by Melissa Marr
“Is that… normal?”
“For Zevi or for a cur?” Kaleb started to reach for the mug Zevi had left beside the bed, pursed his lips, and lowered his arm. “Or do you mean is the way he shoved my bones back normal?”
“Any of it?” Aya walked over and picked up the mug. “Actually, all of it.” She handed him the mug.
“Hard to say. The bones, yes. They need rebroken so they set right. He broke them, and now I will stay still and drink the nasty concoction he has for aiding in mending them.” He drained the mug. “And, yes, the sleep thing is normal for Zevi. He feels safe when I’m home.”
She waited, not quite sure what to say or do.
After a few moments, Kaleb looked up at her. “Not that I’m complaining about this new side of you — I appreciate the help tonight — but I’m pretty sure you didn’t show up to learn how to nurse a battered cur.”
Unlike Kaleb, Aya didn’t have a warmer side she wanted to share. In an expressionless voice, she asked, “You’ve heard about the new competition terms?”
“The winner gets to mate with his daughter or with him,” Kaleb said flatly. “Why are you telling me?”
“I don’t want to breed with Marchosias or with anyone. If I had, I would’ve wed Belias. I refused. I want to rule.” Aya sat tentatively on the edge of Kaleb’s bed. “When I realized the competition didn’t specify gender, I thought I’d found the answer: a woman can rule in The City by winning Marchosias’ Competition, but now, winning would force me to do the very thing I am trying to avoid.”
Kaleb’s gaze swept her from head to toe, and even injured, he was clearheaded enough to assess her like she was wearing a red mask. “Do you oppose the act too?”
“No.” She tilted her chin up. “But you know that already. You’ve had your scabs bring you what they know of me and the other contenders — as I have of all of you.”
Kaleb laughed. “Right now, I’m not feeling as confident that I’m still a contender.”
“You won’t be without help,” Aya said.
To his credit, Kaleb didn’t deny the truth. “I can’t forfeit, and I’m not looking for a protector, especially one who killed the last daimon she took to bed.”
Aya barely resisted flinching at his mention of Belias. “I’ve sufficient wealth to take care of you both. Neither of you would need to do mask-work again.”
“I’m a cur. Curs don’t forfeit. I’ll win or die fighting. If I die, Zevi will need—”
She interrupted, “If you die, you’re no use to me. I need you alive.”
“Do you?” Kaleb gestured at his bandages. “Then we both have a problem.”
“If I’m going to avoid breeding with Marchosias, I need a protector. You’re my best option.”
When he didn’t reply, she added, “I have a plan. I know protector arrangements are usually about money, but I have that. I need your ferocity.”
Kaleb glanced back at Zevi, and she saw the struggle he faced. As a cur, he had two competing interests: to protect his pack and to counter any challenge.
Finally he looked at her and said, “How can you help me?”
“I can weaken your opponent, so you’ll win.” She folded her hands in her lap. “Then, I’ll forfeit and offer a blood oath as your chattel in public. For one year, you’d be my protector. If I’m your property, no one — even Marchosias — can claim me. If you take me as a bloodmate, only you could impregnate me, and we can agree privately not to do that. I’ll buy time, and you’ll survive the fight. I can help you win. You’ll get the prize and the girl. All I need is someone strong enough that my being… property is believable.”
Kaleb shook his head. “If I accept you as mine after he made this announcement, I look like I’m rejecting Mal— Marchosias’ daughter. No deal.”
“Then I’ll move in as Zevi’s bloodmate for one year. You can announce that as your price: you accept my forfeit in exchange for the right to gift me to your packmate.” Aya’s temperature dropped as her mind filled with fear that she couldn’t entirely quell. “You’d still own me.”
“Why would you do this?” he asked, not unkindly.
“I can’t breed.” She shuddered. “It’s the one thing I can’t do. All I want is to rule, to make The City be the place it could be. If Marchosias is already noticing me, do you think he’ll lose interest? If I win, I’m his. If I forfeit a fight and am an unclaimed breedable woman, the odds of him not claiming me are so slim as to be laughable. And if I have a child… I’ll lose everything. You understand”—she glanced at the sleeping cur—“what it means to risk it all for something or someone. I want to serve The City, and if I have a child, I won’t be able to.”
