by Nalini Singh
Jason thought of the palm-edged sands of the Pacific, of the remote island that was his own, where he went when he wanted to disappear from the world. Though it wasn’t the place where he’d been born, it was close enough that it made his heart ache. “I understand.”
“Raphael thought you might appreciate a familiar face, someone you can trust to watch your back.”
“I’m glad you’re here,” he said, thinking of a woman who lived in a fort surrounded by hundreds of others, but who was and had always been alone, without anyone of her own.
Even he had memories of love to keep him going. Mahiya had nothing. And still she had hope in her heart, the capacity for tenderness of the soul. Strong, she was so strong, stronger than him, for where he’d had to shut down to survive, she’d managed to do so intact.
“So,” Venom said, “tell me what has happened—I won’t betray your vow, and Raphael won’t expect it of me.”
Jason had never believed otherwise. “There is something wrong here.” He told Venom of the triple murders, of the details that didn’t quite fit. “You still know many people in this court intimately.” Friends the vampire had stayed in touch with, some out of true affection, others because they were useful—Venom could be coldly practical beneath his charm. “Find the connection if you can.”
The murders bore too familiar an emotional fingerprint to be the work of disparate entities, and yet Neha had no need or apparent motive to murder her lady-in-waiting in such a violent fashion. Regardless of all else, he simply could not see her breaking her vigil beside Eris’s body in order to commit the act, not when those were the final hours she’d ever spend with him.
Venom gave a thoughtful nod, sliding his mirrored shades back over his eyes. “I’ll do everything I can, but I’ll have to leave in three days at the most. Neha will not give me her indulgence beyond that.”
“You’re a better judge of her mood than I—go when you need to.” Getting Venom’s nod, he asked the vampire a question that had nothing to do with his task at the fort. “How is Sorrow?” The girl had survived an attack from a mad archangel, come out of it infected by a toxin that had changed her from mortal to something other, her abilities erratic.
Venom’s jaw went taut, tendons pushing against the skin of his neck. “Janvier has taken over her vampiric training for the time being,” he said, referring to the vampire who had worked directly under Dmitri on any number of operations and whose loyalty to the Tower was unquestioned—though until now, it had been more useful to have him out in the world as an apparent free agent.
“You know how good Janvier is,” Venom added, “but I’ll have to return periodically to do the speed dances with her.”
Venom could move with snake quickness, a skill Sorrow shared, though hers came from a different source. “Can she call it up on command?”
“No. And if she doesn’t learn to do that, she’ll die.” Unforgiving words. “But Honor’s right—she needs to get the basics down first before I start pushing her again, or she’ll make stupid mistakes speed alone can’t cure.”
“Who’s undertaking her physical training with Honor out of the city?”
“Ashwini.” Venom’s face thawed, his lips twitching a fraction. “You know what she did to Janvier the last time they met?”
“Honey was involved.” Jason had watched the hunter and the vampire spar since their first meeting, never quite understanding their relationship—they were adversaries one minute, determined to run each other to the ground, and allies the next. It was Janvier Ashwini had taken with her when she’d needed to work in Nazarach’s dangerous territory, and it was Janvier whose sapphire pendant the hunter wore around her neck. Yet, as far as he knew, they had never been bedmates.
“Why don’t they just sleep with one another?” he asked Venom, wondering if he’d missed a subtle nuance in their relationship.
Venom’s chuckle was quiet, his eyes eerie in the sunshine as he pushed his sunglasses to the top of his head. “That is an enduring mystery.” He cocked his head. “Who is that very pretty woman coming this way?”
Jason didn’t need to follow Venom’s gaze—he could feel Mahiya’s presence as a gentle heat against his wings. “The Princess Mahiya, and she is mine.” He had no right to make such a claim, but Venom had a way of charming women when he was in the mood, and Jason discovered he did not wish Mahiya to be charmed.
“Ah.” The vampire turned and jumped off the gate with an insouciant carelessness that had Mahiya’s hand slapping over her heart.
