
What Deirdre felt had nothing to do with magic, though.
It was the bittersweet feeling of democracy in action. The winner of the vote, the incumbent Alpha, returning to take her position again—just as the majority of voters had wanted.
That wasn’t the outcome that Deirdre had been hoping for, but it was what she had fought to earn.
The people had made their own choices.
Rylie had won, Deirdre had lost, and that was the happy ending.
XVIII
Deirdre wanted to say that she didn’t get any satisfaction out of watching Rhiannon taken away by the Office of Preternatural Affairs for trial after Rylie’s inauguration.
But that would have been a lie.
It would have been just as much a lie to pretend that she wasn’t sort of disappointed by the anticlimax of it all.
“So nothing changes,” Deirdre said. “Everything stays the same.”
Abel stood beside her, arms folded as he watched the witches apply additional wards to the prisoner transport. It was so riddled with magic now that Deirdre was shocked the engine could continue to idle. Most mechanical things failed with that much magic on them.
“That so bad?” Abel asked. He’d been standing in the audience to watch his mate inaugurated, and there was still confetti caught in his collar. “People voted. They want Rylie’s way of doing things to keep going.”
“Thirty-six percent of them do. Sure, that’s more than anyone else got, but it’s not a majority.”
And how many of that thirty-six percent were gaeans who didn’t need to rely on the system for anything? Of course Rylie had the support of the privileged. The people who were living lives as good as those they enjoyed before Genesis.
There were almost as many people who were angry enough to vote for a man who killed innocents.
A man who had bailed on his wife at the last possible moment, leaving her to get arrested without lifting a finger to help her.
Damn, Stark. That was cold, even for him.
“Is Marion tracking all of Rhiannon’s magic back to its roots?” Deirdre asked. They were hoping they’d be able to find her daughters if they tracked the spells she’d cast within the SUV, and in turn, find Everton Stark as well.
“Yeah, kinda. She’s working on it.”
“Kinda? Isn’t she the most powerful witch in the world?”
“Powerful means she can out-magic anyone. Doesn’t mean she can untangle all the knots in seelie magic. She’s an angel, after all.” Abel scowled, like that was a dirty word. “We’ll figure it out. We have to—the sluagh is still out there and all.”
Deirdre hadn’t forgotten. She couldn’t possibly forget about that. “It’s probably still hunting me.”
“We can arrange for a safe house until we pin it down,” Abel said. “In the meantime, about the whole election thing. How you got all those votes. You wanna come talk to me in private?”
She couldn’t think of many things she wanted to do less at the moment. She needed time to herself to process everything that had happened and all it would change—as well as all the things that wouldn’t change at all.
But he was mate of the Alpha. The woman who had been voted back into power. Who was Deirdre to refuse them?
“Fine,” she said dully.
She took a last look at the SUV. The windows were tinted black, so she shouldn’t have been able to see anyone inside.
But a spark flared.
For an instant, Rhiannon’s face was illuminated just bright enough for her to make out her narrow, angry eyes, the hard lines of her cheekbones and jaw.
She was glaring at Deirdre.
Probably plotting revenge.
She could go ahead and have fun coming up with all sorts of ways to kill Deirdre while trapped in an OPA detention center. She would need a hobby now that
she was never going to see daylight again.
Abel was walking to a nearby limousine. Deirdre followed him.
The coroner’s van was parked nearby. The rear doors were open, allowing her to see inside to the black bag zippered closed, like a long flat trash bag. Deirdre imagined that she could see the shape of curls and feathers inside. But that was just her imagination.
Her stomach knotted.
She slipped into the limousine’s leather seats.
It was air conditioned inside, almost as cool as a refrigerator, and it chilled her sweat instantly.
There was a woman Deirdre didn’t recognize waiting for them there. She had natural hair, light skin, and excited eyes. She wore a skirt suit much like those Rylie wore, but much shorter, exposing unprofessional lengths of creamy copper thigh.
“Deirdre Tombs!” she greeted with enthusiasm, practically squealing. She had a cat resting across her thighs, a furry black monster with a flat face that made him look like he’d run into a wall at full-speed.
“Do I know you?” Deirdre asked.
“Yes, but no. We haven’t met. My name is Summer.” She stopped petting the cat and held her hand out to shake. Deirdre looked at it skeptically. “Summer Gresham?”
The name clicked. “You’re Rylie and Abel’s oldest daughter. The one who’s married to an angel. You picked out clothes for me when I first visited the sanctuary.”
She seemed delighted to be remembered. “That’s right! Wow.” They shook hands.
Summer must have been an honorary daughter, in much the same way that Gage had been an honorary son. She looked like she had to be the same age as Rylie. Her face was subtly lined, carrying the weight of almost forty years on the Earth. There were a few white hairs near Summer’s right ear. The crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes said that she’d spent every one of her years on Earth smiling.
She was beautiful, and far too down-to-earth to be married to something as terrifying as an angel.
“What do you want?” Deirdre asked. The sound of her voice made the cat look up. She startled to realize that half of the cat’s face was missing. No fur, no skin, nothing. Just skull and a bulging, glassy eye. “Oh my gods, what’s wrong with your cat?”
