by Marie Mistry
I thought that would be the end of the conversation but, apparently, my mentee was in a chattier mood than she had been all month.
“And that man in my room…”
“Who you never met.” I reminded her.
“That man I definitely did not meet,” she agreed. “Who was he?”
“How much have you picked up about me and the guys?” I asked in response.
“You're fucking them.” She shrugged. “But you also share long looks with the younger Professor Saxon and there's definitely chemistry between you and Officer Inferna.” She shrugged again. “I knew Succubae weren't exactly monogamous. I'm not judging if you're sleeping with people outside of Vice too.”
Why couldn't she extend that same philosophy to herself, I wondered. “They're all my mates.”
“Matings stopped happening centuries ago,” she corrected. “It always drove my father mad that he couldn't find his. He was convinced it was the key to breeding perfect Greed heirs worthy of the Ajax name. He only gave up when Babette was conceived because he needed an heir of his own or his fortune would go to her.”
“Well matings are starting to come back,” I shrugged. “Lulu, my mentor, has two. Babette…” I trailed off.
“My cousin's mated?”
I grimaced. “Complicated subject. The point is, Enzo is my seventh mate.”
“So matings have started coming back but only to people close to you?” Viv guessed. “Is this like your power to put demons through their showings?”
“I don't think I can make mates meet.”
“But it's an incredible coincidence that they all know you,” she argued.
I shrugged. “Not really. The unshown were finding mates before I was even born. I don't think there's a correlation.”
She just shrugged, letting the subject drop and I instantly felt bad. “Are you okay?” It was frightening how numb I was becoming to dead bodies but Viv was only on her second, that I knew of.
She nodded. “Eventually they'll succeed. Then you won't have to worry about me anymore.”
I rolled my eyes. “If you truly believed that, you wouldn't have shielded. Your father is not as all-powerful as you think.”
“He decided everything about me,” she retorted. “Why should he not decide my death as well?”
“Because he's an irritating fleck of arse dandruff.” Rina appeared out of nowhere, running past us like her life depended on it. “Like a certain someone else I know!”
“Rina, where are you going?” I called after her.
“Away from this memory-wiping nutjob!” she yelled over her shoulder.
I glanced behind me. “There's no one there!”
Rina all but collapsed at my words, hands on her knees as she looked over her shoulder to check I was right.
“Memory-wiping nutjob?” I asked as Viv and I approached.
“Long fucking story, and I'm not sure I remember most of it!” She sent an angry glare back at the Vengeful Tower. “My mate is as annoying as all seven of yours put together!”
My jaw dropped and Viv smirked. “No correlation, huh?” my mentee whispered.
“Your mate?" I said to Rina.
“Don't bloody ask.” She righted her clothes and fell into step beside us. “I'm dealing with the situation.”
She looked mad enough that I wanted to back off but Viv obviously wasn't cowed. “So, when will I meet my mate?”
“You don't want to!” Rina interjected. “Stupid, inconsiderate, migraine-inducing liars, the lot of them!” she half-bellowed the last part over her shoulder.
“Nelly hasn't met her mate,” I objected. “Nor have any of my teachers and I spend time around them. Your theory is just a theory.”
Rina caught on quickly. “You don't mean to tell me you are the reason for all of this!” She looked ready to throttle me but she went silent and stiffened as we approached one of the myriad benches and a figure, dressed in white, was sat there.
“Don't,” she whispered, raising a transparent shield between us and the man—the figure before us was definitely male—as she took a wobbly step back.
Fintan was silent but looked considerably better than when I'd last seen him. I watched warily as he adjusted his flat cap. His clothes were pure white, from his flat cap to his suspenders to the crisp white shirt. He'd obviously cleaned up since he'd escaped the Syndicate but I could see the scars remained.
But had he escaped or was he still working with them? I pulled Viv behind me, though I knew it would do little to keep her safe, if it came down to it. I had no idea how to fight someone with the ability to go into my mind and steal my memories on a whim.