But Venom came to a crouching landing on his toes, lithe as a cat. Landing beside him, Jason watched Mahiya rather than Venom as the vampire rose and bent over her hand. “Impossible as it seems, I do not believe we have ever met.”
Mahiya’s fascinated gaze lingered on Venom’s eyes as he lifted his head and released her hand. “No . . . but I have heard of the vampire with the viper’s eyes. You were based at the Delhi court in the main.”
“I was,” Venom agreed, “but I visited here more than once. You must’ve been studying at the Refuge.”
“Yes. I believe you had sworn allegiance to Raphael by the time I returned to the fort.”
Jason caught the fine tremor that rippled over Mahiya’s skin as she spoke of a homecoming that must have been a terrifying experience for a young girl, and spread his wing just enough that it brushed over her own. It was an intimacy, and one she had not offered, one he’d never have initiated had he stopped to think about it, yet instead of flinching, she relaxed.
“It’s good to finally make your acquaintance,” she said to Venom, genuine warmth in her tone. “Neha has always said you were one of her proudest Makings.”
Venom’s grin was sharp, his next words directed at Jason. “Shall we meet over dinner?”
“Come to Mahiya’s palace.”
“Until then.” He kissed Mahiya’s hand again before departing.
Jason traced Mahiya’s profile with his gaze as she watched the vampire leave. “You had no hesitation in allowing him to touch you.”
“I think it was the shock first of all—those eyes . . .” She shook her head. “And then I saw he was your friend.”
A fine crack, something fundamental breaking inside him.
Mahiya continued to speak when he didn’t reply. “Neha has tried to recreate the effect you know, and some of her Made have the slightest sense of it, but never has she succeeded as she did with Venom.”
“He will be pleased to know he is unique,” Jason said, examining the fissure she’d created in his shields, the damage deep, repair no simple matter.
Mahiya’s bright eyes smiled at him. “You go to speak to the ladies-in-waiting?”
He took so long in replying her smiled faded, her expression intent. And he knew that he would touch her again should she give the slightest encouragement, his body hungry not just for sensation, but for the mystery and—when her guard dropped—the inexplicable sweetness that was Mahiya.
18
Mahiya watched after Jason’s black-winged form as he rose up into the sky, the tiny hairs on her arms still standing up in reaction at the look she’d caught in his eyes. The primal response wasn’t fed by alarm or fear, but a passion that was no simple physical craving. Jason fascinated her on many levels. He was a rough-edged carving, a beautiful man she had the sense no woman had ever come close to taming.
It would be a shame were that ever to happen. His wildness was an integral part of him—perhaps others would not deem it so, not given the cool distance with which he viewed the world, but Mahiya understood . . . she carried the same wildness within. Just because it had been imprisoned and confined and controlled didn’t mean it wasn’t there. Jason wore his nature in his skin, in the curving lines of a tattoo she wanted to trace with her fingertips . . . her lips.
It was a dangerous admission, but lying to herself served no purpose. Better she accept she had a vulnerability where the inscrutable spymaster was concerned, so she could guard against the w
eakness. The only problem was, Mahiya wasn’t certain she wanted to turn away from the shimmering dark of the nascent flame between them.
* * *
Jason landed behind Lisbeth where she sat on a marble bench in a small enclosed terrace garden off the palace that housed the ladies-in-waiting. Men were strictly forbidden in this area except if sent on business by Neha herself, all of the guards—angelic and vampiric—female.
The tiny woman jumped to her feet with a gasp. “Sir, I realize you are my lady’s guest, but you cannot be here.”
“Neha will not be displeased with you.” She might be with Jason, but since she hadn’t specifically barred him from talking to the ladies-in-waiting in their private quarters, he broke no rules. “I wish to speak to you about Shabnam.”
A change on her face, a quickness of thought. “We are distraught.” Her eyes watered, the deep brown turning into shimmering topaz, her beauty luminous. Lifting a delicate lace handkerchief to her face, she dabbed at the crystalline purity of her tears.
“I am sorry to cause you further sorrow.” He pitched his tone to soothe.
