The Curse

by Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Undeterred, Dakkar pressed on. "I don't repeat what's known to merely hear myself speak. I bring up the charter you've filed for a specific reason. You have offered sanctuary to Alterants. They are not hunted as the dangerous beasts they are known to be, now that you've opened the charter, which would indicate a certain level of responsibility."

  Macha answered carefully. "Only for those who come forth and swear their loyalty to me. Make your point while we're still in this millennium, Dakkar."

  "My point is simple. An eye for an eye."

  He wants Evalle? "I am not handing over my Alterant."

  Dakkar held his arms out, palms up in a gesture of we're-at-an-impasse. "You refuse to compensate me. I'm penalized every time one of my people has to enter the southeastern region of North America. I am offered nothing in return. Not even a beast."

  She ignored the poke about Evalle being only a beast, something that could be handed off as easily as cattle. "If Evalle had committed this crime, she would be forfeited, but she did not."

  His body radiated confidence and passivity, but his fingertips straightened, then curved, flexing with contained anger. "Then I want an agreement based upon precedent."

  "Of what nature?" Varpulis asked, not even winded by his running.

  "That if one of my bounty hunters accidentally kills an Alterant, any Alterant, there will be no retaliation and no recompense expected."

  The miserable cur wants blanket amnesty for all of the future, for one killing?

  He had to be crazy to think she'd agree to that. "I will not tolerate anyone attacking or killing a being who has been accepted into my pantheon and is under my protection."

  Dakkar's eyes thinned with impending battle. "I feel the same way about my bounty hunters. I think it only fair that you either finalize the charter and accept responsibility for all the Alterants or withdraw your charter until you are ready to make that commitment."

  "If I withdraw the charter, it will not be due to a bounty hunter's losing one of his mutts." Now she understood what this was all about. Dakkar was merely establishing his position in the eyes of the Tribunal, setting the stage for what he really wanted. An Alterant.

  Offering him anything else at this point would be a wasted effort, but she would flush him out. "What will compensate you, Dakkar?"

  "A decision on this before the next full moon."

  "Done." Varpulis sped up until he turned into a blur.

  Dakkar's sly smile widened into a predator's grin.

  Macha understood why. He knew she'd have to go against a Tribunal to change that decision. With the Medb threat hanging over her warriors and Brina, this was not the time to start a war on all fronts.

  He gambled that he would walk away with an Alterant. And damn his miserable hide, he just might.

  Evalle had better come through on her promise to bring in Alterants. And on time.

  TWENTY

  How could someone so small be so scary? Evalle followed Kit, the diminutive package of energy who, it appeared, ran Nyght Industries as she'd claimed.

  Isak's mother.

  Kit directed Evalle to follow as she headed for a group of men who'd been assembling weapons before the Rias attack. She made short work of dictating who would take what shift to guard the cell containing Jasper.

  Evalle recognized some of these men. She'd seen them carrying special weapons on black-ops maneuvers with Isak Nyght when he hunted nonhumans.

  Men born with sharp eyes who lived on a diet of adrenaline and grit.

  Not a one of them said a word to Kit other than a respectful "Yes, ma'am."

  Oddly, Kit's high-handedness didn't put Evalle off the way other people's had when they'd tried to force her to jump through hoops. Kit gave orders to keep chaos from turning into insanity, not as a power play. Evalle could respect that and go along to get along, for now.

  Turning toward the area in the gargantuan warehouse that had been sectioned off into offices, Kit said over her shoulder, "How does my son know you, Evalle?"

  "Uh ..." What could she say to Isak's mother without knowing what he'd told Kit? "He didn't tell you?"

  Kit didn't answer her. She opened the door to the offices and passed through an interim sitting area furnished with blue leather chairs and a sofa. A hallway to more offices spilled off to the left.

