by K. F. Breene
“The struggle of life defines you. You are not a pampered pet; you are a savage hunter. You were born to it. You were bred for it. You yearn to throw off the robes of secrecy and reach for your destiny.”
Here he went again, with his visions of grandeur. I didn’t bother arguing. He never seemed to hear me when I said that my sole desire was to go home to my comfortable house in New Orleans, take up my old job of bounty hunting, and chase some shifters around for sport. I missed taking pleasure in the little things, like trying to force the overly loud were-yeti to call me ma’am, just for funsies, and checking in with my neighbors, a surly crew who would kill for me. Not that my friends wouldn’t kill for me—they had—but it didn’t mean as much in the magical world. Humans digging an unmarked grave meant bros for life. Or…bras, in this case, since I was a chick.
“You cannot hide here forever,” Cahal finished.
“I know. The plan is to hide until I am better acquainted with my magic. Which is really coming along, thanks to you. It’s lucky for me you saw my father training one of his heirs.” Not so lucky for my half-brother, though. His other half was human, and he’d died a miserable death in the Underworld.
“You asked about the elephants.” He fell silent for a while. “They are my favorite, yes, though my pain in seeing their death only…makes me soupy—”
“There you go. Now you’re getting it.”
“—because of my relationship with you.”
“I’m not following.”
“That is because you are incredibly impatient, and I have not yet explained.” His look suggested violence, and since I wanted to hear this, I pursed my lips in a show of silence. No baiting the druid when I wanted info. I’d learned the hard way. “I knew the last heir, as I’ve said. Not terribly well, but well enough that I was invited to watch him blossom under Lucifer’s care in the Dark Kingdom—”
“Wait.” I turned and put the edge of my hand against his arm to stop him. “You were in the Dark Kingdom?”
“Yes.”
“You got past the fog?”
“This was before the treaty your father was backed into by the elves. There was no fog. Any creature could come and go as they pleased, enjoying the sights, as Lucifer intended.”
“The treaty…” My perfect recall system, something I’d gained from my bond to Darius, brought up what he was talking about. Darius had been schooling me on all the politics—stuff I didn’t really want to know but probably should learn just in case. They were long, boring lectures only made bearable because of the frequent breaks he took to pleasure me. “Right, right. Lucifer tried to carve out a space in the Realm for his son, who was deteriorating in the Underworld because of his human side—he didn’t have the lineage of the gods like I do. The elves denied him. If Lucifer’s son had wanted to simply live in the Realm, under their rule, that would’ve been fine—or so the records say—but Lucifer wanted to create his own territory in the Realm. They tried to kick him out, he decided he’d just take their throne, and after a long, bloody battle, the elves forced him to return down below and his son stupidly followed. The son died, Lucifer was pissed, but the treaty held. What about the lack of oxygen, though? How’d you deal with that?”
“Again, that wasn’t an issue at the time. Now, however…” He paused. “I am god-touched, as you know.” Something he didn’t often speak of because it would make him a target for other magical people who wanted the same gifts. It was the same sort of magic Penny had stolen from a horrible little goblin we were sent to get rid of, and then shared with Emery through their bond. “My power can have a nulling effect on Lucifer’s, just like Penny’s spells null your magic.”
“And that’s why you can withstand my fire to some degree, and push away my walls.”
“Unless you correctly apply your power, yes. The fog and air weren’t a problem at that time, and now I can successfully walk through his fog and breathe in the inner court of the Dark Kingdom, even though his spells mask the air. He cannot use magic to deny me access—”
“Wait, wait…” My hand was back against his arm. “They mask the air? There is actually air in the center of the kingdom?”
“He does not live in a vacuum-sealed bubble. Of course there is air.”
“I hear you—I realize that you are calling me dense—but seriously, how was I supposed to know that? Physics in homeschool didn’t cover the Underworld.” I blew out a breath. “Wow. That’s a shocker. So wait…Penny and Emery can get into the Underworld since they have the god-touched magic?”
“Yes, though they shouldn’t, unless you or Lucifer strip away the magical pitfalls designed to impede their kind. There are magical traps for those who don’t belong that being god-touched won’t totally nullify.”
“Huh.”
“Getting back to the point…” he said, and I curled my lips inward. “The Underworld changed the heir significantly, and not just because the magic corroded his human side. Power corrupted his mind.
“When I think back on it, I must admit that the heir started out wanting. If he were in your position now, the only thing he’d want was more. More riches, more luxury, more power. He’d lord his good fortune over others. In your position, he’d force your friends, the natural dual-mages, further into the vampire’s employ so as to control them. Or, at least, that’s the kind of person he became.”
“And you were the friend he tried to force?”
“More of an acquaintance, but yes. He asked me to be his guard, and I refused. He tried to lure me with riches and power. Another refusal. The next lure was women—their version of women, at any rate. Then he tried to beguile me into a contract, which was the most laughable attempt of all. It showed his ignorance of how my kind work. And finally, he tried to force me.”
“He tortured an elephant?”
Again came the look.