“Fintan is on the grounds. Your sister is ... acting more crazy than normal…” I sent to Blaze.
“On my way.”
“Interesting.” Fintan's voice was still a whisper. “Please, I mean no harm. Tell my brother-by-mating to come alone.”
Was he … reading my mind?
He shook his head. “Not really. I see memories. I read the memory of the thought after you've had it…” He looked past me to Viv. “Another of our kind? This must be the most of us that have been in one place since the purge…”
“What do you want with Rina?” I asked.
“She's my mate.”
“Not by choice!” Rina piped up. “He's been visiting me for months, wiping my memory each time we inevitably fight. Which—for the record—is a cheap fucking move!”
“Sweetness, talk to me.”
“I don't think he's a threat.” At least, he didn't seem threatening. “He says he wants you to come alone and that he's her mate…”
“Shit.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“My grandmother predicted Rina's mate would appear … I thought we'd have more time.”
“Blaze?”
But he'd gone silent.
Fintan wasn't moving toward us but he wasn't backing down either. “You know I'm your mate. Your grandmother predicted my coming. I got her blessing before I even approached you."
"My grandmother isn't fucking lucid ninety percent of the time!” Rina growled. “You might have thought she was giving consent when really, she was talking to the visions in her head! Even if she did give you permission, I didn't.”
“I swear to the Strange God never to use my gift on you again without your permission,” Fintan blurted.
Rina just gaped at him.
“That was your issue, right?”
Rina, for once, appeared silent.
Fintan went quiet again as well, so they were both just staring at one another. Viv and I just stared between them like an awkward third wheel. Rina's shield gradually started to waiver; then, it disappeared entirely.
The silence only broke when Blaze arrived, barely out of breath even though he was sprinting. It didn't take him long to take stock of the situation and put himself between all of us and Fintan.
“Wrath, Violence. Fragokinesis and pyrokinesis,” Fintan whispered. “You must be my mate's brother.” He gave an awkward little half-bow. “Gale Fintan, Incubus, mnemokinetic and Tester, at your service. My thanks for coming alone.”
Blaze nodded, posture stiff. “You freed my mate from the Syndicate.”
Fintan gave another little half-bow. “I did what I could.”
“You could have killed the fucks before they hurt Lilith,” Rina objected.
He shook his head. “What do you think the first vows they ever made me take were? I can't harm them. I wasn't permitted to read their memories and I can't betray their secrets. Unfortunately, it seems the Strange God even enforces the vows of his enemies.”
Blaze grimaced. “So, you're a walking threat.”
“Not to my mate. Not to my friends.”
Another awkward silence ensued, during which my imps finally appeared, carrying chocolate bars from the vending machine. Rina snagged one before I could offer it to her and almost choked as she tried to force it down. Viv eyed the floating food with confusi
on before I plucked it from Onyx and handed it to her.
“Chocolate isn't exactly breakfast,” Blaze commented.
I gave him the finger.
“We're stress eating,” Rina informed her brother, grabbing a second bar. “Women can do that.”
Fintan's hand went to his pocket and Blaze instantly stiffened. When he withdrew a tiny book and a pencil, our eyebrows rose in unison.
“What are you doing now?” Rina demanded.
He blushed, the faint pink a striking contrast to the extreme paleness of the rest of him. “I have a bad memory. I've been writing down pertinent facts, to make sure I don't forget.”
“And what are you writing now?” I wondered.
“That my mate eats chocolate for breakfast.”
Viv and I both snorted in concert. Rina just scowled, mouth still consuming the gooey chocolate and caramel goodness she'd snatched from my imp. “I do not! Even if I did, why would you need to write it down?”
Fintan just cocked his head at her. “If I'm not permitted to use my gift on you, how can I be expected to remember things?”
“That's not remembering. It's stealing other people's memories.”
“Not really. I'm just saving space in my own brain.”
Strange as it was, there was an ease to the way the two of them bickered and it spread amongst the group of us. Onyx and Ivory flew forward to investigate the newcomer, who flinched slightly at the feeling of tiny invisible creatures searching him but said nothing. Blaze, alone, remained wary.