  Evalle kept step right behind Kit, who finally entered a windowless room painted in soft beige colors. The plain cherrywood desk suited Kit's bullet-point style. Files and paper sat on one side, neatly organized. A picture of her and Isak was perched on an eye-level shelf of the matching credenza behind the desk. Kit's all-in-one computer monitor had been mounted on an adjustable metal arm, ready to slide into any position for the woman who clearly demanded respect and compliance even from inanimate objects.

  She dropped into a high-back leather office chair that consumed her body, then she pointed at the armchair facing her desk. Not a request. "Don't answer my questions with a question. How do you know Isak?"

  Had there been an or else at the end of that?

  Evalle saw no way around giving this woman a version of the truth. "I met Isak by accident when we both found a demon at the same time."

  Leaned back with elbows propped on her chair arms, Kit folded her hands together in a thoughtful pose. "What happened?"

  "Isak used his blaster and turned the demon into chips."

  "Were you trying to kill the demon, too?"

  Tricky question. "I needed intel first. I was questioning the demon to find out who had sent him to Atlanta and how he was involved with a human that had been killed by another demon."

  "You must have seen Isak more than once for him to bring you to the warehouse." Kit could probably play poker with the pros in Las Vegas. She had an unreadable face.

  "We've crossed paths a few times."

  That drew an indulgent twist of Kit's lips. "Isak called to tell me he was bringing a friend here. That's enough alone to pique my curiosity since Isak hasn't exactly been social since losing his best friend since high school to an Alterant. Then you show up ... and he finds out the truth about you."

  Things had been going pretty good until Kit reminded Evalle of Isak's loss.

  She needed to convince Kit that she presented no threat to humans. "Just so we're clear, I did not come here to harm anyone or to sabotage your operation."

  "I can accept that."

  That sounded promising. Almost too easy.

  Then Kit asked, "What are you to Isak?"

  "We're friends." Evalle said that before she'd thought about it, but they were friends, at least from her point of view. She doubted Isak would agree at the moment. Worse than angry, he'd been disappointed when he found out he'd been associating with an Alterant, as if her being dangerous wasn't nearly as bad as her lying to him about her identity.

  Questions buzzed silently through the room until Kit snagged one from the air. "How long ago did you two meet?"

  "Couple months back, not long." Evalle preferred questions about the demon, the forklift-driver Rias in Kit's lockup or the weapon Evalle had come here hoping to borrow.

  Evalle would disappoint a string of men today. First Isak, now Tzader and Quinn, who had put their faith in her returning with a weapon for the team.

  The door between the office and the warehouse opened and closed behind her on a soft hush of air, but she didn't hear footsteps. No doubt one of the men had stuck his head in, realized Kit had a meeting in progress and withdrew just as quietly.

  "What kind of friend of Isak's are you?" Kit asked with enough steel in her voice that Evalle caught the protective warning.

  How do I answer that? I haven't had so many friends that I've had to break them down into categories. I thought you were either a friend or not.

  Evalle gave Kit the best answer she could. "The kind who has eaten dinner with Isak and who told him about how to see the Rias in a dangerous fog that covered parts of the country a few weeks ago. I fought a Rias on my way through Atlanta and w
as forced to kill it to protect a human, then I ran into Isak and gave him a tip about the fog camouflaging the shifted beasts."

  "Dinner?" Kit mused aloud. "You went on a date with Isak?"

  Of course Kit picked up on that and not Evalle's point about helping her son. Evalle had never been on a date and doubted what Isak had done that night qualified as such. "Not exactly."

  "How exactly?"

  Evalle wouldn't win any points with Isak's mom by saying he'd sent a team to kidnap her, but that's what had happened.

  "We had dinner at the hangar," Isak said, entering Kit's office.

  Had he been standing in the other room behind Evalle all this time? She angled her head up so she could assess his mood when he stopped next to her chair.

  He glanced down at her with ice-blue eyes that could drop the temperature ten degrees before he looked away to address his mother. "She missed a meeting. I sent the men on a 'snatch and grab.'"

  Kit's poker face fell away with a scowl. "You kidnapped her for dinner?"

  Isak moved one stiff shoulder in a half shrug. "I had to interrogate her ... it."

