Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Other books by Debbie Cassidy
About the Author
Copyright © 2019, Debbie Cassidy
All Rights Reserved
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, duplicated, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Cover by JMNart
Chapter One
Silver cuffs winked on my wrists as I grabbed the bars of the cell the Nightwatch enforcers had thrown me into. “Hey, how about some coffee?”
No one came.
I hadn’t expected them to, but talking and moving around helped stave off the tugging exhaustion that begged me to sleep, because Tris was still back in Scorchwood, still stone, and I was alone. The enforcers hadn’t even asked after Henri, my golem. They’d been so eager to slap the cuffs on me and haul me off, they’d left my golem behind.
Fucking enforcers.
They’d come for me during the day because it meant I was weak. And because they were moonkissed, the sunlight didn’t sap their strength. They’d made sure to throw their weight around. I had the bruises to prove it. I rubbed the insides of my arms where they’d forcefully drawn blood.
There was no running from this.
No escape.
The cells were on the basement level of headquarters, renovated and used only to hold Nightwatch agents accused of crimes against the Watch. The block they’d put me in was empty except for me. I’d done the pacing and the sitting. Lying down wasn’t an option, not unless I was ready to stare at the insides of my eyelids and then get sucked into shimmer man land for goodness knows what kind of gory fun.
Shudder.
Nope. I needed to get out of this cell. I needed to stay the fuck awake. “Hello? Oh, come on. Coffee, people. One cup. You can make it a fucking espresso if you like.”
“You sure do make a lot of noise.”
I knew that voice, both familiar and dreaded. My childhood ex-friend and one of Vinod’s three apprentices, Karishma Raj, sauntered into view. The deep purple of her long-sleeved shirt was edged in gold. It sat well against her olive skin and brought out the hazel in her eyes. My breath caught because those colors on her could mean only one thing.
She looked down at herself. “You like?”
“They promoted you.”
She shrugged. “Someone had to take over Vinod’s assignments. I was his most promising protégé, and I know all his weaves inside out. I assisted on the majority of them.”
“It looks good on you.” The words were out before I could stop them.
Her gaze bore into me. “But cells do not look good around you.”
“Gloating is so overrated.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You’re right, and I didn’t come here to gloat, as tempting as it may be.”
There’d been a time I’d have taken her at her word, but then she’d dumped me for a group of trainee weavers and broken my itty-bitty heart. Tris had stepped up to console me because Karishma had been my only friend, and at the age of twelve, her loss had been devastating.
I crossed my arms under my breasts. “Why did you come down here then?”
She pursed her lips. “To check if you were okay. With Vinod gone, it was me that wove the binding into those cuffs.” Her gaze dropped to my wrists, and her brow furrowed slightly. “They told me you weren’t pureblood and to mute everything otherworld.” She took a step closer. “They’ve sworn me to silence.”
Shit. “As in sign-on-the-dotted-line Sworn?”
She nodded.
She could speak to me because I was the subject of a Sworn – a legally and magically binding document that prevented a supe from revealing secrets. I was a secret. Until they executed me. Because that’s where this was going. It was the only direction, and from the look on her face, she knew it too.
The cuffs felt suddenly tighter on my wrists because even though I’d known this was why they’d arrested me, to have it confirmed was another thing entirely.
I gripped the bars again. “What have they done with my gramps?”
“House arrest, as far as I know. They’ll be bringing him in for the trial. Kat, is it true?” She looked worried. “You aren’t denying it.”
“Since when have you cared what happened to me? You dumped me pretty quick once the golden gang showed interest in you.”
She blinked as if I’d struck her. “You really have a selective memory, don’t you? From what I recall, you shut me out once I started making other friends.”
“Friends that were complete bitches.”
She flinched. “I’m sorry, but they were never bitchy to me. You just didn’t know how to share.”
We could stand there and debate the death of our childhood friendship all day, but it wouldn’t change the fact that I was locked in a cell, and she was here.
She’d come to see me when no one else had bothered. That had to mean something.
“Karishma, you have to get me out of here.”
Her eyes widened. “Are you seriously asking me to break you out … Oh, God, so it’s true. You’re not pure blood.”
Was this a trick? Was she working for them? Testing me. I couldn’t take the risk. If there was the smallest chance that I could weasel my way out of this …
The little voice in my head laughed hysterically. They took blood, remember?
Still best to err on the side of caution. “I don’t know what they’ve told you, but it’s not true. I may not have certainty on who my father is, but I know who I am. I’m a Nightblood, through and through.”
The lie came easily because it was so practiced, and damn, I even injected a tear into the speech, which wasn’t hard because fuck, I was scared.
“I don’t belong here.” I swallowed the very real lump of emotion in my throat. “The council has obviously made up their minds. Karishma, you know what they’re like once they make up their minds. The trial is just a formality.”