Kaleb’s attention was fixed on her now, and as he watched her, Aya knew that he also had secrets that would cause her problems she couldn’t see yet. She hadn’t survived this long in The City without learning to read the clues people didn’t think they revealed.
Does he suspect me as well? He’d be a fool not to.
Finally, he said, “I’ll only accept your offer if you can guarantee my win.”
“I can do it.” She held his gaze. “My kill count will be yours, too, if I’m your chattel.”
Kaleb paused as that detail settled on him: with her kills added to his, he’d be ranked first by a huge margin. He could win the whole competition without killing anyone else in the fights. “And all you want…”
“I won’t breed under any circumstances. That term must be inviolate,” she stressed. “If we do this, if I’m bound to you or to Zevi, I’ll not bed down with whoever I’m bound to.”
“Agreed, but if I win and breed Marchosias’ daughter, I will live in the palace. That will mean that you will live within Marchosias’ reach too.” Kaleb spoke very clearly. “I cannot tell him you are for Zevi’s uses exclusively. He’d kill Z, and anything that results in injury to Zevi is a no-starter.”
“If you gift me to Zevi as a bloodmate, only he can get me with child,” she murmured. “If I have to be lent to Marchosias or anyone else, I’ll do it. All I ask is that you help me avoid one thing. Everything else is negotiable.”
After an indeterminate number of moments during which Kaleb stared silently at her, he nodded. “There are knives on the fire. The short one is silver. If you grab it, we can do this once it cools.”
Aya walked to the fire and retrieved a knife from the saltwater that was boiling over the low flames. A flicker of magic went through her as she cooled it down to a slightly less horrible temperature. She wanted to get this done before Kaleb could change his mind.
“It must not have been in there long,” she lied evenly. “We can do it right now.”
She pressed the edge to her palm and then held the knife out to Kaleb.
Once he’d cut his hand as well, they clasped their palms together. “I’ll support you in acquiring his daughter. I’ll support you in the fights, give you my kill count, and be yours to command. For the next year, starting in this moment, I’ll do all you ask in exchange for your protection,” she swore.
“I accept you as my property, Aya. I will protect you from harm and keep you safe from breeding with Marchosias — or any other daimon — in exchange for your support,” Kaleb vowed.
She released his grasp and carried the knife to the fire. With her back to him, she whispered a simple spell to make him sleep and then said, “Thank you.”
And then she left the two sleeping curs, so she could begin to procure what she needed to help Kaleb survive.
CHAPTER 16
MALLORY’S BODY ACHED LIKE she’d been thrown into a pit of burning coals, swarmed by ants, and doused with ice water. She stared up at her ceiling, thinking about Kaleb in an attempt to distract herself from how absolutely wretched she felt. It didn’t improve how she actually felt, but it was a great way to fill the hour.
Despite her best intentions, she’d fallen asleep before Adam was home again. She’d heard him come in late at night to check on her, so she knew he was okay
. She, however, felt far from okay. When she woke early that morning, she couldn’t get out of bed. She tried, but even the thought of standing seemed exhausting. She didn’t know anyone who got as sick as she did — at least, no one who got this sick but didn’t go to a hospital. Her father always fixed her, but he never explained why she got so ill. She’d told herself time and again that maybe these episodes weren’t weird, but the older she got, the more she knew that they were about as weird as women who exhaled birds — and beautiful guys talking about “belonging” after one kiss.
Even if she hadn’t felt horrible, she would have wanted to stay in bed thinking about Kaleb. He seemed so abnormal in her world. What was normal for the daughter of a witch who spent his life running from the daimons he’d robbed wasn’t exactly the kind of normal that she wanted. Kaleb is. Unfortunately, she wasn’t sure how to have a relationship if she had to lie, and she was certain Adam wasn’t going to allow her to tell a human about witches and daimons, and after the daimon encounter, she wasn’t at all sure she’d be able to keep Kaleb safe even if she could reveal the secrets she knew.