  He what? It? Evalle had originally thought he'd hauled her into his hangar for a browbeating, but that had been before he'd acted like the perfect gentleman and served her a mouthwatering Italian dinner he'd prepared.

  Then he'd kissed her.

  She turned all the way to face him. "Interrogation? Really? That's not how I remember it, Isak."

  "I'm not speaking to you, Alterant." He crossed his arms, eyes staring straight ahead, refusing to look at her.

  "Well, I'm talking to you, buster." Evalle stood up with her hands balled at her sides and stepped in front of him, turning her back on Kit.

  That should have forced Isak to face her, but he stared over her shoulder.

  She would not tolerate his attitude. "Okay, the secret is out. I am an Alterant and there's no twelve-step program to cure it. But I've also put my life on the line many times to protect humans. You can be mad at me for not telling you the truth, but you cannot stand there and judge me for things I haven't done."

  His jaw muscle clenched, but he made no sign of listening to her.

  She wanted to pound on his chest to make him see her again like he had before. As a woman. But he only saw a beast, so she stuck to facts. "I'm sorry you lost your friend to an Alterant, but I didn't do that." She nodded when his eyes finally shot to hers. "I can understand how you feel about losing someone who's important to you. That was one reason I tried to avoid you, but you wouldn't stay away from me."

  That square jaw of his moved when he ground his teeth. Blue eyes turned thunderstorm gray, but he didn't say a word.

  She unballed her fingers, dragging as much calm from her next breath as she could before she spoke.

  "You may not think of me as a friend anymore, but I still see you that way. I meant it when I said I didn't come here to cause you any problems, only to get a weapon to use against the trolls."

  "What trolls?" Kit asked. "Why are you fighting trolls and demons?"

  Evalle took a step to the side and turned so that she could keep both opponents in view when she spoke to Kit. VIPER might fry her over saying any more than she already had, but Kit and Isak knew about nonhumans. Continuing to lie to them would only turn their operation into a more dangerous enemy of the Coalition. Maybe, with a little luck, Evalle could show Kit and Isak the value of nonhumans.

  "I'm part of an international coalition of unusual beings that protects humans from supernatural predators ... like trolls."

  Isak made a nasty scoffing sound.

  "It's true," Evalle argued. She looked to Kit. "I've been doing this since I was eighteen, and the group I'm a member of is sworn to uphold a vow of honor under penalty of death. That includes protecting humans."

  Kit tapped her fingers against each other. "This isn't the first time you've fought trolls, right?"

  "No."

  "What's different now? Why do you need a Nyght weapon?"

  Evalle had been right to tell Kit the truth about what she did. The woman was too sharp to play games with and had been fair so far. "There's a special group of trolls called Svarts that are far more dangerous than regular ones. They're out of Switzerland. We're trying to figure out what they're doing here and protect humans without exposing ourselves."

  "Why do you hide from humans?"

  Had that been a trick question? The woman had to know how dangerous it would be to expose nonhumans to their world. Evalle said, "If humans knew about us, then they'd have to know about the nonhuman predators, which would create mass chaos. At that point, the good guys would be hunted along with the deadly ones, and you would end up with no one capable of protecting humans."

  Isak interjected, "We've been doing a pretty damned good job."

  Evalle rounded on him. "You have no idea of all the things out there. That Rias in your lockup is just one of many, and humans like your forklift driver don't even know they can turn into a beast. At least with Alterants we have bright green eyes, but there's no indication of a human who can shift into a Rias."

  "We can produce plenty of weapons to take those things down."

  Evalle ignored the dark way he'd said "things," determined to get her point across. "You don't understand. The Svart trolls are only one of the problems we face every day. The Svarts are a deadly black-ops group with different powers and abilities, plus they can glamour themselves so that you can't tell one from a human. I fought a Svart last night that was so dangerous it almost killed me."

  Concern flickered in Isak's gaze for a second, then he shut it down, but that tiny moment of emotion warmed Evalle's heart. Gave her hope that he might stop hating her someday.