I checked my watch. “Shit, we're late for Maddox's lesson.”
Fintan just shrugged. “So?”
“So, you need to disappear,” Rina interjected.
Ivory flew back to my shoulder, his interest in Fintan exhausted. But Onyx remained, his tiny claws ripping at the man's clean white shirt.
“Onyx,” I called, but was ignored. “Onyx, come back here.”
Fintan's shirt wasn't holding up against the talons of my little imp, the fabric was ripping, and tiny pricks of blood were escaping. Fintan didn't react, except to cock his head to one side.
“Fascinating.”
Rina evidently didn't think so. “Lilith, call your damned imp off. I'm the only one who gets to rip into the bastard!”
I raised a brow at that but I wasn't sensing any kind of animosity from Onyx. “I don't think he means to hurt him…”
Once the imp had removed the fabric from his way, he settled into the space above the Incubus's heart, his claws and wings holding him in place as he opened his mouth wide and bit down.
I felt the power being drawn from me and down my bond to the imp, but I didn't understand what he was doing until the drain became more severe. I staggered but Blaze caught me before I could fall.
“Get that imp off of him,” he ordered Rina.
“What do you think I'm doing?” she retorted.
“Let it happen,” I whispered. “This is his power.”
It all made sense now. Ivory was the only one who allowed me to spy on others because he was the only one who could. Light imps could share their senses with their bonded.
Dark imps were different.
When Onyx lifted himself away from Fintan and drunkenly flew back toward me, I barely managed to catch him.
“He broke the vow.” Fintan sounded awed and terrified all at once. “All of them…”
Blaze gently lowered me to my feet, keeping a supportive arm around my shoulders. His voice lowered to a deadly pitch as he confronted the Incubus. “If you tell anyone about what they just did…”
“All of them.” Fintan was staring at the baby-pink skin over a wound that had sealed up, leaving only the scarred indents of Onyx's teeth. “I felt the venom. It was excruciating. Then…”
“It destroys bonds.” I whispered. “I felt him sorting through all the ones inside you. I could even feel your half-formed bond with Rina…”
Under normal circumstances, the Strange God held people to vows made in his name, preventing them from breaking them. Whatever Onyx had just done hadn't just circumvented divine power … it had destroyed it.
“Never breathe a word of it to anyone,” Blaze insisted and this time, I could tell Rina was thinking the same thing.
“Never,” she insisted.
“I'll vow it to the Strange God if you agree to go on a date with me.” Fintan looked nervous to be making the proposition but before Blaze could tell him to shove his date where the sun didn't shine, Rina cut in.
“Deal.”
Fintan didn't give her a chance to change her mind. “I vow to the Strange God to always keep your secrets.”
It was enough to make Blaze relax but he turned on Viv next. My mentee held up her hands in surrender. “I already swore myself to her, remember?”
Blaze shrugged. “If word gets out that she has an imp which can destroy vows…”
“Every SOB and their crazy aunt wanting out of a vow will be on her ass like worms on dirt,” Rina finished.
“Just great,” I growled. “Well, I guess Viv and I both need a top-up now.” I turned back to Fintan. “If your bonds are broken, can you tell us about the Syndicate?”
He shrugged. “I know very little more than you do. Portinax, the member who caught me when I was in hiding, was killed recently, and he didn't exactly keep me up to date with the comings and goings. I lived in a cell and I wasn't permitted to read the memories of anyone except the other prisoners. I was only introduced to the other Syndicate members when I had been forced to vow not to read their memories.”
“But who are they? Who's the Grand Master?”
He shrugged. “No one knows. Or at least, they never refer to them by their name. Portinax thought they were a man, but Lucinda believed she was a woman. It's possible they have a gift which enables them to distort their appearance.” He shrugged again. “Sorry, I know that's not helpful.”