“It’s not that I’m impatient,” I replied, “it’s that you take forever to get to the point.”
“It is not your impatience that is the problem at the moment—it is your thinking capacity. There are no elephants in the Underworld.”
“You’ve learned Darius’s trick of how to pleasantly call me an idiot.”
“Yes.” He waited for me to frown at him before going on. “Julius trapped me for a full year, beating me every day, trying to break me and turn me to his cause.”
“Wow. There goes your friendship. But, obviously, he wasn’t strong enough to break you.”
“No one has been strong enough to break me, though many have tried.”
I widened my eyes at that. It occurred to me that I knew very little about the deadly man standing beside me, and suddenly I wanted to amend that fact, if only because it sounded more interesting than living in the lap of luxury.
“Your father, who had allowed his heir free rein in what he called ‘side pursuits,’ finally stepped in and commanded I be released. He did not like what his heir had turned into, I could tell, both because Julius was slightly…unhinged—”
“Just slightly?”
“—and because he was ineffective.”
“You mean he didn’t have the power to break you.”
“Correct. He was an embarrassment on two levels.”
“My dear old dad isn’t such a good guy, I take it.”
“He exists in balance. He can love and hate, lust and kill. Like you. Like me. He looked at his child the way humans look at theirs. His son was…getting soupy…”
“Nope. Missed the mark that time.”
“Lucifer tried to get help for his son. He thought the Underworld was responsible for breaking Julius down. That the human side of him was too weak for the Underworld. And in some ways he was right, but as I said, I suspect power also corrupted him. Regardless, that is why Lucifer sought refuge for his son in the Realm, as any parent would.”
“He also let his son torture an innocent acquaintance for a year…”
“We’re not all perfect.”
“Wow. I think you are
out of balance, because your level of forgiveness is on par with an angel.”
“I am in balance.”
Shivers covered my body. I didn’t want to know the darkness that clearly lurked within him.
Well…kind of didn’t, and kind of did. I just didn’t want it directed at me.
“Do you ever chase shifters around for sport?” I asked. He gave me a funny look, but I waved it away. “Never mind. It also should be noted that Lucifer would’ve rather gone to war to get what he wanted than take the obvious solution and send his son back to live in the human world.”
“A parent would move heaven and earth for their child. Lucifer is no different.”
I squinted, because yes, he was different. My mother had sacrificed big time to keep me safe, and Penny’s mother had done the same for her. Neither of them would have turned a blind eye if we’d started torturing people in our rooms. My dear old dad would not win any awards for father of the year, and I wouldn’t put it past him to torture me to bring me to heel. Clearly the practice was tolerated, and I knew for a fact that Lucifer’s power had a larger range than mine. If anyone could break me, I had every reason to believe it was him.
I sighed. “We still have not covered how elephants could possibly fit into all of this, since they also do not exist in the Realm.”
“Now your impatience is the problem. After I was released, I washed my hands of Julius. I left the Underworld and did not look back. I haven’t been there since.”
“You hold grudges. Got it.”
“Julius showed his displeasure by mutilating the elephants that roamed freely on my Brink property and delivering them to my doorstep. I’d saved those elephants from…what we’d call poachers now. They had refuge on my estate. They were the closest thing I had to family, as alone as I am in this life. It was like mutilating a pet, in a way, but more meaningful. I grieved heavily that I was the ultimate cause of their demise.”
“Hmm. So my using elephants was a pretty low blow.”
“Certainly not as low as punching me in the nut sack.”
“It’s lower, believe me. I’ll punch a dick any ol’ day and twice on Sunday. I do not care. Take that as a warning. But seeing me re-kill your not-pets must have been rough. My bad.”
“The memory has faded. My worry is less about seeing a fake elephant die than it is about an heir who would kill a defenseless animal out of spite. Those elephants represent my fear of what you may become.”
Two
I braced my hands on my hips. “That was quite a truth bomb. But not to worry—I don’t want to lord my power over people. I’m happy living in the Brink, and even though it seems like I have everything I could possibly want, it is at the expense of my freedom. I’d prefer to be left alone and get on with my life. You’re in no danger of losing not-pets. Not from me, anyway.”
“What is your freedom worth? Your friends’ lives? Your beloved’s?”
“Darius calls me his beloved, not the other way around. I’m not nearly old enough to use that term of endearment. But no, my freedom is not worth any of those things, which is why I went down into the Underworld rather than letting my father come find me up here.”
After being in Cahal’s company every day for the last couple of months, I could read the subtle nuances in his blank stares. I’d just answered a question.
“Surely you knew that those rumors were about me,” I said, turning and heading toward the others. It had taken a while, but my elephant question had been answered. Time to get back to being pampered in luxury. Man, my life was dull.
I couldn’t even go annoy other vampires, even though this place was a sort of refuge for them. Usually they’d bring a whole host of humans and eat and bang and do whatever else vampires got up to when the boss wasn’t around. Since I was being hidden here, however, the campus was closed for “renovations,” something Darius did every few years anyway. It was just me, him, a druid who didn’t know staring was rude, and now my mage friends. That was it. None of them would run if I chased them. What kind of sport was that?