Her expression shuttered. “It’s the law. It’s the way we operate, and it’s what’s kept us safe all these years.”
“You’re right.”
She smiled. “I know.”
“Not about the council and blah, blah, blah, but about me dodging you when we were young. I did. I shut you out when you started talking like a propaganda poster for the Nightwatch.”
That was a lie, but it sounded better than the not-wanting-to-share thing she’d said.
She smiled knowingly. “And yet you went on to become one.”
“I didn’t stop thinking for myself, though.”
“And look where it landed you.” She exhaled through her nose. “I’m sorry, that was uncalled for. I didn
’t come here to rub it in. I came to see if I could help. I can get a message to your gramps. Let him know you’re all right.”
“You can?”
“Yes, I can. I don’t see the harm in it. You haven’t been convicted of anything yet.” She smiled. “See, I’m thinking for myself.”
If she was willing to help, then there was another favor I needed. “You helped Vinod with the weaving, right?”
She nodded warily.
“So, you’d know the word to activate my golem.”
She pressed her lips together. “I don’t know it, but I could get it. But you know that’s against protocol. Golems are only to be activated and deactivated by the licensed weaver.”
“And with Vinod gone, aren’t you now the licensed weaver?” I smiled sweetly at her.
“I am, and only I can know the word. I can’t give it to you. Like I said, it’s against protocol.”
“What happened to thinking for yourself?”
“Oh, I am, but right now, you’re not swaying me. Why do you need the word?”
I pressed my forehead to the cold metal of the bar. Dammit. If I told her about the shimmer man and the murder, if I told her he’d killed Vinod and deactivated Henri, then I’d need to tell her all of it, including the fact that the shimmer man wanted to use me as a bridge into this world and that he’d been haunting my nightmares since I was a child. I’d have to tell her that Tris was my protection, and it would just reinforce the whole concept of my being different from the other Nightbloods. Even if she wasn’t working with the council, she’d feel obligated to tell them, and dammit, I didn’t want to die. The very thought opened a pit of despair and terror inside me, and it was taking everything I had not to fall in.
“Kat.” Her hand closed over mine. “I know we haven’t spoken for years. You have no reason to trust me, but your gramps was like a father to me, and you were like a sister. I missed you when we stopped talking, and I’ve followed your progress out there in the real world. I hate seeing you like this, and I want to help, but you need to trust me.”
There was sincerity in her tone. I was alone and desperate, and she was Vinod’s replacement. She had reach and power at her fingertips. Fucking hell, this could be a huge mistake, but my gut told me to spill it.
“I know who killed Vinod.”
She sucked in a breath. “Kat? What? How can you know that?”
I raised my head and locked gazes with her. “Because he told me. Just before he tried to kill me.”
* * *
The words spilled from my lips like sand through an hourglass, and her expression went from concerned to horrified then back again.
Karishma stared at me in shock. “You have to tell the council.”
As much as I wanted to argue with her, she was right. It wouldn’t help my case because it would prove there was something wrong with me, but to keep my mouth shut would be putting everyone else at risk. They needed to know what we were dealing with so they could stop him, even after I was gone. Because there was no doubt in my mind that he wouldn’t stop trying to break through just because I was dead.
“I know.” The metal was cold as I pressed my forehead to it again and closed my eyes.
“You lied to me earlier. You know you’re different.”
Fuck it, what was the point lying to her now? “It’s not my fault. I don’t deserve to die for it.”
“No.” She stood straighter. “You don’t.”
I looked up at her in surprise.
She gave me the crooked smile that I remembered from my childhood. “Some rules are too archaic and horrific to be upheld. This is one of them, and I doubt you’re the only one who’s slipped through the net. You’re just the unfortunate one who’s been unmasked.” She nodded curtly. “I’ll help as much as I can. As head weaver, I’ll be at the hearing. As head weaver, I get a say.”
I sighed. “Well, that’s one vote of support on a council of seven.”
“Five.” She frowned. “This is a private hearing. Nightblood council members only.”
So, the moonkissed representative and the Pure Fey hadn’t been brought into the know. My heart beat a little faster. What were the council up to? “But they allow a weaver into the meeting?”
“I’m the head weaver, and protocol states that no hearing can take place without the head weaver to witness, record, and participate, not even private ones. It renders the outcome invalid.”
Metal clanged against metal.
“Shit, someone’s coming.” Karishma backed away. “I’ll find the word for your golem, and I’ll see you at the hearing. What should I tell your gramps?”
“Tell him … tell him I’m sorry.”
* * *
The headquarters was a sprawling mansion set on acres and acres of land. So many fucking acres that forestland hid it from human eyes and wards protected it from aerial detection. The place was a fortress, and I was inside it.