While he couldn’t mimic emotion anywhere near as well as Lisbeth, he was proficient at using his voice as a weapon. Once, he’d used it in song, but the songs in his heart had gone silent long ago, and he knew that one day so would his voice. A man who had nothing inside him eventually had nothing to say.
Wings of midnight blue and vivid green, a smile that saw too much, stirred things that had not been touched in an eon.
Lisbeth’s voice tangled with the unexpected images whispering through his mind. “It is all right.” Sniffing with a delicacy that did nothing to mar her beauty, she said, “You ask for help to seek Shabnam’s murderer?”
He inclined his head. “Do you know of anything that may shed light on the matter?”
A calculated hesitation before she shook her head. “I’m sure I couldn’t say.”
“She is dead.” Jason added gentle, warm notes to his voice. “What you say cannot hurt her.”
Swallowing, Lisbeth wrapped her arms around herself as if cold. “It is not done to speak ill of the dead, but . . . Shabnam was not faithful to her lover.” The words were shaped with utmost sincerity, yet Jason knew them for a lie. Still, he allowed her to continue, wanting to see how black she would paint the victim. “She was generous with her favors . . . particularly when it came to the guards—I believe she thought to ease her way into places we are not meant to go.”
An adroit accusation of spying, perhaps even treason. “Do you believe one of the guards may have become jealous?” he asked, acting obtuse on purpose.
The faintest hint of impatience flittered across her face, fracturing the thus far flawless illusion of beautiful sorrow. “I’m sure for all her airs, Shabnam was nothing but a diversion for them. But her family, they’re proud. They may have considered her actions shameful.” A demure downsweep of curling black lashes. “I’m not accusing them of anything, and I’m sure they would never . . . but you asked. And I just wanted— Oh, forget I said anything.”
“I appreciate your trust. Thank you.”
“Of course.” She could not quite keep her smug satisfaction out of her voice. “I only hope I helped.”
“Yes, very much.” Excusing himself, Jason rose into the air. It didn’t take him long to track down the rest of the ladies-in-waiting. They were creatures who did not like to go too far from their habitat, fearing another would take their place or gain some favor from which they were excluded.
Everyone but for Shabnam’s sparrow-winged friend, Tanuja, attempted to malign the victim. One even insinuated that she’d seduced Eris. However, Tanuja was adamant that Shabnam had been a faithful lover and no spy.
“She was a nice person,” Tanuja sobbed, skin of soft brown blotchy from her distress. “Too nice for this pit of vipers, and the fact that she was a favorite with Neha only made the others act uglier toward her. She used to laugh and say they were jealous witches, but now she’s dead.” A hard stare out of red-rimmed eyes. “Lisbeth may not like getting her hands dirty, but she comes from a family that doesn’t mind blood.”
* * *
The sky was the lush gray of a balmy evening when he came in to land on the balcony outside his suite. Ignoring his own doors, he knocked on Mahiya’s. She opened the left side a fraction, her wary expression changing the instant she saw him. “Oh, it’s you!” Smile reaching her eyes to light them to tawny brightness, she pulled the doors fully open.
At that instant, Jason felt something slam into him, a powerful, amorphous realization that he tried to capture, to examine, but it was so much smoke, wisping out of his hand yet leaving an imprint behind. “Why were you worried?” he asked, feeling as if he’d been marked in some immutable way.
“I—” Mahiya shook her head. “Come in first. The food is hot.”
Walking inside when she turned away, he shut the doors at his back. She didn’t startle at the act, the silverwork on the pale pink of her fitted tunic and on the ankle cuffs of her white harem-style pants catching the light from the tiny crystal chandelier above. The comb in her neatly bound hair was intricately worked silver set with diamonds, the gauzy white scarf thrown over her shoulders from her front embellished with threads of the same metallic shade at the ends. “You dress formally.”
Taking a graceful seat on the flat cushion in front of the low table, her wings spread out behind her in a glory of emerald and peacock blue with splashes of jet, she picked up the water jug. “You’ll need to dress, too. Neha has summoned us to a formal dinner. But we have time enough to eat and drink.”
