by Marie Mistry
“I don't think that's relevant right now,” I deflected. “But I do have a question, now that we're all introduced. I want to know who told my mate to seduce Lucinda Luxwood.”
Rutia's eyes narrowed. “I did. I won't apologise for it. We got a lot of information out of that investigation.”
Of course, it would be her. The wind left my sails with a great whoosh of disappointment. I couldn't attack my only ally in the Assembly. “Damnit.” There went my plan of giving her a good blast of odynokinesis. “Do anything like that again and I'll put you in so much pain, you'll be twitching for months.”
As it was, a bit of power leaked out of me. Accidentally, of course. Not much, but enough to give her pins and needles in her leg.
Rutia gave me a grim nod of acceptance as she shuffled in her seat. “Noted. His usefulness as an agent is limited now that his loyalties are split anyway.”
I frowned, but Bane spoke up before I could. “No, my loyalty isn't split at all. It belongs to my mate until I die. I tried to tell you this when I tried to leave. You wouldn't hear it.”
She just shrugged. “Point taken.”
Valec grunted. “He may be a shit spy but you've got another thing coming if you think I'm going to stop sending the Wraith out on missions because he's pussy-whipped. He's got three gifts and a damned near perfect track record.”
“I'm not asking you to,” I retorted. “Now that that's out of the way. What do you want from me?”
“As my niece already said.” Torin glanced over at Babette. “Sometimes there are cases where it would be overkill to send one squad to smuggle out an unshown. Often, the demon who 'owns' that slave will be open to bartering for them. You're a new Head of House. You have no staff for your estate. No one will bat an eyelid if you make an offer. In fact, you and the owner would barely be involved at all. Usually, the transaction is set up and agreed by your respective assistants. The Resistance will reimburse you for all the costs involved…”
I cast a look at Bane, then over my shoulder at Blaze and Aeron.
“I don't see a problem with it.” I sent across all three bonds.
“Nelly will be careful,” Aeron agreed.
Blaze took longer to reply. “I don't see anything wrong with the idea but I'll keep an eye on Nelly and make sure she's protected, just in case.”
“He won't play tricks,” Bane advised. “He's like Kain. What you see is what you get. But make sure you have an out if you need it.”
“How many unshown are we talking about?”
Torin narrowed his eyes. “How many lives is my information worth to you?”
I glared at him for making me sound so callous. “Fifty. More than that and it will look incredibly suspicious, especially since the Syndicate is blaming the unshown for their attempts on my life.”
“A hundred,” Torin countered. “I've got double that number of requests for help coming in every week.”
“Fifty and my promise to use my vote in the Assembly to help the unshown whenever I can.” I would have done that anyway but Torin didn't need to know that.
Torin cast a glance towards Rutia, who nodded. “Lady Carazor has more influence than I, and the ear of her grandmother, who has more allies than both of us combined. It's a good offer.”
Torin didn't question her judgement. “Fine,” he sighed, resting his arms on the table before he began. “The Asterio Prophecy was the last words of Yolandi Asterio, a famous seer who was driven insane by the death of her mate in the 1840s. Her mate was one of the founding members of the Syndicate, back when it was a small, academic research group at Vice College. Back then, they were openly dedicated to the study of the shadow realm and received praise for their work, attracting the brightest minds of the age—including Aoife Saxon.”
I felt Aeron stiffen down our bond and instinctively reached along it to comfort him. Torin didn't seem to realise that he'd touched a nerve, because he carried on, regardless.
“Asterio's mate was also an Incubus, and like most of your caste…”
“He was an assassin,” I guessed.
“It was—by all accounts—a very messy affair. He killed the mate of the leader of the Syndicate, who then retaliated by killing him. Yolandi confronted the Grand Master of the Syndicate and predicted their downfall at the hands of the Strange God's Chosen. Hardly anyone knows the full prophecy anymore but there were rumours that it predicted the Chosen would be from the same caste as Yolandi's mate. The Syndicate, fearing for its safety, withdrew into secrecy and, in time, demons forgot there ever was a shadow realm research society. The rumours of the Asterio Prophecy were forgotten, only to be confirmed eighty years later, when the Syndicate had grown in influence and initiated the 1920s purge.”