  She swung her gaze to Kit, who had a warm, feminine version of Isak's blue eyes when Kit studied her son, but that same gaze turned back into all-business when Kit looked at Evalle. Kit asked in a pointed tone, "Who will be responsible for this weapon?"

  That got a rise out of Isak, stoking his anger back to full force. "There's no way in hell I'm giving it a weapon--"

  A snarl crawled up Evalle's throat at being called it again, but Kit stood with the speed of a bullet and spoke first.

  "Has Evalle ever presented a danger to humans that you know of, Isak?"

  Evalle held her breath. Could this mean what she thought? That she might really get out of this alive and walk away with a weapon?

  One look at Isak diminished that hope.

  A ball of fury wrapped in corded muscle fumed at her. His words rolled out like thunder. "That's not the point, Kit."

  Evalle frowned at him. "You keep calling your mother Kit. That's not right."

  Isak broke off the tense glaring match with Kit and stared at Evalle as if she'd spoken another language. "What'd you say?"

  Kit chuckled softly. "He's been calling me that since before he got his driver's license."

  Heat brushed Evalle's cheeks. She muttered around the foot she'd stuck in her mouth. "Oh, well, that just didn't sound right to me."

  "Didn't you tell me you never knew your parents?" Isak ground out, still not willing to let go of his righteous anger.

  "Yes."

  "Then how would you know what was right or not?"

  Evalle lifted her shoulders, cutting her eyes to Kit, judging his mother's reaction--amused?--before she answered him. "It's what I've seen on television and read in books. I thought calling her mom, mother, ma or something equivalent was a term of endearment and respect. I haven't heard anyone call their parent by a first name."

  Kit walked around her desk, chuckling over something that entertained only her. "I listen to my instincts, and mine are telling me I can believe you, Evalle." Kit extended her hand again. "Good to meet you. We'll loan you a weapon--"

  Isak growled loud as a grizzly awakened in winter hibernation, but he couldn't dampen Evalle's growing enthusiasm over the way this had turned out.

  Kit finished shaking her hand, then continued. "As long as you are ent
irely responsible for it."

  Like I wouldn't be anyhow? "No problem. I assure you--"

  "I'm not done," Kit said. "I also expect you to report regularly to Isak about nonhuman activity in the city."

  Evalle nodded, letting Kit know she was still on board. She didn't want to rock the tentative truce.

  "And ... " Kit added.

  "Yes?" Evalle said in too bright a voice, but Kit could still refuse the weapon or try to lock Evalle in a cell.

  That would be a mistake.

  Kit eyed both of them. "You come to dinner at my house soon, very soon."

  "What?" Isak and Evalle both shouted at the same time.

  "What word did either of you not understand?" Kit asked in a brisk voice similar to the one she'd used to issue orders in the warehouse.

  Isak just turned around and stalked out of the room without a sound except for slamming the door, making what he thought about spending another second in Evalle's company pretty clear.

  Which was fine. Dinner with Isak fell a ways down her priority list with Svart trolls invading the city and Tristan captured by the Medb.

  Smiling at Kit, Evalle said, "Thank you for the weapon. I promise you won't be sorry about loaning it to me."

  Kit smiled back, a confident take-no-prisoners smile. "I'm not the least concerned about the weapon, because we can disarm it remotely if need be."

  Crud. That could be a problem if Isak decided to flip the off switch without notifying her, but Evalle would just have to take that gamble. "That's good to know."

  As she moved closer to Evalle, Kit's pleasant voice turned deadly soft. "I have only one concern, and that's Isak. There's nothing that can protect anyone from me if something happened to him. I would unleash everything within my power, and trust me, I'm not someone you or any other nonhuman wants to go up against."

  Evalle chilled at the obvious threat, but not one she'd have to be concerned about. Based upon his loud exit, Isak wouldn't come within a mile of her again. Even if she had to follow through on the strange dinner invitation, Isak would bail out just as he'd done a moment ago. She assured Kit, "I understand and would never harm Isak."