He took his place opposite her, noticing the color on her lips, the skillful use of other cosmetics to highlight her cheekbones while playing down her eyes. This, too, he thought, was a subtle mask. “The food at dinner will not be agreeable?”
“The food will be exquisite, but the conversation will curdle my stomach. And you will be too busy watching and listening to everyone to eat more than a bite or two.”
He thought perhaps the strange sensation in his chest might be amusement. Illium occasionally incited the same response in him, but this was somehow gentler, more tender. “In that case, I thank you for your thoughtfulness.”
She gave him a sharp look, eyes narrowed. “Be careful or I’ll stop feeding you.”
“A great punishment indeed.” And it would be; this fragile ritual of homecoming was important to him in a way she could not comprehend. “May I have some water?” he said, absently noticing a little bag of carrots set on a small table that held an unlit lamp, as if Mahiya had put the bag down, then forgotten about it.
“Since you asked so nicely.” Lips twitching, she poured it for him, then removed the lids off the trays that sat between them. “I was in the mood to cook, so you have several choices. Do you want to try a little of each?”
“Yes.” He knew he should protest the way she served him, but she seemed to take pleasure from it . . . and so did he. So he stayed silent, took the plate she made up for him. As they ate, his mind cascaded with memories of how he’d tried to cook after he was alone, how he’d burned everything, lived on fruits and raw cassava root for a time until his stomach rebelled.
Later, when he’d arrived at the Refuge, he’d demanded to be treated as an adult regardless of his chronological age, and no one had argued. Until Mahiya, he wouldn’t have said he’d missed such a quiet indication of care as someone bothering to notice whether he ate or not.
“Now,” he said, after they’d cleared away the plates and she’d poured them both mint tea, refreshing and strong, “tell me if the reason your stomach will curdle is the same one that made you afraid to open the door.”
Mahiya looked at him over the top of her teacup, tendrils of steam caressing her lips. “Are you always this persistent?”
He raised an eyebrow, and her lips parted in a quiet laugh. “Of course you are. How else would you have become the best spymaster in the Cadre?” Cupping her hands arou
nd the tea, she said, “Arav . . . a man with whom I had a relationship when I was little more than a girl”—the laughter leaching out of her eyes—“is in the fort, and he’s being persistent, too, in an unwelcome way.”
Black fire, cold and deadly, formed in his bloodstream. “Did he touch you?”
“Only my hand.” Putting down her cup, she rubbed at that hand. “He caught me in the courtyard an hour ago when he had no reason to be on this level of the fort. I know he did it to remind me of his presence, to intimidate—I walked away from him earlier, and no one does that.”
Jason listened as she told him of her morning encounter with the angel, the black fire within tempered a fraction when she added, “It may not have been the smartest move to deliberately antagonize him, but it was satisfying, and I’m not sorry.” She set her jaw, as if expecting censure.
“When I was a hundred and twenty-three,” Jason said, making a note to pay Arav a visit in the darkest hour of night, remind the other man of the acrid taste of fear, “I asked Michaela to dance.” It wasn’t because he’d been drunk on her beauty—he’d always seen the truth of her selfish heart—but because he’d wanted to experience that drunkenness, wanted to feel more than the remote distance that was his normal mode of existence. “She wasn’t an archangel then, but still a queen, her power immense.”
Eyes huge, Mahiya leaned forward. “Well?” she demanded with unhidden impatience. “What happened?”
“She was so astonished at my gall she said yes.” And he’d had his question answered; whatever it was that was broken in him, even the proximity of the most beautiful woman in the world couldn’t fix it. “Afterward, Raphael told me she could just as well have taken offense and killed me on the spot . . . but I wasn’t sorry, either.”
Mahiya laughed again, the vivid clarity of her eyes sparking with flecks of gold that captivated him, because he’d never before glimpsed those flickers of shimmering metal. And he thought that perhaps the young man he’d been might have been wrong, that perhaps even a frozen heart might one day be awakened.