“Shit. These people caused that massacre Vrosis told us about?” Babette looked sympathetically at me. “And Reece is a part of this?”
“He manages their finances,” I confirmed.
“Sounds like him. Dad always said the rich bastard only ever cared about money and Greed. According to him, shortly after I was born, Reece decided he needed an heir for the family fortune to prevent it all going to me when he died. So, he paid women with a perfect Greed lineage to have his children, killed the women and took his money back. The only reason he had two kids in the first place was so that he had double the chance of one of them being a Greed.”
I frowned. “I'm mentoring your cousin, Viv. She got put in Lust and Reece sent an assassin after her. I got to her in time, but she thinks you're dead. She refuses to believe otherwise.”
Babette sighed, her gaze flicking off into the distance. “Morph and Viv are pretty brainwashed. They're not bad people … they just think Reece is all-powerful because he's convinced them that he is. They'll do anything for his approval but, like I said, the asshole only cares about his money and his caste. He started trying to kill my mum when she married my dad because she was a Wrath. Then when they had me, he stopped, probably just in case I was a Greed. Once I had my showing, it all started again. Only this time, he had his own heirs, so he started sending people after my dad.”
“Which is why my sister and her husband moved here,” Torin finished.
“Didn't work though, did it?” Babette's eyes flashed with grief.
Torin's voice softened. “I have apologised for my failure, repeatedly.”
Babette shoved her chair back. “Kill the bastard, Lilith. Viv was raised at his knee; she'll know how to bring him down. It might take some work to convince her that she's been brainwashed. Tell her I said she needs to play Scrabble. That should convince her I'm still alive and he's not as powerful as he pretends. Morpheus too, if you can get to him. They'll know exactly where to get under his skin.”
With that, she stormed out of the room and didn't look back.
There was a long, pregnant pause, during which Rutia glared daggers at Torin.
“You must forgive my niece. She's still grieving the loss of her parents,” he said, after a long pause. “I made the stupid mistake of letting my sister and brother-in-law go to collect her from graduation. They were assassinated on their return.”
Sympathy and sadness filled me, even though I'd guessed as much from their conversation. “How did Babette survive?”
Torin's face turned to stone, and it was Rutia who replied.
“The assassin couldn't kill her because Babette was her mate.”
Aeron cursed and I silently echoed his sentiment. My heart ached for my friend and almost everything in me wanted to run after her.
Torin stood and the rest of us followed his motion. “It seems matings are springing up everywhere these days.” It didn't sound like he was overjoyed by the news. “At least they didn’t complete the bond, or my niece would be forced to rely on her mate for power on top of it all.”
I started for the door, but Rutia kept me in place. “Lady Carazor, I have one last thing. One of my spies is in the Prime's household. She's not in a trusted position but she overheard something interesting
almost a month ago. Apparently, the Syndicate aims to poison you. Stay on your guard.”
My mind flashed back to Rina's vision of Craven and Professor Saxon. “I'll be careful. Tell me, have you heard anything regarding the old Prime?”
“Prime Craven?” Rutia seemed surprised. “No, as far as I'm aware, he's still in prison for the murder of Senior Judge Abrosiax. Why?”
I nodded. “Just wondering. And I suppose you don't know who the Grand Master is, either?”
Rutia shook her head. “No one does. That's the drawback with powerful secret cults. We think they have access to at least one mnemokinetic, because there's no way for one person to be so forgettable otherwise.”
I hid a smug grin. They'd had a mnemokinetic but Fintan had fled after freeing me. Providing he was the only one, the Syndicate wouldn't be able to pull any more mind tricks. Maybe the Grand Master would slip up somehow…
“Thank you again for your help.” I turned back to Torin. “I'll keep my side of our bargain.”