The reality was that she did need to deal with her version of normal, though. She sat up and swung her feet to the floor, fighting the urge to simply yell for her father. She didn’t, but she didn’t get any farther either.
She wasn’t sure if it was a minute or an hour later, but he tapped on her door. “Mallory? Are you awake?”
“I am.” She sat on the edge of her bed with her quilt wrapped around her like a cloak. Even bundled up, she felt cold.
Her father opened the door and then paused, wearing a look of panic that made Mallory think that the worry lines around his eyes were deeper than they had once been. The plain oxford shirt and dark trousers he had on told her that he had been heading in to the new office early.
After a moment, he came to the bed and put a hand to her forehead, checking for fever. She felt the cold metal of the single ring he wore even after her mother had left.
Mallory had been through this enough times that she stayed still as he felt her ears and forehead with the back of his hand and then tilted her head to look into her eyes. She waited while he felt under her ears for swelling and then inevitably started asking questions. Her mind felt too fuzzy to try to figure out what to tell him.
“Are you dizzy? Sore throat? Nauseous?” He stepped back and watched her as he spoke.
“No.”
“You’re freezing.”
“I know.” She felt guilty even though she didn’t choose to be cold. “I need to talk to you.”
“Just a minute,” he said, and then muttering quiet curses, or possibly spells for her health, he walked out of the room. In only a few moments, he’d returned with an electric blanket. He wrapped it around her, plugged it in, and left again. In short order, he was back with a glass of hot water into which he’d stirred some herbal concoction made palatable with plenty of sugar and a touch of lemon.
“Drink.”
Obediently, Mallory emptied the glass. She couldn’t ask why she got so cold, never asked why he knew how to make it better. She’d thought about it, but every time she started to do so, the urge to ask vanished. Good daughters don’t question their fathers. Her father could always assess what was wrong within only a few moments, and he inevitably brewed some potion or other to make her better. Why ask, when he can fix it?
He went to the window, picked up the little sachet he’d refreshed every month in every house she could recall, and sniffed it. “No strangers came here, did they?” As he spoke, he checked the line of salt that edged every room in the house. Hers was unbroken. “Was someone at the door? In the house?”
“No.” Mallory shook her head.
Adam’s expression didn’t change. He didn’t muss his perfectly ordered hair; he didn’t scowl at her. He simply asked, “What happened?”
Mallory sighed. She didn’t want to, but she told him, “I had a date, sort of… with Kaleb. I ran into him and then we had dinner and… it wasn’t planned. I didn’t know I’d see him.”
Her father swallowed visibly. “Did this Kaleb do something to you? Did he touch you? Did he hurt you? Tell me, Mallory.”
It felt like words were being pulled from her lips. They tumbled out too fast. “No! We kissed, but I wanted him to kiss me. It was after dinner… and there was a strange woman. She threw Kaleb aside and”—she looked directly at her father—“she released birds from her mouth. I think she was a daimon. I couldn’t kill her. I couldn’t hurt her, and then she blew ashes into my face.”
“Ashes?”
“One of the birds disintegrated, and I inhaled it,” Mallory said.
The bed dipped as he sat on the foot of it. “Is there more?”
For a moment, Mallory almost told him about how strange Kaleb made her feel, how right the world felt when he was near her, but she kept her lips firmly shut and shook her head. Her hand curled around the still-warm glass, she stared at her father and concentrated on the daimon, not Kaleb. “She breathed birds.”
He took the glass from her hand. “Let me get you another drink.”
She nodded. After he left, she reached under her pillow. Her hand closed around the carved stone pendant she usually wore. Her mother had believed that it would protect her. From what, no one would tell her. Mallory had questions about that too, but her mother had said that she wouldn’t answer those questions until Mallory turned seventeen. Three days ago.