It had never been an issue before, but heck, I’d never been in cuffs before. They itched, or maybe that was my mind playing tricks on me. But damn, I wanted them off. How the hell did Kris stand this?
The enforcers, the same two—probably also Sworn to silence from the sour looks on their faces—led me through the narrow corridors that were reserved for criminals. No carpets and no painting here, just wooden floors, brick walls, and bad lighting.
It was claustrophobic and nothing like my previous visits, which had been under a fancy chandelier in Gramps’s cozy study lined with leather-bound tomes and smelling of sweet pipe tobacco smoke.
The fuckers hadn’t even let me get dressed, so I was still in sweats and slippers. Bunny slippers.
Urgh.
We climbed a steep flight of steps, and then I was shoved through a door into a hallway. The place was empty, but there was no doubt that we were in a better part of the mansion now. The plush carpet said it all. But there was no time to figure out whereabouts we were, and no windows to check out the scenery and figure out if we were south-facing or north-facing before I was being bundled through a door and into a room lit by several floor and wall lamps.
The door closed behind me, and four austere faces glared at me from behind a long wooden table. Fuck them, I had eyes only for the silver-haired, regal figure of my grandfather. His calm face quivered with tension at the sight of me, and his hands tightened on the armrests of his seat, but he didn’t get up.
Not on house arrest as Karishma had thought then …
Gramps didn’t speak, but his gaze was loaded with words he wanted to say. He inclined his head in my direction and didn’t even flinch at my attire. God, I loved that man.
“Gramps.” I kept my face neutral as I returned his nod.
“The weaver has seen to it that your grandfather has no voice at these proceedings,” one of the Nightblood councilmen said.
My gaze slid to Karishma, who was in full head weaver gear. Hood up and gaze impassive. For a moment, I wondered if our little chat in the cells had been a figment of my imagination, but then the corner of her mouth turned up in a reassuring signal, and her eyes warmed briefly. It was enough for me to see that she was on my side.
“Kat Justice,” the Nightblood in the center said. “It has come to light that your birth tests may have been falsified and that you may not be a pure Nightblood.”
The dark-haired man was a Carmichael and the chosen speaker for this hearing, no doubt. The man on his left was a Justice, my gramps’s cousin, to be precise. He’d always been an unpleasant man, but right now, he looked like he’d sucked on a lemon. Beside him was the Hartwood representative, a portly Nightblood who I recalled as being jovial and lighthearted, except there was no humor on his face right now. But it was the man on the right that my gaze slid to again and again.
James Faraday.
His hard, flint-like eyes raked over me, and a small smirk hovered on his lips. The Faradays had no love for Justices, and this was like Christmas come early for him.
“May have been fa
lsified?” he drawled. “Oh, come now, Carmichael, we have the reports, and we have the results of the tests we did just over an hour ago. Let’s not beat around the bush here.”
Carmichael cleared his throat. “Yes, well—”
“Maybe Miss Justice would like to say something in her defense?” Faraday raised both brows. “Like maybe how she was unaware of her heritage? Or like how her grandfather hid it from her just like he falsified her birth tests?”
My gaze flicked to Gramps, whose eyes pleaded with me to do just that. But the lies weighed heavy on my shoulders, and I was done hiding. They’d already made up their minds as to what to do with me. I could see it in their eyes. In the way they wouldn’t look directly at me, all except Faraday, of course, who seemed to derive pleasure from intense eye contact.
I took a deep breath. “I have no defense aside from the fact that I didn’t ask to be born. But I’m here, and I’ve served the Nightwatch well for the past four years. If that isn’t enough for you, then there’s nothing I can do about it.” I held up my hands. “You want to kill me, then do it, but you leave my gramps out of it. He did what any loving grandfather would. He saved his grandchild’s life, and if any of you sit there and tell me you’d do different, then you’re fucking liars.”
Carmichael looked uncomfortable, but Faraday didn’t even flinch.
“The law is there for a reason,” Faraday snapped. “The supernatural gene pool is too muddy for us to trust the purity of our kind to it. Crossbreeding could end us. It could make us vulnerable to the otherworld creatures. It could—”
“James, please,” Carmichael interrupted wearily. He fixed his eyes on me, and there was kindness in their depths, enough for the knot in my chest to loosen a fraction. “Kat Justice, you know the lore. You know how we’ve had to fight tooth and nail to protect the mortal realm from outside forces. To keep the glamour safe—a glamour that mainly works for us, the creatures who belong on this mortal plane. You learned about the fomorian invasion at the Academy and how they sowed their seed amongst the supernaturals of this world. But there’s something you don’t know. That, whereas the fomorian gene produced shadow knights in male progeny, it had an altogether different effect on female progeny. In particular, Nightblood females.”
Give Up the Ghost: The Nightwatch Series Book 2 Page 1