“Good.”
Chapter 20
I was happy to ride the whole way back to Vice, but my mates could sense exactly how exhausted I was. We drove only long enough to make sure we didn't have a Resistance tail, then they called Kain to come and take us back through the shadow realm.
When I reappeared in my own room, with only my Pride mate for company, I frowned.
“Don't give me that look.” His voice was soft as he smiled at me. “I know, you want to work on whatever lead you just got from Bane's rebel friends but I can feel you down the bond, Sunshine. You're exhausted.”
He moved closer, slipping his arms around my waist. I felt his fingers slip the sigillary from around my brimstone a nanosecond before I felt the gold bands retreat from my horns and wings. It may have been a small thing but the instant it was off, I felt lighter.
“You need rest,” Kain insisted, kissing my forehead as he carefully placed the sigillary behind me on the bedside table.
There were a million things I needed to do but his hands started work on the buttons of my shirt and I couldn't help relaxing into his care. All thoughts of my obligations melted away in his hands.
Layer by layer, he peeled me out of my Assembly robes till I was left standing naked before him. I reached for his clothes, drowsy, but still ready for whatever he had in mind. But he stilled my motions before I could begin.
“No?” I asked, confused and tired all at once.
“Not tonight,” he said, materialising a shirt out of thin air and draping it over me. It was one of his lacrosse shirts and, even freshly washed, it still smelled like him. I breathed in deeply, hugging myself. “Tonight, I just want to hold you. I need you well rested for what I have planned for you tomorrow morning.”
I was too tired to even be irritated at his sneaky methods, so I climbed into bed and watched through half-lidded eyes as he stripped down and climbed in next to me. He pulled me closer so my head was resting on his chest and switched off the light.
But the room didn't go dark as it usually did.
Instead, my ceiling glowed with a hundred miniature flecks of starlight. Their gentle twinkling and Kain's warm embrace lulled me to sleep.
I woke late for breakfast, with Kain gone and a note telling me he had rugby practice laying innocently on my pillow. Waking up alone in bed felt so odd that I lay there for a minute, just processing the cool sheets and the strange silence.
The million bombshells that had been dropped on me yesterday circled around in my mind. Hannibal and Ajax were part of the Syndicate. Ajax and Torin were Babette's uncles. Her mate had killed her parents. Blaze had been involved in putting down the famous unshown uprising in the US only a few years ago.
I needed to deal with some of these issues, and thankfully, I didn't have to choose. The instant I stepped outside of my door, Vivienne ambushed me.
Well, 'ambushed' might have been a strong word for it. She was just waiting outside my door silently and my preoccupation meant that I didn't notice her until I'd almost bowled her over.
“Viv, you scared the shit out of me!” I clutched my chest as I stepped back.
It was only then that I realised that she was low on power. Her shy beauty had upgraded to that magnetic draw since I last saw her. I knew Viv had been surviving off discrete kisses from Maxine so far but whatever power she'd used had drained her.
“You need to take power,” I insisted. “You're going to be mobbed by the time we reach the front door of the castle.”
She shook her head. “There's a dead body in my room.”
My eyes widened. Of all the things I'd expected her to say…
I looked carefully for signs of injuries. “Whose dead body?”
“My uncle sent another assassin.”
I stared at her in disbelief. “And you managed to fight him off? Without getting a scratch?”
She shook her head. “I just shielded … I don't know what killed him … It was like some invisible man ripped him apart.”
I followed her up the stairs to her room, then cursed as she pushed open the door to reveal a man in the robes of an unshown lying on his back, the Pride crystal on his forehead dull and lifeless. His robes were ripped and torn and on his bloody chest sat Onyx. The imp looked very pleased with himself as he picked pieces of fabric from between his teeth with a long claw.
I just had the presence of mind to shut the door behind me before someone else saw. Of course, that shut the both of us in a room with the cadaver but I tried not to dwell on it.