Last night, Mallory had tucked the pendant under her pillow, but that apparently wasn’t close enough since she still had the shakes. She got out of bed and rummaged in a drawer until she found a ribbon. She slid the pendant onto it and tied it around her throat and immediately felt better. A rock shouldn’t make that much of a difference, and even when she wore it, there were still times she was struck by illnesses unlike anything that ever hit any of her friends in any of the cities where they’d lived — but she felt better with it on.
Before her father returned, she was back in bed.
He came in and sat on the edge of the bed again. He brushed her hair away from her eyes. “You know you were just as frustrated by being sick when you were little. The first time you got better after one of these episodes, you tried to get me to give you a ‘never sick again’ potion. I would if I could. I’d protect you from every moment of anything that hurts.”
“Being sick reminds me that I’m human, right?”
“It certainly proves I’m not as omnipotent as I wish I could be.” Adam squeezed her hand. “I can stay home today.”
“No.” She tried to smile back as if she didn’t feel as wretched as she did. “I’m seventeen, not seven, Daddy. I’ll sleep, and if I feel worse, I’ll call you. I know the routine.”
Her father kissed her forehead. “If there was a ‘never sick again’ potion, I’d give it to you. All I want is to protect you, Mallory.”
“I know,” she assured him.
For a moment he said nothing, and then he brought up the detail that they hadn’t discussed. “Once you’re well, I’ll expect to meet this Kaleb before you go anywhere with him again, and before you let him in the house. Do you understand?”
She half laughed, half groaned. “I doubt that he’ll be back. He has probably rationalized it all away, but he did see me fall to the ground like a klutz. That he’ll remember. It’s probably not safe for him anyhow, right? If we could tell him…” She let the sentence linger, but her father didn’t offer to let her reveal secrets.
Instead, he asked, “Did you invite him into the old house?”
Her father’s voice was so calm that if she didn’t know him, she’d think nothing of it, but she did know him. Adam was decidedly not at ease.
“Once,” she admitted. Her eyes started to drift shut. Some of his potions did that, but she hated the helplessness of it. She blinked, fighting to keep her eyes open.
“Has he asked you to go anywhere? Give him anything?” He stopped her as she tried to sit.
&nb
sp; She frowned, but stayed reclining. It wouldn’t matter soon. The need to sleep was winning. “No.”
Adam tucked the covers closer around her. “I need to meet him, Mallory. You are too precious to me, and—”
“I like him,” Mallory finally admitted drowsily. “I need him. I can’t explain, but I think I really need him.”
Her father didn’t reply to what she’d said. Instead, he instructed, “Promise me you won’t go anywhere with him or let him in the house. Say it.”
“I promise,” she agreed reluctantly, and then she gave in to sleep.
CHAPTER 17
TWO DAYS LATER KALEB still hadn’t been back to the carnival — or to the human world. His ribs were healing, but even a cur couldn’t heal that many fractures in a few days. The matchboard had been updated, and Kaleb was to face Sol. His odds of winning his match without help weren’t good. He’d spent his entire life fighting, and he was capable of doing so with a few injuries, but only the best fighters were left this late in the year, and fighting an opponent like Sol wasn’t something to do with broken ribs, a gouged thigh, or even the various more manageable injuries. The wise thing to do was to forfeit the fight, but Kaleb hadn’t often been accused of being wise.
Once he healed, the next most pressing problem was that other daimons knew where Mallory was. Between Marchosias’ announcement and the Watcher’s arrival, it was abundantly clear that Kaleb wasn’t the only daimon who had located her. Suddenly, Kaleb needed to win both the competition and Mallory, and he needed to do both pretty much now. If he did, he’d have everything: position, pack, and safety.
Unfortunately, to convince Mallory to be with him, he needed to spend time with her, and right now he was too injured to risk that. He had to let himself heal enough to get through tomorrow’s match and hope that she’d stay safe for the time he was stuck here in The City. Even with rest, he’d need to take Zevi’s pain depressors to hide any flinching, hope that Aya’s plan evened the odds, and avoid receiving any killing blows. Two of those were on him, but the third element hinged on Aya — assuming she could really do what she promised.