Blaze gave me a comforting squeeze. “We'll find them, Sweetness. Don't worry. Now, about that top up…”
Chapter 21
Unfortunately, we never had time to top up because Dr Djinn, the Demonish language teacher, had sent an unshown to search for Vivienne, who was supposed to be in his lesson. The unshown's arrival prompted Fintan's sudden disappearance and Blaze was forced to make up a story where Rina, Viv and I had been playing truant.
Rina and I were hauled before Maddox, as the head of our year. He just waved the incident off as soon as he saw it was me—at least being the Strange God's chosen had some perks. Viv wasn't so lucky. She tried to tell Djinn, her head of year, that she'd been trying to find someone to feed from, which then led to him assigning her a healer and giving her detention. When she rejoined us at lunch, she was blushing scarlet.
Evidently, Rezinax had assigned her a very hot energy donor from Wrath, who'd been eager to please.
If only Blaze had been so helpful. No, he'd disappeared as soon as he could, leaving me to steal energy from Daron as soon as I could ambush him in a hallway. I wondered if the horrible feeling of me taking power from him yesterday had put Blaze off. He needn't have worried; taking energy from Daron felt normal and natural, with none of the strangeness that had affected me before.
Blaze's absence continued into the evening, till I was waiting outside of the doors of the castle for him to show up. I was tired and cranky and ready to sleep and had almost given up, when the crunch of gravel under boots made me turn.
I smiled when I saw his bright red hair but he didn't return it. Slowly, my smile wilted as he drew closer and closer.
“Lilith,” he began.
I took a step toward him. Blaze never used my name. He only ever called me 'Sweetness.' “What's wrong?”
“Nothing. I'm just tired.”
I frowned. “Bullshit.”
He raised a brow at me.
“You heard me. Bullshit. You've been avoiding me. Is it because I hurt you yesterday? I don't know what happened and I was fine tod—”
He put his finger agai
nst my lips. “It's nothing wrong with you, Sweetness.”
“Then what the hell is it?” I grumbled. “I've gotten used to you keeping me at arm's length but it seems to be getting worse. You had your secret meeting with Rezinax, you kept the fact that you were involved in shutting down the unshown uprising in the States … I can't take another Bane.”
Blaze all but growled. “Fucking Bane! You think I'd stoop that low?”
I put my hand on his arm, unafraid of his anger. “No. I know you wouldn't. I just … I see you pulling away. With your grandmother's vision, I suppose it's probably for the best. But, I'd still rather you didn't.”
Blaze thrust a hand through his hair. “I'm not keeping things from—”
“Oooh, you don't want to finish that lie.” Enzo appeared from the shadows. “Pretty Darling, you're late for our trip to Singapore, so I came to investigate.” He bent and kissed me in greeting, completely oblivious to the tension between Blaze and me. “So, Wrath. Want to rephrase that last bit?”
Blaze glared at him. “I'm not keeping things from her.”
“LIAR.” Enzo chuckled, clearly finding the whole thing amusing as he turned to me. “Your Wrath is part of an underground duelling society. He spends his evenings beating other demons into a pulp for money.”
Blaze took a swing at Enzo, who promptly shifted into a shadow, reappearing on the other side of us.
“It's not for money.”
“Oh really? Because the jackpot last time was a cool few million. Almost enough to, say, buy a first edition of Pride and Prejudice for a certain birthday. Not enough to tempt me, but certainly enough to help out a demon who is the sole provider for his poor ageing grandmother and expensive younger sister.”
Blaze raised a fist again but I grabbed him and spun him to face me. “Ignore him. Make me understand,” I ordered.
Blaze grimaced, his aggression slowly leaking out of him as his breathing evened into an odd, rhythmic pattern. “I need more power to protect you. I can't keep up with your other mates who can use you to generate more power than they're used to. I'm a Violence, and I'm not about to—”
Enzo cocked his head. “Use your apartment full of floggers and ropes to coax her into life-changing orgasms and fuel your own power at the same time? Spank her adorable ass into a beautiful shade of red before fucking it hard? Or were you referring to how your mother treats your father?”