“Onyx,” I held out my hand and the imp rolled his eyes before flying over to it. “You protected Viv?” How had he even known she was under attack?
Viv was looking at me like I'd lost my mind. “This is Onyx, one of my two bonded imps.” I sighed. “I have no idea why he was in here but imp venom is a powerful poison.”
Viv nodded, returning to her normal, silent self.
I bit my lip, I needed to do something about the body but if I called Blaze, it would be a school-wide incident. I wanted to call Enzo … but Vivienne didn't know about my seventh mate.
“I'm going to call someone … If anyone asks, you never met him.”
She nodded mutely.
“Enzo…”
His response was immediate. “Miss me, Pretty Darling?”
“How do I get rid of a dead body?”
I could feel his amusement down the bond. How typical that Enzo would find my predicament funny. “Do you ask all of your mates such romantic questions?”
I rolled my eyes. “Practical advice needed here.”
“Give me one second.”
My Gluttony mate stepped out of the shadows beside me, regarding the corpse with a professional detachment.
“Imp venom?” he guessed, casting a glance towards us. “Oh, is this the baby Succubus? A pleasure to meet you. I'm Enzo Orfo and if you harm my mate, I'll happily disembowel you at my earliest convenience.”
Viv paled, staring between us and the corpse with wide eyes.
“Enzo…” I trailed off, my eyes going to the body. “How do we get rid of him?”
“It.”
“Excuse you?”
“Corpse handling lesson one. They're never a he or a she. Always an it. Distance yourself from the subject matter or you'll throw up.”
“I wasn't asking for a lesson…”
“You mean you don't think there will be future incidents that require this kind of knowledge? That's very naïve of you.” He sighed. “My favourite method is just to leave them in the shadow realm to rot. The bottom feeders will eat the corpse in a few days.”
“And what are those of us who can't just click our fingers and magic the body away supposed to do?”
“Burn the skin, hair and any personal effects, then weigh it down and sink it in the nearest deep body of water.”
Viv was visibly paling at the description, her eyes lingering on the body.
“The baby Succubus is going to puke,” Enzo observed. �
�She's obviously not paying attention to lesson one.”
“No, I'm fine.” There was a subtle determination in Viv's eyes as she stared down my assassin mate.
He smirked and turned back to me. “I'll deal with this one.” The corpse disappeared without him even looking at it. “It's not in your room, so I assume the attacker was targeting your newbie…”
“Her name is Vivienne.”
He winked. “I know. Just like I know that her father is trying to kill you and her cousin is the niece of the leader of the rebellion.”
I rolled my eyes. “Blaze's stupid 'meetings' again? When am I going to get invited?”
“When we go an entire hour without trying to kill one another.” Enzo smiled sweetly. “It hasn't happened yet, but Daron continues to hold out hope.” He looked around the room. “Fancy dinner in Singapore tonight?”
I smiled. “I'd love to but we're going to be too busy in detention, if I'm much later.”
With a smirk, he faded away into the shadow realm.
“He could have at least given us a lift,” I muttered as I headed for the door. “I know it's not ideal, but the best way to prove your bastard father wrong is to act like nothing happened.” I turned to my imps. “We're going to miss breakfast. Can you do your thing to the vending machine and grab us both something?”
Both of them grinned wickedly and disappeared. Viv watched the entire exchange but didn't speak until I turned back to her.
“What was he saying about my cousin?”
I took a deep breath and started to make my way out of the Tower, my mentee following like a lost sheep. The grounds were empty, with everyone else already in the castle, so I felt safe discussing the events of last night with her. “Babette's alive and I can prove it. She said to tell you that you need to play Scrabble. I hope that makes sense to you…”
Viv sucked in a breath. “Impossible.”
“I'm only telling you this because of your vow to never betray me. Her maternal uncle is the head of the Resistance. She's been living with him since she graduated.”
“And her parents?”
“Dead,” I admitted.