“I could really go for a shifter bar right about now,” I murmured.
Everything okay? Darius thought as I neared.
Since I had demon magic that could pluck thoughts out of people’s heads (unless they knew how to shield me), we could speak telepathically, one-way radio style. The bond between us also allowed the sharing of emotion, and that seemed to provide Darius with all the guidance he needed to guess my thoughts. With anyone else, that would have made me nervous.
“Yeah. Cahal was just telling me that he worried I’d get recruited by my dad, lose my mind, and try to kill his elephants. The guy is a real downer as far as those things go.”
Without further comment, Darius handed a straight whiskey in a plastic red cup over the mahogany bar. He could tell that I wasn’t in the mood for crystal and ice cubes and finery. I nodded in thanks, my gaze lingering on his beautiful hazel eyes, green specks floating within them, and felt my heart squish.
I was in this majestic hideout for a reason, yes. It just wasn’t the reason everyone thought.
On the surface, I had consented to this little getaway so I could learn and practice and stay away from the public eye. But in reality, I was allowing Darius to protect me in the best way he knew how. I was here for him, and for my friends, who would rush into danger to protect me. Who wouldn’t listen if I told them to run to safety.
Growing up, it had been just my mom and me. We only had each other, and because she’d always feared what would happen if I entered the larger magical world, I had contented myself with learning my magic and sticking to the woods or the tiny town where we bought supplies.
She’d died when I was nineteen, and I was so shocked and shaken by the loss that I’d continued to hide what I was out of practice. But that hadn’t stopped me from seeking magical work. I could’ve fudged the paperwork for a human job, or worked under the table somewhere. I could’ve earned money away from the magical world.
But instead I became a magical bounty hunter.
Hiding from danger wasn’t in my blood. It just wasn’t. I couldn’t stay in this place forever.
I loved Darius, though, with all my blackened heart. I loved my dual-mage friends Callie and Dizzy, though I would only admit it in drunken hug-fests, and I loved my natural dual-mage friends, who managed to visit me a few times a month even though they had a Mages’ Guild to help run and new recruits to train. I even strongly liked the prickly and incredibly closed-off druid who beat my ass on the regular. For them, I would stay here, out of harm’s way, and out of trouble.
At least until the screws in my noggin started to come loose.
I blew out a breath, vacating the bar so Cahal could grab a drink, and plopped down on the sunless sun chair next to Emery.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey.” He glanced at my red cup. “You can take the girl out of the bad neighborhood…”
“Darius hasn’t figured out how to break me of my desire to slum it in this fine place.”
“You’re the challenge he never knew he needed.”
“Something like that.” I watched Cahal accept a sparkling glass of pink stuff in a crystal goblet. Pastel pink was the guy’s favorite color, but he hated pastel purple. I did not get it. At least he didn’t love yellow. That color made me want to punch things. “So what’s happening in the world at large?”
Emery heaved a deep breath and leaned back a little. “Demons. They’re cropping up—”
Darius was beside us in a moment, the speed with which he got there at odds with the slow, deliberate way he pulled a chair around, cognac gently swaying within the snifter he held.
“They’re cropping up all over the country,” Emery continued, and as if on a five-second delay, I felt a nasty spell hover in the air.
I grinned at the natural mage, a guy used to fighting for his life on the run. He wasn’t someone to spook, at any rate.
“You’re quick,” I said, “but he
would’ve had you.”
“I have a bad habit of letting down my guard around him,” Emery murmured.
“You must know that I wouldn’t harm you,” Darius said, unperturbed, as he sat beside me. He took a sip of his drink, something he only allowed himself to do if he knew I would be on hand to give him blood should he need it.
I shivered with the memories of how pleasant it was to be his blood donor.
“There are never any certainties with a vampire,” Emery returned, and he had a point.
“Who’s sending the demons?” I asked, watching Penny do laps in the pool. Her slinky little bikini had likely been picked out by Marie, Penny’s biggest fan and Darius’s very fashionable vampire child.
“Yeah, that’s the question.” Emery rubbed his nose. “They’re being brought up by different summoners. Some of the circles are simple, and others are ancient in design. Dizzy is studying those with great interest. He knows how they work, but he’s getting more info on the details and the time period they were in vogue. That should help us trace the creator.”
It’s Ja, Darius thought, referring to the extreme elder vampire Penny had unintentionally awoken. She is using those demons as a distraction, as protection, and as trusted workers. She has illegally bonded two that I know of, neither of which have been able to get her through the fog barrier in the Underworld.
Bonding with demons was pretty gross if you asked me—I’d much rather fight them—but then, she was a vampire. Different set of ew factors, I guessed.
“Does anyone else know?” I asked him, purposely keeping my words vague. Emery shouldn’t want to piece this together, something he clearly realized from the way he entwined his fingers over his stomach and let his gaze drift away. It was wise to stay away from vampire politics. I would’ve if I could’ve, but my bond with Darius meant I had no choice but to be involved.
